Landslide

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I don’t understand. Why is my music so discordant recently? Oh Great Queen of Summer, what am I doing wrong?

Sheryl waits off to the side of the little stage in the Three Headed Ettin, her weight shifting from side to side in nervousness. The patrons are well into their drinks, rowdy, obnoxious. She hasn’t been this nervous for a performance in, well… she can’t remember how long. There was something about these last few weeks that had been off. Something that had made her music not reach the hearts of those she performed with.

Why?

She thinks back to a few weeks ago, to the Glade where she was training with Sunday. She had said a lot of things, things she would never have dared to say to anyone except her dear friend. Sunday has changed a lot from the woman she was when she first came to the Summer Lands to the person she is now. Sheryl likes the woman Sunday has become.

But sometimes the way Sunday speaks about the Summer Court, her home, and the way she speaks about Titania… it doesn’t sit right with her.

“Everyone has their different sides, for sure, their different seasons.”

But was that it? Was it because her “season away” was coming to an end? Or was it something else?

“I feel Her… every time I sing. Her powers are within me, getting stronger every time I–” she looks at her wings and the memory of the Fey magic from earlier ripples across them. “I sometimes don’t know where I end and… She begins…”

“Okay Sheryl, you’re on!” The event manager pops around the corner interrupting her thoughts. They lean in close. “I know last week’s performance was a bust but you’ve got this.” He pats her shoulder again and gently nudges her forward.

Sheryl steps out onto the stage and she feels all of those worrisome thoughts pulled away. Maybe this will be the performance… she thinks as she walks to the centre of the stage and the patrons turn to look at her.

She grins. “Is everyone having a good time?!” They shout and raise their tankards, ale and wine slopping out of their cups and she laughs. “Well let’s continue that shall we?”

They all shout again and start chanting her name.

Sheryl. Sheryl. Sheryl. Sheryl.

She walks over to the side, and pulls up not her harp, but a lute. The patrons shout and start banging their glasses on the tables. Coll shouts something but his voice is drowned out. Not wanting to wait any longer, finally feeling the inspiration hit, Sheryl plays.

It’s not a soft ballad. It’s raw, hard and fast. The beat is strong and the notes are loud. All in the Ettin start jumping up and down to the music as Sheryl’s music blankets them in a fervor.

        I can feel that you’ve mesmerised my heart
        I feel so free
        I’m alive, I’m breaking out
        I won’t give in, cause I'm proud of all my scars
        And I can see I’ve been wasting too much time
        
        I go faster and faster and faster
        and faster and faster and faster and faster
        
        I can’t live in a fairytale of lies
        And I can’t hide from the feeling cause it’s right
        And I go faster and faster and faster and faster for love
        And I can’t live in a fairytale of lies

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Afterwards, when the crowd had died down and the patrons were leaving their seats to stumble their way home to rest their tired, drunken heads, Sheryl was collecting her earnings and tips from her rocking performance. She felt good, great in fact! That was how it's always supposed to be. Nevermind that those who remained kept looking at her sideways, trying to see if they saw what they thought as the small woman was performing on stage. A fearsome fey Queen who shone like the summer sun, that your eyes hurt to look at but you found yourself unable to tear your eyes away. But it could not be. Now, Sheryl looked almost normal. There was a golden shimmer to her skin that wouldn’t fade away though.

Sheryl thanked Coll for allowing her to play a set again, promising to be back with more performances like it the following week. She gathered up her small satchel, harp and was putting on her cloak when she passed by a table of three, all who at a glance looked to be the adventuring type, but not ones she really knew. She had a little lilt to her step when she caught the hushed whispers of their conversation.

“...the fish-smelling one, Stedd, died! Killed by one of his party. And then that same guy, a half-orc bit it too!”

Sheryl’s feet stop suddenly weighted down with stones. She listens.

“No way! How’d that happen?” asks the second man.

“Apparently his brain just exploded out of his head!” replies the first one.

“Oh man, that’s so gross-”

“Shhh, not so loud you ijit,” says the third one, knocking him across the head and glancing around. His eyes just catch the final glint of a shimmering sun glow as iridescent wings flit by a closing door.

Stedd is dead? Sheryl thinks, her feet picking up speed. How?? When?! She goes faster. It wasn’t in Ku’l Goran, surely? And faster. The final battle was a few weeks ago. And faster. Bubbles would have said! And faster. Oh, Bubbles... And faster. And the half-orc. Was it Baine? And faster. Or was it Gegrun? And faster.

She didn’t know where she was running to. Her feet were carrying her through the cold winter streets, damp and nearly slick with ice. She tugs her winter cloak tighter around her shoulders and throws the hood over her head. There’s a ringing in her ears and she can’t understand why it’s incessantly there but it’s ringing and ringing and calling and calling.

It’s dark in the Feythorn. Normally this would scare Sheryl but she is running away, lost in the speed by which she travels and not caring that it is dangerous. It seems like no matter where one goes death is always close behind.

She reaches the small clearing, her clearing. The circle of stones and mushrooms is there, no snow touches the ground. The trees creak and groan in a light wind and their branches sway, a sad melodious echo.

Sheryl, panting from the exertion, realising she is in the forest, alone, in the dark, steps into the circle. The temperature increases by twenty degrees and she knows she is still in and yet not in the Feythorn. The trees still sway, but the melody is different. Softer. Sleepy.

Untying her cloak, she starts to hum a tune, counter to the trees. There’s a knot in her throat as she does, but she pushes through it. She needs to do this. She won’t have time to get down to Port Ffirst to see Bubbles, but this she can do.

Taking out six candles she puts four of them to the different points of the compass within the circle; one south, one north, one east, one west. The fifth and sixth she places in the centre as she tucks her legs underneath her, sitting with the soft dewy grass under her shins. Breathing in the pine and evergreen all around her, Sheryl slowly stops humming and closes her eyes. But it’s like there is music around her as she begins to sway in time with the trees and notes of what she was singing can be heard within the clearing.

Sheryl keeps her eyes closed. The trees lean in closer.

Then her lips part and the most eloquent Sylvan comes pouring out on notes that tear at the heart. With each line of the first verse she gestures to a candle and they alight, a different colour flame illuminating the clearing.

The eastern candle’s flame is a light, sky blue and the smell of new air puffs briefly from the candle. The southern candle lights in an orange-red, woodsmoke tickling Sheryl’s nose. The western candle glows a deep, watery turquoise green, and though it is fire there’s the unmistakable smell of sea salt coming from it for a brief moment. Then the north and final candle lights up with a warm golden brown, and the smell of freshly turned earth makes even the trees sigh.

        I took my love, I took it down
        Climbed a mountain and I turned around
        And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
        'Til the landslide brought me down

Sheryl picks up the two candles in front of her and they alight at her touch. One is a greenish brown, the other is a navy turquoise blue. She starts to dance as she sings, tracing patterns in the grass with her feet and mirroring the paths with the flames of the candles she holds.

        Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
        Can the child within my heart rise above?
        Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
        Can I handle the seasons of my life?
        
        Hmm-hmm, I don’t know…
        Hmm-Mmm
        
        Well, I've been 'fraid of changin'
        'Cause I've built my life around you
        But time makes you bolder
        Children get older
        And I'm gettin' older, too
        So...

As she dances and sings, eyes closed not needing to see, only to feel, the small clearing listens and feels the power of her song. She does not sing for herself, though she does let her feelings of a friendship, though brief, now lost, breathe emotion into the words. Sheryl sings for those who have to live on, for the ones who may not have yet found a way past this loss, who may be deep in sorrow.

        I've been 'fraid of changin'
        'Cause I, I've built my life around you
        But time makes you bolder
        Children get older
        I'm gettin' older, too
        I'm gettin' older, too

Sheryl softly opens her eyes and sings on a quiet breath to the candles she holds in her hands, like a hymnal prayer just for them. Gently, she places them back down in the centre of the ring.

        So take this love, take it down
        Oh, if you climb a mountain and you turn around
        If you see his reflection in the snow covered hills
        Well, the landslide will bring it down, down

She spins around hands passing above the four candles flames and they glow a little brighter as she sings,

        And if you see their reflection in the snow covered hills...

She stops spinning, arms outstretched to the stars, and the world holds its breath. The heavenly lights, small and pure, reflect off her twilight blue eyes, refracting in tears pooling in the corners.

        Well maybe...

Then, the four candle flames start to dim as she crouches down to the two candles at her feet.

        The landslide will bring it down
        Well, well, the landslide will bring it down

A wind blows through the circle of stones and mushrooms, lifting Sheryl’s hair as the last note is carried away, the lights of the candles going out.