Morgan: After reading this, don't panic. The new characters introduced here
will appear more as the story advances, and the next chapter will include
the details of Ash's house, his father, more Toril technology, and a visit
from the final main character. I meant to put this up yesterday, but I
didn't do it from my own computer, and wouldn't you know it, the disk I had
it on had to glitch out on me.
Chuchiru: (grins)
Morgan: If I didn't know better, I'd say somebody had tampered with it.
Chuchiru: (looks away)
Morgan: Anyway, I'm starting to get reviews now! While I intended to post my story in any case, it's wonderful to have people who actually read it. In fact, I'm actually on some peoples' favorites list! I--I think I'll cry now.
Chuchiru: Curses! Foiled by the bond between true D&D fanatics!
Morgan: Don't insult my fanbase! (pulls something out of pocket, puts on hand) You know the Goa'uld from Stargate?
Chuchiru: Sure, great show!
Morgan: You know their hand devices? The offensive ones, not the healing or x-ray ones.
Chuchiru: Yeah, why?
Morgan: I redesigned one. (starts blasting) Dance, otaku fanboy!
Chuchiru: Meep!
Morgan: Wahahahaha!
* * *
The music room was a wonderfully large auditorium, with a central stage that could be collapsed and removed and a larger stage in the amphitheater at one end. The middle elevation was currently in use by the assembling music class, taking advantage of the superior acoustics in the hall.
"Why did you take this, anyway?" J'soon asked Ash as they made their way to the stage. Kendrick and Brenna had veered off to another class, and neither Casanith nor Sara had caught up with them yet.
"I play an instrument," the tiefling replied, his doubt settling in once more. He was afraid that if his skill did not match that of those students already present, this period would be worse than abjuration.
"Which one?"
"The drums."
"Wow! That's really difficult to get good at. I play the powered six- string lute, myself, and a little bit of sitar, but I'm not very good at that. Do you have your own instrument?" They were mounting the stairs to take their seats on the dais now.
"Yes, but it's at home. Should I get it or something?"
J'soon shook his head. "Nah. Aïúwên'll let you use one from the lockers today, but bring it from now on or he'll break bad on you."
They dumped their books and things behind their seats and made themselves as comfortable as was possible in the slant-bottomed band chairs. Casanith and Sara made it inside just as the invisible, and probably magical, bell that announced the beginning of class was sounded. As the other two took their places beside Ash and his older companion, a tall, slender figure emerged from a side door at the end of the auditorium opposite the interior entrance. When he strode onto the stage, Ash took in his upswept, lobeless ears, slanted silver eyes, and high cheekbones; there was an elf teaching music class!
"Well," the man said in a clipped, high tenor, "welcome back to another year of this wonderful class we call 'music.' I'm glad to see so many returning players and singers this school year; often I have students who drop the class because they can't keep up or don't have the skill they thought they did. Today, since you're all veterans, we'll hit the ground running with the first passage of Kylie Rivertongue's 'Ode to A Lonesome God.' I'm sure by now you've spotted the music books on the stands in front of you--"
"Um, sir," Casanith put his hand up for attention, "respectfully, sir, we do have one new student this year." He pointed at Ash as the tiefling grimaced and tried to fade away into the background.
"Oh, really?" Aïúwên turned an indifferent eyebrow on the cowering planetouched boy. "Oh. A tiefling." He shrugged, uncaring. "As long as he keeps up--"
"He ought to keep up with the fact that we don't like freaks like him here," said a student from the row in front of Ash.
"Yeah, isn't that the weirdo from this morning?" said another. "The one with the freak tail?"
The teacher was not amused. "Quiet, you blathering numbskulls. You've no right to disrespect your peers, especially when you don't even know them. He must be new here, as we haven't had a tiefling in the last two hundred years I've been teaching here, so treat him courteously, if not kindly."
Chastened, the first speaker stuttered, "But--you didn't respect him!"
"Of course not," Aïúwên snorted disgustedly. "I don't like planetouched, and I doubt that he has any natural talent for music; but, if he can impress me with his playing--or his singing--I don't care what he looks like, how he dresses, or--" He glanced at the outspoken boy. "--how badly he smells."
The other students laughed nervously, but none of them deigned to look at Ash or to grant him a gesture of encouragement. The tiefling curled up even further, wrapping his barbed tail around his ankles like a cat as he withdrew into silence. Casanith and the others patted him on the back and spoke reassuringly, but his isolation, it seemed, would not be prolonged.
"What instrument do you play, planetouched?" Aïúwên asked primly.
"Drums," Ash said in a low voice, not looking at the instructor.
"This is the concert band. We don't use drums. Do you play anything else? A string or woodwind?"
"I play four instruments," Ashnod replied bitterly, sitting up. "One of them well, and the others less well. Drums, powered harp, violin, and piano, in that order."
"Well, then, I think we'll set you up with a violin today," the elven professor said abruptly. He stepped off the stage, made his way back to his office or whatever near the amphitheater, and came back shortly bearing a violin of dark wood and a matching bow. These he tossed to Ash negligently, putting doubt in the tiefling as to the actual value of the instrument. "There. Impress me."
"This is out of tune," Ash criticized, pulling the bow over the strings and giving life to a horrible screech.
"Tune it. The rest of you, get out your instruments, turn to page sixteen of your music books, and begin the piece. Mister Tiefling, you may join in when ready."
As his friends on either side of him began playing, Ash focused on the violin. He twisted its pegs carefully, testing it once or twice on quiet notes until he was sure he had it right. When he looked up, the teacher was ignoring the students altogether, studying a book of music and making notes on its pages at his podium in the front. With a sour expression, he counted down the lines on his paper and set bow to string in the second stanza.
He may not have been a master bard, but he was fairly good for his age and for the amount of time he had had to practice the instrument. The sound of its music was rich and perfectly in tune with the rest of the players, and he became so caught up in it that he failed to notice Aïúwên's outstretched hand silencing the others, beginning to add little flourishes and skips to the languid, heartbreaking song. Only when he ended the piece, exhaling slowly and opening his eyes once more, did he hear the sound of Aïúwên's pleased snort.
"Not bad, Mister Tiefling," the elf said grudgingly. "But tomorrow, we'll find out if you can sing. Can you?"
"I've never really tried," Ash admitted with a shrug, conscious of the other students' whispering and hooded glances. "Maybe with the phonode¹ sometimes in the skimmer², and in the shower, I guess." From two seats over, Sara heaved a huge sigh, and Casanith rolled his eyes.
"Can't you just picture him in the shower?" the black-haired girl whispered to the shorter boy. "Wet hair, water running down those muscles, completely naked--"
Uncomfortably enough, Casanith found that he could.
* * *
Theatre was a drag for everyone. Kendrick and Brenna rejoined Casanith and Ash for the next class, leaving J'soon and Sara to go their separate ways. It started off slowly, with the teacher, one Miss Yago, bleating off a list of the productions she hoped to do by the end of the year. She passed out textbooks containing the scripts for classic plays, admonished them to study up, and promised them it would get more exciting as it went along.
At least this time, the students left the class with relief rather than regret.
Sorcery finished the day for Ash. He was both puzzled and, in some way, glad to discover that he was Mistress Enalia's only student. The woman was tall and beautiful, with long, curly blond hair, a devastating array of dimples, and a ready laugh. Her blue eyes danced with delight when she saw someone in her class.
"What sort of magic are we talking about, here?" she asked lightly after they had introduced themselves to each other. She settled in the desk next to Ash, throwing a companionable arm around his shoulders, seemingly unbothered by the freezing temperature there.
"I've never had a sorcery instructor, and it's too dangerous to practice at home because I don't really know what I can do. All I can say for sure is that the powers I've discovered so far seem to lie mainly in the realm of ice and shadow magic."
"Probably your demonic heritage adds the shadow influence," Enalia hypothesized, "and your dragon ancestry determines the other abilities. Tell me, do you know what dragon mixed with your family, back in their roots?"
Ash shook his head. "Silver, I think."
Enalia thought for a second, then decided, "It must be. It would have to be either white or silver, and it's probably the latter, I'd say, since you also seem to have certain other silver qualities."
"Silver qualities?" Ashnod was definitely intrigued by that.
"Well, if it had been white, you'd have more of an aggressive, mean attitude. You'd also be far less intelligent than you seem to be. Silvers are highly intelligent, quiet, thoughtful, kind, and inherently good--even if a little chaos gets mixed in with them, like your tanar'ri heritage."
Ash rocked back in his seat. "How can you know what kind of--"
The human woman laughed. "It's written all over you. Besides, the way you act is also influenced by what sort of demonic energies altered your birth. Caina in the Plane of Baator would be a likely shot, based on the cold and dark theory, except that your far too quick-thinking and emotional to have anything but tanar'ri in you. The five-hundredth and seventy-eighth layer, I'd wager. It's colder and darker there than anywhere on Caina, except for the Icedark fields."
Ash decided he would greatly enjoy this class.
* * *
When school ended and the final bell sounded, Ash caught his newfound friends in the hall on the way to their transport skimmers for a quick goodbye. He felt like he already knew all of them well, and was glad to have met them so soon.
His father was waiting in their high-class silver skimmer outside to pick him up. On the way home, they discussed their days with each other; Zander Mordreve Darkling was especially glad to hear of Ash's new friends. The trip to the suburbs went too quickly to fill in all the details, though, and Ash decided to allow his father a break from conversation and a chance to rest from work before finishing up.
Upon arriving at his new Waterdeep home, he left his father to continue unpacking, went straight to his room, threw his books on the bed, and followed a sudden urge to hop right in the shower. He used his tail to soap himself, freeing his hands to work through his hair, and as he stood there, hair wet, water running down his muscles, completely naked--he sang the words to the first part of "Ode to A Lonesome God."
¹ The phonode is the Faerûn equivalent of the radio. ² Skimmers are exactly like automobiles in every way, except that they hover a few inches off the ground rather than resting on wheels. They are powered by enchanted crystals and use magic for propulsion.
Chuchiru: (grins)
Morgan: If I didn't know better, I'd say somebody had tampered with it.
Chuchiru: (looks away)
Morgan: Anyway, I'm starting to get reviews now! While I intended to post my story in any case, it's wonderful to have people who actually read it. In fact, I'm actually on some peoples' favorites list! I--I think I'll cry now.
Chuchiru: Curses! Foiled by the bond between true D&D fanatics!
Morgan: Don't insult my fanbase! (pulls something out of pocket, puts on hand) You know the Goa'uld from Stargate?
Chuchiru: Sure, great show!
Morgan: You know their hand devices? The offensive ones, not the healing or x-ray ones.
Chuchiru: Yeah, why?
Morgan: I redesigned one. (starts blasting) Dance, otaku fanboy!
Chuchiru: Meep!
Morgan: Wahahahaha!
* * *
The music room was a wonderfully large auditorium, with a central stage that could be collapsed and removed and a larger stage in the amphitheater at one end. The middle elevation was currently in use by the assembling music class, taking advantage of the superior acoustics in the hall.
"Why did you take this, anyway?" J'soon asked Ash as they made their way to the stage. Kendrick and Brenna had veered off to another class, and neither Casanith nor Sara had caught up with them yet.
"I play an instrument," the tiefling replied, his doubt settling in once more. He was afraid that if his skill did not match that of those students already present, this period would be worse than abjuration.
"Which one?"
"The drums."
"Wow! That's really difficult to get good at. I play the powered six- string lute, myself, and a little bit of sitar, but I'm not very good at that. Do you have your own instrument?" They were mounting the stairs to take their seats on the dais now.
"Yes, but it's at home. Should I get it or something?"
J'soon shook his head. "Nah. Aïúwên'll let you use one from the lockers today, but bring it from now on or he'll break bad on you."
They dumped their books and things behind their seats and made themselves as comfortable as was possible in the slant-bottomed band chairs. Casanith and Sara made it inside just as the invisible, and probably magical, bell that announced the beginning of class was sounded. As the other two took their places beside Ash and his older companion, a tall, slender figure emerged from a side door at the end of the auditorium opposite the interior entrance. When he strode onto the stage, Ash took in his upswept, lobeless ears, slanted silver eyes, and high cheekbones; there was an elf teaching music class!
"Well," the man said in a clipped, high tenor, "welcome back to another year of this wonderful class we call 'music.' I'm glad to see so many returning players and singers this school year; often I have students who drop the class because they can't keep up or don't have the skill they thought they did. Today, since you're all veterans, we'll hit the ground running with the first passage of Kylie Rivertongue's 'Ode to A Lonesome God.' I'm sure by now you've spotted the music books on the stands in front of you--"
"Um, sir," Casanith put his hand up for attention, "respectfully, sir, we do have one new student this year." He pointed at Ash as the tiefling grimaced and tried to fade away into the background.
"Oh, really?" Aïúwên turned an indifferent eyebrow on the cowering planetouched boy. "Oh. A tiefling." He shrugged, uncaring. "As long as he keeps up--"
"He ought to keep up with the fact that we don't like freaks like him here," said a student from the row in front of Ash.
"Yeah, isn't that the weirdo from this morning?" said another. "The one with the freak tail?"
The teacher was not amused. "Quiet, you blathering numbskulls. You've no right to disrespect your peers, especially when you don't even know them. He must be new here, as we haven't had a tiefling in the last two hundred years I've been teaching here, so treat him courteously, if not kindly."
Chastened, the first speaker stuttered, "But--you didn't respect him!"
"Of course not," Aïúwên snorted disgustedly. "I don't like planetouched, and I doubt that he has any natural talent for music; but, if he can impress me with his playing--or his singing--I don't care what he looks like, how he dresses, or--" He glanced at the outspoken boy. "--how badly he smells."
The other students laughed nervously, but none of them deigned to look at Ash or to grant him a gesture of encouragement. The tiefling curled up even further, wrapping his barbed tail around his ankles like a cat as he withdrew into silence. Casanith and the others patted him on the back and spoke reassuringly, but his isolation, it seemed, would not be prolonged.
"What instrument do you play, planetouched?" Aïúwên asked primly.
"Drums," Ash said in a low voice, not looking at the instructor.
"This is the concert band. We don't use drums. Do you play anything else? A string or woodwind?"
"I play four instruments," Ashnod replied bitterly, sitting up. "One of them well, and the others less well. Drums, powered harp, violin, and piano, in that order."
"Well, then, I think we'll set you up with a violin today," the elven professor said abruptly. He stepped off the stage, made his way back to his office or whatever near the amphitheater, and came back shortly bearing a violin of dark wood and a matching bow. These he tossed to Ash negligently, putting doubt in the tiefling as to the actual value of the instrument. "There. Impress me."
"This is out of tune," Ash criticized, pulling the bow over the strings and giving life to a horrible screech.
"Tune it. The rest of you, get out your instruments, turn to page sixteen of your music books, and begin the piece. Mister Tiefling, you may join in when ready."
As his friends on either side of him began playing, Ash focused on the violin. He twisted its pegs carefully, testing it once or twice on quiet notes until he was sure he had it right. When he looked up, the teacher was ignoring the students altogether, studying a book of music and making notes on its pages at his podium in the front. With a sour expression, he counted down the lines on his paper and set bow to string in the second stanza.
He may not have been a master bard, but he was fairly good for his age and for the amount of time he had had to practice the instrument. The sound of its music was rich and perfectly in tune with the rest of the players, and he became so caught up in it that he failed to notice Aïúwên's outstretched hand silencing the others, beginning to add little flourishes and skips to the languid, heartbreaking song. Only when he ended the piece, exhaling slowly and opening his eyes once more, did he hear the sound of Aïúwên's pleased snort.
"Not bad, Mister Tiefling," the elf said grudgingly. "But tomorrow, we'll find out if you can sing. Can you?"
"I've never really tried," Ash admitted with a shrug, conscious of the other students' whispering and hooded glances. "Maybe with the phonode¹ sometimes in the skimmer², and in the shower, I guess." From two seats over, Sara heaved a huge sigh, and Casanith rolled his eyes.
"Can't you just picture him in the shower?" the black-haired girl whispered to the shorter boy. "Wet hair, water running down those muscles, completely naked--"
Uncomfortably enough, Casanith found that he could.
* * *
Theatre was a drag for everyone. Kendrick and Brenna rejoined Casanith and Ash for the next class, leaving J'soon and Sara to go their separate ways. It started off slowly, with the teacher, one Miss Yago, bleating off a list of the productions she hoped to do by the end of the year. She passed out textbooks containing the scripts for classic plays, admonished them to study up, and promised them it would get more exciting as it went along.
At least this time, the students left the class with relief rather than regret.
Sorcery finished the day for Ash. He was both puzzled and, in some way, glad to discover that he was Mistress Enalia's only student. The woman was tall and beautiful, with long, curly blond hair, a devastating array of dimples, and a ready laugh. Her blue eyes danced with delight when she saw someone in her class.
"What sort of magic are we talking about, here?" she asked lightly after they had introduced themselves to each other. She settled in the desk next to Ash, throwing a companionable arm around his shoulders, seemingly unbothered by the freezing temperature there.
"I've never had a sorcery instructor, and it's too dangerous to practice at home because I don't really know what I can do. All I can say for sure is that the powers I've discovered so far seem to lie mainly in the realm of ice and shadow magic."
"Probably your demonic heritage adds the shadow influence," Enalia hypothesized, "and your dragon ancestry determines the other abilities. Tell me, do you know what dragon mixed with your family, back in their roots?"
Ash shook his head. "Silver, I think."
Enalia thought for a second, then decided, "It must be. It would have to be either white or silver, and it's probably the latter, I'd say, since you also seem to have certain other silver qualities."
"Silver qualities?" Ashnod was definitely intrigued by that.
"Well, if it had been white, you'd have more of an aggressive, mean attitude. You'd also be far less intelligent than you seem to be. Silvers are highly intelligent, quiet, thoughtful, kind, and inherently good--even if a little chaos gets mixed in with them, like your tanar'ri heritage."
Ash rocked back in his seat. "How can you know what kind of--"
The human woman laughed. "It's written all over you. Besides, the way you act is also influenced by what sort of demonic energies altered your birth. Caina in the Plane of Baator would be a likely shot, based on the cold and dark theory, except that your far too quick-thinking and emotional to have anything but tanar'ri in you. The five-hundredth and seventy-eighth layer, I'd wager. It's colder and darker there than anywhere on Caina, except for the Icedark fields."
Ash decided he would greatly enjoy this class.
* * *
When school ended and the final bell sounded, Ash caught his newfound friends in the hall on the way to their transport skimmers for a quick goodbye. He felt like he already knew all of them well, and was glad to have met them so soon.
His father was waiting in their high-class silver skimmer outside to pick him up. On the way home, they discussed their days with each other; Zander Mordreve Darkling was especially glad to hear of Ash's new friends. The trip to the suburbs went too quickly to fill in all the details, though, and Ash decided to allow his father a break from conversation and a chance to rest from work before finishing up.
Upon arriving at his new Waterdeep home, he left his father to continue unpacking, went straight to his room, threw his books on the bed, and followed a sudden urge to hop right in the shower. He used his tail to soap himself, freeing his hands to work through his hair, and as he stood there, hair wet, water running down his muscles, completely naked--he sang the words to the first part of "Ode to A Lonesome God."
¹ The phonode is the Faerûn equivalent of the radio. ² Skimmers are exactly like automobiles in every way, except that they hover a few inches off the ground rather than resting on wheels. They are powered by enchanted crystals and use magic for propulsion.