Refectory, Part One. The first track on Charterbound: The Reach, told through the song itself this time.
Bashir's first night at the table, seated where Idris tells him to sit and taught how this family works one cup at a time. The full cast gets introduced here: Mircea and Yara's running argument over dinner, Hester's laugh, Bracken and Hayami's quiet corner, and Devon still stuck in the corridor, not yet part of the table he's about to belong to.
The first night I came to the Reach I sat where I was told — foot of the long table, foot of the lamp, foot of the kitchen door.
Idris signed the meal in; he poured the second cup the way a senior should. Bashir, he told me, you sit here. You watch how a table holds. The lamp burned small at the table's center. The night held — and that was enough.
Sahirati teaglass. Vlachian copper. Mawakwa wood. Akitsu lacquer. Songaran clay. Albian pewter. Salt-Isles painted tin. One table. Seven hands. A place laid for the cape itself.
Wave, and salt, and rope. Wave, and salt, and rope. The lamp burns small — and that is enough. Wave, and salt, and rope.
Mircea said, with respect, no. Yara told him, chéri, taste it first. Mircea began, in Vlachia we would — and Yara cut him fond — hush, douce. The gravy is going.
Down the table, the witch laughed once into her cup. Hester said, ye'll see how it lands; the wheel turns slow at this table. Bracken stayed still — he had eaten and was bored. The shadow-girl beside her set her bowl down quiet. Hayami said only wa, small bow to the bowl, and the candle steady on her sleeve where a dragonfly was hiding.
The salt came round. The bread broke open. Devon was not sat yet — he was still in the corridor making a face at the moonlight on the stone.
Wave, and salt, and rope. Wave, and salt, and rope. Wave, and salt, and rope. The lamp burns small — and that is enough. Wave, and salt, and rope.
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