A Little Song [ Koe ]
A full pack was strapped to Onainat's shoulders. She'd stuffed it with every item she could imagine needing -- from inks to candies to a skinning knife...which was kind of silly when she could eat meat just fine without cooking it. Onainat appreciated the weight of her items, though. They made her feel like she had direction. Purpose. At least until she got tired. She shifted the pack when she walked out onto Agethlea's streets alone. The evening light made the sky a deep turquoise, with dull reds and purples still sitting on the heels of the diving sunset. She looked upward as she moved slowly, the floppy hat sat on top of her head making it hard to see the beginnings of the stars. Onainat did not feel eagerness to leave friends. The entrance of the cool night air did not help. Only the presence of persistent (and brave) street vendors spurred her forward; the smell of spiced meats from around the corner was made to be a small treat in her mind. To get her on her way.
Her eyes were straying to the sculpted roofs along the skyline, wondering if they would be worth sketching, when she heard a familiar tune. Onainat was a collector of songs more than she was a bard and should have nown the tune, but something was not right with it. What was not right? She found herself searching the emptying streets for the stringed instrument responsible. The tempo was too slow to match the right words to; the meter was distorted beyond artistic license. Onainat let out a small huff of annoyance. It was a purposeful, sad rendition of something upbeat. Something she knew from the eastern highlands. The Flower of Sweet Strabane.
The name came to her when she was ten steps behind him. He was leaning against the pole of a fruit stand, his back toward her, strumming his guitar on the street as if his instrument were the hollowed pots of the poor. Her father seemed to be thoughtfully bored. His presence here should have shocked her more. Yet it was like waking in the middle of the night and finding that he'd come home from the village, only to sit on the porch alone. There were some things that did not change and her father's profile was one of them. He looked the same in her child eyes as he did right now, and even though she knew that too much had happened for him to be the same person, it was so easy to believe. It was easier to remember.
Onainat walked up and tapped his shoulder. Then pulled down the edge of her hat.
"You shouldn't play such a happy tune that way. No one will give you any shinies."