Seven Years and Eight Months after the Fall of Gabrealle, Late Afternoon, Comura...
Ren leaned up against the far wall of the platform that her charge had just walked to the centre of, a mass of cheers nearly deafening her. The young woman had a hard look on her face, bright eyes sweeping over the crowd to make sure that nothing came to harm her charge. She didn’t like these... performances. There were too many people around this open dais – too many people that could bring harm to her charge if she were not diligent. Which she was. She was just saying... It was better to be safe than sorry... but would Able listen to her fears? Oh, he’d listen. But he wouldn’t take her suggestions into consideration. ‘It’s my job to appear before them, unafraid and in the open, y’know?’ he had told her – which she had argued with, of course. It was his job to teach, not to give these live performances or anything of the sort... And he had just laughed and warned her to wear green today – ‘For good luck!’ he had said.
‘Bah. That man and his superstitious nonsense,’ she thought, turning her head so the bits of leafy coloured fabric she had braided into her hair that morning obscured her vision momentarily.
The crowd finally decided to calm themselves down, and the yellow and brown-clad individual on stage tapped the sound-amplifying device a few times to make sure it was turned on and working properly. Happy that it was, the man began to speak. “Thank you for joining me on my last day for a while here in Comura!” his voice boomed over the amassed people, his voice a silky tenor. This caused even more cheers which he had to wait through, but the man looked happy, Ren spied, as she checked to make sure that her daggers were in easy access... just in case. Holding up his hands, Able got the crowd to decent calm before continuing again. “Before I start my last performance, I thought that I would answer some questions that have been dropped in my comment boxes over the last few nights...” Able fished into one of his pockets, bringing out a little stack of parchment. Ren had seen him filing through the comments during their morning meal, and wondered which ones he would be answering... some of them had been a little... personal.
“The first question comes from a Miss Djokic, and she asks: ‘Where were you born, and how old are you?’ Now, I think that counts as two questions... but I’ll answer anyway. I was born on June 3rd – so I will be twenty five in three weeks. As to where, most know about Gabrealle now-a-days now, right?” a chorus of agreement came from the crowd, and Ren rolled her eyes. The little sheep... She had been born three months later, on October 23rd, a full six years younger than Able and nearly half a world away... Even though Ren was six years younger, she looked almost the same age as he was, and that irked her just a little... “I was born in a little house when Gabrealle was still rather cut-off from the rest of the world. It was a beautiful city before the fall... and with the reconstruction nearly complete, it’s looking quite beautiful again.” Ren had noticed the pause in his speech. The fall of the city wasn’t one that Able liked to openly talked about. From what she had learned over her years of protecting the man, Able had lost a brother in the fall – something that he had never forgotten. But truely? Even though the Fall was a horrible thing, and many people died that day... Ren was thankful for it. It brought Able Nevan away from Gabrealle and into the world.
“The next question! From a Mister Cross: ‘Are you part Shoboo of some kind?’ He goes on about how my hair colour and my young face haven’t changed since he first saw me years ago... and how I can’t be normal for a human,” which Able laughed at, several people within the crowd laughing as well. Ren just shook her head. Did he look like a Shoboo? Her family, who lived their own lives away in their little valley village, was a dilute Horned Lizard Shoboo, a few scales here and there, little spikes along her hair line and claw-like fingernails were really the only signs she was – though she had inherited her father’s bright gold eyes, which were glaringly Shoboo. No normal Human would have features like she, but Able... “I can guarantee I am 100% human! The hair’s just a discolouration that’s been passed down through my mother’s side of the family. As for this ever-young face,” the man struck a pose to several cat-calls, “It all goes back to my lineage. Gabreallens live a little bit longer than normal humans do, so we age a little slower – nothing more than that, Mister Cross!”
Ren’s eyes were drawn to a dark balcony overlooking the far side of the dais, her arms uncrossing themselves. Had she seen a flash of light...? She stared hard at the balcony, poised to move if Able was in danger...
“Question three! Alright, so. A Mister Cole wants to know: ‘What’s on that necklace that you’re wearing all the time?’ Now, that takes a little bit of an explanation!”The man picked up the golden pendant that was wrapped around his neck, and did his best to show it to the people in the first few rows. “This is my Listeners symbol – something of a religious symbol. It the big cities, I know that religion has no place, but out in the far-off towns, where I went with my family after Gabrealle fell, it’s everywhere. The region I was in, there was a group of people that believe that after you die, it’s not the end of your journey – just the beginning. That way of thinking got me through some rough patches when I was younger. I’ll save you the details, but basically this shows that I am a part of this belief system. On one side is the symbol for the diety that looks over me, and on the other is a tiny little mirror.” Ren hadn’t seen any movement from the balcony, but she decided to keep an eye on it – just in case...
The woman looked back to Able, quirking a brow as he talked vaguely of his pendant. She had sworn once that his devotion to his religion was as obsessive as her own love for getting piercings... but never as much as her want to protect the man from all danger – the little weakling...
“Carrying on! A Miss Volegov asks: ‘Are you single? And what has your love life been like?’ Haha, oh my... well. Currently, I am single-“ a squeal arose from the crowd as a large number of the females and some of the males in the group, Ren adding to the noise with a mutter of disgust. Did these people think of nothing else? Sure, the man was pleasant on the eye, but even still... As the crowd quieted down, Able continued. “Haha, speaking of my past love life – there have been a few girls that I have been with over the years, but nothing much since I began traveling and teaching.
“Moving right along... Next question is from a Mister Webber: ‘What made you want to teach as well as sing?’ Well, I started off just traveling, working on my music as I went from town to town, exchanging food and lodge for entertainment, but I got to thinking... many places, even in large cities like this, there are those who have not been given the opportunity to learn even the basics of things – like reading, writing, the history of their own people. I was spoiled because Gabrealle had many different schools of learning – myself, I went to the one that specialized in Music. So, in one town that I came to, a couple months after I started traveling, I just sat down with the kids in the town and started teaching them one of the Learning Songs that I was taught when I was just a wee lad, to help me with my writing. The town elder liked what I was doing, and he had me there for nearly a month, teaching all those that wanted to learn. And I’ve just done it in every town since then. I hope that answers your question, Mister Webber!”
Talk of Able teaching brought back memories of Ren’s first meeting with the man... he was the one that had taught her to read and write properly in the common language, giving her a thirst for learning more. He had started to teach her maths, and a few sciences before something awful had happened... A Voldo child had taken up residence somewhere just outside of the town, but had as of yet alluded the villagers capture. It had been a beautiful summer day, so Able had taken his classes outside of the village for something of a nature hike. They had stumbled upon the Voldo child, and Able had convinced the thing to sit down and learn with them – something that baffled Ren at the time. The adults in the village hated Voldo people, so why was Able...? Long story short, the villagers had found out, running the man out of the village with violence that Ren had done her best to stop. Able was told to never come back because he had allowed the Voldos to be around their children... It was right then and there that Renae vonLaird had decided that she was going to protect Able.
And she had – ever since she had caught up with him a year after leaving her village. She had protected him with her blades, and she would continue to do so until the day she died – alright, she knew she had seen something move up on that balcony. Slipping away from her post, and signaling a couple of the city guards that had been dispatched to make sure things stayed relatively peaceful. They nodded at her passing, one of them following behind her as they made their way up to the second floor.
“The last question of the evening before we get to the main part of the show is from a Miss Statson: ‘Where do you plan to go from here?’ Now, I don’t know this Miss Statson means this literally or not, but my major city stop will probably be New Gabrealle. It’s been a while since I saw my parents and I’m sure they’d like to have me home for dinner...”
Ren was careful not to make a noise to alert the cloaked individual to her presence, slipping behind the man who was aiming a small crossbow over the balcony at the golden individual on the stage below. In one swift movement she knocked the crossbow out of his hands to the ground and wrapped her other arm around his neck, pressing one of her daggers against his throat. “Let’s go, Criminal...” Ren hissed in the man’s ear, and the man complied, both of them stepping back from the balcony. The guard arrested the man right then and there, pushing the man towards the exit and the prison. Comura was still a rough place to live after all these year, criminals everywhere... In her nineteen years of life, she had never seen so many scum bags together in one place... But, looking back over the balcony at Able and his crowd of fans, she had to admit that they weren’t all that bad. At least some of them had some good taste.
Ignorant to the danger that his life had been in, Able was saying, “Career wise, I think I still have a couple years of traveling out of me. But after that... I want to settle down somewhere. Maybe start up a school for what I’m doing right now – a school for teaching people how to teach others. But we’ll see how things go.
“Without any other delay, let’s get on to the real reason you’re probably all here for! For tonights first song...” Able reached down, picking up his dark blue guitar that was hooked up to the sound amplification device, strumming the first few chords of one of his older songs. Ren mused that the man must be feeling nostalgic, recognizing one of the pieces he had written about one of the first relationships he had held after Gabrealle’s fall. Ren leaned on the railing of the balcony, eyes relaxing for a moment to listen to the opening of the song, a ghost of a smile on her face, singing along the chorus as she returned to her post, watching for any danger that might come the man’s way.
“That’s when she said ‘I don’t hate you boy
I just want to save you while there’s still something left to save’
That’s when I told her ‘I love you girl
But I’m not the answer for the questions that you still have’”
The sun was setting now, illuminating the singer in a golden light before a backdrop of the evenings first stars, the crowd filling with emotion as they let down their guard and went with the flow of the music, which changed immediately into the next song with its set of crescendos and its dramatic pauses. Able would play himself into exhaustion to please the crowd and Ren would be the one that would have to half-carry, half-drag the man back to his room at one of the local inns with a promise of a full wine skin of his favourite red.
Ah... What a bother...
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[Able Nevan]
[Ren vonLaird]
Community Member