The Rosewarden's Songbook

Just another way for Trist'Ayran Ambrosio to express himself

[tristayran]

Strange How Things Change

I’ve not attempted to write anything here for literal years, Songbook, fool that I am I found that my inspiration came and went and returned again tenfold living through all that I have in recent years.  It bears repeating that as I look through the last few pages I offered up to the powers that be for perusal I do not even recognize myself. I know logically I am the one who’s written the words but I see a Bard who’s confidence was as fragile as it proved to be, who’s trust was placed so often in the hands of those who would suit the ideals I made of men and maidens but not who they actaully were. I miss the casual friends, the ones that I simply played music for, those who I taught around the Fountain, the tastes of new lips against my own and the songs that awoke in my heart when they took time to spend with me...  What I’d write here today, is the truth of things I’ve learned since I last penned my thoughts on these archives... Chief among them, I am not cut out to love only one person, but that does not mean I did not have a half of me I was seeking... missing. I look at my old self tucked between the lines and hopes I scribbled longingly in the blank spaces, I was looking for something, needing someone, or anyone to hear that I was singing out into the void and just wishing I would hear someone singing back... I thought about the reason I grew roses, not just for mother, not just for their beauty and resilience despite their apparent delicacy, but because once when I was a boy with a Lute I’d rebuilt from discarded pieces and made into Hypernia, I was given a gift... one that I never truly could repay. My dark mirror with bloodied hands and sallow features, hungry, hurting, but still in awe of Music. Of a Tiny voice that was not just my own but theirs as well.  A Tiny Voice that was for those things that were over looked and tucked between the sentences and ramblings residing in the things I didn’t say... and should have said. He heard it... and he Answered I just didn’t know how close he was. To those I loved in all these pages, there was no point then or now that I did not love you, I felt these things, I felt them like the most meaningful fuel to my kindled heart I had ever known, you taught me that there was more, and for that I will be ever grateful even if you despise me now... even if you’ve forgotten me now... But now as I write and feel music in my fingertips, song within my soul, I know it is because my compositions are not ones I can name, or water down into their sheet or score, what I have in my life now... my Children, My mate, and all those who have given us the chance to touch their lives as they’ve touched ours... You are all a part of the music that’s come back to me and now fills my life with laughter, joy, and sorrow, and shared pain, but with an unabashed eternal love that is ever changing as the world itself. So when I return to these pages, I hope that the me from the future sees that I have known what love is, truly, unabashedly, and eternally what it is... and it’s that I will always find more within my Kintsugi Heart. -Dedicated to my Midnight, and the muses we find room for.   

[tristayran]

In the vein of change being life and the hindsight of things: this new piece by the ever talented Gibiart on YCH commissions conveys most of my feelings on the whole nature of change and the way life leaves its marks in places most cannot see. Truth be told I've only ever had a Kintsugi Heart and for those who can love me with it that's what matters. And to my midnight you are the very gold-mending that flows between the cracks.

[tristayran]

Sea-spray Lemonade and Steel

How do I put all this into words… it's been two days but it felt like a blur and I’ve never once resented the sun the way Pops does, but I might have truly attempted to will the hours to pass slower so these days would not end. Odd as it sounds my life rarely has time for dates, and for a moment I wasn’t really sure that was what it was. Blackbird explained it’d be good for the Ambrose Arcana to be there and had simply asked if I’d join. Perhaps starting there is the right call: the Beach Bash was truly a remarkable event, I’m not sure I’ve seen to many people on a coastline in my entire life but it was the company I went with that was the delight: Miss Eversea and Samson, I even met the Patroness of the Circus whom arrived in style, with a Parasol and a fine tailored suit. I’m fairly certain She, Pops, And the Lady Rayne would love each other. Harmony was even there! And Smiling again! I hadn’t even realized how much I missed seeing her smile. This whole mess with Gavir had taken such a toll on the woman I was afraid she’d lost that glow about her, that ability to simply: shine with the light of hope and confidence that I found myself so drawn to in the first place. I wish only that they find their happiness at last and fall back into each other's arms as the lovers they deserve to be to one another. In truth though I was a wretched company for anyone but Blackbird… reflecting on it I’m not sure there was a moment I wasn’t looking at him, or more accurately gazing, and probably longingly. He kept apologizing for just being himself and by the time he’d done so a third time I wanted to tug him into a proper kiss and breathe the words that the -reason- I was there was because all those in his Orbit, myself included, have come to adore that he is pulled a thousand ways at once. There are kindred spirits, and then there are those who know what it is to be you… Blackbirds and Songbirds too often know what it is to have to steal moments and horde them, to celebrate how fleeting they can be. Tyra and Mun-li and the Dragoons arrived for the Contests and for the fireworks, and Pops got a good look at Blackbird for the first time after I’d been talking about him for days on end at the root, and to my surprise encouraged me to stay with my date. Probably amused that I’d found myself in the arms of a Circus performer, but hardly surprised. We watched fireworks late into the night and then watched the waves under a starlit sky… I tasted lemonade and sea spray and steel, and found that of all the flavors in the world that night, what I had wanted was those tastes on my lips and on my tongue, and I begged time to abate its long march forward so it could last… It was like standing in a thunderstorm and rather than shrink from it I tilted my face up to feel the rain spill down my brow and neck, I didn’t want it to end. It did. But that is the way of these moments and no sooner had I fallen deep into a rush of passion that I was face to face with Olimos who apologized for it but I assured him it was for the better. Otherwise I’d have forgotten myself in the storm, tangled my fingers in midnight locks, and not thought anymore while Blackbirds crew patiently awaited his return and escort home. I made a promise to my friend… for I can go where he cannot… And I am certain I will be able to convince Ely for her help. Not sure if it’s stupid or reckless but for the one that means that much to Maellaa muse… I’ll see it done. Eventually we returned to the fountain, Starlight flew me back after drying me off but I think at some point my shirt fell victim to the waves, honestly in the midst of that storm I’m pretty sure I forgot where a lot of things ended up, but I was elated to hear that Starlight had finally found someone who may at last be his own, and I could not be happier for him. Or for myself in truth, because after you kiss someone, and I mean -really- kiss someone… Its hard to look at anyone else. I lost track of time but at some point… I decided Blackbird would look better in my favorite hat.

[tristayran]

Dark Clouds and Blackbirds

So last afternoon was an adventure. A terrifying, not allowed to talk about it with -anyone-, risked my life without realizing it, might still get me in trouble kind of adventure. I just couldn’t bring myself to just ignore that Blackbird, Dreamboat and Alrose were off in some crypt. If Ely hadn’t told me that Blackbird had gotten hurt standing in the way of a fight just yesterday I might not have been so stupid myself but the man is utterly selfless to the point of self destruction and while it is one of his most endearing qualities its also the one that frightens me the most, that he’d fight until his last breath it meant he could spare someone else pain. I was in over my head the moment I arrived and coward that I am was little to no help until we were running for our lives. Sometimes there’s an advantage to being scrawny and being able to fit through narrow passages.  Blackbird keeps very interesting company and even as Dreamboat enacted the Ceremony to knight him they were rather insistent that I make myself useful in some way.  Talk about awkward first kisses, not that I’m shy in front of an audience normally, but I had never thought that was how it’d be. Even still he tasted of steel and sweet... a bit of salt from the fight, and yet all of it was every bit the Blackbird I had imagined.  I hope next time it’s more on our terms. Afterwards things were less insane for at least a while I got to lean against Blackbird for most of the time we listened to his fellow Carnies play. Turns out there’s a lot more stress in the world of running a circus and the strap I had made for him managed to get him through a little of it.  Does anyone ever take care of you Blackbird? It was almost enough to make me consider staying all the way through the evening, but I still owed Bombshell some time. Things turned bad then. Harmony was plastered and devastated so I made my best efforts of an excuse and nearly simultaneously Blackbird had been pushed to his limit with his recruits. He walked off and I started calling in favors to see if we could get help recovering Harmony’s beloved... Its madness to think that someone like Gavir would just up and vanish. Bombshell and Miss Pepper came through and I clearly owe the Thane for this one, despite what he says. I managed to check in with Blackbird after, and I hope the Patroness of The Ambrose Arcana returned his stress has ebbed some, he needs to remember the actions of others aren’t his responsibility. I know his heart is in the right place he cares more than safe to keep that heart intact.  At the very least I can tell Harmony that Gavir yet lives: none of the ascended have been called to retrieve his soul, I regret only that is all I could offer. Common thread I guess: I couldn’t have hoped to help Blackbird in his battle, nor could I help track down Harmony’s beloved... Best I could offer is a few songs to make their hardest days have a melody to accompany them. I’ll just keep concentrating on the taste of sweet, steel, the scent of rosewood and linen, and the sight of hair like midnight black within it the thousand colors of light.

[tristayran]

Cuddle Puddles?

Learned a good many things last night sitting around the fountain. One namely that Maellaa never stops being a Muse, Bombshell is still a hair trigger boom, an The Siren will surely drown me one day. I’m starting to worry for Olimos though and others in the Edict as well as my Thero’shan, Dreamboat, Ocerios. Seems like every other night one of them is getting hurt. I know that’s rich coming from me but there it is. I managed to spend some time getting to know Blackbird though, told him why I gave him the nickname I did. I really can’t begin to convey how much he means to those around him, if only he’d understand it or see what I do in him. When I finished he favored me with a kiss on the cheek and so began a series of efforts made on everyone's’ part to ensure I was going to blush, When really all I wanted to do was to return that gesture. He spends so much of his life taking care of others it makes me wonder how often someone takes care of him. And how he sang... Light and Shadows I haven’t the words to describe what it was to hear him sing. I knew I liked his voice, but it took all that was in me not to tell him then and there that knowing how beautiful the melodies were off his lips how much it made me wish to know them. That I could see now why all that are in his orbit could never truly get enough of him, because I found myself much the same. Bombshell needed a little reassurance after that but by the time The Siren arrived we were all situated in what is now absolutely a cuddle puddle. Harmony looked as if she’d just been through it and seeing Gavir with her gave me a little hope that they’re working through their troubles. At least I got them both to smile along with my pile of PDA. After my hat was stolen I clearly needed to earn it back so I started making my farewells, one that even included a kiss far more forward than the ones I’d received from the Dreamboat prior. I was proud of him there. Shouldn’t have, but when I was on my way off, I couldn’t keep from glancing back to see Blackbird pink almost red behind me, I’ll have to make sure I didn’t upset him... I found myself enjoying is leaning against me after all I’d hate to have put him off.

[tristayran]

Enough to be Forgiven

My day started like it was supposed to lately. Ely dragged me out of whoever's bed I’d ended up in, which for the record; she has an uncanny instinct as to where I am that continues to unsettle me, to have me working on the tasks set forward for Sath and I from Elysian Hold. They don’t let her join me there given the wound’s still fresh between the Ascended and the Undying so it lands to me to pick up our tasks and then let the mountain of metal and few words protect me. It's a little painful given she’s not the one I miss though if I’m close enough to her I can still feel and almost hear him ripple off of her. Couples get like that really even if they don’t realize it, they start picking up those subtle nuances that evolve as their language. The routine though was I played her music as she fought and sometimes I’d be useful. After that Classes at the Academy, then lunch with Pops and Essfir with their daughter, then more private classes that I’d get paperwork and letters and papers graded in between. Must sound dull to most really but every paper is one step closer to the little ones understanding the power they wield with music as an artform. Having finally caught up on matters I even had some time to visit the fountain where I found Maellaa Muse speaking with a half-elf about learning to play harp. She wore a mask but there were enough in the way of ink and tattoos to tell me she was of a mixed descent like so many of my students now and I couldn’t help myself. I gave her one of the Oldest instruments in the Lady Rayne’s collection, a primitive Harp made of Red-russet hardwood, inlaid with turquoise and coral with gold accents that detailed the image of an Avian almost Loa face that spread a wing out to form the strings of the harp itself, in all gold. She had to leave before I could teach much but Blackbird (Soon to be Sir Trips?) was there encouraging her with me along with Bombshell. Then it was tutoring Alfrin one on one because Bagpipes aren’t all that easy. After all that I was exhausted but the Fountain called me back: like it always does. Busking somehow makes me far more than is fair but it’s long since stopped being about the money and any chance to see the Siren, or a chance to remind the Blackbird he’s adored I’ll take. Any chance to see a Student playing when I arrive, or hear the Masked Lone Sentinel play their haunting melodies to the sky above in plumes of ash that spill from their leathers… Every time I get to See Maellaa Muse Dance, or Bombshell Laugh. It almost made the absence of my first and biggest fan feel less fresh in my mind. I’d taken the stage after listening for a time and all the sudden there he was. I swear to you I’ve never -really- frozen mid song. Not like that… He was just standing there smoking his Cigar flat faced. I was seized with joy and dread and tears and the urge to fling myself at him to hug him and beg him to forgive me. Instead Blackbird and Bombshell took over and I managed to keep my voice steady enough to ask him to step away with me and talk to me. He might have still been in his armor: but I had to shed mine, the fountain and my friends, the people who would have surely thought him the one in the wrong despite my telling them time and time again, my best friend had every reason to despise me. He surprised me a second time that night and hugged me. I didn’t really have control of what I was saying, words just spilled like tears, and trust me there were those as well despite his telling me to cut out the sobbing. My Riftblade… My Hero… And my Friend doesn’t hate me. And for the first time in weeks: the voices in my head the whispers that needled my mind for having been the fuck up I know myself to be were finally silent replaced with every song I played for him. When we came back it was to smiles, or so I thought, I was ready to play for him again but It wasn’t all that much better for the ones who had to suffer me at my lowest. I just needed to remind them that it wasn’t Sathix who put me there, it was me. I knew he wasn’t there for it but for the first time I sang and meant it. The Siren briefly entertained the thought of never singing again but I couldn’t have that: even if she too was shaken by it all. So we all sang, Blackbird’s favorite, Every voice around the fountain sang of how “All the shine of a thousand spotlights and all the stars that we steal from the night sky will never never enough” Maybe because we all felt some meaning in the words, maybe some of us because we felt like we were aren’t enough… or maybe just because when Harmony of our voices filled the air I felt lighter as if the notes and voices could lift me into the air and I could fly with the music and so did all my friends. Hypernia even started to glow the way she does when she felt my heart in it again. I wish you’d have been there to see it. I know you’ll never read this… I know you’ll never trust me, not like you once did my friend: but every word of that song is true and that Sathix without you, it’d never be enough...

[tristayran]

Sirens and Blackbirds

If you asked me which songs I played today I’m not sure I could really tell you. I know that my Honey-Haired Dreamboat played his set and did me proud as Thero’Shan. I know that Snowball was finally out and about letter in hand and smile back on his features, they even called him a bard while he played. I know now Mun-Li has a sister And Tyra still loves shanties, and that Starlight should probably not mix drinking and malice... But I also now know that a Blackbird sings a song that echoes my own. That his blue-black mane still tempts fingers to comb through and still manages to make me question how much trouble I’m willing to get him into. He even has a song for -me- which many before him have done: but his sees through me in ways I’m never prepared for. He’d said he was going to steal my method of learning favorites and understanding his audience’s leitmotifs for what they are: the tether that binds us to each listening ear. Blackbird’s singing in the dead of night indeed. Citrus, spice, a cascade of flavors that I’d imagined and yet never grasped, not truly. For as vivid as my imagination is, no justice was done. My world awash with impulse and want and a craving pulling at every thread and fiber of my being. I thought once would be an unraveling that would render me uselessly and helplessly victim to the Siren’s Song... It didn’t happen like that, and in that moment I wished I’d had a tangle of silk, if for no other reason for the privilege of untangling it afterwards. Almost as satisfying as tying and lacing back up... -Almost-. 21,900 days is a long fucking time... can’t blame me for looking for amendments and a way to get out on good behavior. 

[tristayran]

Fountain Reflections

I haven’t had an evening like this one in some time. For the majority of it I was singing stories to the Kyrian, some of the ones I learned from Azaroth as a whole, after I’d spent my Afternoon with The Lone Sentinel and Blackbird trading in music and efforts to encourage each other. I still can’t play Sath’s songs. I don’t know if I will be able to unless he asks for them again and that’s some ways out. And then there’s the Dreamboat, The Vulture, and the Siren...  I swear to you I arrived after the lot of the Dragoons were arriving back from their Boat Trip, to hear Maellaa Muse play, only to find the Honey-Haired Thero’shan I’ve been tutoring had been arrested for some nonsensical reason: But not before I was nearly Stopped by the one everyone keeps calling a Vulture. I still don’t quite understand what he’s done to earn everyone’s Ire, I thought he simply wanted to get me a few Gigs? Everyone else thinks I should be upping Security. Truth be told it seems excessive, but I appreciate Starlight, Maellaa Muse, and the Dreamboat all coming to my rescue if for no other reason because they all look so lovely in the effort to back me up. And then there’s The Siren... I have tried time and time again to put her out of my mind but she makes such an effort impossible. I would return for more and be Heathens that Play with Fire, I would be Shameless and they would see me as s dolt that’s Still Into You... Then again we are always Fools...

[tristayran]

Genius

No one’s ever accused me of being a genius. At least not an intellectual genius. I’ve made up for this shortcoming in the only way I ever do: with a sense of reckless optimism and willful determination to prove that I’m not the failure I’ve always considered myself to be. I’ve not had that option for more than half a year now in truth. Between the title and having finally written a story of my own I don’t have the option to be a failure now… So imagine my surprise when I managed the inevitable stumble, and outright crash from comfort and confidence that I’d end up battered, bruised, and reminded why I’m not cut out for being a hero. That had always been Sath… Just thinking about that renewed my determination but didn’t grant me the physical ability to break free of the chains around my wrists. The Mawsworn that had me I reflected could have easily been someone I’d known, one of the many who died in one of the countless wars on Azaroth. I was hurt, not too badly, mind, but I found myself wondering if this dark masked creature I’d been taught to fear was once someone’s friend, and if they too had hurt that friend. ”Just wallow in it then you pathetic wretch.” “You’re doing all you can, it's not your fault.” “KILL IT NOW’S AN OPENING!” “Try and get them to see reason” “Sing something, maybe it’ll give them pause before they turn you to ash.”

And a dozen more voices started arguing in my mind but the loudest one cut deeper than any cold chains around my wrists, “No ‘best friend’ to save you this time ‘Rose-WARDEN’ what were you thinking!?” I wanted to say I’d been thinking of making it up to my friend that I’d hurt: that all I’d wanted to do was help even though I can be a tonedeaf moron and not realize in panic what my actions could do… The sad part was that I’d lost all drive to argue that with the whispers, it wasn’t as if they ever listened, and at this point I didn’t even have the music to drive them away. “Feeling sorry for yourself, that’s useful” “We are so sorry poor poor us” “Not like he ever liked you anyway.” Just as I was certain that I was going to just let those words needle me into a state of true defeat I heard a scream loud enough to make my ears ring. “Die beneath My Blade! - Unhand the Warden Rose. Now! - Face me fallen one!” Five, Seven, Five… My eyes widened and I braced for the impact that’d send me sprawling over still chained down as what looked like a comet made of full plate, grey-black skin and phantom white braids collided with my captor. The mawsworn tried to screech back and take off with my arms and legs still bound into the air but Elyisper had driven her blade into the tattered black and smoke winds that made up the wings of the Fallen Kyrian who held me. What she had screamed had caught them off guard and if I wasn’t mistaken actually hurt the being. I found myself possessed by a pang of sympathy for the soul that it had once been… for the friends they might have once hurt and had forgotten. “Foolish mortal! This Wretch has proved unworthy and will feed our arms to-” Whatever else the Mawsworn was going to say Ely had no patience for. She seized the chains I was being dragged by with one arm and slammed her shield into the metal mask that served to unperson the being now sworn to the jailor’s service. The sentinel’s voice boomed with a ripple of thunder, enough to send rocks at her feet trembling, “You have chosen death! - The Moon as my blade! Judgement! - Tremble and Despair!” The Fallen Kyrian tried to scream but Ely was louder, “Fear has no home here, - But pain I will grant you fiend, - Know it in the last!” The screaming stopped and I hadn’t realized I had started weeping. The last shuddering remains of the soul that had once been a person vanished as a whisper and a tendril of inky smoke and ashes. Elyisper sheathed her sword and had her arm around me as I shook with dread and remorse and grief for the person I never would have the chance to sing to… to help… to see if I could remind of who they had once been. It was like a heartbreak to hear the ashen whimper that carried away stories, with the breeze that had no place in this hellscape. Like snuffing out a candle and that being all that had been left of a person, that died for a final time unremembered. “Hey… Not now. Come on.” I heard her trying to draw me out of myself. “Look at me. What he -fel- are you doing out here…” “I’m sorry…” Was all I managed to say between sobs, grieving over a stranger who she had simply destroyed without a thought. “I’ll take it for making me worry. Come on, help me get you out of these chains.” My savior took the heavy metal links in hand, scanning them with her one lit eye carefully inspecting each for a flaw she could break, but we both saw the magic that remained in them starting to vanish after the soul wielding them had expired, leaving the metal brittle. In short order Elyisper Starsparrow the sentinel who had bullied me for months now took hold of the chain and out of sheer force of strength snapped one of the links in two freeing my limbs so I had the range of motion to walk. She dragged me to my feet and held out my Soul-keeper that made her raise a brow at me, “That’s double what they ask you to gather in a week… What were you thinking? No wonder the Jailor’s sending abductors after you!” “I… I wanted to help.” I said uselessly my voice a ruin “Idiot” all the voices said in unison. “Oh Kid…” Her voice was so gentle it threw me off. She offered me a hand to lead me. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked after she’d started moving, her eye on the sky as we avoided any open air exposure we could on our way back to the waygate. I clung to my soulkeeper as she led. Without even a moment’s hesitation she said, “Because you mean the world to the person I’m in love with. Even if he’s too dense to realize it.” “Y-you’re in love with him?” I managed to gasp out as she dispatched a soulforge keeper that had wandered too close and cut off our exit. The brutality and efficiency was horrific and I felt myself getting dizzy as the tattered robes and spectral bones disintegrated into ash at Ely’s feet. “I’m getting there... Kinda pissed at him right now given you’re doing this for him, but that’s normal, Men generally piss me off.” I looked at her then. This brutal warrior woman that was more a monument of strength than even Sathix was, was in love with him. For a moment I felt tears again only it was relief now. I hadn’t messed it up… I hadn’t broken them apart… I hadn’t hurt him so badly that maybe I could find the music again. “I-” My voice cracked and I cursed myself as I tried to recover, she turned with a start immediately concerned but I finished, “I’m sorry I wrote the Ballad about you t-two…” “Still haven’t heard it, so I wouldn’t know if it's something you should be apologizing for.” She snorted. Then her tone was the gentlest as I had ever heard it, “Will you play it for me?” She had gotten us to the Waygate and was covering my jump through but the question stunned me. It also felt like a twist in my core and a weight on my shoulders, my heart sank and I found myself murmuring, “I… I don’t have it in me anymore, Ely.” It wasn’t a lie and I heard the whispers spin up to applaud my self loathing, to cosign my uselessness, I had just put the woman who was in love with my best friend in a position where she, the one person in the world who hates me, had to come to my rescue. And I couldn’t even play her a song. “Yeah you do. Hey.” She took my face and met my gaze with her singular golden eye. The other empty dark memory of an eye seemed to see right through me just as keenly as the live one did, “I know I'm not a dozen people listening... but I'm a captive audience.” So once we were through: I played her a song. I never claim to be a genius, but honestly I don’t think Elyisper Starsparrow wanted one of those… I think she just liked that I’d written music for the only man she’d ever loved and that I had made her a part of his story in what little way I could.