birdwithoutasong | Looking up I saw nothing

Who: Valen Arrol (

competitionsmile) and Vasilica Alin
Universe: Original
What: True love
Warning: to be added

Maybe Valen's old enough to know better than to listen to rumors, but it's more the case that he's old enough that he knows that even if most rumors aren't what they seem, they still often make for a good story later, and sometimes what the reality is turns out to be better than the rumor. Which is why when he hears the story of a beautiful ghost in a tower he assures the servant that exorcism is definitely one of his top ten skills and sets off towards the tower that had been described to him. He'd sprained his ankle in his last fight and he's going stir-crazy trying not to head out of town yet, so he agrees because it sounds interesting

He has his bow strapped to his back when he knocks on the door, the rest of his worldly possession in his bag because it's not like he has anywhere to leave them behind. The women who'd hired him greets him at the door, and he pins her with a charming smile. "If I'm free to look around, that's what I'm going to be doing," he says, because if he's going to find out anything, it's not going to be while he's being herded around. He needs to poke his nose where it doesn't belong, because he's sure the ghost isn't going to come out to say hi, if it's even real.

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"A musician?" Valen's voice is interested, and it would hard to not be. Vasilica fascinated him even before, and now that he's interested in a conversation, Valen can feel a warmth inside of him.

"Any particular instrument, or vocals?"

Mira gently taps his harpcase, settling it onto his lap. "Harp, mostly," he says, running his fingers over the case. It had been a skill he'd learned after he'd died, since his former family had regarded music as a skill fit only for women. "Though I sing a little."

He can hear the interest in the man's voice, and offers him another shy smile. "I could sing for you, if you wanted?"

"Ah?" Valen feels suddenly and inexplicably embarrassed by the offer. Mostly because he's sure he shouldn't be that transparent about things.

"If you don't mind I...also. Wouldn't mind."

Carefully, Mira extracts the instrument from the case, carefully tunes it as he speaks. It's been well-cared for, but was never a fine instrument. "I wouldn't have offered if I'd minded." he says, expression warm and soft, as he begins to play, spinning a gentle melody beneath his fingers.

"Is there a particular song you would like to hear, or shall I just play whatever?"

"Whatever you want." The words come out too quickly, but Valen hasn't been any good at pretending disinterest. Particularly not where Vasilica has been concerned.

"It sounds good already." Valen would be fascinated by Mira simply tuning his instrument, so it's all good.

A faint flush creeps up the back of Mira's neck - he's still not quite used to someone being so openly interested in what he's doing.

"Sing, a song of dawn/dawn, the day reborn.../breathe deep of the dawn before this storm.../this hearth, this home..."

His voice is clear and soft, but much more sure than it had been before, and he keeps his eyes on Valen to see how he responds to this, a song from over the sea.

Edited 2017-11-06 03:38 (UTC)

Valen lets his eyes flutter closed so he can focus on the sound of it all, so he doesn't get distracted by staring at Mira.

It also has the effect of making Valen's face less guarded -- not that it has been very much so to begin with. Delight and excitement flash across his face, before it settles into wonder.

Mira blushes, deeply, noticing the look on Valen's face: he's never really had anyone react to him or his performances like that, before, even in this second lifetime. It's...nice, but he tries to keep his focus, playing through the rest of the song.

"...your time is come, a choice bestowed/Tonight, for unsung sins atone/This night you need not walk alone..."

He does nearly fumble the last chord but recovers very, very well, and smiles shyly at Valen. "How did you like it?"

Valen beams at him, comfortable with his own affection and absolutely delighted.

"It was beautiful." His eyes now track Mira's expression. "Is is something you wrote?" If not, Valen is still sure it's Mira's performance that brought out the heart of the piece.

"Thank you." his smile widens, slightly, still shy, but it's more than Valen has seen from him before. "I didn't write it originally, but I rearranged it. I've written some other pieces, but I wanted to see how well that arrangement worked."

Valen nods enthusiastically, following along with what Mira said. "I would love to hear them, if you ever felt like sharing more." It could only be good for Mira to get consistent praise, right?

"Maybe," Mira says, noncommittally, though he glows a bit under the praise, even prettier than he usually is when he smiles, fingers plucking an idle melody under his fingers. "I'm still revising most of them. It's slower than I like, but I don't have as much time as I'd like to work on them."

It's not a no, though, and he's still playing whatever this song was, idle driftings, idle musings.

Valen's grinning himself, pleased by the song and by Mira's own happiness. He thinks that he could stay here for days, could forget about food and drink in the face of this kind of mood.

"You have time this evening, right?"

"I do," Mira says, looking up from the harp for a moment. Something about Valen's smile makes him warm and almost dizzy, and he has to look away briefly, blushing a bit. "But I don't want to bore you with something tedious to watch. Is there something that you would rather do?"

It's not a dismissal, but an invitation.

Valen's smile softens a little at the blush, trying to make it easier for Mira to respond or do whatever he wants.

"You couldn't bore me, of course. But maybe we could talk, get to know each other a little better?"

"That would be nice," Mira says, carefully reaching for the harp case to put his instrument away. He doesn't need to look to do the necessary maintenance, and regards Valen thoughtfully. "I don't really get the opportunity to really get to know people much, except my siblings."

He pauses, awkwardly. "The ones from this new life, who are...like me. Not the siblings I was born with."

It's so tempting to beam again at him. This is so different from the first time they'd talked, but it feels like it's building on that foundation. In all of Valen's recollection of that encounter, he hadn't been able to think of it as a foundation before.

"No, I'd imagine you wouldn't be that close to them. Still, you've had the chance to see more places now, right?"

Mira carefully closes the instrument case and nods. "A lot more than I ever thought I would see." he says, and smiles. "I once thought that I would never leave that tower."

He pauses, for a moment. "In a way, you were the first realization I had that a door out existed."

At that Valen grew a little more serious. He didn't want to have to take credit for that, hated that it had been necessary.

"You should have never been cooped up there."

"I shouldn't have been, no." Mira says - and it shows how far he's come, because once he believed that he should have been, that he'd belonged in that tower. "But I was, because I couldn't function the way my birth parents demanded of me, of my blood siblings. And what you did was...so important, even though I didn't understand until later."

Even without having known him in any of these intervening years, Valen had a sense of how far he'd come and he was delighted of it.

"What I did was very little, compared to everything you've done." He reached out, making contact without thinking better of it.

Looking up I saw nothing

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