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Old 04-21-2011, 09:45 AM   #222
Anguirel
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Location: The 1590s
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Sador laughed freeheartedly at his new companion's tentative question, and paused, still smiling, to eat for a little before he was ready with his reply.

"How other people perceive you, eh? Always a matter of guesswork. If you listened to the word on the street, my dear Harrenon - I think I shall stick to your full name's grandeur - if you listened to the word on the street - and trust me, right now, people in this City of ours are talking about nothing else..."

The young man paused again, apparently hindered by a hilarious series of memories, and calmed his diaphragm with a slug of water. He went on just before Harrenon could prompt him.

"...well, then, you'd believe any number of things; that the King himself has only one concern, and that's seeing your august drama; that my father the Master of the Revels, bless him, would gladly chop up the lot of you and stew you in boiling oil...that you are the finest regiment of magicians, and at the same time the sorriest crew of rogues, that the Tower of the Sun ever looked on...

"...but I still have not answered your question, truly. What do I think? I think it's hard to judge when I've not even seen a rehearsal, and when your playwright, who I think is a truly brilliant artist, but a little touchy, will not even let me see his script. But we've talked about it a little, and I've kept my eyes open, and I have, after all, managed to form an opinion or two."

Sador made an expansive gesture of despair with his arms and rolled his eyes. "If you'd seen the boring, traditional dross we've had to put up with at stuffy Court functions for Cormare before, you would immediately understand, Harrenon, that you boys and girls are a gift...and the odder you may be to our ears, as I see it, the better. We've heard endless, droning odes of the King's love for the Queen, sat through thorny philosophical mysteries based on the epigrams of Mithrandir, and that's not even touching on the chanted military epics, which sometimes last for days in bare plainsong. By contrast, you lot have passion, engagement, romances, egregious Elves and so on, something for everyone. You're great. The people love you, and so will we...just the way you are."

Especially, Sador thought in the midst of his peroration, if we see as kingly an Aragorn, or such a highly-strung Boromir, as I was lucky enough to witness yesterday evening...

***

Sixth Circle

Lord Cirdacil narrowed his eyes as the nautical man - not quite as young as he'd looked - identified himself to the Guard. Neither of the names meant anything. But then, there was no reason they should. The real question was, of whom was Falastur the son...

Practical considerations were overwhelmed now by memories, all but lost images of a fraternal parting, illuminated through the mist of seven decades only by a pair of great, harshly shining eyes of grey - the same eyes that met his own, brown and pedestrian, now, with an unfamiliar trepidation about them.

They had taken different ways, means, and lives, barely for reasons of their choosing. When Beren was young, to go to sea meant easy money; his brother had come to the age of destiny a decade later, when the Corsairs were already something of a counter-dividend. Cirdacil had gone inland with a great mercantile house in a low circle of the Tower of the Guard, and never seen the broad-limbed Beren, hero of his childhood, champion of his maturity, ever again.

Through all these thoughts, he had left the Guard and the sailor alike hanging. Probably, by now, they were certain he was quite mad. He got down from the mule with the same surprising sprightliness that he could often still display, and coughed cursorily in the Guard's direction to intimate he should look after it.

"I have a single question for you, sailor," Cirdacil said, "as your place of birth I can already hear in your voice." His own, he noted with a mixture of satisfaction and nostalgia, had quite lost the seaward lilt.

"What was your grandsire's name?"
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