In front of me stood a girl.

She had tar-black hair and bright, violet eyes. Then traveling clothes—fit for an adventurous merchant’s daughter. Or perhaps a wandering entertainer, with her buttoned tunic and leather waist’s sash. I wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t seen her smile.

There was only one person I knew who could smile like that. It was hers.

Aami. She held a hand to the top of my head, smoothing out the hairs mussed by a week of unending work.

“Want a hug?” she asked, and I found myself giving her a tired smile.

“I’m not quite that drained yet,” I replied. I rose to my feet, then offered her a hand. She took it and stood. “How did you know that I left the lab?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged. Aami didn’t let go of my hand, and instead pulled me forward, leading me down the hall. She flashed me a grin, “I just had the feeling that a certain someone was being glum again.”

“You left a piece on me again, didn’t you?”

“…Sorry.”

Smiling sheepishly, Aami tapped a finger against my hand. A small mass of black goop crawled out of my sleeve and merged into her hand, disappearing completely. She scratched a cheek with her finger.

“I was just going to make sure that you weren’t getting poisoned again or something, but…” she trailed off, and Aami pursed her lips. “I ended up hearing everything. My bad.”

“I appreciate that you’re looking out for me. But don’t do that next time without telling me, alright?”

“Yeah. Privacy, got it. I learned a lot about that this week.”

We walked down a set of stairs from the fourth floor, and I channeled my Weave again. Ashran returned and settled over me like a second layer of skin. Down at the stairs, a pair of Shissavi were set by the entrance, looking much more relaxed than when I first arrived. They turned their heads towards us as we turned the corner, smiling. One of them, a green-leaf amarid in livewood plate, smiled and waved as we approached.

“Afternoon, miss Aami,” he said, before glancing at me. He narrowed his eyes, “Is that one of the alchemists that you’re dragging with you?”

“Yup! He and I are going out for some fresh air.”

“And you didn’t just drag him out of a room full of active materials?”

“Naw. I nabbed him from the hall.”

The guardsman glanced at his companion, and the other guy shrugged. The two of them exchanged a wry smile as they unlocked the doors to let us out. “In that case, have a good walk, miss Aami. And you too, sir alchemist. Don’t be too scared of miss BD here, alright? She’s only taken a bite out of table one time. People are safe around her.”

His companion laughed, and Aami blushed at their teasing. She shoved the man as she passed, but the man only laughed harder when he stumbled. “Forget that!” she said, glaring. “It’s all because someone spilled sauce on it that I thought it was fine!”

“No shame, miss. I’m sure the plywood was delicious.”

“You’re all terrible.”

I watched, blinking as the two guardsmen laughed at her. They were friendly. They talked to her with respect, but it wasn’t distant. It was warm and familiar. And after another set of jokes, Aami huffed. She stuck her tongue out at them as she dragged me away.

“Hmph. Neither of you are invited to tonight’s dinner!”

“We’ll show up anyway!”

Rolling her eyes, Aami’s stern glare melted away into a smile. She waved goodbye at them, and as the soldiers returned to their posts, I gave her a look. She was different from before. She stood straight, and her two eyes stared straight ahead, instead of being cast down towards the ground.

I looked down at the hand gripping mine, then up at her face. She looked happy. I gave her a wry smile, “You’ve been busy.”

“Of course!” she beamed. “You gave me the chance to make friends, so I’ve been hard at work.”

“Hard at work getting teased for eating a table?”

She puffed up her cheeks at me and glared. I laughed. Looking around, she was leading me away from the barracks and the facilities, out to a corner of the camp where the soldiers practiced drills in the morning. It was a flat clearing, all green grass and patches of bald dirt. Trees lined up against the side of the cliff face in the distance, and the gray clouds overhead shaded the woods, seemingly draining the autumn leaves of color.

“Where are we going?” I asked, and Aami stopped at the very edge of the field, underneath a yellow-leafed ash tree.

“Here,” she said. Aami took a seat under the shade and patted the ground beside her, motioning for me to sit. “You’re always such a work addict, y’know that? You look so tired.”

“Well, you know what happened.”

Sighing in relief, I joined her on the grass. It was cool and soft and outside of the barrier, the scent of rain-soaked earth filled the air. My weave’s mortal senses filled me. Relaxed me. I leaned back against the tree and sprawled my legs out, stretching them over the grass.

Aami did the same, humming as she lightly swayed from side to side. The rain brought a cold breeze across the barrier, brushing over us. She nudged my side with an elbow.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it’s good I found you when you were sulking, right?”

“Hmm… I don’t know. I’m kind of jealous that you’ve been enjoying yourself while I was locked away in a lab with my tiresome mother. I might be pretty upset about that.”

“How about you play us a song, then? I miss your playing, and you like doing it. It might even cheer you up!”

“Hmph. I’m upset. Upset people don’t like anything.”

Rolling her eyes, Aami reached towards me with an exasperated smile. She plucked my bansuri’s case from its leather strap and opened it. Inside, the instrument was worn and battered. Years of use marked my fingerprints onto the tone holes, and the wood was cracked and weak all over.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

It was barely holding itself together, the shoddy thing. But it was mine. And it had been my partner, ever since father had made it for my thirteenth birthday.

Aami held it out towards me.

“But are you upset enough to say no?”

“Never.”

I found myself smiling at that. I reached for the bansuri and looked down at it, ancient and worn. Strange, how it had only been five years since I’d first received it. I was eighteen, now. Three years into adulthood. And yet, I still felt so young at times. So stupid and childish.

This instrument was the only thing that I liked about that feeling. It made me feel like a kid again, listening to the Singing Tree and the tavern songs back home. It reminded me of good days. Simple days.

My situation now was anything but. It was nice, having something to return me to that time. I gave Aami a look.

“What song do you want me to play?”

She thought for a moment, then smiled. She rested her head against the tree and closed her eyes, “Tell me about today.”

I paused for a moment, then nodded. I raised the bansuri to my lips, feeling the familiar sensation of my lower lip over the embouchure hole. Then, my fingers, going up and placing themselves onto wooden tone holes that had worn out into the shape of my fingertips. It felt like forever since I’d last played. Holding the bansuri under a tree like this felt like an old memory—something soft and nostalgic.

I didn’t realize just how much I’d missed this feeling.

Closing my eyes, I released a breath. My weave shifted around me. Adapting. Changing. I was Ashran, the Master. The man whose name meant ‘adept.’ A man of three faces, each one a possibility. A future.

The Traveler’s help had given me one thing, and that was a choice. A way to choose my future. Alchemy, smithing, music. Traveling, laughter, and song. I was given a chance to choose.

And this was my greedy, selfish answer. And my weave paid for its freedom with the price of powerlessness.

It made me mortal, away from most of my supernatural power.

I didn’t regret it one bit.

My glamour changed to reflect this version of Ashran. Now I was clean-shaven and bright-eyed, with my hair tied lower than usual. It hung as a ponytail against my back. My alchemist’s cloak molded itself into a tattered cover, and my dignity as an academic fell away. I was a traveler, now. A minstrel. Free.

And to stay that way, I just had to act like one.

So, I played a song about today. I wasn’t sure about how to start it, at first. But the sounds came to me like they always did. I blew a soft breath into the mouthpiece, starting with a distant sound. It felt like gazing across a flooded ravine, wishing that you were on the other side of the churning waters. It was a pale sound. A dull, light blue. So faint that it was almost colorless. I thought of father, far away. Alone in Felzan. And mother, distant, even when we were working side by side.

I thought of her sacrifices. I thought of her tired eyes and her wrinkled face, and I imagined her setting off in the night, leaving without a word. Leaving father and I to ourselves, unable to do anything but think about how she was doing.

It was a deep, purple sound. Dark and lonely. It made me remember the quiet dinners and the right side of my father’s bed. Empty. Unused. It reminded me of the times I brought medicine to a feverish father, only for him to ask in his deliria: was I finally home? Did Elanah finally return? I remembered having to answer no. I remembered how his face would always fall, or how he would sometimes sit in his forge, unable to work. Looking only at the distant, uphill road, waiting for a silhouette to ascend the steps.

That angered me, again. I closed my eyes and frowned. The sound of my playing turned sharp. Berating. Thin silver, like the edge of a knife. Jagged glass and needle thorns. It wanted to cut. It wanted to hurt. The sound was a wordless rant, arguing, screaming, wanting to rebel against things I could do nothing about.

And then a warm hand touched my arm, and the tension in my fingers loosened. I released a breath.

The sound turned quiet again. Soft.

I didn’t have words for that sound. All I knew was that it was made for mother, with all its beckons and calls, its grasps and its desperate runs. Its heartbreaking desire to reach.

But it never did.

The sound traveled far. It ran over grass and soil, past the roar of the Drowning Rains and the echoing creaks of druidcrafted barracks. But it stopped there. Faint. Weakening.

It didn’t reach the lab, nor did I expect it to. I lowered the bansuri as the song came to an end.

“Well,” I muttered, feeling drained. I buried my face into my arms and sighed. “That was today.”

Aami nodded. “That was depressing.”

“It was.”

She poked me in the side, and I flinched. I glared at her.

“Stop that.”

She did it again, her lips struggling not to rise into a grin.

“Aami, don’t. I’m not going to—”

She poked me again, and it took everything I had to keep my face straight. From where she sat, she cracked one eye open, looked at me, and leaned forward. Close. She beckoned me to come closer with that same, mischievous look. I drew near, struggling not to be infected by her stupid half-grin.

Aami brought her lips to my ear and spoke.

“Peas.”

I paused, looked at her dumb, grinning face…

And the two of us roared with laughter like the idiots that we were. The sound of it echoed across the entire training field, rustling through the leaves and rumbling through hollow tree trunks. It filled the grass and hurt my stomach, pushing the air out of my lungs as Aami tackled me with a hug.

We sprawled out into the grass, laughing. She squeezed me once, then pulled away, giving me a bright grin.

“Feeling better now?” she asked.

Smiling, I looked up at her and shook my head, “You’re an idiot. Thank you.”

“This is what we do, isn’t it? I’m here when I need to be.”

“You really are.”

I sat up and poked her in the cheek with my bansuri. I grinned.

“Want to learn how to play?”

The shoggoth’s face lit up, even more so than I thought possible. She bobbed her head eagerly, taking the bansuri from my hands and sitting up beside me. Aami brought it up to her lips and stared with rapt attention. Amused, I reached forward and helped her, placing her fingers over the correct tone holes. I told her the name of the note, and then the next, placing her fingers over those, too.

I showed her a short sequence, then nodded. “Alright, now try that while blowing—slow and steady.”

She did.

The sound that emerged was jittery and out of tune—sharp and piercing. She’d blown too hard, and Aami winced, embarrassed. I laughed.

“Again.”

And she followed. Again. Then thrice more. Farther. Each time, it was awkward. Every time she got past a note, she screwed up the next one. Or even repeated a past mistake. Every time it happened, I laughed at her embarrassed looks. And she joined me, ashamed though she was. I brought out my lute and played as well. Joining her.

“You’re terrible, but that’s good,” I said, smiling. “Because it’ll only make it feel all the better once you figure it out. Let’s play until we get it right, okay?”

“Yes, but stop laughing!” she said, punching my shoulder. “You’re just making fun of me!”

“Call it payback for making me feel stupid with that pea joke. Now get to playing!”

Pulling back, Aami saluted me with a wry grin. Then she turned her attention to the instrument once more. Watching her, I played a note on my lute. She followed. And between the laughs, the poking, and the butchered sounds, she got better. It was still slow and jumbled, but she played. I matched her.

And the two of us performed our first song together.

I didn’t know when it happened, but the sound of us having fun drew people from the camp after sunset. Soldiers off duty carried their tables over from the kitchens and set them down, led forward by a small, amarid chef. They chatted and laughed, gathering near us, cheering Aami on as she tried to learn.

It embarrassed her, clearly, but she was smiling. She was happier than I’d ever seen her.

I was glad she’d been able to do it. To have these people accept her.

But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to have my fun.

Standing up, I took Aami’s hand. I dragged her towards the center of the gathered Shissavi, between the dinner tables and the smell of boiling stew. There, in the middle, standing with a confused Aami, I grinned and faced the soldiers.

“Who wants to hear her sing Riftwalker Randy!?”

Aami turned to me with a horrified look, but the Shissavi only roared, whistling and laughing. One without a helmet stood from the crowd, and she yelled at us from afar. Judging from the grin she sent Aami, they were close—they were friends.

“Who doesn’t!?”

The gathered soldiers only clamored more at that, chanting Aami’s name, pushing her forward to sing one of the raunchiest tavern songs in the realm. The girl in question blushed and glared, squeezing my wrist.

“Rowan, I swear—"

I grinned and raised my lute.

“My name is Ashran and tonight, performing with me is my partner, C’thaami! Everyone, please give her a round of applause for the first of many songs. Let's raise a glass!”

I turned, playing my lute, stepping away from a flustered Aami. I gave her a smile. Thankful. Glad. The soldiers around us raised their glasses.

“To my favorite person on this side of the realm—”

I strummed a chord and laughed.

“—Cheers!”