We took on some new travelers in Dustspawn, including this stunningly beautiful half-elven woman named Nishlaldara, but who goes by \u201cNish\u201d because, as she put it, \u201cit was easier for people to pronounce, and less work for me to spell\u201d. I liked her instantly.<\/span><\/p>\n She had a cittern strapped across her back, which is what first caught my eye, and we settled down together when the caravan stopped for a lunch break. We wanted to learn each other\u2019s styles and find some common pieces, with the hope of maybe providing some musical entertainment in the evenings. It\u2019s the sort of thing the travelers appreciate, as there\u2019s not much to do along the way besides walk, talk, eat, and, um, relieve oneself.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ll get this out of the way: she is <\/span>far <\/span><\/i>more talented than I am. But, she\u2019s also got about two decades on me, so that came as no surprise.<\/span><\/p>\n We made camp together tonight, and were talking instruments when I got sloppy and said, \u201cI always wanted to learn strings, but we could only focus on two families at the Conservatory. In hindsight, vocal and wind were maybe a bad pairing, since you can\u2019t do both at the same time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I could feel the next question coming before she asked it. \u201cSo you\u2019re performance trained. Where did you study?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, I had stepped in it. Even Iskaryn tensed up at that, but there was no way out except forward. \u201cIn Kerse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd what\u2019s a formally trained student of a prodigious institution in the Kalistocracy doing walking the roads of Isger?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The old me, the one Iskaryn was here to keep away, would have spun a story much like the one I had invented for myself in Macridi. But I was trying this thing where I didn\u2019t blatantly lie to people who maybe mattered to me, so instead I went with a vague summary of the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve made some\u2026bad decisions in my life. I\u2019m trying to make a better one.\u201d For what it\u2019s worth, she seemed to accept that. And she wasn\u2019t even offended when I followed up with, \u201cAnd what has a talented performer like yourself walking that same road?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was bored with where I was, and needed a change,\u201d was the reply, which was an even <\/span>more <\/span><\/i>vague non-answer than mine, but probably a fair exchange. We both knew it and left it at that. I mean, we just met, and I wasn\u2019t going to tell her how I\u2019d burned down my life, built a new one, burned <\/span>that <\/span><\/i>one down, and then set fire to the ashes. We had an unspoken agreement not to push for more, and that was fine.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYour bird is beautiful, by the way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Iskaryn was sitting on my shoulder, occasionally flexing her wings. Her blue was dulled a bit by the orange cast of the firelight, but Nish had seen her properly in the day.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf you speak Sylvan, you can tell her that yourself. Though she might object to being called \u2018my bird\u2019. It\u2019s\u2026a bit more complicated than that. Iskaryn\u2019s not even a bird, exactly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t speak Sylvan,\u201d Nish said, as she pulled out a small clay figure I couldn\u2019t quite see, then cast a spell. \u201cBut I can now. For a while, at least.\u201d Which was, admittedly, a neat trick.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHold out your arm,\u201d I said in Sylvan, testing Nish\u2019s borrowed language. When she did, Iskaryn flew over to her and settled on it.<\/span><\/p>\n I had guessed that Nish was a bard, and I was right. She had me figured out as one, too. While she was admiring Iskaryn up close, she said, \u201cI didn\u2019t even know we could form these bonds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t either, to be honest. I wish I could explain it. I was\u2026in a bad way, then. So I think it was born out of need more than anything else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd has she helped you\u2026out of that way?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not lying my ass off to you now, or running away, either, so yeah. She has. And still is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That got a laugh from her, but there was also a hint of sadness beneath it, too.<\/span><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t how I wanted to end the evening, though, or how I wanted her to see me. I <\/span>liked <\/span><\/i>Nish. What she thought of me mattered. So I said, \u201cIskaryn and I are learning to play together. Or rather, I play my flute, and she accompanies with a birdsong. It\u2019s still a little rough, but we are figuring it out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOh, <\/span>that<\/span><\/i>, I have got to hear! Would you be willing to play for me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I smiled and pulled out my flute. I selected something simple, something we had practiced a lot in the days after Alabastrine. Iskaryn surprised me, though, as she tends to do when she is showing off, by improvising a new harmony. Not that I minded. It was far from polished, and we lost the tempo at one point and more than a few notes, but Nish didn\u2019t care. She was thrilled.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Oh my!<\/span><\/i>\u201d she breathed. \u201cThat may be one of the most astonishing things I\u2019ve heard. And I have heard a great deal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I blushed, but I didn\u2019t retreat into it. \u201cThank you. We still need some practice, but as I said, we are working it out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m going to miss her when we part ways. When we reach Saringallow, Nish will head west towards Ravounel, while I\u2019ll go north to Elidir. But that\u2019s okay, I think. Maybe some friendships are temporary, and aren\u2019t meant to last longer than the time we share on the road.<\/span><\/p>\n The important thing is that I know I can do this again, and that\u2019s enough.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Conerica River night We took on some new travelers in Dustspawn, including this stunningly beautiful half-elven woman named Nishlaldara, but who goes by \u201cNish\u201d because, as she put it, \u201cit was easier for people to pronounce, and less work for me to spell\u201d. I liked her instantly. She had a cittern strapped across her back, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-5387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aoa-vignettes","tag-aemi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5388,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387\/revisions\/5388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}