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As long as he avoided the high, half-fingered notes, Bryar was satisfied with his performance. Not the quality he once expected of himself, but the people in the towns and hamlets throughout the Midland wouldn’t notice the difference.
He lowered the flute. Tai nodded, beaming her full-bore smile. He’d hated watching her walk off with Ezra to answer the Motherhouse summons, but found that a few days alone, with only Rebecca for company, benefitted him. He felt calmer, centered.
Which didn’t mean he wasn’t thrilled when they came home again.
This rehearsal was for the benefit of the river, the fish, and the small animals that inhabited the forests around Ezra’s compound. Tomorrow they’d try it out on Ezra and Rebecca. Privately, Bryar dreaded fumbling notes, as he hadn’t done since well before his journey year, but he’d never find a more sympathetic audience. And once they took to the roads again, he had to get used to others listening.
The day was sweltering. He wore only a light pair of trousers, she a short linen tunic. Beads of sweat ran down his back.
“Once more through ‘Tommy Thompson’ and we’re done,” she said.
He groaned but acquiesced. Tai played a decent chitarre, but she’d never been a performer. She was more nervous than he was about their impending debut as a duo. As she picked up the instrument, he swallowed his jealousy and prepared to sing and recite the centuries-old lay, Tai providing reliable harmony on the choruses.
One day, he promised himself. Left-handed if need be. The notes she floated up into the sky were his life’s meaning and purpose. His to do.
But he’d ceded them to her for now. Bryar launched his voice to mingle with her chords, creating the familiar story as he’d always done.
Almost.
Their al fresco performance over, they packed up the instruments. Bryar grabbed Tai to his side for a quick hug. “Home?” Rebecca had been in the kitchen when they left, which boded well for their immediate future.
“Maybe not quite yet.” Tai had mischief in her eyes as she rested the chitarre case against a tree. Her hands found his chest, explored down... to the ties at his waist. In a flash she undid them. Then she stripped off her tunic and ran for the river.
By the time he’d kicked his feet free of the trousers, she had plunged in. He followed with a flying dive. By now he knew where to find her.
Sure enough, she waited for him in the little pool under the draping trees, where they liked to pretend no one could find them. The moment he surfaced, she twined herself around him. Tai understood his bond with his element and was unique among his many lovers in her willingness to mate in the water. There in the shallows, as he rolled her on top of him, he could believe, if only for the minutes of what proved to be an explosive lovemaking, that life retained the simple beauty he’d once believed in.
A considerable time later, they found Ezra in his chair on the porch, looking pleased. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d already left,” he said in a mock grumble. “Tai, go fetch an old man a mug of cider, will you? Today is a day of celebration.”
“Why?” Bryar settled in his usual place on the top porch step while Tai gathered the instruments and disappeared into the house. “What’s happened?”
Ezra grinned. “First, you return looking satisfied. That bodes well for traveling again, much though we’ll hate to lose you. Second, I’ve received word that the power cell has reached its final resting place. No one will find it again.”
“Good.” Very good. He’d sacrificed two of his fingers, not to mention his innocence and peace of mind, to secure the cell. It had been worth it.
“You’re regaining your musical skills, Bryar. And the rest will come.”
“Huh.”
His grunt spoke more to the constant reassurance he’d been subjected to ever since it happened than to his disbelief in Ezra’s words. He knew the effect of the catastrophic events in Orlan was fading, occupying less of his mind each day. But he’d lost more than fingers, and he missed the carefree man he’d been.
“That man needed to go,” Ezra said, as usual reading his thoughts. Bryar never bothered to screen his mind around this tight family, Ezra and Rebecca and Tai. Even more than Willow and Quinn, he let them in.
Tai came out with cider from last year’s apples. “Relax. We’re gonna be great,” she said, handing him a mug, then settling beside him and aiming an elbow at his ribs.
“I assume you’re not going to tell us where the cell is,” Bryar said, blatantly changing the topic. He’d deal with his insecurities by himself from now on... as long as Tai was close by.
“Of course not. In fact, I don’t know myself, other than a general area. It’s been on a journey, with even the couriers none the wiser.”
Tai nodded. “Good. We plan to leave in three or four days’ time, Granddad. Sound right to you?”
As Tai chatted with her grandfather, Bryar leaned against the newel post and listened. His wild one, willingly tamed for him. Usually they were inseparable. But he sensed when she needed her freedom, and then he’d watch her go, disappearing into the wilderness for days at a time while he worried. Days later she’d come back, once again willing to be his chitarrist, his helpmate, his lover and mainstay. Life without her was unthinkable, and so far she seemed fine with that.
On the road again. Traveling from hamlet to hamlet, regaining strength in his performance, perhaps he’d find traces of the man he’d once been and integrate them with the cynical, tired man he’d become.