I was still thinking about my healing supply and about how I could reduce the time of preparation to finish three of my antidotes sooner rather than later when I joined lord Tindir, lady Himwen, lady Nirhen and Telpenaro.
Lady Himwen asked about my work, if I had the time to finish it. Well, for the moment yes, as some preparations needed some rest during the fabrication process and I was sadly at this point on them.
Telpenaro found some berries that he was willing to share with us, which was quite nice of him. He also shows us his talent to juggle with some stones and showed lady Himwen how to do it, which resulted with a few flying stones and lord Tindir affirming that he being hit with one stone was not funny.
Well, I beg to differ here. The way he reacted to it was definitively funny.
Showing lady Himwen how to juggle may have seem a bad idea, though Telpenaro's idea to go fishing was definitively a good idea.
That's when I had quite a surprise.
Just after Telpenaro and lady Himwen left I couldn't help but notice lady Nirhen staring at me. Somehow I am sure it was intended that way.
She asked me a good question though I didn't think it'd come from her : 'You do not play your instrument any more. Did you lose it? It is the kind of incompetent thing that you lot might do.'
Although there was some derogatory meaning in it for me, I focused more on her interest about me playing, or not playing actually, music.
Well, my instrument is still with me, though I put it a bit out of my mind. I had my reasons. First, we were trying to be discreet, and I hardly think that playing music is being discreet. Second, lord Veryacano has been hurt some times ago, then Parnard was hurt too, and then my healing supply ran really low, so I had other concerns than playing music considering that I wasn't even sure anyone but me appreciated the distraction.
However, I didn't mention half of my reasons, only the need to not point our position to anyone who might listen, and Nirhen surprised me again by remarking that our camp here was safe enough. Which... Well, was true enough I guess.
So I took my instrument. It felt so right to have it again in my hands, though... I was still preoccupied with other concerns.
I am afraid my instrument was not all that well-kept in the recent days, so I had a few leave to take out of my lute, and to accord it again.
Which I did badly as I wasn't paying attention, so when I actually tried to play it, lady Nirhen stopped me. To my shame, it happened twice before she asked me to give her my lute. I hesitated a moment. Why did she want it ? If she was to break it... I may be busy with something else, but my lute and my harp have been my mean of living for hundreds of years. Close to one thousand now I believe. I did not wish to see it destroyed by someone who didn't care for it.
Though I decided to believe she wouldn't just get rid of it. After all, she seemed interested enough in music as she first encouraged me to play in her own... Extremely interesting way, and then she noticed the wrong tune of my lute. So I gave it to her.
She noted the dampness of my instrument. Well, as I said I had been busy for quite some times now, and I had concerns more pressing than to check the state of my instrument, though, considering I think I should try to look for a new bag or to add a protection in my current bag for my lute since mine seems to be unable now to protect it from rain. I should be ashamed for it's state, however I couldn't bring myself to really care about it at the moment, for some reason...
In any case, the way she spoke when she noticed the poor state of my lute made me wonder if I would not be more secure away from her. Only she still had my lute in her hand, there was no way I could abandon it.
While she worked to tune my lute, I could hear her talk but couldn't clearly understand any word, though I believe there was something about me being utterly incompetent.
As she gave me back my instrument, I could not help but notice that she had skills in music as my lute was properly tuned, and her remark about her having 'more skills in music than I did' almost made me tell her that I lived off of my music for a long time and was doing well enough on my own, though I seemed to have really tried her patience on this occasion, so I kept silent and began playing.
The tune was faultless and I was actually impressed, though now I was worried about making a mistake while playing, however unlikely it was. Or at least I was worried before I began to just... concentrate fully on playing. And then even the soup Telpenaro and Himwen cooked seemed somehow unimportant even if only a few minutes ago I'd have gladly accept some of it.
I will end up eating cold soup now. Though I really don't mind. I've eaten worse and besides, I really don't care about what I could eat. For now I was just happy to have learnt more about lady Nirhen (even if it only made me more curious about her history) and most of all, I was glad to know that if I were to play whenever I have the occasion during our journey, someone else than me would appreciate it.
