Melanie Lavellan had never felt more nervous. She had played shows to packed houses at both Haven and The Hanged Man, not to mention a myriad of thankless, easily distracted audiences at open mics throughout the city, but somehow, sitting hunched over her guitar in a starkly lit subway platform as a steady flow of commuters wandered in from the early morning chill gave her pause. Her eyes darted around at each of their faces as they passed by, still looking for some kind of (terrible? hopeful?) confirmation that she shouldn't be here, that she should just pack up, go home, and sleep till midday like a proper struggling artist.
Don't you dare, she chided herself, determined. The band needs this money. You need this money.
Not to mention, she had just spent a staggering amount of energy hauling both her guitar and a heavy backpack containing her amp, microphone, and stand down into the depths of the subway, all the while trying and failing miserably to be inconspicuous about it. Plus, Sera and Dorian had assured her that the busking rules for the city of Cumberland clearly stated no permit was required in the subway provided one did not exceed the city-ordained public noise level.
Something soft, then. Something she was comfortable with. She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then let her fingers find the familiar chords of classic rock legend Mythal's last great song, 'Give In'.
It was an old song, first released when she was a small child too young to appreciate its sad beauty. She had discovered it, quite appropriately, just after her first boyfriend had dumped her. It remained to this day one of the most important songs to her, and one that had hugely influenced her decision to pursue music as a career herself.
Mythal herself was a notorious figure for her Dalish origins, whirlwind rise to success, and the mysterious and tragic circumstances of her death, mere months after the single release of 'Give In'. Her death had officially been ruled as a suicide by the police, but tabloids to this ran amok with tales of drug overdoses, and even murder, with desperate reporters digging through song lyrics to find clues to the identity of this dubious, likely fictitious killer.
As Melanie made her way through the haunted lyrics, sung from the perspective of a woman who struggled in vain to fight her devotion to a cold, unfeeling lover, she tried to ignore the lack of pedestrians stopping to listen to her. Instead, as commuters walked back and forth along the platform with nothing more than a passing glance in her direction, she focused on the pain and intensity of her favorite ballad.
Thankfully, she quickly became lost in her performance, and had no time to feel either self-consciousness or disappointment at the lack of attention and - more importantly - money she had garnered. As the last notes echoed through the underground tunnels around her, she sat back for a moment, eyes closed as she wallowed in the strangely cathartic emptiness the song always evoked in her. It was only when she heard distinctive clinks that she snapped back to attention, eyes zooming in on the newly deposited coins in her guitar case, and at the pair of boots that stood just behind it.
"This is your first time here, I take it." The smooth baritone voice, complete with a rich Starkhaven brogue, spoke pleasantly enough, but there was something in its tone that Melanie didn't like from the start.
Her eyes traced the scuffed shoes and faded jeans upwards, taking in along the way a slim-fitting green hoodie and grey scarf worn under a much looser knee-length black coat, until they rested on the face of her interloper. A pair of quizzical grey-blue eyes looked down at her, set against a sharply angled, thin elven face framed by short, mussed pewter hair. He carried a knapsack slung over one shoulder.
The sheer ambiguity of this stranger was staggering. He could have been thirty or fifty; an erudite professor or a crazed homeless man; an earthy-crunchy stoner or a plainclothes policeman.
She hesitated a moment as she considered her response.
"Why would you say that?" she returned after deciding, trying to sound in equal parts undaunted and innocent.
The smile he gave her was clearly meant to be sheepish, but his eyes flashed with an altogether different expression that Melanie couldn't quite interpret.
"Intuition," he offered with a slight, graceful wave of his hand.
"Oh," Melanie said doubtfully, becoming less receptive to this man by the second. "Well, you're wrong. It's not my first time."
The lie was more to end the conversation than anything else; it's not like she had anything to prove to him. In truth, she had never before attempted anything like this. She didn't even venture that often into the subway, preferring instead the buses or her bike, when she could afford the gas, to get around the city.
"I see." His tone and his posture clearly indicated he didn't believe her for a second.
What was worse, he made no move to leave, even when Melanie pointedly looked away from him and back at her guitar.
"You know, that song you just sang, 'Give in'?" he asked at last, calling her attention back to him. He looked almost… hesitant, yet supremely confident as he continued, "You made a slight error with the lyrics in the bridge leading to the final chorus. It's actually meant to be 'want to give up all my love to you', not 'want to give up on my love to you'."
Melanie could not help the scoff that escaped her, nor did she want to any longer.
"I think you must be mistaken," she said, making no effort to hide the derision behind her polite words. She knew he was mistaken; she had worn out more than one vinyl copy of the song, and it still ranked in the top ten of her most played list on her phone's music app.
"I can understand why you would think so, da'len," he replied, perverting the meaningful Dalish term of endearment by spitting it out the way baristas and bank tellers condescendingly called her 'love' or 'hun'. "It is an easily made mistake, and you would not be the first to make it. The two words are, after all, phonetically similar."
This time his smile was meant to be kind and his tone forgiving, but it was painfully obvious from the way his eyes had frozen over that he was neither genuine in his expression nor sincere in his words. She gaped openly at him, taken aback by the man's ignorance and how he blithely pretended to be unaware of it. Why, in a song about a woman lamenting her inability to stop loving a man who mistreated her, would she suddenly turn around and admit she wants to give him her love?
"It would not be a simple mistake, if it were one at all; it would change the meaning of the whole song," she argued even as she realized the pointlessness of the endeavor.
"Well, that much we can agree on," he returned, his smile turning ironic as he tilted his head at her. Before she could object to him, the faux-lightness in his voice became impossibly more prominent as he asked, "May I give you some advice?"
He lightly nudged her guitar case with his boot as he posed the question, the resulting hollow sound indicating a decided lack of substantial coin. She blinked at him, opened her mouth to speak and immediately closed it.
Who does he think - ?
"I wouldn't want to trouble you," she said acerbically, holding back the urge to shed the veneer of civility between them. "You've already been so helpful."
"Oh, it's no bother. I have plenty of time," he trilled with another casual wave of his hand.
He remained irritatingly silent and still, however, waiting for some kind of acquiescence from her. Frustrated and irritated, she gestured flippantly for him to proceed, making a point to set her guitar down so she could cross her arms.
"Look around you, da'len," he beseeched, gesturing at the increasingly numerous throng of commuters gathering on the platform. "Most of the people here at this hour have just dragged themselves out of bed to board a crowded train heading towards a job they loathe. They don't want to hear dour ballads about love lost; they want to hear something fun."
And then, just like that, he nodded a polite farewell and strolled off down the platform, giving himself the last word on the matter. Melanie stared at his back, agape with ire, contemplating shouting after him with each step that took him further away.
Before she could make a decision, he came to an abrupt stop no more than forty feet away from her. She watched with mounting confusion as he placed his canvas knapsack on the floor against the wall, knelt down and pulled out…
Oh, Fenedhis.
The bow came out first, held in his right hand, followed by a badly scuffed but clearly well-made violin with a cherry finish. He spent a few moments tightening the strings and tuning the instrument.
Then, when he was ready to begin, the bastard had the gall to turn to her pointedly, not at all surprised that she was still watching him, and bow his head towards her with a smug grin. He didn't even bother to take in her reaction before he placed his violin under his chin and began to play.
She recognized the jaunty, meandering tune instantly, but it took her a moment to fully process what she was hearing. Based on their earlier conversation, she had expected him to play cashed-in string covers of top forty hits, or maybe even some Orlesian classical befitting the typical Starkhaven snobbishness, but this Free Marches city elf, who threw out 'da'len's like they were nothing more than saccharine pet names, was playing traditional Dalish folk music.
And he was good.
She was far from the only person who thought so. In short order, the rumpled violinist drew a sizable crowd of commuters, all turned to listen appreciatively while waiting for their train to come. Coins and bills were dropped into his open pack at a steady rate, and he dedicatedly rewarded each and every patron with a friendly nod and a smile - or even, if a gap in his playing permitted, a genially drawled 'thank you'.
Gods, she realized in horror. He's a regular here.
Despite still being infuriated with this arrogant stranger, she found herself now battling a rising mortification at having stolen his usual spot and lied to his face about doing so. The two conflicting emotions, on top of having to watch him make a profit off of her treasured cultural heritage, for which he clearly held no reverence, quickly became too much for her to handle. It was all she could do to begin packing up her instruments slowly and quietly enough to escape anyone's notice.
As if anyone was paying attention to me before, she thought bitterly.
She let out one final, defiant huff when she realized her competition had left her exactly enough change to recoup the fare she had paid to enter the platform. Begrudgingly pocketing the money, she hefted her heavy guitar and heavier backpack once more and slunk off to the far exit of the subway. Well... as much as one could possibly slink while carrying a burden that weighed half as much as themselves.
Time for Plan B after all, then. After such a spectacular failure, she would certainly have no trouble crawling back into her bed and not moving an inch until she was done feeling thoroughly and utterly humiliated.
A few quick notes:
-Chapter length will likely get longer after this, which I consider as a sort of prologue. I'm probably going to aim for 3-4k per chapter.
-I changed a few physical details about Solas, giving him hair and a Starkhaven origin, in the interest of giving him an appearance that blends into a crowd and giving this non-immortal incarnation a more concrete background. Why Starkhaven? Because accent. I've always thought a Scottish accent really enhances sarcasm and bitterness.
-I'm sticking to a Thedas setting, but will probably resort to borrowing some real world artists/songs/genres/etc as I go. So far, I've decided to equate Dalish folk music with Celtic music.
-I do plan on writing some original song lyrics as I get further on ('Give In' will be a crucial to the story in particular), but will likely on occasion portray characters singing covers of actual songs. I will always be clear when I am using song lyrics that I did not write, and I will do so sparingly as the song lyrics/music aspect is not something I want to overcrowd the narrative more than necessary.
