Duscan had briefly flitted his gaze to the bedroom earlier, but at her oh, so innocent mistake of making mention of it, Duscan was found staring and wandering over to get a better view of the bed. It was big, if one poor bastard was to compare it to his shitty thing called a cot, and he liked to think he could furnish nicely over it or even on a chair. Maybe the drink was inebriating his mind already, but Duscan accepted the cup with a humoured smile.

"Ah, there she is." He grinned wide. "Not only a Lady Lark, but a woman who knows how to taunt my beating heart." A price? He wondered what it would be, and how willing she was to listen to his haggling if the price were too high.

And yet, as the bard searched high and low for a writing utensil, Duscan slowly sipped at his mead. Nice, pleasant, and perhaps a little too light of a taste given the hour. Dawn was approaching in a few hours, after all. It would do fine, he reasoned, just as he noticed she had begun to scribble onto his flyer. He wandered over, leaning down to see what she was writing over her shoulder. "Fuck me, you got my name right." He blurted with surprise. "Know how many times people mistake me for Duncan?"

The moment the flyer was offered back to him, Duscan took it with a confident grin.

He was glad he hadn't taken a drink of his mead, but even as she named the price, his hand misplaced where the rim should rest. The poor bastard spilled a few drops of mead onto his cheek, feeling it dribble down his jaw and drip onto his last, technically clean shirt.

"A... A kiss?" He stammered, but as he stared at her, he realised that sort of price shouldn't be a surprise after the introductions they had earlier at the inn. "Well, I..." He put down his cup, somewhere, and placed his flyer nearby too. Duscan watched her, narrowed his blue eyes and was useless to the sly grin on his lips.

"One kiss?" He repeated. The bard was having entirely too much fun now. The bastard closed the distance between them with two lazy steps, lifting a hand so that he could crook a finger beneath her chin and raise her head slightly so that he could make her meet his stare. "This better not be some fey fuckery you are about to commit."
 
“Fuck me, you got my name right."

Anira glanced up at him. “Duncan?” she scoffed. “Please. You don’t look like a Duncan. That is such a ghastly farm-boy name. No offense to any plough-wielding Duncan out there, but you? No, you’re something else entirely...” She tapped the tip of the quill lightly against her lip, eyes flicking over him in open assessment.

"A... A kiss?"
Her laughter spilled out, light and genuine, not the mocking kind, but because she found him rather endearing and unexpectedly charming. Maybe she had a bit of hasty prejudice about barkeeps earlier? She tilted her head, watching the droplets trail down his jaw with an almost affectionate curiosity.

“Huh? Fey fuckery, you say?

The bard didn’t flinch when he touched her chin. She held his gaze like it was a contest she was already winning, but gods, he was handsome, wasn’t he? Anira tilted her head as he leaned in. Her gaze swept low for a heartbeat, down to his lips, then lifted again, sharp as a rapier point and twice as playful.

“Oh, but if I were a fey,” she murmured, voice dripping the sweet honey of mischief. “I’d say something like..."

A pause. One breath. Two.

And here her voice lilting like a line of song left hanging. "You can trade me something truer. Something no one else knows. Your true name, your oldest dream, and the worst thing you've ever done on purpose."

A smile bloomed slow across her lips. She paused dramatically, then clapped her hands together.

“Ooh, But I like that. Let’s do that instead!” she beamed. “Much more meaningful than the usual lip-tax.”
 
Duscan looked impressed, his brows raising as he dropped his hand from her chin. It lingered there in the space between them, half hesitation, half intending to find a new spot to hold. "Lady Lark, you are being most unfair to me." He chuckled, but he played those lyrical words over and over. His tongue ran across his lips, some colour returning to them as he considered this with deep thought.

"Duscan the Bastard." It was a true name. A name, a brand, an insult. Duscan wore it all in every fashion and every colour. Dusc raised his hand again, this time letting a finger curl around a lock of hair and softly brushing it back from her face. "My father loved to remind me of what I am, and purposefully didn't grace me with his family name. Was stuck with me, and he showed that. He was some rich merchant, and was gone from home a lot of the time."

When he had no more of her honeyed hair to brush back, Duscan settled on looking to her face. She was pretty. Very pretty. The kind he knew he shouldn't chase, but already she had ensnared him with her song and her charms.

"Now, I cannot face the music and reveal the worst thing that I have done. I technically might be wanted in several cities because of it." Duscan's hands found home at her neck. His fingers caught upwards into her hair, palm resting where he could feel the faint beating of her heart. It was the drum to her song, and Duscan smiled. His thumbs brushed her cheekbones. "Since I cannot fulfill your new terms of pricing... oh! Wait!" He winked. "A dream of mine? Well, Lady Lark of the Lanes, Anira Verseheart. My dream is to see what it is like to kiss you."

He was a fucking poet, wasn't he? Duscan was proud of that line, his grin wide and warm as he tilted her head to meet the looming of his own.
 
Duscan’s eyes found hers. She knew that look. Anira told herself she knew the type, roguish, a little dangerous, good with words and better with silence. The kind of man you enjoyed for a night. The kind that always came with fine cheekbones, a dangerous mouth, and a voice that could coax you into trouble before breakfast.

She told herself she was immune to such things. She’d danced with rakes before. She knew the steps, the game, the rules. She’d meant to toy with him, to keep him dancing on the thread of her teases, but every reply from him came back with a wit she hadn’t expected.

There was something utterly disarming in the way he touched her and the bard felt herself melt into the space he made for her. Duscan’s hand cradled the nape of her neck, fingers threading into her hair, and suddenly every word she might have flung simply… fluttered away.

When he pulled her just a fraction closer, she caught herself smiling because, of course, the scoundrel was proving far more tempting than she had intended. And Anira, in all her teasing, torchlit bravado, had not expected to feel it in her knees.

The first brush of her mouth was not the clumsy meeting of lips one might half-expect. It was a soft, warm, deliberate, as though she’d chosen to learn the shape of him in one stolen moment. Her breath mingled with his and a sigh caught somewhere between them. His lips were warm, and softer than she’d guessed. Fingers sliding up to cradle his jaw.

A teasing press and retreat that left her chasing the taste of him. He tasted faintly of mead. She could hear her own heartbeat, traitorous loud. The bard pulled back before it became something she couldn’t laugh off, her lips tingling and her breath light in her chest.

“Mm… for a bastard, you kiss remarkably well. I’m almost suspicious. Better not be some fey fuckery..."
 
He answered her with a soft smile, one he wouldn't use on any customer that came through the inn. It was one he never knew how to replicate, for it was something natural of the moment. Tenderness was not necessarily his forte, none of this was, but Duscan could tell himself it was all good fun to have a worthy companion to tête-à-tête with.

Slowly, because he liked playing this game between them, he let his fingers drag from her hair, down her neck and over her shoulders before removing them altogether. He turned his torso so that he could reach for his mead, saluting the bard with a wry grin. "Fuck the fey." Words that shouldn't be said in their vicinity of course. "You know where to find me when you want me to show you more than that." His cup tilted, pouring the mead into his mouth and polished off the contents.

Using the back of his hand, he wiped at his mouth and the bottom of his jaw and chin. He was going to need to buy a new shirt on the way home, that way he had something to wear when cleaning his other shirts, and letting them dry in the backroom of the inn.

But Duscan shouldn't be thinking of laundry right now. Not when he was admitted inside the living quarters of the striking bard with a cheek about her.

"I'll tell you another dream that I have," he said, sidestepping around her and finding himself a seat, "I want to one day make a name for myself."

A seat he found, but atop the perch he wished to accommodate were papers of some kind. Neatly, he gathered them and placed the stack on a nearby surface. Taking a seat, he exhaled as he squirmed to find a comfortable position. Duscan lifted his blue eyes up at the bard, a glimmer of mischief there as he beheld her. "Not as the Bastard. I want to claim a name, start my own family even if that name dies with me. A boy's dream when I was tricked into being indentured by a rich noble lady in the state I hail from."

The city state of Veya was small. Significantly so, but it also held the most population of higher class merchants and noble families. Collecting Shroudweavers was seen to be a manner of honoring those with the art, but over the years, collecting indentures from weavers felt as if one was merely collected and boasted about. Every indenture came with a marking, to show what house or trade they were in. No one wanted a weaver that could walk into a space and see the past. No one wanted a sadness in their halls, for that was all Duscan saw his entire years of serving.

Why he was marked with ashen tears.
 
Anira felt the subtle pull in her chest as his fingers drifted from her hair down her neck and shoulders. Her hands itched to reach out, the bard fought the urge to let her hands wander- “Well,” she teased softly, “won’t your shirt get jealous?” Her fingertips brushed lightly along the hem of his shirt, where it hung loose, and she gave the fabric a gentle tug.

“That’s a fine dream. A rare one, too.” She said low and soft. Most men chased ghosts or grudges.

Her eyes didn’t waver from his as she reached for her glass. She tipped it back, letting the honeyed mead warm her throat, the faintest smile curling her lips as the last drops slid down. Setting the empty cup down with a gentle clink, she took a slow step forward, closing the distance between them. Her hand rose with a mission.

Her finger traced a feather-light path along the marks etched on his cheek, those stubborn lines that seemed both cruel and telling. The touch was tender, reverent even, as if she were reading a story written in flesh, a secret map of battles fought and burdens borne. Were they trophies of a past he carried or chains he longed to break free from?

"... I was tricked into being indentured by a rich noble lady in the state I hail from."

“Do these marks,” she murmured, her hands lingered, tracing the lines that marked him as much as his name did. “have anything to do with this lady?" Her voice was thick with curiosity. “If you ever want to share the tale behind those charming marks, I do know how to listen.”

“And if not,” she added with a playful tilt of her head. “well… I’m good company either way.”
 
Duscan's hand shot up, fingers curling around her wrist as if to stop her, but the clear widening of his eyes and stiffness for a moment showed his own action surprised him. He had felt unkind hands before, had forgotten he was no longer that man stuck to bitter duty. He loosened his grip, eventually dropping his hands and letting his elbows rest on the arms of the chair.

"A weaver is marked for what their role is. Most times these shitty brands are just to drum up performance and catch the eyes of other merchants or nobility, make them jealous they don't have someone exotic in their collection." His mouth crooked at one corner, watching the bard with a wickedness that stopped at his eyes. "I'll happily tell you the story, bard."

It wasn't a secret. Duscan hadn't yet tired of telling it, not truly. Not when someone worthy of storytelling had stepped right up before him.

Anira's gentle touch had him leaning into it at the slightest fraction. This was no soft caress from a woman that wished to fill the quiet with questions before getting what she wanted of him. The bard before him had asked these questions with little fanfare. Did not make Duscan feel that all he was as a pretty thing told to stand center stage and paraded.

"I see harsh truths that came to pass in a location. Sometimes I see happiness. I did it a lot as a boy, used this ability just to scrape by and earn some coin telling the guards where a criminal went. Maybe someone dropped a ljttle treasure, and fucking hell was I lucky to see it hadn't been retrieved. I'll sell it, and I'll fill my pockets. If I looked too long... my vision would find ways to impair. Bloody tears or head cracking aches behind the eye..." And he had been watched long enough for the Lady to brand him with tears.

Made him play the part of broken and brooding. The harbinger of ill tidings. It made other notables look at the Lady with apprehension for having him in her collection.
 
Her eyes flickered as his hand closed around her wrist, an unexpected grip that caught her off guard. A moment so brief, yet it struck her with the weight of a thousand unspoken fears. It wasn’t the touch itself that unsettled her, but it was the silent message it carried, the quiet fear that she might be something to guard against.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her voice trembling with regret. She withdrew her hand slowly, not wishing to push further, but the ache of having crossed an invisible boundary lingered in her chest. It was a reminder that trust was not freely given, especially to those who had learned long ago to guard themselves.

Anira’s eyes softened as she listened, the flicker of firelight catching the quiet strength behind his words. She saw the man who’d been marked and burdened far too young. Did not need to be a weaver to see that. She listened intently as Duscan spoke of his marks, how and why they came to be. The way he described his gift, the visions, the toll it took on his mind and body, it was both fascinating and heartbreaking.

He came from a place that keeps weavers like trophies, branded and bound for others to display. “You didn’t simply walk away from that life, did you?” she asked softly. "How did you found your way out?"
 
Duscan pursed his lips to keep his smile from growing. His eyes became alight with something wicked, something that was for sure every line of poetry dedicated to dastardly.

Or so he thought. He wasn't a poet but still held a torch for the art form.

"Ah, Lady Lark." Duscan wagged a finger at her slowly.
"You are quite smart to come to that conclusion. I bought my way out..." He hesitated there, chewing on his cheeks as he contemplated on whether or not he should continue. He had gotten this far, and fuck, he may as well tell someone other than a drunken sod like Bozzy.

"I told you that I could not tell you the worst thing I have done, didn't I? That I was possibly a wanted man in other cities? Well, I bought out my own indenture. Just had to swindle Lady Arness out of her money to pull it all off, but fuck me did it feel good to see her face when she realised what I had done." If he wasn't a poet, then Duscan was made for the stage. "But I cannot talk about myself all the way to the wee hours of dawn, bard." His voice softened.

"Tell me a song or tale about yourself."
 
Anira’s lips parted, though no words came at first. She wasn’t shocked by what he’d done; gods knew she’d heard worse from her own blood. But there was something in the way he said it, the triumphant bite in his voice and the gleam of victory in his eyes. Oh, she knew that look far too well, and that made a part of her ache.

She knew the thrill of outwitting someone who thought themselves untouchable. She also knew the mess it left behind, the people who paid the price. Her father’s shadow was long and full of such victories. Victories built on the ruins of others. Still, no one deserved to be made a prize in someone else’s collection.

Art is what you get away with... as her dear father used to say. And there it was. That gnawing truth, the realization that the same sly charm, the same dangerous glint that had ruined so many lives under her father’s hand… had her leaning toward this man like a moth to flame.

Of course, she thought. The thrill when the fox smiles. "I do enjoy a man with quick fingers." she flirted, before she rose, unhurried, and crossed to where her lute waited.

“A song then, since you’ve been so very brave in your confessions.” She brushed the strings once, letting the lute hum. The first notes were airy, almost fragile, like they might drift away if not listened to carefully.

"Once I lived in towers golden,
High above the reach of tide,
Where the windows opened only
To a world the waves denied."

"Every stone was smooth and shining,
Every feast was rich and sweet,
And I never thought to wonder
What was buried ‘neath my feet."​

The melody flowed, light as champagne bubbles at first, before dipping into notes that hinted of inevitable collapse. Intoxication always came with a price. Grand, glittering dreams, built on sand where no one can touch them… until the tides shift, and you realise there’s nothing beneath your feet.

Her voice carried the lift of hope, the shimmer of a dreamer’s heart, and the aching drop of disappointment when the dream dissolved. Her voice wove the story, sweet, wistful, and the knowing melancholy of someone who’d stood on such towers herself, feeling the dizzying drop when they crumbled.

"But the sea, she tells her stories,
And her whispers reach the young;
When I learned the cost of splendor,
I found sand under my tongue."

"The tide came whispering true,
Showed me all the cracks and lies.
The towers fall, the banners blew,
And all I owned was empty skies."
​
When the last chord melted away, she tilted her head at him. “And that, dear bastard, was the song of my formative years." All sandcastles and sunshine, until the tide came in, and she realised the architect was more pirate than king. She set the lute down upon the nearest table, the polished wood catching the candlelight. Anira reached for the mead, poured herself a brimming cup, and drank deeply. As if it might wash the lingering sand of memory from her mouth.
 
The moment she strummed her lute, he felt the notes reverberate through his bones and what kept them caged. It was a surge of life, and it moved him. Duscan leaned forward in his seat, eyes watching her with an intensity that awaited the first verse. He had heard her sing before, had not paid particular attention then for it had been just any other night to the barkeeper.

But he was listening now.

He rested his elbows on his knees, resting his lips behind his clasped hands as he was pulled in with the tide of her song. The words painted a picture he could see, as if it were a memory lost that he could revisit here in this room. Duscan was struck, not just by her voice alone, but the words sung of pretty promises before the dark allure of pain. Of reality. He wondered if they ever stood at the same beach before, for he could feel the familiarity of her story, yet Duscan had never seen a coastline before.

As soon as she poured herself some mead, Duscan was back on his feet and crossing the distance to her. He found his cup again, and filled it.

"I was wrong earlier." He murmured, no charming smiles or mischievous glimmers in his eyes. Duscan didn't need to hide his honesty. His cup was held in salute, a toast to the brilliance of her talent. "I think I would like to be one of your songs." The drink disappeared from the cup, filling him. He ought to slow down, to sip it at a leisurely pace, but he was too used to needing to down drinks during a busy service.

"So... you got a shit father too?" He asked, a brow quirking.
 
“No,” she said, voice soft but steady. “I had the best father in the world.” A pause, her eyes flicking briefly to her cup before returning to his. Her fingers tapped the rim of her cup.

“The finest father any daughter could hope for. A man of impeccable taste and boundless generosity. If I so much as glanced at something twice, it found its way into my hands before the week was out. Once he gave me a pony so white it hurt to look at her in the sun." She took a long drink, letting the mead linger on her tongue before swallowing, her gaze drifting somewhere past him now.

Dresses from the world’s most fashionable tailors, imported confections still dusted with the sugar of faraway shores, private tutors who could trace their lineage to scholars of renown. And the stories. Oh, the stories he could tell. He could make the most ordinary day feel like an epic tale. A small, wistful laugh escaped her, though it carried an undertone of something more guarded. “He made the world look as though it existed solely to please me.”

A small shrug, light and practiced. She did not like to talk about her father. It always caused a big surge of guilt within her. She could never right his wrongs, even if they ate at her. So, she changed the topic of conversation.

“Speaking of songs… you, are clearly one waiting to be written. All loud, shameless, and impossible to get out of one’s head, and ... don’t look at me like that, you know exactly what you’re doing!”
 
Should he feel envious that she had a father she could love? Where he had a father that was so shamed of him existing, he did not want to bear him with the family name. The moment Duscan learned that he was the result of adultery, he branded the truth as if it were a weapon only he could wield.

"Look at me, father. See me for the shame you feel, for I was made from your blood. We've got the same eyes, you and I."

Duscan made a noise of protest, and feigned his wounds upon his heart with an expression cut by her observations of him. His hand that wielded his cup was cradled to his chest, as if to cease the bleeding upon his heart that was not there to stain his last half clean shirt.

"Lady Lark of the Lanes!" He shook his head at her, but that smile could never be buried beneath pretense.

He helped himself to another cup full of mead, chuckling to himself. "You are doing quite a lot for my confidence, darlin'. Can't get me out of your head, hey?" Duscan gave the mead bottle a gentle shake in the space between them in hopes of attracting her pretty eyes to meet his again. It was a silent question of whether she needed a top up on her cup. "And you, Anira Verseheart... it is rather unfair that I cannot resist your charms. Too good to be true, especially for it to happen to a bastard like me."
 
Her gaze lingered on him for a heartbeat longer than was polite, catching that subtle shift, a shadow that flickered over his face. Her father was no better than his.

“My father,” she said. Her father was nothing to be envious of. “...he was… is... quite monstrous.” If he ever loved, it was a selfish, ruinous thing.

She traced the rim of her cup with one idle fingertip. Before she held it out so he could refill her cup. “I have no illusions about him. Whatever pleasant memories I keep, they are marred by the truth... he ruined the lives of so many."

Her smile sharpened into something brighter. “But let us not linger on such dreary portraits of our fathers." she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Anira let her fingers drift across the space between them until they found his. Her touch light at first, almost coy, before she caught hold and gave the smallest, most deliberate tug.

“Come now” she said with a sort of soft. “I find myself in desperate need of… inspiration.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth for a heartbeat before returning to his eyes, a silent confession that she was not speaking of ink and parchment at all.

“You wouldn’t be so cruel as to deny a bard her muse, would you?” Another gentle pull, urging him to come closer.
 
He poured himself another cup before filling her waiting one. Perhaps it was to keep her there, a moment longer so that he could watch her as he poured with an expert hand. Dusc didn't need to watch the cup, not when he had ears and a sense of heartbeats to time his pour. He pulled it back upright, twisting the bottle in motion to catch the drops that would have ran down the neck.

Setting it down, Dusc raised the cup to his lips.
"I'll drink to that."
He murmured, voice amplified momentarily as he spoke into the little space left in his cup.

He was watching her, unknowingly waiting for the bard to proceed with their evening. Her hand didn't surprise him, nor make him smile like some cocky shit. The bard wanted something from him, and for all the bad decisions he was capable of making, Duscan knew at least this wasn't going to be a mistake.

As if she had lured him with her voice and song, Duscan moved at her gentle behest. "Muse? Oh, Lady Lark. You sure know how to make me feel special." And she had. Duscan downed his cup, this time not quench a dry mouth, but to free up his hands. His smile no longer clung to any of his mischief, but showed a deep curiosity of what was to come.
 
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