The Tales of the Fourth

The Song

"Would you fancy a song, Terilian?" asked the silky voice of a girl in a bright, green dress and with blond curls.

"Isn't it better to ask those traders on the right or the boys on the left? Tables brimming with drunk, cheerful folk ought to pay better, right?" replied a woman with long, black hair while her enchanting, brown eyes were focused on the green eyes of her newcomer. Her face was unmistakable one of a Terilian, a nation of refugees from far away.

"They already got their songs! After all, I see how you are dressed. Purple silk is not something you will successfully hide with that cloak, nor will you have more luck with that silver necklace on your chest. Anyone can see by your stature alone that you are not from here. I'm sure you will spare a coin for someone who will sing you a song to soothe a broken heart, won't you?" the bard concluded, still leaning on a round table in the corner of the tavern where, with a single glass of wine on her table, a Terilian woman sat.

"Broken heart?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Don't take it the wrong way, it just looks like that, you know? Something about you..." the bard was quick to explain.

"I will not take it the wrong way. However, I will also not be requesting a song. The last one you sang suited my taste perfectly. "

"A ballad about Sigrin and Jolene?" Ah, well then the heart must be broken after all. I wonder who hurt you for you to have to identify with Jolene. With her eternal selfless pursuit with Sigrin. For the unrequited love, the curse and her plea, for the cruel fate from above and ... "the bard continued shrewdly.

"Death that set her free." the black-haired woman finished the verse.

"Right on! Are you sure you don't want me to sing it to you? " the bard asked, taking her lute in her hands, hung around her shoulder.

"If I said no, would you still stay?" The guest asked. The blonde girl paused for a moment, startled by the question. She spent a few moments thinking of an answer.

"I... Strange question... Yes."

"Strange answer."

"Yes, it is. But hey, if I'm to keep you company, you're not going to be paying for it. I don't want my company to be paid in coins. " stated the bard as she sat at the table.

"What can be paid with?"

"Travel stories, those you surely have a lot of. I want to hear how people live in other parts of the principality. "

"Oh, I traveled far beyond this principality."

"All the more reason to talk! But first the important thing. Your name. "

"Nera Veres," the Terilian offered her hand. The handshake was accepted.

"Catherine."

Catherine did not earn a single coin more that night. The tavern was getting ever less populated as the late hours of the night became the first hours of the new day, and the bard and traveler shared a table and stories. Nera told her of the places she visited. From kingdom Yoreland to the far, half-mythical Urgindi empire. She mentioned kings and beggars, knights, and petty thieves. People of all occupations and standings. Catherine absorbed her words, regularly asking questions, and often mentioning how some of Nera's stories could easily be turned into great songs. Nera certainly enjoyed her company, but she hid it well. Her face betrayed only a very discreet smile on her rosy lips. Catherine, on the other hand, was not so modest. She laughed loudly and very noticeably enjoyed the company of the mysterious Terilian.

As their conversation grew older and deeper, doing so despite Nera's relatively concise and scanty answers to any question concerning her job or the purpose of her arrival, Catherine inched increasingly closer to her interlocutor on the other side of the table. At one point, she leaned over a table that now had more than one empty glass, and her hand touched Neras as she talked about something completely unimportant from her childhood.