#not a fan of the ending

[the-wardens-torch]

Prism

((This one is inspired by real life events. My father was a musician, and before he died - 6 years ago today, actually - he gave his old acoustic guitar to a friend of his… Which made a few of my relatives quite angry, but struck me as perfect.  I don’t play guitar after all. So now instead of being buried in my garage, it helps a queer woman teach music to autistic kids.))

Falerin had his eyes closed, but he could tell by the murmur of voices and the shuffling of feet that he had gathered a small crowd.  Breathing deeply, he moved his fingers across the keys of his accordion, touching each one as if it were a tiny, delicate bird. The melody that issued forth from the instrument was soft and low, and as he sang in accompaniment, his voice was like blue smoke on black velvet. The song was lonely and wistful, a song of sea and sky that seemed otherworldly echoing through the streets of Ul’Dah.

When the last of his song’s ghostly notes had been whisked away on the stiff desert breeze, the small crowd began to disperse.  Falerin graciously accepted their tips,  meeting each with a charming wink or a friendly quip.  The last one to approach him was a Roegadyn woman about his age, who furtively handed him enough gil to buy several decent meals.  When he looked up to thank her, he noticed that her eyes were red, and she was clutching a handkerchief to her nose.

“I can’t have been that bad… Or else I don’t think you’d be tipping me this much.” he said, his brow furrowing with concern over his sly smile.

“I-I’m sorry… Its just…” the woman took a deep breath and twisted her handkerchief in her hands, not meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry to ask this, but does that accordion… I think it was... “ she shut her eyes tightly and paused for a moment  “Does it have a… little carving of the sun on the back?”

Falerin’s eyes grew wide and his face paled slightly.  He knew without even looking that the drawing was there… Crudely but lovingly scratched into the red enamel just behind the keys with a sharp bit of metal. The voice of an old sailor named Rymmharr Sylbundsyn’s voice drifted into his mind on a salt-scented breeze of fond memory.

I scratched it on there on the day she was born because her name means “Sun Daughter.”

“Are you… Sunnthota?”

The woman nodded her head, meeting his gaze for just a second before squeezing her eyes shut as a fresh flood of tears came.

“You know my name… He must have talked about me.“ she said, a wistful smile coming to her tearful face. “That accordion was my father’s. When his accordion didn’t come home with his body I… wasn’t sure what had happened to it.”

“I-I’m so sorry… He, he talked about you all the time… If I’d have known where to find you I would have…”

Fal hesitated, looking grimly at his feet, not able to finish his sentence. Would have what? The old sailor had given the instrument to him with his blessing. He could even prove it with a letter written in the man‘s own hand… But how would Sunnthota feel if she knew her own father had given his most prized possession to someone she didn’t even know? He didn’t want to break her heart any more than it already had been. He took a deep breath, hugging the instrument to him for a long moment.

“If you want it back, its yours. I never meant any harm… An officer gave it to me when they came to send his body home. I-I would have looked for you but all I knew was that you lived in Ul’Dah.”

Falerin had intended to hold the instrument out for Sunnthota to take, but his muscles were paralyzed by the love he had for the wonderful old thing.

Sunnthota closed her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her chest, holding the handkerchief to her face.

“No, no… I’m not here for that. Its…. He would want someone playing it. I-I‘m… happy. If I had it, it would just gather dust.  No one would know how to take care of it, let alone play it. The last couple of times that he was home before he… passed-” -she paused here to take a deep breath, as if just saying that he was gone was like losing him all over again. “-before he passed away a few summers ago, he told me about a Hyuran boy he’d met in the Cieldalaes who could play almost as well as he did. He seemed to think that your talent was being wasted. I… I can see, well, hear, that you‘ve gotten to be even better than he was.” She blew her nose politely and cleared her throat.

“Your name is Falerin, isn’t it?”

Falerin choked back a lump in his throat and nodded, now fighting tears himself.  She had said his name with a reverence one might normally reserve for a long lost family member. As she spoke, something opened in his mind’s eye like a dusty brown moth, spreading its wings to reveal a whorl of heretofore unseen colors.  For the first time in a long while, he was at a loss for words. But in a situation like this, words in conversation were clumsy things; wan and dull.  Recalling a single line of postscript in the old sailor’s hand, Falerin stared down at the rickety, crooked-rayed little sun.

P.S - Her favorite song is The Briar and the Rose.

Concentrating on the whorl of color, Falerin stood up straight and began to play.  That particular song was so familiar to him that scarcely had to think about it, but the lyrics caught in his throat somehow.  As if the moth-turned-butterfly could only escape through his fingertips.  But a gently hollowed-out song was a beautiful place for memories to nest, and perhaps she was imagining his voice singing over the notes the same way he was.  For a brief second, two complete strangers shared a memory.  An overlapping rainbow of two spectrums wrought from the same prism of song.

When he looked up from the song, Sunnthota was watching him with a sad smile. Tears were streaming from her eyes again.  Eyes that he now saw were the exact same frost-gray as her father‘s.  Looking at her, he could almost hear Rymmharr’s voice telling him to press the keys more gently, and smell the aura of spiced rum and sea salt that always seemed to hover around him. Had anyone on Sapphire Avenue been paying attention, they might have noticed which one of them reached out first to hug the other.  Was it the sister meeting her new brother, or the brother meeting his new sister?

It really didn’t matter.

((And here’s your reminder that every work leading up to this is on my Ao3))

[kiisaes]

teenage rite of passage: bad haircut

[valtsv]

are we still doing this because i have a late submission

[ruporas]

dragon meat, you, and me

[spacey-xannabelle]

I realize I seem to have some sort of pattern when it comes to indie games I consume ffghbdf

Bonus:

[tariah23]

The manga industry, especially JUMP, needs to hurry up and do away with weekly scheduling for mangaka. There needs to better regulations put into place for their health and safety because this is pitiful. Two weeks - monthly updates should’ve already been the standard for the manga industry at this point. These money grabbers will only continue to put the lives of these artists at stake for the sake of capitalism unless some serious changes are implemented.

[lenny-link]

[twilight-zoned-out]

Learning about the Doctor Who specials' expanded budget: oh no, what if they overuse CGI to look more 'professional' and high-budget?

The first scene of the Doctor Who Special:

[spinaholi]

sandra lynn’s dating history now includes:

the most red-flag, gaslighting, married guy who became a world renowned insidious televangelist and ruined her perception of love and self-worth

the saddest, wettest, cardboard-box-living, yogurt covered man with an ancient hereditary curse of bad luck

the arch devil of gluttony and living embodiment of insatiable desire and hunger

a former drug addict, high school student councillor, werewolf, who’s probably the most mentally healthy person to ever exist

sexy pirate

[sylvrndoodles]

[sclappin]

Man whose definition of "monster" is extremely flexible.

[amikoroyaiart]

Some 22 and 09 angst doodles

[imfinereallyy]

you can pry happy endings from my cold-dead hands. It can be the most heart stopping, gut wrenching fic that has every existed and I will read every drop of it if I get my happy ending. I have had enough painful endings in real life, give me happy in my fantasy world. It can be at the last second, it can be a single sentence, even a single word. Give me all the angst and hurt in the world for 500,000 words, but please give me the comfort I need in the ending. please and thank you.

[chloesimaginationthings]

The secret good ending for FNAF ruin,,

[whispyart]

Coloring is therapeutic - I love this series so much it's been one of my favorite mangas for years

Also look I remembered, here's where you can get a print: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/whispwill/frieren/

[weaselmcdiesel]

requests for a bunch of ships i did on my spam :3