RP:The Answer
This is a Bard's Guild RP.
Summary: Brennia and Alvina are able to catch up after eighteen long months.
Mastery Lounge
Brennia finally reaches the mastery lounge of the bard’s guild. She wanted to find Alvina as soon as she got better and see how her best friend has been, but plans got derailed when she forgot where she lived, met back up with Raphaline, helped give Emilia a second heart, made a new friend in Brynhild, met quite the attractive Paladin, Zahrani… Heartbreakingly met Niall again. When all she wanted to do was see her dear friend again and if she had been worried at the fact that Brennia had been missing for so long then she doesn’t have to anymore. Apparently Alvina and Hudson had long moved from Larket, when did that happen? She’d been so busy in her own life and the happenings in Schezerade that this was completely new news to the avian. After a few weeks of searching, helping out at the House of Ara and cleaning up Schezerade… she began to ache for the friendship of Alvina again. Maybe there would be a clue at the bard’s guild headquarters, so here she is. A very tired and slimmed down former headmistress of the bard’s guild, dressed simply on an off the shoulder type oversized sweater and black cotton leggings. Her wings sort of slump as she takes in the vacancy of the lounge and inspects the last posting on the bulletin board being of her own. The hope to see Alvina here, or anyone for that matter, starts to shrink from her and she lets out a defeated sigh. Mentally kicking herself for never putting a piano here, but she settles for one of those newfangled things called a guitar. Might as well, she’s starting to feel as hollow as the wood behind the strings in spite of its ability to still make beautiful sound. Plucking the strings and testing the tune before adjusting them accordingly before she strums the instrument idly in the lonesome bard lounge.
Alvina'd put up other postings on the board but they'd been taken down accordingly. She'd left Brennia's up through all this time because the avian had posted it and it's place there made Alvina feel like there was hope. People came and went all the time here, she'd learned that lesson well in her many years in Lithrydel. Today, the students are back at classes at the college. Summer'd ended, which slowed down rehearsals and practices. And if Alvina's honest, the madness of Cenril had been pre-occupying her time. She’d cut away from home, in preparation for the Mage Guild’s ball. It wouldn’t be long now and the choir needed a bit of fine tuning. The bard’s carrying bundles of individual music sheets, bound together by string for each performer. The strum of the guitar isn’t foreign to her but this early in the day rings a few alarms. Did one of the student’s skip class? Alvina can barely see through the papers when she speaks. “Shouldn’t you be in class?” She asks in a tired, matronly voice. “Please help me with these and I’ll keep your secret but really you should be –“ Emerald eyes blink in rapid surprise through unevenly cut edges of parchment. “Bre,” she breathes, dropping all the papers at once and tripping over the pile to try and hug the avian. “Where did you go? I was so worried!” Between the two women, Alvina’s stomach is swollen; no doubt another Landon bun in the oven. If Brennia doesn't let the guitar go, all the more space will exist between them. “Gods, look at you, let me look at you.” Her eyes scan Brennia’s eyes, face, ears, hair, and the curve of her wings over her shoulders. Alvina exhales a heavy sigh, still not sure if this is a dream. “I’ve missed you *so* much.”
Brennia stopped playing when her overly long tapered ears hear a familiar silvery voice ask a question. She even feels chastised for a moment and smiles softly while setting the instrument aside just as Alvina spots her. She stands excitedly just as the woman starts tumbling for a hug and catches her in it, being sure not to squeeze too hard even though she wants to show just how much she’s missed her. “Alvina,” the smoky warm timber of her voice catches with emotion and she lets out a soft chuckle. “Well… I,” She starts to try to explain, but is caught by the way Alvina looks at her and she smiles so wide that her dimples poke through and tears threatened in her teal hues, “not a day went by when I didn’t think on the love I have for my closest friends and hope that they were happy and healthy.” After placing a sweet platonic kiss on the woman’s cheek, Brennia gets down on her knees to pick up all of the papers before the woman swollen with child even thinks of lifting another finger, “and I see that you are doubly healthy.” A sly smirk and a wink given to Alvina before she takes the papers to wherever they were meant to belong, “I had been poisoned. The poison made me, along with a bunch of other workers, mindless and controllable zombies for these goblins to command. They kept us sedated with sleeping draught at night, but I don’t remember much about it,” aside from the night terrors that keep her awake and the scars marring her hips and thighs that remind her of their ugly little faces, chittering away their commands to work. She smiles again, looking like the usual warm and friendly Brennia from all that time ago, no more Raven or depresso espresso. “I’m alive and free now and I’ll never take my life for granted again. I have so much sense of purpose once more and I wish to right so many things. I’ve been looking for you for the past few weeks and I cannot even express how good it is to see you again, Alvina.”
Alvina’s eyes likewise shimmer with unshed tears. Bards and their emotions! She squeezes Brennia tightly before they break apart to clean up the papers she’d thrown down in such a hurry. Or, Bre breaks apart and leaves Alvina to watch and apologize. This isn’t how she’d hoped their reunion would go. “I’m so sorry, I can pick them…” But the avian is going about the task uninhibited and Alvina can find the heart to fight her on it much. Bre mentions Alvina’s stomach and the red head caresses the swell of her dress affectionately. “We clearly have a problem.” Said jokingly, as if it’s impossible for the Landon’s to stop producing children. Pack mentality maybe. Her jovial expression sours into concern when the former head mistress offers an explanation for her disappearance. “Gods no,” A pale palm lifts to shield her mouth in surprise. Her gentle mood, even if it’s a mask she wears, soothes Alvina a little. Maybe it’s for the best the avian doesn’t remember much. That doesn’t sound like an experience worth remembering. If Alvine’d known about the night terrors, she’d offer a sleeping remedy. She’d had to do the same for Pilar so long ago after her leg was removed. Though Alvina would be hesitant, since Brennia just said she’d been sedated with drugs during her enslavement. “What would you like to do, Brennia? What’s your purpose?” Alvina’s excited to hear of her friend’s plans for her bright future. When she says she’d been searching for the Landon’s, Alvina looks startled. “Oh! We moved to Cenril because of…a lot of…violent and heart breaking things happening in Larket.” She couldn’t find the voice to talk about Valrae’s murder, but would it really matter since the witch had been revived? “Hudon’s real estate business -“ Mob “- is doing well there. You’ll have to come by and see the place. Stay a while if you need to, we have an extra room and you’re always welcome to use it.”
Brennia drapes her arm over Alvina’s shoulders as she grins mischievously, “or the solution.” Not sleeping is the least of her problems. When she had gotten healed after being rescued, she had to have a part of her gastral intestine removed and now she cannot eat too much lest she get sick, but she has not had the heart to tell anyone about this, for she doesn’t want to be fretted after in that way. “I don’t know,” she said excitedly with a passionate smile when she moved away from Alvina to wander and twirl around the emptiness of the lounge. “I want to fill the college with love, music and learning again. I want the guild to start teaching classes there on how to heal through song, how to strengthen others in battle and so much more. I just know that there is an abundance to being a bard than just pretty music in exchange for coin, you know?” She sighs softly, “the piano and all of the sheet music had been burned by Kahran’s army. I want to overstuff the shelves with music and lyrics once more…” Coming back around, she takes her friend’s hands in her own, a thumb gently caressing the back of the hand to the metal one, “Right… Real estate.” Brennia knew all about the type of business he ran, or she used to and had even made a powerful little addition to his sales. “I cannot wait to come visit you in Cenril… I actually hope to visit the city more often.” Her cheeks get rosy as she glances away from Alvina - obvious signs she is smitten with someone.
Alvina studies Brennia with a light heart as she twirls ‘round the otherwise empty lounge. She looked so spirited and felt so free. So much like a Brennia from years before, when Alvina’d just started to work with the new headmistress. Long before Alvina took her mantle of deputy at the avian’s side. The Landon mother didn’t know Brennia was aware of Hudson’s real ‘business’ but it wasn’t polite to talk about such things regardless. “Troublemaker!” She accuses when the suggestion is made towards ‘having children as the solution’. Her hand swats at the air before the former headmistress takes her by the hands. Two, beautifully pink and flesh hands where once a metal appendage had been. Hard to notice when someone has been a certain way for so long. Alvina still forgot herself most days. A mixed blessing of her Lycanthropy. The virus sought to heal her wounds and forced the excruciating and overdramatic regrowth of her arm. The bard notes Brennia’s charmed demeanor. “Whoa, whoa now.” She grasps the avian’s hands conspiratorially. “What’s all this then? Look at this face! Bre….” She scolds, digging for answers with a troublesome smirk. “What’s in Cenril?” Alvina narrows her eyes suggestively.
Brennia shakes her head with that raspy giggle of her’s bubbling up, “love is the solution, silly. Love is always the answer,” she cups her friends cheeks with her palms and smiles sweetly. “Even my love for you my dear friend, it’s the answer to trust and to stand by your side in this adventure.” The avian shrinks away all bashful, “the Isran Collective. A group that operates an old hotel in Cenril and a certain paladin that’s introduced me to them. She’s wonderful,” she looks down at their hands again, “what’s this?” Blinking at the warm fleshy appendage that used to be cool metal. “Something is… different,” her teal gaze travels up to twinkle with curiosity. The two headmistresses take all night to catch up, reminisce and heartily laugh, something Brennia hasn’t been able to do since her harrowing rescue from that damn farm.