Fate - First Reply Vel Anirian Nights

[Ispir Sione]

Spoiler: Rainy Night

During a stormy night in Vel Anir as rain pattered down onto the rooftops, the cobblestone, the tops of heads, like an army charging to to their final battle gentle notes would drift through an open plaza in the richer districts of the city. A few homes owned by noble families were in the same quarter, temples to various religions, and it all overlooked those that lived below in both means and status. The soft, amber glow of the homes beyond seeming to clash with the blue-black hue of the horizon lit by the scattered light of stars overhead.

The storm clouds above were scattered things and wherever their billowing, ominous depths did not dwell stars shone like glimmering diamonds in the depths of a pit of tar. Twinkling and shining up above as a harp was played with masterful clarity and proficiency despite the weather, despite the noise that the rain made all around. The downpour was not torrential, at least not yet, and the sounds the rain made upon the ground were just loud enough to make cuddling up with a cup of cocoa before a hearth seem like the best way to spend the night to nearly anyone.

Save one lone figure.

Seated up a parapet's edge and swaying gently in time with the strum of their harp a cyan-clad figure did not at all seem to mind the rain. Their head was tilted back, eyes closed but raised to the stars above, as soft motes of magic would flick from their fingers to the gently-glowing strings of their harp with every plucked syllable. The slight figure would continue their song, continue to play, until they heard someone approach and would turn to glance over their shoulder at whoever should approach. Their eyes glowing a gentle aquamarine under the starlight and the wispy hues of their gently glowing harp.....​

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Usually, moving across rooftops simply matched the agility of this particular figure. He was used to the movements, taken to the navigation, finding himself night and day to negotiate his way through the alleys down below on the city streets, or hopping between buildings above their ceilings. It just depended on the occasion as much as what he was feeling.

Vel Anir was unique. A fortress city. A feat of engineering. For him, a drow and an outsider by many measures, that just meant there was that much more opportunity to traverse from one structure to the other without ever been seen, using the architecture to his advantage.

In a dark green cloak, black armor garbed by garment, armed with daggers and scimitars sheathed at either hip, the drow of the underground skipped upon the shingles and atop the tiles, his gait mingling with the rain, while the hood pulled over his head kept his visage hidden and protected his face.

Upon the parapet’s edge, the figure was spotted, with inns and houses, windmills and clocktowers in the distance, and an instrument in their lap. Curious as ever, Zyndyrr K’yhoshin wandered onward, until he paused his walk in the middle of the rooftop, and tilted his hooded head toward the musician as good as one could reckon with.

“Serene. Quaint.” His words cut clean between the slivers of rain on the rooftop. “What is the name of the song you play?”

Ispir Sione

 

[Ispir Sione]

Not seeing anyone at first it wasn't until their visitor spoke, betraying his position not on the street but above, that Ispir's eyes rose to glimpse the shadowed, nigh-invisible figure of a cloaked entity. Stray strands of white hair that may have stuck out from under his thick coverings the only visible feature save for the whites of the speaking man's eyes.

Ispir would freeze for a moment, wondering if perhaps the man was a member of the cult that had attempted his kidnap, but would swallow down his fear softly and speak through the rainfall to his observer.

"To tell the truth Ser I haven't named it yet."

Ispir's harp would lower as their aquamarine eyes glimmered in the starlight, their gaze lowering from looking directly at their unknown audience to look at the ground below.

"But tonight, for some reason, despite the rain and despite my recent troubles I feel...."

A timid, modest shrug would be given before he finished.

"...at peace."

Steeling himself, the thin shoulders of the small Bard arching upward as he took a steadying breathe, he would then exhale a single sentence to address his fears.

"If... if you are a member of some cult o-or here to kill me, I won't fight you, I spread joy and music, not bloodshed."

It felt, and sounded, to Ispir like a flimsy, cowardly excuse. Though it was given with all the mustered courage the little Bard could offer.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin​