Smoke hung a veil over the din of the tavern and muted the grumble of the surly looking patrons and the clinking of their pewter mugs. The smell of burnt venison wafted out from somewhere behind the bar, giving a slightly rancid taste to the hanging cloud. Indeed, the veil seemed almost mystical in the manner in which it dulled the room’s sound. The bard’s lyre found itself lost in the smoke, even to the bard himself as he moaned out the tale of Andur the Silver Knight, his voice grating with each held note. A deep scar ran diagonally across his forehead, along the edge of his left eye, down his temple. Years of hard travel and harder drinks had aged him prematurely and pushed out his belly, in spite of the relatively lithe frame. The sun had leathered his hands and his face, and if they could be seen, the scars of a hundred beatings would make their presence known upon his body.

Life, as it were, had not been kind, a fact registered by anyone who paid attention, though few did. He was simply another singer scrounging for scraps and a place to sleep, though unlikely to find much of either. The barmaid, a curvy redhead in an unambiguously low cut blouse, weaved in and among the patrons, swatting gropes and mischievious hands. The bard put down the lyre and rolled a small pocket of stankweed in birch paper. No eyes were on him. He picked up a candle from the footstool beside him and lit the makeshift blunt.

“Got a request for ya,” the barmaid dropped a mug of ale in front of the bard.

“Takin’ a break,” the bard didn’t look up.

“Bought you a drink. Least you could do,” she replied.

The bard grumbled under his breath. “What? Let me guess. Kind Hardy’s Balls? The Duke of Horsecock. Bippity Doo?”

Fucking Bippity Doo, he thought and spat on the floor next to him. That fucking gremlin. He and the bard that wrote it could get split by dragon dick for all he cared.

“I was thinking something more… local,” the waitress replied.

The bard looked the waitress up and down. He’d not paid much attention to her before, save her cleavage. Her hair was a faded red, her face the kind of weathered pale that only came from working past dark, indoors, night after night. She looked close to his age, if not a bit older. The barmaid stood over him. Her eyes watched him intently.

“Hurry up, Falgo don’t like me standing around,” she urged.

“Fine. What’d you have in mind?”

“The Maiden and the Whore,” the waitress replied.

The bard’s eyebrows rose. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Heard it years ago in a village outside Earp. Bard who wrote it had left town, but a local singer picked it up. Said it were written by someone right here in Keening.”

The bard’s teeth ground.

“So it were. That where we are? Keening?”

“Just outside. You don’t know where you are?”

It was the waitress’ turn to raise her eyebrows.

“Been wandering so long, you tend to forget which way is west. Never worried about it too much. Walking, riding if I could. Passed out, mostly. Merchant I came here with said we were going out Goldsnart way.”

The waitress chuckled. “You’re well past Goldsnart, unless you go back north about twenty miles and then east fifty.”

“Son of a…” the bard muttered.

The waitress reached for the mug of ale. The bard intercepted it before she could snatch it away.

“You playing my song or what?” she demanded.

The bard held up a finger as he drained the ale. He slammed the mug down next to the spent stankweed.

“Fill it up again and throw in some mutton, and you got yourself a deal.”

“Play my song, and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of,” the woman replied.

The bard shrugged and pulled the lyre to his lap.

“Let me see if I remember…” he picked out a tune on the strings. “A dream, dream, heaven unseen…”

The waitress picked up the empty mug and headed back to the bar. Behind her, the bard’s song began.

#

Kirill shifted his weight from one foot to the next and back again, feeling awkward. He was never comfortable at these things. Laughter filled the air, as cliques of Keening’s youth flittered through the trees and congregated near the witchfires set by the local apprentices of the mage guild. Mugs of stolen ale clinked and the scent of some homemade elvish wine brewed by one of his compatriots mixed with the musky underscent of the forest floor. Across the way, a pair of orcs competed in a test of strength as they tried to wrestle one another to the ground with locked fingers. One grinned, his teeth glistening with evil intent. The other returned the bared teeth, albeit with a look of frustration that indicated things were not going his way. A pair of trollish girls, dressed in matching loinclothes and tight leather bodices cheered them on. Somewhere, someone was singing. Badly, Kirill thought, and touched his fingers to his throat. His own voice, crooning quietly in his bedroom, fluttered through his mind.

“Hey!” a quartet of slim fingers alighted upon his shoulder. Kirill jumped, but forgot his startlement forthwith as the young elvish girl wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

“Daleen,” he smiled. The girl before him was beautiful, a rare flower somehow sprouted in the wretched backwoods of Keening. Kirill sighed at the sight of her.

“Kirill, what are you doing here? You never come to these things!” Daleen squeezed his biceps. Kirill’s body shivered with pleasure as she pressed into his arm.

“I… I thought I’d try,” he rubbed the back of his neck. Kirill was average height, thin and smooth skinned, his face made even more lean by the tall pointed ears that snuck out from beneath his cap. Daleen ran her fingers across his chin.

“You’re shaving now?” she asked.

Kirill shrugged. “I never could grow anything, not really. Curse of the elves, am I right?”

“Meh,” Daleen replied. “I never much cared for the scruff. Leave that for the dwarves, I always think.”

She waved, genteel, to a dwarven woman who’d joined the spectacle of the wrestling orcs, one of whom had detached himself from the other and held his wrist close. Kirill wasn’t surprised to see which one. The dwarven girl waved back, her ruddy beard flashing rust in the firelight.

“I wanted to talk to…” Kirill started.

“Jang!” Daleen cried out and waved over another tall elf. Kirill sat patiently and waited for her to finish her conversation, which mostly centred around when the next witchfire party was set. Kirill stopped listening, suddenly far too aware of the trees surrounding him, the darkness away from the fires, and the rapidly spiralling sobriety of the party’s attendees. Briefly, he worried about the effect of the musty stankweed smoke in the air on his vocal chords.

“Kirill, you’ve met Jang, right?” Daleen asked. Kirill nodded, although he was fairly certain he had not, in fact, met Jang.

Jang nodded back and returned to his conversation with Daleen. She squeezed the tall elf’s arm as he left.

“Okay, mister,” Daleen turned back to Kirill. Kirill was struck by how the witchfires lit Daleen’s skin. Alternating shades of blue and red flashed across her naked shoulders and through the shimmer in her wide eyes. Her long, flaxen hair was pulled back in an intricate braid this evening, and her lips glistened in the firelight. “Tell me what brings my good friend, the recluse, out into the woods.”

Kirill’s cheeks flushed.

“I had something I wanted to… well, I’m doing something, and I…” Kirill stuttered.

“Hey, baby,” a drunken orc plowed up over top of Daleen, wrapping his arms around her in a way that was far too familiar for the stench of dwarven moonshine from his mouth. Daleen hunched under his weight and giggling, pushed the orc back off of her.

“Oh, sure, play hard to get,” the orc grinned, wavering in place the whole time. Daleen rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, Gorc,” she replied, laughing. This was clearly an old game. A familiar game. “Can’t you see I’m with somebody?”

Daleen wrapped her fingers around the crook of Kirill’s arm. Kirill felt his breath stop, and forced it to start again.

“I don’t know, babe,” the orc slurred. “He doesn’t look like your type.”

“What do you know about my type?” Daleen joked back. The orc waved a drunken hand at her and stumbled off.

“Um, is there somewhere we can go, maybe more private?” Kirill asked.

“What’s the matter? You’re not getting all shy on me now, are you? You come all the way out here and you’re going to hide behind some tree?” Daleen teased.

“I had something I wanted to talk to you about,” Kirill forced out. “Maybe it was a bad idea.”

Daleen took his hand and pulled him away from the witchfires. They walked, back toward the forest edge, until the sounds of the party dulled to a distant murmur.

“Okay, Mister Mysterious, what do you want to talk about?” she took his hands in hers, and swung them back and forth between them, as she rolled on the balls of her feet.

Kirill took a deep breath. The nerves in his stomach roiled up into his chest and he fought to push them down. Out with it, elf, he told himself.

“I’m leaving, Daleen,” he said, finally.

“What? The party just started!” she said, confused.

“No, not the party. Keening. I’m leaving Keening,” Kirill repeated. “I’m going tonight.”

“What are you talking about?” the elf girl asked.

Kirill let go of Daleen’s hands and turned away.

“You know how I play the lyre?” he said. “And sing?”

“Yeah, of course,” the girl came up behind him.

Kirill stared out into the darkness. Shadows, barely lit by the distant witchfires, danced between the trunks of oaks and ashes, maples and pine.

“Well, and this is going to sound stupid, but do you remember when Brood Sheenshaker came and played the Duke’s parapet?” Kirill asked.

“Gods, yes,” Daleen replied. “It’s about the only time I ever saw you excited to leave the house.”

“Well, something changed in me after that concert. For the last two years, all I’ve done is play my lyre and sing, and learn every ballad and bawdy row that I could lay my hands on down at the emporium, when I wasn’t working in mother’s shop. I sat outside the Horseman’s Brew every night, and listened to them sing, whenever a bard came through town.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, I’ve been writing my own stuff, and… and I think it’s good.”

“Um, okay? I mean, I’ve heard you before. You needed to tell me this in secret why?” Daleen folded her arms. Kirill turned back to her.

“I’m leaving. I’m taking my lyre and my clothes and I’m hitting the road.”

Daleen giggled. “Yeah, okay.”

“I’m serious!”

Daleen squeezed Kirill’s arm. “Oh, honey. You know I love you, but come on. You can barely leave your house, let alone perform in front of strangers in far-off lands.”

“That’s the point. It’s what you said, before. You said I can make all the plans I want, but if I don’t actually go out and do something about it, then what’s the point? I can’t…,” Kirill’s head dropped. “It’s like my skin is covered in acid, all the time. I have to go out and do something. I have to get out of this goddamn town.”

“What’s wrong with Keening?” Daleen folded her arms. She jutted one hip out, as if in protest. “You’re being dramatic.”

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know,” Kirill threw up his arms.

Silence descended on the forest, broken only by the smash of ceramic and a wild burst of laughter in the distance.

“Why don’t you play here?” Daleen asked, finally.

“What?” Kirill stumbled, his heel caught in the underbrush, before righting himself.

“Play here. At the party. This party.”

Daleen’s eyes shone in the dark, obsidian swirls that reflected dimly the fading witchfires beyond the trees.

“Here? Now?” Kirill asked.

“Yeah. Why not? You want to play for people, might as well play for people you know,” she replied.

“That’s just it,” Kirill pouted. “These people know me. They don’t like me. There’s no respect there. They’ll… they’ll laugh.”

Daleen shrugged. “They might. They might not. You’re a good singer, Kirill. I bet you surprise the hell out of them.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been…”

“Hey, up to you,” Daleen threw up her hands and started back toward the witchfires. Kirill caught her by the elbow.

“Wait.”

He pulled her back.

“My donkey is right beyond the tree line. I’ll get my lyre,” he conceded.

“There you go!”

The duo picked their way through the trees toward the forest edge. Above, the night moons faded in and out from behind spotty clouds, and the tapestry of the great River and its millions of pricks of faded light, billowed out over them. The raucous hoots and laughter of Keening’s youth fell away in the distance, and that ever-present feeling of being both lost and watched settled into the darkness between the trees. A sense of fearful serenity rustled in the leaves as a gentle wind pushed them onward, to the edge of the forest and Kirill’s waiting ass.

“Wow. You really were all packed up,” Daleen said in admiration, as she inspected the haphazard ropes that held several hastily patched and tied bags to the donkey’s hindquarters. Kirill’s lyre hung off the side. Kirill went to it, and with much effort and more than a little giggling from Daleen (and blushing from Kirill), managed to work it free from its intricately chaotic bindings. Instinctively, he set to tuning it, hoping the flush in his cheeks was not visible beneath the night’s moons.

“You’re adorable,” Daleen chuckled and pinched Kirill’s cheek.

“Just need to tune one last…” he tried to ignore her.

“You can tune it on the way,” she said. “Come on. It’s cold away from the fires.”

Again, Kirill stopped and scanned the girl. Indeed, it was cold out and Daleen, clad in a thin leather bodice and short, frayed skirt, was poorly dressed for the weather. He admired her in the light of the moons. Soaked in her goosebumped flesh. Tried and failed to be respectful and not stare at her exposed legs, those thin rounded shoulders, or the night-hardened nipples that protruded from beneath the front of her blouse. He tried to focus on her lips, as they glistened in the starlight, her long, tapered ears, and those eyes, cast back toward the forest with impatience.

“Daleen, wait,” Kirill told her. “One more thing.”

The elven girl stared at Kirill’s donkey in confusion. “What else do you need to play?”

“Not play,” Kirill reached out and took her hand, as he set the lyre down on the ground next to him, leaning up against his knee.

“Kirill, what are you doing?” she stuttered.

“Daleen. Come with me. Come with me out into the world. I love you, Daleen. I’ve loved you from the moment we met. I loved you through everything. When your father died. When my father died. When you were dating that asshole Ramben and that jerk Ocuru. I was there for you. I wrote songs for you. I want you to come with me, out on the road. We could be a duo. I could play and you could sing. We could sing duets. We could make love under the stars…”

He pulled her in and pressed his lips to hers.

She shoved him away.

“Get off me!” Daleen said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“W-what?”

“Moons, Kirill. We’re friends. Friends, get it? And I’m not leaving Keening – I love it here,” she stamped her foot on the ground. “Great River! I have friends and family here. Nori is here. My best friend. Remember her?”

“But… but this is an adventure. And all the time we’ve spent together, since we were kids,” Kirill stammered.

“Time we spent together?” Daleen scoffed. “Kirill, we hang out for a few hours every couple of weeks. Do you know what I do the rest of the time?”

“You’re a… barmaid?” he ventured, thinking of all the stories she’d told him of working the local pubs.

“Barma-… Great River, you’re a moron.”

Daleen turned to go. Kirill leapt forward and grabbed her by the arm again.

“Get off me!” she yanked free and started back to the forest again.

“I don’t get it, Daleen. You were made for me. I was made for you. I’ve been nothing but nice to you,” Kirill pleaded. The tree line loomed before them. He ran to block her path.

“Kirill,” she stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closed. “We are not a thing. We’ve never even kissed. I’m sorry if you have feelings, but… well, Kirill, you do understand that I have a life beyond you, right?”

“Well, yeah, of course, but…”

“No buts. You remember that Sheenshaker concert?” she said, her voice quivering slightly, as she gathered herself. “The one that was such a big deal, apparently?”

“Of course – it’s what made me want to leave. And you to come with me. Why won’t you come with me?” Kirill begged.

“Because, Kirill, at the same concert where you were discovering your life’s purpose, I was already living my dream. I didn’t go to see Brood play. I went backstage. Nori and I walked right past the guards, into the castle, and while you were dreaming of becoming a star, we were having a foursome with the Duke and your big bad bard. And you know what? It was a great fucking time.”

“Wait… what?” Kirill’s head snapped back like he’d been struck.

“I’m a fucking whore, Kirill,” Daleen said, and pushed past the young bard. “Literally.”

“No. No, that’s not true. It can’t be,” Kirill staggered backward toward his donkey. Daleen spun to face him.

“I get paid to fuck,” Daleen stepped toward him, each footfall pressing the young elf back. “I get paid to fuck anyone who wants me, and I love it. It’s fun.”

Kirill threw his arms up over his face as he continued to back away.

“I do it for free, too, you know. Quite a bit. Ocuru may have been a jerk, but he was a great lay. Ramben had a huge cock. Moons, Nori and I have shared a bed more times than I can count. She might even be sweet on me. But you know what I haven’t done?” she sneered.

Kirill’s lyre tangled in his feet and sent him thudding to the ground.

“You,” Daleen finished.

Kirill whimpered in response.

Daleen snorted. “Listen. I’m sorry. But we’re friends. If I wanted to be with you, I would have been. I liked hanging out. I liked listening to you sing. And you needed a friend. You were so sad all the time, and lost. That’s me trying to be there for you, to give you a shoulder to cry on. It wasn’t fucking love. I’m not attracted to you.”

“But, in bed. We curled up. You listened to me. You heard me sing.”

“Listening to you sing is not the same as being in love. Curling up in bed is not the same as fucking. And that’s all you really want, isn’t it?” Daleen concluded with sadness. “You don’t want me. You don’t even know me. Not really. You didn’t even know what I do for a living.”

“You’re a prostitute,” Kirill repeated, his voice quavering with disbelief.

“Look,” Daleen wiped a tear from Kirill’s cheek. “I know this is hard. You want more than you’ve got. Well, good. Good for you. Go get it. If going out into the world and trying to woo the courts of the Eight Kings as the next great bard is what you want to do, great. Go do it.”

She pulled her hand away.

“But my place is here. I like being here. I like doing what I do. Who wouldn’t? The men of Keening aren’t exactly the dregs of Ruinus, are they? They’re farmers. Tradesmen. The Duke’s lazy personal guard. Hell, the Duke. He’s a regular! And surprisingly fun. Nori and I have a standing threesome with him every Starsday.”

Daleen put her hands on her hips.

“Listen, I feel for you,” she repeated. “But I’m not going with you, Kirill. I don’t love you. I’m not attracted to you. And at this point, even if you paid me, and you could pay me, if you wanted, I don’t think I’d let you.”

“I’d never…” Kirill stuttered.

“Never what? Pay me for sex? Sleep with a whore? Expect me to drop my entire life to run off with you on some fantasy quest to become the next Brood Sheenshaker, when you’ve never even played for anybody outside your own bedroom? No offense, Kirill, but I don’t exactly picture you in one of those posters with a lyre over your shoulder and a maiden’s cap in your back pocket. It’s not really your style.”

Kirill went to stand and Daleen held her hand up to stop him.

“But I’ll do anything…” he whimpered.

“Don’t. I’m not your puppet.”

Daleen turned and started back toward the forest edge.

“I’m going back to the party.”

The tree line loomed, a long black horizon delineating a darkened sky. Clouds were moving in, and the scent of witchfire wafted in on the breeze as it grew in strength. Daleen’s pale figure sauntered through the grass toward the forest. Her body twitched haughtily as she left Kirill behind. Kirill glared at her fading figure. Where her fingers had brushed his cheek, the wet of his tears stung like ice against the chill night air. Under his hand, the strings of the lyre dug like blades into Kirill’s palm. He picked it up as he rose to his feet. Daleen was nearly at the tree line. If he was to stop her, this would be his last opportunity. She’d scolded him. Embarassed him. If word got out, even what meager life he did have would be gone. And she would be gone, never again to grace his room and listen to him talk and sing his soft melodies.

No, she would not, he gained his feet and hurried after her.

She would be out, fucking every guy in town. All while pretending she was a nice girl. A nice girl who offered encouragement. Who led Kirill to believe that they were building a life together. A relationship. A love based on mutual understanding. On music and art and feelings and soft touches in the night. How he’d longed for those soft touches. Didn’t she realize how many of his songs revolved around her? No. Of course, she didn’t. He’d never had the courage to sing one to her. Not one of those. Old standards, yes. Ballads, sure. One or two songs about his father. His mother.

But the ones about her? She would never hear them. And she didn’t care.

She’d been with his hero, Brood Sheenshaker, and lied to him about it. She’d made him less of a man than the very men who’d done her wrong and treated her with such disdain. The very same men she burst into tears over while leaning on his shoulder, her body curled up against his, her breasts pressed into his side, her arms around his waist. Her face nuzzled in his neck.

Her face. Flashes of all the things the men (and at least one woman, apparently) had done to that face crashed into his skull. All those cautious glances at her body. All those projected visions of how she looked without her clothes, searing into focus. To know that men, more men than he could probably guess, had been there before him. Touched her. Grabbed her. Pawed at her. Stuck their filthy members inside of her.

And she was smiling…

Kirill closed in on Daleen, the lyre reared up behind his head. As Daleen reached the edge of the forest, she turned, a brief glance over her shoulder as Kirill’s boots rustled the grass. Daleen barely had time to open her mouth before the lyre smashed in her face. She thudded to the ground and gasped, a rasping moan that whined and bled. Kirill raised the lyre again and brought it down hard, right between her eyes. Daleen splayed out, her body writhing in involuntary slow motion. Kirill tossed the lyre aside and dropped to his knees. He wrapped his hands around the elf girl’s neck.

“It could have been different,” he sobbed. “We could have been something…”

#

“… put the maiden to bed,” finished the bard. “In the deepest, darkest depths…, a dream, a dream, never again seen.”

A trio of rowdy men cheered the bard from across the room, and a pair of working girls clapped politely and returned to the company of their patrons. The waitress leaned in and placed a fresh pint of ale in front of the bard.

“Very well done. Don’t think I’ve heard it sung with such… vigour,” the waitress complimented.

The bard swigged from the fresh ale and shrugged. “It’s got sentimental value.”

“I’m sure it does,” the waitress took the lyre from the bard’s hand and set it aside. She slid into his lap. “Falgo’s letting me out early, if you’ve time.”

The bard leaned back and inspected the barmaid, top to bottom. She was a fair wench, he thought, same age as he, but aged well enough. A little rounder than he’d have preferred in his youth, and a little greyer, but in these tough times, beggars could hardly pick and choose, could they? There was a bounty up top, at least, he thought, staring without couth into the woman’s bosom. Plus, he’d never been with a redhead, even one as faded as this. Keening was one of the few places they could be found, and it had been a very long time since he’d been anywhere near. A very long time.

“I reckon I’ve done my due diligence for the evening,” he replied, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She smiled and picked up his ale, draining it in a single go. The bard’s eyebrows raised, impressed.

“Come,” she led him to the bar, where she leaned over and whispered to the grizzled man behind the counter. He poured two fresh mugs of ale and dropped a small pouch into the barmaid’s hand. She flipped him a pair of coins.

“What’s in the pouch?” the bard asked.

“Tonight’s tips,” she replied, quickly.

“Big pouch for tips,” the bard eyed it suspiciously.

The woman tucked it down the front of her blouse, between her breasts. “It’s none of your concern. You just worry about staying sober enough to get that thing up between your legs.”

The bard chuckled. “What do I owe you?”

The barmaid stopped cold at the top of the stairs. Her eyes closed to slits.

“I’m not a prostitute. Even if I were, this I’d do for free.”

The bard shrugged. “Suppose that’s the way of it, isn’t it? Apologies. My experiences tend to be of the, uh, bartered type.”

“I’m sure.”

She resumed leading him down the hall. At the end, she opened a thin, closet-like door and pulled him through. The room beyond was small, with a thatched bed and a single window only barely large enough to squeeze through. A small wicker dresser and a stool sat in the corner. She set the ales on the dresser and pushed the man onto the bed.

The bard smirked as the barmaid turned around and slowly unlaced the blouse from the front. Her clothes slid to the floor, one by one, until she stood, back to him, plump bottom cocked to one side, beneath a couple of middle-aged rolls, looking surprisingly good. She hesitated for a moment, then turned and drained one of the ales. She held the other out to him.

“Drink up.”

The bard obliged her, downing the majority in a single gulp, his eyes locked on her substantial bosom, and her modesty, over the top of the mug.

“More,” she said, tipping the bottom of the mug up. The bard finished the remaining ale.

She took it from him, set it aside and straddled the man. He reached up enthusiastically and kneaded her naked breasts.

“You’re a handful, love,” he said in admiration.

“Hmm,” she said. “I am at that.”

The bard’s head swam in drink, and he thought to himself for a moment how odd that was, given he’d had but half of his usual night’s swill before the barmaid invited him up.

“Strong ale,” he mumbled as he took her nipple between his lips.

“You sing well, bard. You’re a little clumsy on the tit, though,” she laid his head back on the bed. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I caught your name.”

“My name?” the bard slurred. This was odd, he thought. He should not be this sodden. Maybe he was getting old.

“Mm-hmm. I didn’t catch it. What was it again?”

“K… Kirill,” the bard murmured, his lips suddenly numb. He tried to move his arms but couldn’t. Panic shuddered through him, as he found himself increasingly immobilized.

The barmaid stood and went to one of the drawers. She held up the pouch on the dresser.

“Sorry, love. Kelvinherb. Means you won’t be moving for a while.”

“Don’t… no… money,” the bard croaked.

The barmaid cast a grin over her shoulder.

“Not about money, love.”

She pulled a long, curved knife from the drawer and returned to the bed. She straddled the bard once more and passed the knife, back and forth, back and forth, between her hands.

“When did you say you were in Keening last?” she asked.

“as… child…” the bard gasped, his tongue no longer his own.

The barmaid smirked.

“Perhaps you remember a friend of mine. Went missing one evening after a party in the woods. Last anyone saw, she was with a young elf, an aspiring bard, or so his mum said. Sound familiar?”

The bard’s eyes grew wide, no longer able to respond.

“No one ever saw her after that night. Folks assumed she’d run off with the elf, disappeared in the night with a new lover. After all, she got around, right?” the barmaid leered.

The bard, as much as he could, shivered internally.

“But see, for those of us that knew her, we knew she’d never run off with some skinny runt and leave all her friends behind. Especially,” she leaned forward, the point of the knife driven up under the bard’s chin. “The ones she loved.”

The barmaid drew the knife down the length of the bard’s tunic, shifting her body back until she sat on his knees. The knife stopped, right between his legs.

“We’ve not properly met, Kirill,” the barmaid pressed the tip of the knife in. The bard’s eyes pleaded with her to stop. She did not. “What I like about Kelvinherb is that it stops you moving, but lets you feel everything.”

She dug the blade in deeper. Spittle dripped out of the side of the bard’s mouth, and tears streamed across his temples.

“We might be a while, Kirill. I suppose I should introduce myself,” the barmaid leaned in. Blood spurted up between Kirill’s legs.

“My name is Nori,” she smiled. “And I’ve been looking for you for a very, very long time.”

In the tavern below, the noise continued unabated.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 2120 words, short story: Forest Edge

Read: Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach
Comics: Pitt 14-17
Music: I Was / I Am, Noah Kahan