The Death of Song, and a Song of Death

Shrine of the White Dragon


 * A grand, walled pavilion within the northwestern area of Snowfall Basin, the Shrine of the White Dragon is a place where the Light holds court via the will of manifest representation. Subdued white light cast by candles that themselves burn flames of argent light sets the tranquil scene for this scared temple, giving way to a room contained within walls linked together in a hexagonical pattern with the main entrance resting upon the southern side, and the actual shrine itself against the northern wall.


 * The ground is forged of black marble flecked with shards of white and tainted with streaks of silver, while the walls are constructed merely of pale grey stone beneath a tapered roof of dark red timber. The Shrine of the White Dragon itself as a breathtaking affair: a perfect depiction of a dragoness captured in white marble, ivory, and crystal, that dominates both the length and width of the northern sections of the shrine. She is cast in a sitting pose, wings furled about Her back, tail curled around Her right side, as She herself looks towards the east with eyes forged of light's eye gemstones.


 * The White Dragon forms the core of the Naga faith, which itself remains one of the few things they were able to remember as a combined culture. The White Dragon can be seen as a literal manifestation of the Light in a more mortal sense, or it can be depicted as an abstract representation of the elegant power and grace of the Light as a whole, sat - as She is - atop the black marble floor beneath, which is itself both a representation of the Shadow and the Wildlands as a whole.

The voice of a trill is a tremulous and beautiful thing. It soars and dips with the wind, laughing and bubbling like a stream or sighing like the wind through the trees. It's the instrument of romance, of merry spring, and oh, it shines through in /every single note./

Unless Aeseyri's playing it.

It's not that he's.. well, yes, he's bad. But he's past the 'whistle and squeak' phase, at least! It's a tune. In the broad sense of 'notes that are strung together in a sequence'. It doesn't seem to be a tune anyone could possibly hum along to. Or sing. Or even figure out, as every time he misses a note (often) he tries it .. just the note.. again, until he gets it right. Which.. occasionally.. takes a while.

At least, for now, it's /outside/ the shrine - though someone near the door might note it, and the syladri playing it, getting closer with a sort of meandering, wandering, amble.

"It is all any of us can hope for," Evaryn replies. "And we can just pray that we will not be forsaken and left void of the connection we were all born to." She shakes her head a little, "But you can see more than the rest of us... your power is said to be far greater," the woman continues onward, curiously.

Taran has other things to think about than might and magic. The bard's sensitive ears *can not* handle the torturous murder of a defenseless musical instrument. His first, instinctive reaction is to clap his hands over his ears. That ...doesn't work. He cries out in pain as his left arm reminds him that yes, it's still broken, and no, it's not going to help him cover that ear. Pain on pain, the maddened master bard grabs his staff with his good hand and goes out do do murder before his eardrums stage an independent rebellion of their own and start to bleed.

Dwynwen blinks and seems utterly unsure of what to do. She eventually makes the decision to follow Taran. Creepy snake lady iz creepy.

"Everyttthing..." Tshepsi answers blindly to Sandrim's voice in a haunted tone and tentatively withdraws her tail's tip from its clutch over her idol's claw. "I entered your world blind," She explains with the same, hollow voice to Evaryn. "Ssssome wissshed my death. Did many hurtful thingsss...." She lifts her stained hands to her eyes again and sucks in a healthy breath of air. "Their ssssoulsss will ssseee only rot. Many thingsss children of Fassstheld asssked of me..." She turns a knowing eye to Taran's back "but I could not ssseee...They made me tired but I tried to sssee. At lasssst, sssshe allowsss it. My purposssse nearsss."

Snowfall Basin


 * Located in the north-western quarter of Crown's Refuge, the area known as Snowfall Basin is quite an impressive sight indeed. Delicately balancing nature with culture, Snowfall Basin maintains the Syladris population of the freehold by providing them with a large area that remains suited to needs that have only recently been discovered.


 * Set around the basin itself - a bowl-shaped cold water depression carved into the surface of the bluff that Crown's Refuge sits atop - it is unusual by just how much it differs from the Human residences just towards the east. Open-air pavilions and gazebos provide much of the structures that the Syladris call home, while leather tents scattered between these more permanent structures offer a more suitable means of privacy than the depths of the water should such things be required.


 * A number of deciduous and evergreen species of tree have been planted amidst the area, turning the "Syaldris Quarter" into one small forest around the large stretch of water. Some pavilions stand taller than others, indicative of status within the newly forged cultural identity that the Syladris are attempting to shape, though all that can be seen feature flowing couches and benches that serve to adequately support and provide comfort for such an unusual half-breed race when they're not otherwise coiled around an overhanging branch or lost beneath ripples of icy water.


 * ''A blanket of fallen leaves and short, lush grasses surround the basin and the various structures and statues that inhabit the area, all contained within a short marble wall that defines the perimeter of this large region of natural

beauty and architecture. Paved trails leading towards the east and south lead back to their respective pathways, while the shadow of Tempest Spire looms ever-present towards the southeast.''

Yup. He's still out here. Still playing, and still getting closer.

And Aeseyri seems stuck, at the moment, on one particularly shrill note that he just /can't/ seem to get right, actually pausing to try again, thoughtfully. WOOT! No. Not it. WOOT! Same note, louder. Dangit.

Taran charges out of the shrine, unfocused but very directed, his steel quarterstaff in one hand ready to be swung like a club. His direction? The source of the chaotic sound. "Stop that at once!" he roars, as only a trained tenor can.

Dwynwen comes scrambling out after Taran. She seems rather worried about his murderous intent... but doesn't actually try and stop him, merely watching with the look of someone who's seeing a carriage crash happening in slow motion.

And the Syladris? His eyes go /wide/ as the crazed, staff-wielding Songbird explodes out of the shrine and charges him.

And with a yelp and a squeak and an expression of pure terror, Aes /bolts/ for the water, the trill flying and forgotten. It's hard to say if he's abjectly terrifed or just... startled in the way a deer is startled, but in either case, the scarlet-black-and-yellow naga isn't sticking around to get beaten with a large stick. Instead, his voice is a raised, worried, too-fast thing - "IDidn'tmeantoit'sssJustAPie!"

The male can /move/. He'd likely catch a cantering horse.

Taran sags as the horrible noise stops, dropping to one knee and leaning on his staff as he twitches out the last of the reaction, panting. Letting the Syladris go wherever he wants - possibly unaware that he *has*, noting only the cessation of chaotic sound - Taran slowly lets go of the staff to pick up the abandoned trill. One-handed, he can't pet it - but the way he holds it against his chest, it's not hard to imagine he'd like to.

Dwynwen watches Taran for a moment, muttering: "Must make sure that the instrument I make for him does not sound like -that-..." before frowning and crouching down beside him. "Mas...Taran?" she asks quietly. "Are you alright?"

The Syladris? He pulls up behind a tree (two other naga in the area just wholly laughing at him) - panting and wide eyed, peering back at the two Fastheldians with wide eyes and a pretension of stealth that means eight feet of tail is sitting out there in the open. Heck, it's /wrapped around the tree/, as though for support.

''A screech echoes through the night sky, a horrible, grating, unholy noise, like the sound of metal dragged against stone combined with a murdered child's last, piteous howl into the chill air. A reflection of the green moon can be seen briefly on the ground as a black, reflective creature of some sort briefly passes over Stormwatcher from the northeast to the southwest, illuminating its quadripedal, winged form for the briefest of instants in a verdant green before continuing on through the camoflauging night sky. The screech echoes again across the rooftops of Crown's Refuge, and a few beats later, a third time, sounding further off. By the time it echoes a fourth time, it is barely audible.''

Taran doesn't care - just holds the little trill to his chest, blinking as he refocuses. "Sc-creaming," he says. "It was sc-creaming." Absently, the bard reaches for his staff, then realizes - yes, his hand has the trill in it. Drat this having one arm thing. He tucks the instrument into his sling. At the sound of the screech, though, his grab for his staff is at a commendable fraction of lightspeed. He stares upward in sheer awe. "...Dragon."

Dwynwen's head seems to be in a slightly different place to Taran's and just blinks at him when he says the trill was screaming. At the sound from above she tenses and falls to the floor, clutching her ears and closing her eyes the second they spot the dragon flying over. And then she begins shaking.

This is /not a happy day/. First, crazed bards with sticks harming innocent musicians, and now /that/? The screaching has Aes cringing for a moment, body going almost flat - looking up at the sky with a hiss and a shudder. For the moment, Taran, Dwyn, even the basin - these things are forgotten.

Taran is staring at the sky to the southwest, awe-filled, but twitching involuntarily every so often, as if something is scratching at the inside of his skin. "Black...dragon? They can be black?"

Dwynwen is currently on the ground with her eyes squeezed shut, hands over her ears. "..Is it over?" she asks very very quietly after a moment, uncurling slowly, hands coming off her ears tentatively.

Aes is laid out nearly flat - around and behind a tree at some distance, peering up at the sky and hissing with something like fear, something like defiance. Odd it is, though, that - once he collects himself, he moves back in the direction of bard and maid, there in the grass outside of the Shrine, shivering, one eye on the sky - and, oddly enough, moving to... well.. coil between them and wherever that thing and its scream went.

It is with a strangely gentle worry that he asks, his own baritone soft and encouraging - "Are you both alright?" He doesn't seem in a 'better' state, shivering still, but that question seems to steady him. "It isss... I think it isss gone."

"A... a dragon?" Sandrim asks, the young mage looking up at the sky in the direction Taran gazes with something between awe and fear, before looking back to the bard. "A black dragon? A dragon is out here?" His sentences are short and chopped. "Taran... That wasn't really one, right?"

Tshepsi errupts from the shrine, her eyes to the landscape, then to the skies. "Children of the sssssky...." she whispers, not in fear, but in awe while taking her place near the cowering Syladris counterpart. The flare in her eyes alights to a more fiery red in yearning, breast throwing out and head tilting back as though to belt forth a shriek of her own, but her own body swallows back the sound before it can emerge and her limbs begin to shiver while eyes roll to survey those present. Torn. Between the call of shadow and the duty of light. To answer the call could place many lives in danger this night. But to let it slip away...

Instead of an ugly shriek, she utters a viscious snarl and shrinks protectively away from the small gathering.

A few moments after Tshepsi comes sliding from the shrine's doorway, Evaryn is following after, her eyes flitting up to the skyline, a mixture of awe and fear flickering across her features. A hand slides down to the sword sheathed at her side, gripping the hilt in a comforting manner, more than a need to draw it, a small breath being taken in slowly.

"It crossed Stormwatcher," says Taran vaguely, eyes still on the sky, body twitching every so often. "Black...wings, four limbs, tail...what else would it be?" Far from a quip, it seems the bard would really like to know. "The..s-sound..." he twitches again, and carefully gets down on one knee. "Ringing in my head, my spine. All...wrong. S-sick."

Dwynwen gets up very slowly, spine as stiff as a board. "I... I am going to..... to.. find lodgings for the night," she says very slowly and very cautiously, beginning to shuffle off in a random direction.

It is odd, Aeseyri in that moment - as Tshepsi moves away, he notes her, and, startled, thoughtful... he moves after her, tentative. He does not /intrude/, staying out of her way, moving with the quiet rustle of scale on leaf, but.. he makes himself /there/, nonetheless, his face softening into something warm, something oddly lost. Wistful. Those with legs are, while not forgotten, set aside for now.

Sandrim takes a few quick steps toward Taran, crouching beside the other man. "Are you alright?" he asks. "Maybe... we should be getting you to the tavern, somewhere to rest." His expression is one of genuine concern, both for Taran, and for the sky in general, which he keeps glancing to the southwest corner of.

"No, Sssong..." Tshepsi counters to Taran's dislike for the noise, her back turned and hunched to cradle her arms to herself. "A ssssad sssong of the agessss..." Her quivering frame hunkers towards the ground but then snaps upwards again, torn again between plans of action. "The Archon mussst know of the ssssong."

Without turning her head to look at him, Tshepsi's tail creeps aside a bit to graze a portion against Aeseyri's. A silent act of acknowledgement, a tender note to balance the alarmingly vivid nature of her nerves. Even her hair seems to creep.

Evaryn's eyes close for a moment and then she intakes a breath. She pays no heed to those present at the basin, but in a flurry of movement, turns and starts to walk further away, and in a buzzing of hornets, disappears from sight.

Taran nods. Taking his time, and using his staff, he gets to his feet again. "Sound...the disharmony rips something away," he says, somewhat shaky still. "Armor I was not aware of wearing. I will be all right, I think. The tavern sounds like a good idea."

Dwynwen turns her head at the mention of tavern and joins the party of people going that way.

Aeseyri inclines his head to Tshepsi, light glinting off the silver banding on his horns, "I have not ssseen him in sssome time - but I will find him for you if you asssk it." That's reassuring, an offer, perhaps, that implies help and - at least is an attempt at a steadying voice, respectful.

Sandrim offers a shoulder to Taran. "Alright," he says. "I'll head that way as well. It's not too far, now."

"Yesss," Tshepsi agrees, nodding reluctantly. "He mussst be found...and I mussst go home. Now." Slowly, she slithers away from Aeseyri and looks to the southeastern horizon, a fine layer of sweat developing over her twitching skin. "He musssst be found..."

The male Syladri follows her, at least for a moment, diffident but ... with that same odd wistfulness. "I will sssend him to you, if I can." That is certain, focused. "Can I do more?"

"That isss all..." Tshepsi murmurs distantly, her mind already fading away to the trail left in the sky.

Aeseyri stops, then, coiling to let the Lady move on, his own arms going around himself, and, blinking, looking back to the basin. There is something profoundly worried there, for a moment, before it simply slips away, the Syladri squaring his shoulders after indulging in that moment.. and moving purposefully for what is, likely, 'his' tent.

Return to Season 6 (2007)