Mountain Legacy
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One day around Norwick's fire, Tinle saw a woman, Elsbeth, reveal a harp from her pack. A player of some instrument, he thought. Perfect.
He went over to her with his Khur - a two-stringed instrument - and placed it onto the rock chair, holding its bow in the other hand. He looked at her with great intent.
"Instrument, skill?" he asked of her, his Common accented by some other language matching his bronze skin and the lone topknot on his otherwise bald head. She noticed him and responded, "Me… yes, the harp." Another man, Kalem as it were, remarked in a manner which Tinle found obnoxious, "Egads, two bards? Is that legal here?" He glanced at the man and retorted, "Tinle is bard not, can play only," in his usual handicapped Common.
"No singing or poetry?" asked the man for clarity, to which Tinle admitted, "Sing can do." The man grunted and spat into the fire. Tinle turned again to Elsbeth, muttering in his native tongue under his breath, "I swear, all of man believes so firmly that should a fellow have on his person a single serviceable instrument, they are magical batteries of song and arcana."
Then, directly to Elsbeth, Tinle said, "Tinle... you, somebody, this instrument teach want," wincing at his horribly mangled Common. At first Elsbeth hesitated, misunderstanding his meaning, but then she agreed that she would like to be taught a new instrument.
"Instrument easy, two strings only," explained Tinle. "I see that," Elsbeth replied. "You teach me?"
"Yes."
"I am always looking for knowledge and learning new instruments," she went on, nodding and smiling at the instrument. The apparent barbarian prepared the Khur in his hands, sitting, and said, "First is, show..." before going about playing a little song, a brief burst of energetic, oriental music, drawing his bow across the two strings.
"Similar, eh..." he said as he stopped playing, "violin? Upright, however."
"I was going to say..." trailed Elsbeth, nodding, "or fiddle..."
"East from comes, this instrument. Tinle is mountains from come, here north," he pointed vaguely northward with his bow. "Ceremony sake, we use. Ceremony music Tinle job was... Anyway," he offered the Khur to Elsbeth, "here, try." She took it into her lap and Tinle adjusted her fingers and stance with the device.
"Simple," she said, perhaps in jest, experimentally drawing the bow across the strings. Tinle interrupted her, "Tinle another Khur make can do so, this one give."
"Tinle," Elsbeth smiled, "it is nice. Thank you." She emulated his stance and finger positioning, finding the right way to hold the instrument.
"Tinle die maybe. Khur forever die - not want. Therefore teach. One more example show," said the top-knotted man as he took the Khur back from her - resisting a certain sense of protectiveness, possessiveness. He took it that last time and began to play an extended, varied piece, humming lowly along as he did so. It began melancholy - extremely melancholy, fit for a funeral, and slowly made a transition to something more celebratory - perhaps still for a funeral, but of a culture which does not mourn in sadness but in jubilation over their dead. And then, probably for the sake of instruction, he digressed into something that seemed representative of "generic Khur music" for just a few minutes before stopping and staring down in contemplation. Elsbeth clapped, repeating the music in her head, and praised him.
"That was beautiful, Tinle." He gave only a little grunt and set the Khur and its bow on the stone chair for Elsbeth to take, standing and considering the fire.
"Tinle, thank you, and once I learn it I will teach it to others," Elsbeth graciously insisted, nodding. Quietly Tinle spoke to himself in his native language.
"There would be no service kinder, no further could I indebt myself to you, than for you to do such a thing young miss. No other thing."
Then Tinle brushed his eye, almost as if adjusting some invisible monocle, and bowed to Elsbeth before departing.
