Ashan 54, 714, Late Evening
Crest Break Tavern, Ne’Haer
Musical Inspiration
Sad Pash mood:
Washed ashore like flotsam, driftwood bleached dry by too much sun, salt burned the open wound that was the hull of his chest. Pash stared into the emptiness of his mug and there was still sand under his fingernails, the infinitesimal discomfort a sensation he had no control over. His sea swept features were worn thin, what countenance that would otherwise be admired as bright and handsome were hidden behind several ten-trials of unshavenness and sleeplessness.
He had control over this.
Or he could have.
The ache that had settled into his very bones was not a sensation, not a real injury. Just a feeling. So many feelings. Broken threads he could knit back together or cut away, tie in knots. Had he wanted to, he could. Broken bones and torn skin healed with time. Feelings writhed and shifted, tangles refreshing sometimes in a breath or two and sometimes never. At least, so it seemed. Missing emotions he could steal from someone else, gather them up and weave them into something new, something better. Had he wanted to, he could do that, too. But what was the point? What did it matter when underneath it all, everything would still be ugly, every thread of it.
Instead, he felt what was his, what he knew now as only his to fee: his tangle a frayed mess of disappointment, unrequited love, anger, and fear. What had he asked for? What had he become? What had he sailed away from? Who had he left behind in Rharne? It had taken almost a season to separate his true self, his real emotions, from all that had been woven into his daily life, a careful deception that had twisted half-truths and desires into a fantasy. The veil lifted, the tall Biqaj made the choice to crawl away from seasons of emotional entanglement that had at least felt genuine—physical and musical pleasures obscuring Ari’nne’s dark and manipulative hunger he’d been far too naive to notice.
Until he did—
“Can I get’cha another?” Tawni was at his table, the smiling barmaid eager to please. Pash’s mug was obviously empty and it had been for far too many bits.
“Qes.” The seafaring musician sat up after a long exhale, calloused hands sliding over the worn tabletop toward the edge, only for one to stop as his fingers found a groove to pick at, chewing the inside of his cheek as his dull grey gaze washed over the room, the Crest Break Tavern nearly at its height. He hadn’t heard the din of conversation, hadn’t felt the pulse of so much rowdy motion, when lost in his own thoughts. The bar was bustling, sailors and deckhands jostling to drown a hard trial’s work in ale. The barmaid smirked at him in his moment of quiet, Pash suddenly lost in the sea of bodies and faces, his curiosity stirring like a woken animal from some deep cold cycle sleep,
“More rum, nelo qe.”
“Des’penya, sweets.” She winked at him, pidgin just as smooth from her lips as it was from his. Rakahi hardly a foreign tongue, she took his empty mug and made her way back toward the bar, leaving the tall Biqaj alone again in a room full of strangers.