Sparrow and the Nightingale
Hi, I've added a little bit more discription of the setting as The Benevolent Scriber commented that I should. Enjoy
Sparrow was sitting in the Sandgoose, nursing a pint after a four hour shift behind the bar. The rabble was out in full force tonight, a clatter of shrieks, whistles and shouts which Sparrow had become accustomed to after spending a few nights in the tavern. It was nice to sit in a tavern with no one coming up to her with their problems, issues or, heaven forbid, marriage proposals like the people in Bowerstone did. In Bowerstone, she was the "orphan who had disappeared, returned with a bandit's head and had bought up half the property in the town."
Theresa had disapproved of course, saying that the time Sparrow had spent in the forge was time that could have been better spent locating the other three heroes. However, Sparrow was convinced that they would need financial backing to their quest if they were going to succeed; also it was fun having people who had kicked her to the ground when she was a child beg her now to lower their rent (even though their rent was already lower than normal). Karma's a bitch.
Sparrow scanned the tavern, looking for anything interesting. The small crowded room was filled to bursting. It was not one of the most well-known taverns in Albion, but by it had a quaint charm that had led to it quickly becoming one of Sparrows favourite places to spend an evening in. With wooden panels and pocket marked floors, it was obvious to anyone who entered that the building was the oldest in the town, but it made up for that with its character.
Finally, Sparrows eye's settled on a tall red-haired woman holding a lute in the far corner on the room. Walking over slowly, cautious not to drop any of her ale as she made her way through the crush of bodies that were piling towards the bar, she stopped a good few metres away from the bard before making her presence known.
"Evening," Sparrow said, before having a mouthful of her ale.
"Good evening to you to," The bard said an Orlesian accent prominent in her voice. Interesting. "Would you like to hear something?"
"How about this, I'll give you ten, no twenty gold pieces if you can play me something that I've never hear before. But the song cannot be Orlesian. Think you're up to the challenge?" Sparrow replied, before getting twenty coins out of her purse and set them on the nearest table, and sat down on the accompanying chair. She turned to the bard expectantly, inwardly grinning at the confused look on the bard's face. The bard hefted her lute, finely engraved with tree branches and leaves and polished to within an inch of its life, and placed her hands into position.
And then she sang.
Beautiful chords with sombre lyrics gave the song a wistful, haunted, sorrowful sound, like something precious had been lost. The song rang around the tavern, no one understanding the words but understanding the meaning. All conversations were left unfinished; the only sound in the tavern the bards' song. Sparrow knew that the song was Dalish in origin; groups of wandering elves that hadn't been seen in Albion for centuries. And then the song ended, and like a spell broken the townsfolk began nattering and drinking once more.
But not Sparrow. She sat there, wondering what, or who she had found.