A Song in the Silence

Another night in the Rathskeller, another scattering of tips – a small jar of preserves, an old knife, a copper bracelet – that Jigano graciously scooped into his pack. Some of which he could use, others that he’d find a subtle way to pass along to those who could use them more. Those with families and early morning chores to attend to had left, leaving only the truly hardened drinkers behind, and those were now too far into their cups to appreciate his skills. With a nod for the bartender on duty the bard had gathered his lap harp and his pack and headed up into the Temple proper, giving the Infirmary a smile on his way past, though not stopping to interrupt Isla or her colleagues in their important work.

He usually kept walking at that point, down the stairs and into the night, be it cloudy or spangled with stars – or snow, these days. But tonight he found his steps slowing as he passed the way to the back of the Temple, curiosity mixed with a little trepidation. His last attempt to pray to the gods had ended in silence and a moment of beauty, but he had since learned how fickle the local deities could be. Even cruel, though perhaps they didn’t see it that way. They didn’t give anything away for free, and the prices they asked in exchange for their gifts… well.

He looked around the scattering of offerings, the scratched old altar, melancholy in its bareness, the burned out stubs of candles, the dust of faded flowers… and the bard sighed. Oh, Cass, he thought ruefully, with far too much fondness and not nearly enough reverence. If only you could see me now…. He dropped his pack back a little ways and stepped over to dust the altar, scooping the dead plants into a tidy pile and placing a few fallen candles back upright, though he left them unlit. The other offerings, the personal ones, he left untouched, but after a moment’s consideration he retrieved his lapharp from its case and settled cross-legged on the ground, an uncomfortable twist of anxiety in his belly, however benign his intentions.

His fingers picked at the strings with deft confidence, however, though he didn’t raise his voice in any particular song, letting the instrument's notes carry in the Temple’s confines. A song to soothe the deific heart, he hoped, an offering to let his friends – and, yes, even the young pup – live in peace for a little while, and survive the Long Night intact in mind and body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFCTOUSHUgE

"That's very pretty, sweetling." Since its - her, currently - previous meeting with the alchemist, Ludo had taken quite nicely to this new body. It had been a long, long time since someone had made her a deal for a memory, and swanning around in not rags was a privilege she sorely missed. Or did she? Was that the memory talking? Whatever. Ludo still wore her mask (Remi, wherever he had decided to put the object, would find it mysteriously misplaced for the duration of the conversation with Jigano), though it was pushed up to reveal a youthful face with grey-blue eyes framed by pale blonde locks. She tilted her head at him, seated on the step of the alter and nudging at a candle with her finger. "What do you play for?" LUDO Braved the forests, braved the stone Braved the icy winds and fire Braved and beat them on my own

He hadn't been expecting an answer this time - and, in his heart, had been hoping for no more than the lovely acknowledgment he'd received before. A sense of Yes, we're listening, without any promise to actually act on it. Sometimes it just felt good to put a little kindness out into the universe, a wish for others to be healthy and happy for a little span of time.

It was strange, really. In his youth he had been devoted to no single deity but Knowledge itself. In his adventures, growing from naive scholar to hardened lorekeeper, he had found a god he believed in, but to say he worshipped her? After all they had been through together? No... and she had not spoken to him in the last three years.

So to have something - someone? - appear before him on the altar's steps was a surprise. Her appearance matched no one he knew, though the mask... Remi had mentioned a mask, on a god of rags and power and an unfortunate penchant for tricking the boy into dangerous situations. But this was a girl, lovely and blonde and with her face bared. Ludo, then? Or... someone else?

Jigano took a slow breath, folding his hands very carefully over the strings of the harp though he didn't let weight rest on them. The instrument was a touchstone for his courage as he stayed seated, watching the spirit - god? demon? something else? - play with the candle.

"Hope," he said quietly. "And good luck, for my friends in this dark season. That the gods of this world look gently on them." He raised a brow - old habit, that irreverence - as he found a smile for the young-woman-who-was-more. "Would you like me to play another song for you? And perhaps you might grant me a name to call you by?"

"Hope," she repeated, as though she wanted to taste the word on her tongue. Her finger left the candle to wobble about before it settled in its place once more, raising her eyes to look at Jigano. There was something eerie in her gaze, like she could see straight through him, though her smile was beatific. She heard him out, rising slowly to her feet as she began to circle the altar, balancing on bare toes as she walked the edge of it like it was a game. "You know my name, Jigano. It was the first one in your thoughts, the second you saw my mask." Reaching the end of the altar, Ludo turned gracefully and began to tiptoe the other way, back towards him. "Another song would be welcome from such pretty fingers as yours. But you speak of hope for your friends, Jigano. How can you do that, when you are the one who took it from them?" She glanced up at him, and then over his shoulder. Should he look he would find the deity suddenly absent - but that did not mean he was alone. Four shades flanked him, drowning in shadow. One held the blades of an assassin - another's palms were alight with shadowy fire. They watched him, silent and unseeing. LUDO Braved the forests, braved the stone Braved the icy winds and fire Braved and beat them on my own

Jigano watched the goddess walk the altar, smile courteous but eyes wary of such an unpredictable creature, especially when he was uncertain of whom he spoke with. His wariness was rewarded with her next words, however - his name on her lips, and hers... in his mind. He tensed, fingers curving protectively over the strings of his lap harp, not quite claws as he tried to hold back the internal snarl at the intrusion. Cassandalee had never been so disrespectful of his privacy but then... Cass had been a friend long before she had become a goddess of glass and iron.

The words continued to whisper from the girl-goddess, sweet in the air but echoing like drums inside his head. He knew what she meant immediately - how could he not, when the memory was always so close to the surface of his thoughts? And her words lashed him fresh, paper-thin scars tearing open anew at being forced once more into the light. "I..." he started, then stopped, folding his chin down to his chest as he took a ragged breath. Ah, Remi... he thought briefly, remembering how gullible the boy had seemed, in the comfort of the Atheneum. Perhaps he had been too harsh with him...

He turned as if his joints were not his own, a jerky motion as he rose to his feet with a yawning chasm of resignation and despair weighing down his chest where his heart should be to face what had appeared behind him. The shadows of those he had lost... three of them were inhumanly short, two with bulbous heads and sharp-toothed grins. The one who wore fire more willingly than clothes, who had taught him cooking and saved his life even as she complicated it with her complete lack of impulse control..."Yohgel," he whispered, blinking back a stinging at the corners of his eyes. She wasn't real here, he knew that, but still... Beside her was her brother with daggers that had slain a would-be god's strongest catspaw. Fiercely intelligent, wickedly ambitious, and often the bard's greatest ally in convincing the others to move forward.

And also his most dangerous opponent. The one without whom they never would have survived... and perhaps the others would not have fallen so deeply into shadow. "Riz," he quietly acknowledged, straightening his spine as he was reminded both of the hardest thing he'd ever done... and the reason he had needed to do it.

"That is why I don't ask for your fortune for myself," he said, voice soft as he spoke to the shadows in the Temple, and the one who watched from their embrace, though his eyes stayed on the simulacra before him. In spite of his control it cracked with emotion, but he continued on, choosing his words with care. "We have seen where my choices lead. So... I ask you to stay your hand and your games against those who have been kind to me here. You, who focus so strongly on the past... what future do you see for those who seek to escape the barrier? Would you lead me to my death, as you tried with young Remi? Or do you have a different game in mind tonight?"

The shadows watched Jigano for a long, unblinking moment, before they seemed to swirl and writhe and roll together. Faster and more frenzied, the shadows eventually exploded outwards into a flurry of rags and ribbons, and Ludo's mask drifted lazily, dreamlike almost, to hover before the bard's face. "Questions, questions, sweetling. Think you to loosen to my tongue with as little as a song?" Ludo giggled, one of its ribbons of fabric tickling across Jigano's cheek. "Ask all you like, I have no answers for you about the future of this place or its inhabitants. That all depends upon the choices others make." Leaving Jigano's allies alone, though? That sounded like a deal worth striking. "Not all," Ludo said. "Just one. Name one of your friends and a price worth taking, and I may consider leaving them in peace." LUDO Braved the forests, braved the stone Braved the icy winds and fire Braved and beat them on my own

The shadows had never been real, but still the lorekeeper felt a lump in his throat when they dissolved and blended together. He watched them, desperate to hold one final look at his fallen friends before he lost them for a second time, but when they exploded outwards he had no choice but to close his eyes, flinching away from the sudden spray of ribbons and bits of night given brief substance. When he looked back again it was to a mask, not a young girl, and the descriptions he’d heard had not done the god justice.

He wasn’t sure even his silver tongue could manage such a feat. But then, that’s part of what made them gods, wasn’t it?

”It was worth trying,” the bard responded faintly, falling back on instinctive witticisms when his heart was still racing hard enough to bruise against his ribs. He managed not to flinch a second time, though his jaw tightened at the ribbon that stroked his cheek so gently, so… possessively. ”But you’ve answered a different question so for that… thank you, Ludo.”

Before he could open his mouth to try and strike a deal that had been tickling the back of his thoughts, the god struck first. Jigano’s breath drew in sharply at the limits placed upon him, and he tucked his chin, thoughts racing furiously. Isla? But she was newly chosen by her own god, and surely the Voice would protect her from Ludo’s games. If Isla was safe then so was Sam, for the same reason. Edy… seemed too earthy to attract the interest of a god like Ludo. Frey, perhaps, but then, she had power and strength in her own right. The only one he knew who had suffered at Ludo’s hands before was Remi, but he hardly knew the boy. And… strangely, Remi had almost seemed to defend Ludo when Jigano had become indignant on his behalf.

But there was one, who lived away from the Settlement, far from help or assistance, whose gentle eyes had been filled far too much with sadness of late.

”Rory,” the white-haired man said softly, fingers tightening on his harp. ”Please grant protection to Rory, the leatherworker. Send no ghosts to haunt his door, nor draw him into your wounding games.” Drawing a deep breath, the bard looked up again, meeting the eyes of the mask with a cool determination as he drew his dignity about him once more. ”And your price, Ludo? For as long as you keep him safe, I will give you my dreams. To take from me, or to mold as you will. Does that meet with your approval?”

Unused to being thanked, Ludo merely tickled at Jigano's ear with the ribbon of fabric, before surging back to writhe quietly amongst the shadows of the shrine. Jigano might swear that there was somehow an expression of amusement on the blank face of the mask as he chewed over his options. Because of course Ludo could sense his unease and his struggle to choose, and found it very entertaining indeed. Rory, though? The mask tilted slowly - it hadn't considered that the bard would choose someone so freely aligned to the Old Gods. Someone to whom Ludo had already gifted a lantern. "Yes. Yes it does, indeed." Ludo said instantly, and only the flutter of its rags would give away the unexpectedly wondrous nature of Jigano's price. Full access to the bard's dreams, to stay away from someone it had never tormented to begin with? Certainly. The mask would draw in close to Jigano, and its whisper was nothing short of malicious as it spoke. "For the record," it said, "I would have done it for something as small as to pet you as a fox." Trilling with laughter, it would swathe Jigano in a whirlwind of suffocating fabric... And then Ludo was gone. LUDO Braved the forests, braved the stone Braved the icy winds and fire Braved and beat them on my own

He couldn't quite suppress the shiver at being tickled by the unsettling god, but he had larger things to worry about. Who to save and what to pay... What price would tempt a god? Not silver or gold, but something more dear and yet less tangible. His offer, when it came, was made with an anxious tension that strung him as tightly as his harp, not knowing whether he wanted Ludo to accept or decline his price.

But his words were on the wind now, he couldn't call them back, and the god was more than pleased by his offer, in a way that spiked fear into the lorekeeper's heart. Oh, there would be repercussions from this but... to keep safe a friend who so desperately needed a little peace... hopefully, it would be worth it.

But then the mask came closer, and its wicked tone turned Jigano's blood to ice even as its words left him blinking in shock. He was given no chance to respond before he was suddenly fighting against the smothering rags, fighting for breath--

Until he was left, heart racing and aching in equal measure as he looked wildly around the now-empty shrine. Slowly he drew himself back together, calming a little when he realized the god was gone. His harpstrings cut painfully into his tensely curled fingers and he loosened his hold carefully as he returned to his pack and set about untuning the instrument and packing it away. "A price I shall save for a future bargain, then," he murmured. Though not, he hoped, anytime soon.