Flashback What Is Good, Will Last

[Voryn]

~ Weave me not a tale of sadness ~
~ Spin me no tune to mourn the past ~
~ These memories, I wish away ~
~ Believe again the drone, the lie ~
~ of what is good, will last ~

19th Day of Spring, 507 AV

"Voryn."

The voice clutched feebly at the corners of his mind, trying unsuccesfully to pry his ears from the stream of clearly ringing notes that his fingers drew from the old lute on his lap. Melody without direction, then slower, then faster, suggesting but a meek hope of stumbling onto new patterns that would sound pleasing to layman's ears. Incoherent harmony bounced across the small arvinta from the rickety chair on which he was seated, touching roughly crafted icestone and woodwork before ebbing into nothingness. Thus far, his attempts to come up with a new, simple tune had culminated in little more than a slight headache. If only-

"Voryn!" the voice interrupted his train of thought. It was sharper this time, yet it hinted as much at vexation as it told of concealed amusement.

He turned his head towards the bunk in the edge of the room, and his grey eyes were immediately caught by her twinkling azure gaze. Carra's thin brow was furrowed in a display of irritation. But she had never been able to hide how she truly felt from him, and the dimples in her slightly oversized cheeks told him all he needed to know. He couldn't help but smile whenever he looked at these features, imperfect but vibrantly alive. She grinned back at him. The comfortable silence between them lulled on as he stood up, turned around, and carefully put the lute on the chair.

"If you spend any more time with that lute today, I'm going to arrange a wedding ceremony for the two of you," she quipped while his back was turned to her. He tilted his head towards her mischievously, one eyebrow raised, pretending to actually ponder the idea.

"At least she'd never be so... jarring... to the ear," he mumbled as though weighing the pros and cons of having an inanimate bride.

"Depends on how well you use your fingers," her wit was ahead of his, and she laughed lightheartedly at her triumph. He squinted his eyes together in feigned hurt, but chuckles hiccupped through his fake grimace just as well.

"Anyway," she spoke on a more serious note, "you promised that you would accompany me to the display, this afternoon." She rose from the bunk in a single, elegant movement that divulged her grace as a dancer. After retrieving a brown coat of faded fur to cover her willowy frame, she moved towards the door of the sparsely decorated arvinta, gesturing for him to follow. He hurriedly gathered his own coat and rapidly paced to her side, arriving barely in time to open the door for his spouse. She kissed his cheek in gratitude as she passed through, her eyes now twinkling with an orange sheen to reflect her enthusiasm at their destination.

Voryn smiled as he tread outside and locked the door in her wake, but his eyes remained their neutral grey. Although he certainly enjoyed music, whether played by himself or by other members of the Snowsong Hold, he held little love for the nauseating whirls and whimsies of dance. The required sense of rhythm, that came to him so easily when performing on his lute, seemingly stretched no further than his fingers - or in any case, did not extend to his feet. Nevertheless, he supposed there was some enjoyment to be had, watching Carra flaunt her nimble talents in public. His smile broadened as he turned from the door, stepping into Avanthal's icy embrace.

[Voryn]

Wrapped securely in his cloak, Voryn squinted his eyes against the glacial gale that billowed through Snowsong Hold, a firm reminder of the goddess Morwen's homecoming earlier in the season. He shivered, pulling the dreary manteau more tightly around his shoulders. Setting a brisk pace for himself, he swiftly caught up with Carra, whose cloak was draped far more loosely around her frame. The wind whipped the thick braid in her dark hair into unpredictable patterns. As a blessed of Morwen, the cold did not bother her as much as it did Voryn. She comfortably traipsed through the thick layers of snow in sylphlike fashion, appearing sometimes as if she could simply glide over the ivory without the least bit of effort.

He reduced his tempo to walk abreast her, taking in the familiar sight of Avanthal's refined architecture around him. Structures of layered icestone and sturdy pinewood reached staunchly into the pale, everwinter sky. Even though he had passed these sights many a time during his life, the precision and attention to detail which his brethren of the Iceglaze Hold had exercised while creating these buildings never ceased to impress him. A particularly large arvinta displayed a small, elevated gallery in front of its doors, supported by a set of ornate, hexagonal columns. As they passed the nearest column, Voryn recognized intricately carved renditions of frost hawks in flight, amidst a flood of other thinly sculpted illustrations. He smiled, cheeks stiff and painful from the cold. Perhaps this was not entirely Iceglaze work; Skyglows were more proficient at such artful endeavors.

"What are you smiling about?" Carra asked softly, painlessly piercing the heavy winds, beside him. He turned his head to look at her, vision partially obscured by the tightness of his cloak and the subsequent lack of room for his long, dark hair and beard to rest in an orderly manner. The ardent orange in her eyes had faded slightly. He knew she was concerned for his lack of a divine marking and his inferable lack of resistance to Avanthal's uninviting climate. His smile faded slightly. In many ways, she was stronger than him, and while she would deny it to her last, too good for him - unmarked and poor. He pushed the thought away, renewing his grin. After a tight-pursed but happy five-year marriage, he had no reason to doubt how she felt about him, even if he did not understand why she did.

"Nothing... birds." She frowned quizzically at his reply. Before she could address her confusion, he changed the subject. "So, what forms will you be displaying today?"

"Oh, no difficult ones," she replied, as if that made the entire display unworthy of visiting, yet her eyes resumed their spirited flare as she spoke. "I believe the main forms will be wolf and raven, and we'll improvise from there..."

She proceeded to describe several of the set routines that appeared in those two basic dance forms, from simple twirls to multi-dancer flips that bordered on acrobatics. He listened intently, though he knew very little of dancing. From watching her dance on previous occasions, he had gathered that it required at least impeccable timing and more than a modicum of physical flexibility. In a way, dance intensified the expression of the emotion that lay at the heart of any accompanying musical piece; this aspect intrigued him more than the exact motions involved, perhaps also because he found it impossible to replicate those motions in any elegant way.

Her story lasted them all the way to the city proper, where an even more majestic cluster of icestone structures greeted them, some so large that they blocked a portion of the icy gusts passing through the city, much to Voryn's contentment. He loosened his cloak as they entered the cluster. As always, the central city was bustling with activity. Vantha of every Hold went about their business, in groups or alone, most of them as comfortable in the cold as his gnosis-marked spouse. Only several children not yet of age seemed to share his discomfort, clinging to their clothing tightly. All in all, it made for a rather beautiful mix of aurora-highlighted heads and multi-colored coats as they made their way towards the stone structure looming high from the very center of the city.