Bone-inlaid hawthorn ayr

Category: Races of Elanthia
Topic: Humans
Message #: 805
Author: ETANNIDOMHNAILL
Date: 2/15/2008 1:06:33 PM
Subject: Loresong: A Bone-Inlaid Hawthorn Ayr

I won this at the 2006 EG auction, but wasn't able to get it sung to until recently. It's a master quality instrument, with a loresong concerning the Tehir. Enjoy!

Verse 1: As the notes of your song echo quietly in your head and you close your eyes you are surrounded by the blinding chaos of a desert sandstorm. Though your vision is obscured you feel the stinging heat of the raging sun combined with the merciless sand of the storm. Then, as soon as it began, the storm ceases and your vision is flooded with blazing sunlight.

Singing soft and low at first, Bard holds the ayr in his hands, touching the instrument lightly.

Verse 2: Raising your voice in a fevered pitch, your eyes fall to a sole figure on a horizon of endless dunes. His face and body are wrapped in linen dyed a deep indigo blue. You watch intently as he kneels down and places a hand upon the sand where a cotton-swathed bundle lays motionless. He then stands again, looking towards the bundle with an anguished face.

A fevered harmony spills from Bard, as his eyes continue to squeeze closed tightly.

Verse 3: Raising your voice up again, you watch the tanned face and dark piercing eyes of the man as he raises his arms to the glaring sun and quietly murmurs a methodical chant. Repeating the words over and over, his incantation becomes rapid and mesmerizing. With each word the sand beneath the man and the bundle becomes increasingly unsettled.

Bard continues his intense song, subconsciously tightening his grip on the ayr.

Verse 4: As you continue to string the notes together fluidly, the chants of the man and your own become one, the resonation of your voices in unison pounding deep into your ear drums. The man focuses his gaze to the horizon, seemingly in your direction and continues his pulsing chant.

Suddenly, he drops his hands violently and the sands of the dunes rise in a swirling vortex. As the man stares longingly at the swaddling, the desert quickly consumes the bundle and leaves a smooth, untouched dune in its place. After closing his eyes for a moment, the man begins to walk away slowly. Your vision fades then becomes blackness.

Bard continues to weave a fluid string of notes, his chorus becoming deep and chant-like.

Verse 5: The strings of the ayr vibrate a moment as Bard weaves a song, then fall silent.

Gretchen

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