Weeding my garden
Yanking my chain
Buttering my biscuits
Burying my mother
Buryin’ my Ma
Gargarel had spent the day thus far wandering around town by himself, since everybody else seemed to have so many important things to do. They’d all politely declined his company while they saw to their business. Even Sol had plans! Somehow.
Not Gargarel though. It was like everyone was expecting to have a free day to do anything they wanted and just planned it all ahead of time. How was he supposed to know he’d have an entire day’s worth of time to kill on such short notice? You need to give a man some notice about such a thing so he can get his plans together.
That all said, however, he had enjoyed the time exploring the town—something he’d not had the chance to do yet, having left on a job so soon after arriving and joining the Last Stand Mercenaries.
He was proud of what he had accomplished on the young day up to this point. It was just a hair past noon and he had already gotten kicked out of two stores, defeated some poor fool in a drinking contest, jotted down a couple of figures of speech, and broken up a street brawl. Never mind the fact he had started that brawl in the first place. He’d ended it, and that’s what mattered. Doesn’t matter how the story begins or what happens on the journey as long as it has a happy ending, after all.
Somehow, he found himself back in the plaza he had started in, the mercenary headquarters staring at him from across the way. He frowned, disappointed that his jaunt around Davied had only lasted a couple short hours. What to do with the rest of the day? He was in the mood for swinging his axe, but there was nobody needing to be swung at.
Hey! Maybe…
He looked to his right and grinned goofily to himself, tusk-like fangs showing. The Dice & Sword had just opened for lunch a few minutes ago. Great timing.
Sauntering into the establishment, Gargarel was expecting to see Shaugh behind the bar, but he'd forgotten that the restaurant owner also took the day off and was doing something with Geren. In his place was one of the small people with funny names instead. Halvan—that’s what they were called. There were no Halvan in Vizam, so they were a new oddity to him he’d just come across in his recent months of travel.
Making a mental note—he’d grown to like mental notes since they didn’t require any writing material—of it, he decided he needed to get better at remembering names and whatnot. Didn’t want to offend Basil or Wolfbone when they took Wheatloaf back to Hohm by forgetting what race they were. Gargarel didn’t usually care about offending people, but he respected those two. Most people, sure, who cares if they get their feelings hurt. But if someone had his respect, then they were worthy of his efforts to not offend.
Approaching the bar with heavy stomps, he didn’t wait for the Halvan man to address him. Had to be authoritative, after all.
“Hey, pipsqueak! Any inquiries for the All Powerful Gargarel Battlebard?” He bellowed, crossing his arms and sporting a confident mean mug to try and look more intimidating than he already naturally was.
The small man didn’t even look up from the plates he was organizing, speaking in a bored tone. “Ah, yes. Shaugh mentioned you might come by. Over there.” He nodded towards the far end of the bar, near where Geren’s crew’s usual table was.
Gargarel nodded with a blank stare, not sure how to react to Burnttoast’s indifference to his display of masculine authoritativeness. Walking over to the spot he’d been pointed to, he found his stack of business cards. At a glance, the stack seemed to be the same size as when he’d left it here over a week ago. A quick count of each individual card confirmed the total at seventy-three. The exact number he’d left. He wasn’t sure why it was seventy-three, that was just how many he had felt like making during the moment when creativity had struck.
Sitting down, he made sure to re-stack them neatly and put them back where they were. A bit closer to the front though and out of the shadow of the bar’s overhang, so maybe his incredible artwork could be more easily seen at a glance by passersby. He intertwined his fingers and sat there for a moment, imagining that he was one of those statues that looked contemplative for an unknown reason. Like the ones at the temples his brother Enrique would visit on his travels.
A strange feeling was churning in his stomach. An unfamiliar one. Not like an urge to answer nature’s call. No, not at all—he was quite familiar with that one. This was different. Empty, rather than feeling the need to be emptied. He snorted to himself, then stood up to leave.
The front door opened after he’d taken a few steps towards it, and Cohn, Maris, and Serana entered. They all started when they saw Gargarel standing there. His impressive presence did that to people.
“Hey Garg!” Cohn gave a wide grin at his new friend after the initial surprise of seeing him wore off. “We were just about to grab some lunch and play some games in the back rooms, if you’d like to join in.”
Gargarel pondered it for a moment, but declined. “Nah, I’ve got some important business! Thanks though!” He marched out, the three of them stepping aside to make room for him.
“We’ll be here for a while if you finish and want to hang out some!” Serana called after him.
Embarking on another trek through town in search of anything that could qualify as important business, he soon found himself in the market district. He’d only passed through it earlier, not stopping to look at the array of wares being sold by the mass of merchants. May as well do some window shopping though on this second trip through. That could be argued as being business that was important.
About an hour later, he sat on a bench rummaging through the bag full of things he probably shouldn’t have purchased. Pulling out a wooden figurine of a bull with a large axe resting on its horns, he turned it over in his hands and admired the craftsmanship for a moment before shrugging and returning it to the sack. He’d not yet decided if it had been a good idea to spend his first job’s pay on a bunch of trinkets, but it was a good time nonetheless. After seeing what his room at the mercenary hall looked like post-decorating, he’d be able to make a more accurate judgment of how good or bad of an idea it was.
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A rhythmic thumping sound hit his ear, pleasant and cheerful but also with a hint of sadness mixed in between the cheeriness. His musical talents could identify these sorts of nuances, something he’d noticed was lost on many of his peers. Slinging the sack over his shoulder, he sought out the source of the tune.
Rounding the corner onto a different street, he could see that it had a wide opening on one side that led to a large open area that resembled a park. Sitting at the corner of where the street began opening into the park was a man playing a set of hand drums, his legs crossed and the two bucket-sized drums between them. Gargarel grinned to himself and jogged over to the man with heavy thuds. The man flinched and seemed to be preparing to grab his drums and run, but hesitated when Gargarel stopped and put a palm in the air.
“Wait, wait! I come in peace!” He said, causing the man’s look to change from one of fear to one of confusion. “I'm not burning your toast! I just want to jam with you!”
He gave his signature grin and hurried over and set his bag of trinkets down near the drumming man. Taking his axe off of his back—he could see the man flinch again at first, but he stayed after seeing Gargarel switch his grip on it to that akin of holding a lute—he got down on one knee and propped the handle up, fingering loosely at the strings and nodding to himself.
“That’s uh… quite the lute you’ve got there, sir. Never seen one like it.” The man commented. He moved his hair—long, brown, and dingy—out of his eyes and rubbed them as if trying to make sure he was seeing clearly.
“Thanks, but it’s not a lute! It’s uh…” Gargarel trailed off. He wasn’t exactly sure what to call the instrument. It was an axe, speaking strictly about the weapon itself. But what did he refer to it as from a musical standpoint? It then clicked in his brain as if the answer was obvious all along.
“It’s an axe!” He proclaimed, nodding to himself in satisfaction. Yes, it was an axe. It was a good name for a tool used in both battle and music. Carpentry and forestry too, technically, but his axe was above those means.
“Uh... Right. I see.” The man nodded too, though with less assurance than Gargarel’s nod. “Well m’name is Wilson. Glad to have you.” The man gave a smile that revealed some teeth missing, and proceeded to start playing the same tune as earlier on his drums.
“I’m The All Powerful Gargarel Battlebard! Glad to be here!” Gargarel thought he could see the man raise an eyebrow at the name, but it was hard to tell with his hair down and covering his face again.
Listening to the tune, it was two separate parts, one with a more upbeat rhythm and the one that followed with a more careful, melancholic cadence.
Bum bum bum bum, bum… bum…
It was upbeat and catchy on the first set of one-two-three-four. It then mellowed out with the man only hitting the drums on the one and three counts in the second part, pausing while letting the echo of the last beat at three fade away before resuming the quicker rhythm on one again. It continued to repeat in that fashion, alternating back and forth between energetic and melancholic.
Nodding his head along, Gargarel started to pick at the strings on his axe in a steady rhythm that matched the beat, the thunder essence traced into the weapon causing the melody to take on a slightly booming sound that went well with the pounding of the drums.
After playing in that same fashion for several bars, he then began to alternate on the second half of the repeating beat, moving his fingers back and forth to a different spot on the axe’s strings for the two and four counts from the place he held them on one and three.
Dun dun dun dun, dun, DUN, dun, DUN. The notes on the two and four were higher-pitched, cutting through the silence of the drummer’s pause nicely.
Eyes closed and head bobbing along with his wild mane of dark hair bouncing to and fro, Gargarel lost himself for a moment. He wasn’t on a street in a city and country he had only just first arrived, still a stranger by conventional standards. He was back home in Vizam, jamming along with Zuggnut. His old friend used to journey with him outside the city walls where they weren’t allowed to go until an injury gave him a permanent limp. Zuggnut never lost his ability or love for playing the drums though. His favorite set of drumsticks had been fashioned from the thigh bones of a creature they had slain together. Gargarel missed those times.
Dun dun dun dun, dun, DUN DUN, dun, DUN DUN. He added a second quick note on the same higher pitch he was playing on two and four.
Gargarel always felt different from other Gmaas… but not with Zuggnut. Zuggnut had always been Gargarel’s one Gmaas friend who he felt really understood him. He had an appreciation for both the brutal and the beautiful, realizing that someone could be hardcore and smash heads while also engaging in the occasional verbal or musical arts. Most Gmaas just looked at Gargarel funny when he tried engaging them in any witty banter or when he tried showing them how cool his axe was.
Sure, Gargarel was as big of a believer in raw strength and a might makes right mentality as anybody, but he also believed that the same principles of core Gmaas ideals could be applied elsewhere. Strength was the most important thing, yes. But couldn’t strength be applied in multiple ways? Wasn’t he the absolute strongest if he could be the best at everything and not just fighting?
Wilson sped up the pace of the beat, doing faster alternating beats. Bum bum, bum bum, bum bum, bum bum. His right and left hands alternated in quick rhythm on all four counts.
He changed up the second half of the bar as well, removing the pause and replacing it with the same double beat he was now doing in the first half, but with a harsher slap of the second half to accent it on two and four. Bum bum, bum BUM, bum bum, bum BUM.
Gargarel sped up his own pace, picking at the strings faster to match Wilson’s beat. He could feel it. The rhythm. The brutality of his fingers picking at the finely intertwined metal strings. The stampede of sound coming from his enchanted axe. He began to race his fingers up and down the handle of the axe with his left hand as he continued to pick at the strings with his right, creating a cascade of different sounds repeating back and forth from high to low pitches and back again.
Music was a strange thing, with how it connected people. How it made people feel something that wasn’t actually there. It was just sound. There was no visible script that said what to do in the moment. Instead, a musician’s body just knew what to do. And those listening knew how to react and what to feel accordingly. Gargarel figured that was its own kind of magic.
He and Wilson had established that connection. Gargarel ended his savage riff of sound with one last thunderous rake of the strings, holding the note to ring out and linger in the air at the exact moment that Wilson played the last beat of his drums. They could each feel it in the rhythm—the right time and place to end their duet on a literal high note.
Gargarel looked up, throwing his hair back and opening his eyes. A small crowd of people had gathered around that he hadn’t noticed. How long had they played…?
The group of two dozen or so began clapping and cheering. Gargarel looked at Wilson, who was staring open-mouthed as if he’d just witnessed something unbelievable. Giving the drummer man a big grin, Gargarel turned to the people and gave his signature thumbs-up.