faderift | closed | jam session.

This time is not, of course, just to be spent on Rifter music. At some point, Byerly decides that he's spent far too much time not being the center of attention, and so he takes up a place in front of the harp.

He's not quite as adept at the harp as he is with his violin. His playing is by-the-book, not particularly inspiring. But after a moment, playing an introduction, he begins to sing -

And he is a very remarkable singer, with a clear and pleasing and resonant baritone. He sings a chanson that Bastien most certainly will know - a melancholy recounting of the episode in Remi Vascal's life when he had been betrayed by his lover Servana de Montfort. The song is so maudlin that it borders on comical - the way it goes into exacting detail on all the tortures that the Black Fox had suffered, in a way that borders on fetishistic. But Byerly sings it with deep sincerity, and it really is beautiful.

Ellie sits quietly, her feet hanging over the edge of the stage, chin in both hands as she listens to Byerly play, and sing, and tries not to smile during the worst parts.

Really, she's got eyes for Bastien, watching him watch him.

And she might sneak a glance at Tony, just to check in.

Bastien's never unaware of when he's being watched. It's a problem, sometimes—the curtain of self-awareness that hangs between him and everything he does when people are around. There's no way for him to watch By at the harp with soppy, soft-eyed adoration without knowing that he is watching By at the harp with soppy, soft-eyed adoration and knowing that other people can see him watching By at the harp with soppy, soft-eyed adoration.

So he doesn't. He's fussing over one of his cello strings when Byerly starts playing, and he keeps doing that, listening with a smile that fades sympathetically at some of the worst suffering.

When he's satisfied with his fussing, he glances up and catches Ellie's gaze. He smile widens in answer, and he thumps his fist against his chest in mimicry of a heartbeat. Gets me right there. It does. Byerly and his voice even more than poor Remi Vascal and his broken heart and body.

There's time left for joining in. Bow to string, he picks up a harmony as quietly as a cello allows without squeaking—a harmony for By's voice, not the harp, like an accompanying instrumental hum.

As a professional egomaniac himself, Tony's just impressed that Byerly held out this long.

He misses some of the looks bouncing around, roaming back from where he'd wandered to listen in from his own perch on the stage. He smiles at the sad parts—kind of a lot, don't you think? Songs that are stories carry a different weight, and Tony honestly just has not thought hard about why the music of this world doesn't catch him the way the music of his own world does, save some dismissive language around old timey sounds.

But a loop closes. Those songs—normally—don't sound like the performer means them, or feels them, non-autobiographical and unrelatable in a way that's alien or just dull. Who cares about Remi Vascal? Maybe he just hasn't heard it sold right before. And Byerly sells it well, that caring.

Bastien joins in, gaining a glance, and Tony looks to Ellie, mostly to catch her enjoying herself.

Byerly casts a look over at Bastien, and - well, yes, there's no news here. No surprises. These two are disgustingly, goopily in love with one another. (A fact which also helps to sell this song; five years ago, Byerly would have been far more likely to have been caught with his pants down than caught singing about Remi Vascal. But, well, in Byerly's mind, the Black Fox has a dashing mustache and mischievous eyes and a bashful smile. So.)

Which inspires him -

Suddenly, the lyrics change. They stop rhyming, for one - but it's because Byerly starts making them up on the spot. And suddenly, he's telling the story of the man who rescued the Black Fox from his tight spot: Bastien the hero, who swung in on a rope and fought off half a dozen guards. (The music picks up a little bit, too, because it really was so maudlin.)

Bastien's understated harmony doesn't stutter when the lyrics deviate from what he expects, but it does when his name enters into things. Then he's laughing (and blushing, but he'll take offense if anyone doesn't let him pretend otherwise) and his bow slides down the strings and hangs loose for a few seconds before the manages to catch back up to the brighter tone.

"This is not how it happened," he informs the others, words crammed into a lyrical pause. He pauses in turn for the next line of the song, then adds, "At all!"

Song.

"Servana came for him—"

And so on.

"—with Karolis," (his second favorite,) "and the others—"

Etc.

"—and they disguised themselves—"

Almost certainly fact.

"–as some Chantry sisters and the Fox himself—"

Almost certainly not.

"—and made it look like he had already escaped—"

They're both improv performers born in the wrong century, so this could go on for quite some time.

It's a performance that would've gone over well in the places Ellie's used to. There's a sincerity and a silliness, a pervading sense of love and joy, and it's the kind of thing that Ellie soaks up like dry ground in a sudden rain. The dust covering her in a fine layer sluices off, leaving her eyes shining.

She shares looks with the others, finds Tony's eyes and grins back at him.

How long has it been, since they've been among friends like this, just goofing off, doing something they love?

She looks more relaxed than any of them have ever seen her. Looks her age.

"I don't know this one," is at Ellie, rather than loudly enough for the twosome down in the orchestra pitch to catch. Tony has not, at any point, brushed up on Thedosian folktale lore, but he doesn't really need to—the comedic flourishes of song and interjection translate easy.

He lifts a hand, curves it around his mouth, mock shouting as if across more distance than there is; "Quit your dayjobs."

Byerly laughs. "Don't tempt me!" he carols back as he hits the chorus - which does not need to be repeated again, given that he's hit the damn thing about five times by now.

And then he shifts his gaze to Bastien. And it is a gaze - loving, warm, utterly charmed by that blush on his cheeks. And he calls out to Tony and Ellie -

"The two of you were there, too, right?"

- And then the next verse is going into the exploits of Ser Ellie the Bold, whose stunning cheekbones made that treacherous Servana swoon and come back for the Fox - and Lord Stark, whose clever inventions (unspecified) were the key to all escaping alive.

closed | jam session.

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