Die Shize 4672 Posted March 15, 2016 (edited) Below is a definitely growing collection of songs originating from Orisia. The format is pretty basic. Starts with the song, identifying whether that song has both vocals (lyrics) and instruments IC or one or the other, a YouTube video of the song in sound, the lyrics attached to it and a history of the song. Please bear in mind that, as much as this thread is a work in progress, so too are these songs. The idea behind this was to attempt to add further flavor to an already delicious island and lore to call its own. I believe that songs help tell the tale of a country's culture and history, and that's the hope here as these songs get made for Orisia. Of course, from a roleplay standpoint, such 'songs' also give everyone something else to bring up in reference, like conversation, IC. “Three Heads” Song “Three Heads” Vocal/Instrumental Vocal and instrumental Music Spoiler Lyrics Spoiler 00:50-1:09 Three heads, they’re watching from the wall! Silent and staring so still! Three heads, above the dungeon hall! Don’t they just make you so ill!? Three heads drip from the bloody gate! The door which you have been led! Three heads, may we decapitate!? Grotesque, they’ll fill you up with dread! 1:19-1:39 The three heads keep! They’ll bleed you dry! Chop off your hands and feet! Ooh! Ai! They’ll break your knees and boil you alive! Three Heads Keep! The three heads keep! They’ll make you cry! Break bones and then break teeth! Ooh! Ai! Flay off your skin and pluck out your eyes! Three Heads Keep! 1:48-1:57 The three heads are screaming the night away! They’re haunting the souls that are here to stay! Limbs on the rug with so much blood! When axe falls, we hear thud! 2:09-2:47 The three heads keep! Loud screams! The three heads keep! Bad dreams! The three heads keep! Much pain! The three heads keep! Your brain! The three heads keep! Maimed hands! The three heads keep! Stretch racks! The three heads keep! Cruelty! The three heads keep! You’ll weep! 2:56-3:14 Three heads, they’re watching from the wall! Silent and staring so still! Three heads, above the dungeon hall! Don’t they just make you so ill!? Three heads drip from the bloody gate! The door which you have been led! Three heads, may we decapitate!? Grotesque, they’ll fill you up with dread! 3:25-3:44 The three heads keep! They’ll bleed you dry! Chop off your hands and feet! Ooh! Ai! They’ll break your knees and boil you alive! Three heads keep! The three heads keep! They’ll make you cry! Break bones and then break teeth! Ooh! Ai! Flay off your skin and pluck out your eyes! Three Heads Keep! 3:54-4:13 The three heads keep! They keep your pride! The three heads keep! They keep your eyes! The three heads keep! They keep your soul! The three heads keep! It in a bowl! History “Three Heads” is a folk song dedicated to the so far unproven story of Three Heads Keep, the most infamous of mentioned prisons of House Beauchene, fictional or non. The name takes after itself, for governance is said to have divided among three chief officers, and the entrance to the prison was always kept by three stakes above the door, three severed heads impaled upon them from the previous night’s executed prisoners. It is said that no prisoner ever walked out of the keep, and that no prisoner ever walked in the next day seeing the same three heads as a prisoner from the previous day, a macabre reminder that there were always executions at Three Heads Keep, and thus many trafficking into their deaths. It is also a common belief that torture was rife throughout Three Heads, and that the red carpets were specifically chosen to blend with the constant blood on the floor. There was so much that it was inevitable that prisoners who were scrubbing the floors were in actuality cleaning up their own blood. Screams from Three Heads could be heard from outposts and even villages beyond the keep, so many and so loud that there were, and rumor has it that guards were often rendered deaf by the anguished wails of the prisoners. Despite the underlining tone of horror for the song, whose lyrics were meant to portray it, the status of its origin being a legend on account of no actual evidence of the keep’s existence ensured that fiction remained harmless. Instead, the fable became a staple of Orisia’s darker history, although there are some historians to this day who seek out the terrible Three Heads Keep, if only to record its truth. The only real clues to its existence are that the stories surrounding it tend to support each other quite believably, no matter the storyteller’s imagination. The creation of such a prison was certainly something one could accuse House Beauchene of being guilty of. Where so much of Orisian history was either lost to or clouded over by the weakening magic of the lands, civil war and foreign invasion, it was likely that any unnamed, ruined fortress could in turn have been Three Heads without anyone realizing. Perhaps it was House Beauchene itself who recognized the monster it had created, and had it destroyed before anyone could prove the crime. Regardless of whether Three Heads Keep truly existed, it lives on as a legend through song, commonly sang and played around campfires, particularly where children are concerned. For mostly less formal festivities, it is also often played for background effect. The song quickly became a popular feature for fairs and carnivals, where a lighter take on such horror and the sinister violin that accompanied it could fit right in. A spinoff tale is that of The Three Heads Laugh, a story about three guards who were so sadistic with their torture of the keep’s prisoners that they went mad from the sheer infliction of pain, and the results that came with it, and began to laugh harder than any scream. To silence their laughter, and the agony that went with it, the three guards chopped off their own heads, carried them in their hands, and marched to the entrance of the keep, where they stuck their heads on the stakes to be removed the following day. Some even say that the headless corpses knelt beneath the heads much of the night, for they had not immediately stopped laughing. “The Bloody Bells” Song “The Bloody Bells” Vocal/Instrumental Instrumental only Music Spoiler History “The Bloody Bells” is an instrumental song made after The Belltower Butcher, a massacre of unarmed villagers that occurred at a settlement called Belltower, within the bell tower itself, a place they had hoped would be their shelter. The men-at-arms who carried out the slaughter did so on behalf of Lord Morgen Falters, a cruel and merciless baron of House Beauchene, and one of the king’s most ruthless agents. As the killings began, it is believed that Morgen spoke the exact words: “The fools trap themselves in their tower. Where wood burns, stone does not, so let us paint it red.” History has it that the bell tower was used to warn scouts from one of House Beauchene’s enemies that their troops were coming when spotted from a distance, so Morgen had charged himself with punishing the villagers in his campaign of conquest. The troops surrounding the bell tower at its base said that blood flowed from windows like waterfalls, and at one point they had to take paces back to avoid the blood spatter. Either with disinterest or in laughter, the reports of those who had been hacking away within the tower were much grimmer. The men-at-arms had forced their way inside the tower and began murdering the villagers immediately and indiscriminately, with utterly no regard for who they were killing, or how. Certain other fates were arguably even worse. It is said that the folk trapped within the tower rang the bell over and over in a helpless plea for aid, even while they were being butchered. Amused at the sound, Morgen commanded his troops to pound the marching drums as a supporting instrument, his company’s personal violinist joining the symphony, and in the next moment the baron himself began to sing beneath the screams of men, women and children as young as infants as they were all of them put to the sword. The massacre was viewed as such a wanton crime, one at the top of House Beauchene’s many others, that one of the man-at-arms confessed it to a healer in a state that was regarded as madness. “The bloody bells!” he would keep repeating, while complaining of nightmares and his sins. “The bloody bells, they won’t shut up, the bloody bells!” As word of the massacre spread, so too did word of “the bloody bells”, till a bard devoted his next composition to it. In it, a dismal violin gives way to a marching drum, with bells for a haunting ring. “The Bloody Bells” has since become an ominous song to play for any occasion. Originally, it evoked a sense of dread for the capabilities of cruelty, till the song became familiar enough to be appreciated for its musical meaning. Today, it as much a song for reflection as it is for celebration, though always with an undertone of horror to toy with. Editor’s Note: You can shut your face about that stupid rusty pic. A bro has to pick something, in the end. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find anything remotely resembling the right kind of bell when googling “bloody bell” and “red bell” and “broken bell” and “bell tower massacre” and “medieval massacre” and “JUST GIVE ME A BELL!” I’d reckon. "Take Arms!” Song “Take Arms!” Vocal/Instrumental Vocal and instrumental Music Spoiler Lyrics Spoiler 0:32 Take arms! They come to burn our farms! So Take up your swords and spears! We’ll make them shed tears! We will break their hearts! We’ll rain arrows and darts! Now Take up your mace and maul! Stand up and fight tall! We will crush them all! History During two key periods of Orisia’s history, separate sets of civil wars overtook the island, reducing the climb to power to be little more than a climb up chaos, where blood served as the ink that decreed what men ruled other men. Nowhere was anywhere safe, where the common folk often found themselves as brutalized by their own lords as the enemy’s. No house could ever tell when another might come to rename it, but everyone of any status knew the price of being conquered. In those days, being subjugated was a broader fate of having a city sacked, and all that went with it. With war all around, then, it didn’t take long for one man-at-arms to become something of a paragon, simply from substituting a hollow tree trunk for a privy one night in what he thought was a private, albeit passionate, rhyme out of nowhere. Of course, that truth remains undiscovered. The story that the good folk of Orisia know it by is that Erzist, a renowned warrior for the House of Loudthunder, was also infamous to any enemy trying to invade House Loudthunder’s lands. He was a formidable foe, unbeatable with his warhammer and still capable without it, and the lyrics of “Take Arms!”, a song that originated from one of Erzist’s retainers, are said to have been taken from a speech that Erzist himself made when defending the land from an invading army. The song quickly spread, for there was no better messenger than an army, and the conquest that one carried. In turn, those that defended their lands across the face of Orisia played “Take Arms!” indiscriminately, before and after battle. Eventually, the song itself became something of a paragon during the invasion of Orisia by the Great North of Genesaris. It is said that an Orisian castle held silent as a large Genesaran force prepared to assault. Breaking the silence, a small boy began singing the words of “Take Arms!”, till the whole castle began to pulsate with the livened voices of men and the women they protected in a voice of thunder. In the end, the castle was conquered, the defenders and bystanders alike put to the sword, but it is further said that the commanding officer ended his victory wiping the blood off of his blade, before turning to his subordinates and speaking: “They fought back, every one. To the last, they fought. Their song was so full of victory, and I can now see why. No matter who you are or who your opponent is, when you die fighting, you die a winner.” Edited November 7, 2016 by Die Shize 3 CasualCrisis, -Malice- and jaistlyn reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Die Shize 4672 Posted May 1, 2016 (edited) "Blacksleeves" Spoiler Song "Blacksleeves" Vocal/Instrumental Vocal and instrumental Lyrics Spoiler [00:26] Might protects right into the night Honor binding to love and with thee Gallant, thou fight, thou Black Heart Knight Dressed in steel greaves and in long black sleeves [00:47] Black sleeves of charity Take in the knight’s hospitality Black sleeves of integrity, The blood oath beneath the black sleeves [01:08] To Orisia, swear loyalty To the Black Queen, swear thy fealty Live by thy sword, and die by thy shield Fight for thy land and ne’er yield [01:29] Please place thy sword upon thy sleeve, Bow low thy head and take to knee I dub thee black of heart, ser knight, Upon which thy soul shall be white [01:50] Knights of the Black Heart seek honor Granting mercy to those asking For queen mother, the land they father Where justice is pulled out from black sleeves [02:14] Black sleeves of purity To injure no one unjustly Black sleeves of serenity Go fight for peace, O brave knight, Blacksleeves History “Blacksleeves” was a well known song composed by a man known as Black Beak, a bard who wanted to capture the essence of “wearing the black sleeves”, or that of being a Knight of the Black Heart as one might imagine it. Though a bard, Black Beak was not of the traditionally opportunist type, instead valuing accuracy to the source material over the audience to receive it. Though he doubtless made romances with his lyrics, he ended up putting a fair amount of research into the chivalric order while composing his song. Beyond those lyrics, however, the musical piece accompanying them quickly came to stand out by itself, played purely as an instrumental version to highlight the melody. The song obtained its name for a colloquial term used to refer to Knights of the Black Heart, that of "blacksleeves", which originated for such knights having taken to wearing nothing but black. The term can be used in a derogatory fashion or simply used as slang when referencing members of the order. Edited May 7, 2016 by Die Shize 2 -Malice- and CasualCrisis reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Die Shize 4672 Posted October 26, 2017 (edited) "Wolf Blood" Spoiler Song "Wolf Blood" Vocal/Instrumental Vocal and Instrumental VocalsNo lyrics Chanting Howling By Group Dawnmen – Chanting Goran – Chanting Wolves – Howling Instruments (I’m not sure how accurate this is… Would love any help!) Horns Drums Flute Bagpipes By Group Dawnmen – Horns, drums Goran – Flute, bagpipes, drums History "Wolf Blood" is a piece that was written and performed in unison between the Dawnmen of the Embrace and the Goran of Wolfwood, both being peoples of the Earldom of Tryhold, lands of House Dawnwood. Years ago, when the two peoples first united under the banner of the new House of Dawnwood, a cultural exchange took off and further helped bring the two societies together. One way in which this was achieved was through the bonding of music. Having learned of one another's instrumental and vocal graces, and rehearsing for the best performance they could muster before their peers and their leaders, the Dawnmen and the Goran developed what would become House Dawnwood's musical theme. "Wolf Blood" is a song created with a sense of honor, pride and duty in mind, and these traits can be heard in its various aspects. Each human group brings their own singing style and instruments, and today the tradition is largely upheld with the exception that Dawnmen and Goran, in a desired effort to further intermingle, have since picked up the other's instrument. Whoever the performer, however, the performance remains the same. The Dawnmen brought with them various horn instruments beside the Goran’s wind, namely the flute and the bagpipe, while both peoples partook in joint drumming. They also offered chanting, with the Dawnmen’s being softer and the Goran’s being more aggressive. The men were not alone with their voices, however. When “Wolf Blood” was performed for the very first time before Wolfwood Forest, something unexpected and most wondrous had occurred. Having planned nothing of it, the wolves of Wolfwood had left their forest to become an audience of their own, with none other than the Alpha actually offering its own howl into the song. The song was not just designed with unity of sound in mind, however, and it was in large part because of the appearance of the wolves that the song went down in history and became the overarching musical symbol of House Dawnwood. “Wolf Blood” takes its name to heart, for the Dawnwood peoples hold the wolves of Wolfwood to be as sacred as the forest they hail from. The Goran may dwell in their midst, human bonding with animal, but it was animal who first bonded with nature. With the Dawnmen protecting all three, then, the blood of the wolf is symbolically carried within the blood of man, and serves to fuel the forest and that which resides at its core. Edited October 26, 2017 by Die Shize 1 CasualCrisis reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Die Shize 4672 Posted October 28, 2017 (edited) "The Last of the Goran" Spoiler Song "The Last of the Goran" Vocal/Instrumental Instrumental Instruments(Once more, any help in identifying/rectifying the instruments as listed would be swell!) Violin Guitar Percussion Horn? Cello? Composition “The Last of the Goran” is composed of various instruments, primarily stringed with accompanying slight percussion. The guitar serves as a supporting instrument with the violin overarching, the latter of which many view to be the chief agent in ushering in the majesty of the song’s meaning. History “The Last of the Goran” is one of House Dawnwood’s most familiar musical pieces, and of note, Lord Vadrian’s personal favorite. Like the would be theme of House Dawnwood, “Wolf Blood”, “The Last of the Goran” was written in light of the union between the Dawnmen of the Embrace and the Goran of Wolfwood who, though mainly living apart in their own respective domains, share an unbreakable bond. It is in part because of how “The Last of the Goran” came to be, alongside its audible splendor, that it went down in the history of Tryhold if not Orisia at large. The song was written to honor the Goran, namely the Goran of Wolfwood, the only known surviving remnant of the Goran people overall since ancient days. Yet, the song was composed entirely by Dawnmen, out of nothing less than sincere admiration and due respect for their fellow people. The Goran were indeed no doubt honored by the gesture, and if the relationship between the two different peoples wasn’t already strong, it was further strengthened by this notion. If there was anyone who had any inkling of what the Goran had been through over time, it was their Dawnmen counterpart, for it was the Dawnmen who held a special place beside them as the only real group of Orisia to even know them. An otherwise secret society, the Goran of Wolfwood have taken their status as the last of their kind to heart, dwelling in their forest with purpose. Furthermore, “The Last of the Goran”, if understandably unable to be fully grasped by folk outside of Tryhold, was yet understood for its melodious marvel. In each instrumental delivery, the spirit of pride is accompanied by the spirit of struggle, such as a nation must endure in order to treasure its own survival. The song has since spread throughout the island, and though the Goran to this day remain mysterious to outsiders, there is a shared sentiment resonating throughout the island as a result of the song, for every Orisian knows what it means to struggle, to endure and to survive. The Island of Summer has known plight throughout its history and its inhabitants have come out with peace and harmony largely upheld. Though the Goran may be the last of their kind, they are the first in a united people between themselves and the Dawnmen, who represent before them the Orisians of their island. "The Last of the Goran – The Last Dance" Spoiler Song "The Last of the Goran – The Last Dance" Vocal/Instrumental Vocal and instrumental VocalsNo lyrics Female Instruments(Once more, any help in identifying/rectifying the instruments as listed would be swell!) Violin Other stringed instruments? Percussion Other? Composition “The Last of the Goran – The Last Dance” was composed as an alternative version of the original piece “The Last of the Goran”, with the guitar being dropped in “The Last Dance” and the violin taking on a much more prominent role. In this song, multiple violins come to accompany one another, with minor vocals joining in the form of wordless singing to create a livelier version of the original work fitting for dancing and festivities. History “The Last of the Goran – The Last Dance” was written and performed, in part, by Lord Vadrian Dawnwood just a couple of years ago. Though others dedicated more time and labor to composing the song, such as hired musicians within Tryhold that didn’t have to worry about running a county all day, Vadrian had made sure to chime in where he could after presenting the proposal to the Tryhold Daylight Orchestra. The piece was written after Vadrian long desired to create a more festive version of “The Last of the Goran”, what had since already become his favorite song, not just of Dawnwood make, but overall. Particularly, he named it “The Last Dance” in a plan to spring it on his wife, Lady Aine Dawnwood, during a Tryhold celebration. Aine, as usual, was pleasantly surprised by the melodramatic antics of her husband, with the couple sharing the ballroom floor of Dawnwatch alone, savoring the last dance of the evening. Years later, “The Last Dance” would also be featured as a live performance within Brightstorm Keep of Ceyana, during the wedding ceremony between Dame Vivian Virgil DuGrace, Knight of the Black Heart, and Lord Alazar of Brightstorm Keep. This certainly helped to popularize in the Orisian Isles not only “The Last Dance” but also “The Last of the Goran” overall as the original piece, and many other establishments of less prominent occasions have since requested “The Last Dance” to be played. "The Last of the Goran – A Lover’s Dirge" Spoiler Featured in image: Anthany Robles Song "The Last of the Goran – A Lover’s Dirge" Vocal/Instrumental Vocal and Instrumental Vocals Man Instruments(Once more, any help in identifying/rectifying the instruments as listed would be swell!) Guitar Violin Percussion Lyrics Spoiler Where are you, dear? You disappeared from here. You kissed my heart, now torn apart. But know I do love you. Where could you be? Where do you sleep? Can you yet see my grief? I don’t blame you. Your love was true. So please don’t weep, baby. At night, I call your name. Each day is pain. Anguish! I know you’re gone, so I play you this song. The Last of the Goran. Time Sequence Spoiler 4:37 Where are you, dear? You disappeared from here. 4:51 You kissed my heart, now torn apart. But know I do love you. 5:10 Where could you be? Where do you sleep? Can you yet see my grief? 5:29 I don’t blame you. Your love was true. So please don’t weep, baby. 5:48 At night, I call your name. Each day is pain. Anguish! 6:04 I know you’re gone, so I play you this song. The Last of the Goran. Composition (I am by no means savvy on musical terminology, so please forgive the basic, even improper, word usage.) Despite “The Last of the Goran - A Lover’s Dirge” being around eight minutes long, its lyrics don’t occur until almost five minutes into the song, and they last for only about two and a half minutes. The lyrics flow continuously in written form, however they are structured into six parts. · Each part consists of a given number of musical notes that correspond to the lyrical notes, the lyrics and music performed in unison. Not any given word is necessarily representative of any given note; rather, some whole words may be broken up into syllables that overlap with multiple musical notes. · The notes, together, are further broken down into segments and their lines that correspond to the interchanging low and high pitches of particularly the violin, which is most prominently featured for the lyrics, as well as the violin’s timbres. As with the original “The Last of the Goran”, the version “A Lover’s Dirge” was primarily written as an instrumental piece, with lyrics merely included. Inversely, where the original piece has the violin as the dominant instrument and the guitar as a supporting instrument, “A Lover’s Dirge” focuses on the guitar throughout most of its duration and the violin as a supporting instrument. This, once more, is traded during the length of the lyrics, where the guitar becomes a faint backdrop and the violin takes over. Spoiler 6 parts 80 notes 1st Part 4:3710 notes 3 segments 4 lines 4 lines 2 lines 1st Segment 4 Lines Where Low Are High You Low Dear High 2nd Segment 4 Lines You Low Dis- High -Ap- Low -Peared High 3rd Segment 2 Lines From High Here Low 2nd Part 4:5114 notes 4 segments 4 lines 4 lines 4 lines 2 lines 1st Segment 4 Lines You Low Kissed High My Low Heart High 2nd Segment 4 Lines Now Low Torn High A- Low -Part High 3rd Segment 4 Lines But Low Know High I Low Do High 4th Segment 2 Lines Love High You Low 3rd Part 5:1014 notes 4 segments 4 lines 4 lines 4 lines 2 lines 1st Segment 4 Lines Where Low Could High You Low Be High 2nd Segment 4 Lines Where Low Do High You Low Sleep High 3rd Segment 4 Lines Can Low You High Yet Low See High 4th Segment 2 Lines My High Grief Low 4th Part 5:2914 notes 4 segments 4 lines 4 lines 4 lines 2 lines 1st Segment 4 Lines I Low Don’t High Blame Low You High 2nd Segment 4 Lines Your Low Love High Was Low True High 3rd Segment 4 Lines So Low Please High Don’t Low Weep High 4th Segment 2 Lines Ba- High -By Low 5th Part 5:4812 notes 3 segments 6 lines 4 lines 2 lines 1st Segment 6 Lines At Low Night High I Low Call High Your Low Name High 2nd Segment 4 Lines Each Low Day High Is Low Pain High 3rd Segment 3 Lines An- High -Guish High 6th Part 6:0416 notes 3 segments 10 lines 4 lines 2 lines 1st Segment 10 Lines I Low Know High You’re Low Gone High So Low I High Play Low You High This Low Song High 2nd Segment 4 Lines The Low Last High Of Low The High 3rd Segment 2 Lines Go- High -Ran Low History “The Last of the Goran – A Lover’s Dirge” was written and performed by the late Anthany Robles, an otherwise modest bard who spent most of his musical life touring Orisia and performing for festivals and basic establishments like taverns. Anthany was a renowned guitarist as far as his audiences were concerned, and it was believed that he could have easily found a very profitable career both in Orisia and abroad had he pursued the endeavor. However, he was also known to be happily married with his wife, Marjorie Robles. Though supporting his passion, Marjorie found the man who possessed it to be her own. It has been speculated that the loving couple would have since settled down if not for Anthany’s career, and that, instead of pursuing glamour, they struck a cord of balance in their contentment to play for smaller locales amid steady travel, if also the more prosperous nobles and such here and there. Toward the latter, Anthany and Marjorie were once invited to the Earldom of Tryhold, lands of House Dawnwood, by one of Anthany’s closest friends, Ser Matthew the Merry, or the Cinnamon Knight as Orisia knew him by. Something of a touring performer himself, the hedge knight and the bard had first met during their own respective circuits across the island. Time later, Matthew beckoned Anthany and his wife to perform for Lord Vadrian and Lady Aine Dawnwood. Anthany and Marjorie were taken aback by these lands that they had never yet visited, particularly enthralled by the otherwise uncanny union of peace that ran rife among the Dawnmen and the Goran. In particular, the married couple was personally invited by lord and lady to view a performance of one of House Dawnwood’s most cherished songs, and Lord Vadrian’s personal favorite, “The Last of the Goran”. The song was taken to heart by Anthany, but even more so by Marjorie, who had declared to both her husband and Lord and Lady Dawnwood that it had thusly become her own personal favorite, outside of anything Anthany might have himself written, of course. Jesting aside, the two left Tryhold with stories to tell, including one that would change their lives forever. Marjorie was at one point discovered to have had contracted Tavun Syndrome, a neurological and thus far incurable disease that affected the heart and respiratory muscles, progressing into worsened stages over time. In Marjorie’s case, she had been diagnosed with Tavun in a rare state, having contracted it at a very advanced stage, with life expectancy reduced from fifteen or twenty years to just three or five. Though the two did everything they could to fight the syndrome, alongside Matthew and the Dawnwoods themselves, there was simply nothing that could be done. Anthany lost Marjorie some three and a half years later, and if the disease had changed the lives of the married couple, then the death of the husband’s wife had changed the former forever. Anthany was never the same man again, having slipped into advancing stages of depression. Needless to say, losing Marjorie had left a gaping hole in his heart that could never be filled, and though music was ever his companion, his living companion had since left him. One day, back in Tryhold at the earnest behest of Matthew in order to try to divert his friend’s attention, Anthany spent his time with various musicians of the lands. Some friendships made from his original visit with Marjorie were rekindled, and he formed a temporary music group wherein he presented his latest composition, a rework of “The Last of the Goran”. Anthany performed the song with his guitar as a primary instrument, leaving the violin and other instruments to his fellow musicians. Somewhere toward the middle of the song during performance, Anthany drastically slowed down on his guitar and began to sing from seemingly out of nowhere. He had not revealed any lyrics to his band and had not recorded them on any sheets. Even as he sang, with melancholy a somber tune in the air, his band kept playing. “A Lover’s Dirge” became a heartfelt song thereafter, neither besmirching the life of the original piece nor the memory of every fond moment that husband and wife had spent together, if yet ruing the loss. The piece became one for any widower or widow who might listen to it, in addition to anyone at all with a heart and the soul that possessed it. For Anthany, however, the song was not enough. His music was not enough. It was only months later that it was reported to local authorities the sighting of the bard, sitting against a tree. Anthany had spent months idling in Tryhold, and many nights in an orchard off of Wolfwood Forest where he and Marjorie would often stay. He was discovered by Matthew, asleep, never to awaken again. Anthany had taken his life years after a disease had taken his wife’s. Wherever they were afterward, men like Matthew and Vadrian could only hope that they were together, never to again be separated within their new home, just as the last of the Goran would never be separated from theirs. Edited October 28, 2017 by Die Shize Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
