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When Herald Skif approached Bardic, no one could have predicted his request:
To send a bard of rank out to the Forest of Sorrows - to a specific place in the Forest - and spend at least a few days every season performing as many new songs to the trees as they had time for.
Well, more accurately, to a couple of ghosts.
And new meant anything written after Vanyel's time.
The Herald had looked plenty anxious when he described what he wanted, pulling out a map and giving his best approximation of just where in the forest to go - a forest that covered several sectors of land, a forest that had the strangest reputation outside of the Pelagirs that anyone had ever heard of - as if he'd believed they'd all write him off as crazy and ignore the request.
And he was crazy. But then, he was a Herald, so that was nothing new.
But Herald Skif was even crazier than they thought if he truly expected his request to be dismissed out of hand.
Didn't he know that this sort of mystery was a song in the making?
After all, there'd been legends about the Forest of Sorrows for centuries now. Strange things happened there, ever since Vanyel fought off an entire army by himself.
Vanyel. Possibly the greatest Herald-Mage that ever lived. And who might still be around. Which, considering the time frame of the music that Herald Skif had requested, seemed as if he, at least, believed this to be the case.
With a mystery like that, how could they pass it up? This was a chance to chase down rumors that had never really been substantiated.
Bards were going to be fighting over this.
Well, except for whoever pulled winter duty. On second thought, winter travel would be far too dangerous.
Regardless, even among the few who actually knew about the request, there was a considerable discussion of who got to go. Once it became common knowledge? Yeah, it would probably be best to set up a rotation.
Of course, that was the easy part.
No, the problem wasn't deciding who got to go, but who got to go first.
Elowen was determined to be that person, for several reasons.
After all, someone had to make sure that it wasn't a Herald's fever dream, but also, she refused to send out some green kid when they didn't know if it was safe. And as she had a bit of authority in Bardic, her determination had some weight.
Luckily, the other Masters agreed with her.
Lastly, however, and what she didn't confide in the others, was that she felt a particularly strong need to be the one to go. She wasn't sure where it was coming from but she had to go.
Once the rest of the circle had come around to her way of thinking, everything had moved fairly quickly. Packing hadn't taken long at all, and she had been quickly on her way.
However, Elowen had barely made it outside of Haven - only a few days down the road for a trip that should take at least a month - when a horse came racing up behind her and a young man appeared.
A very familiar young man.
She narrowed her eyes at the approaching Bardic student and didn't bother to stop her horse. Maybe she could turn the damn fool around without losing any time. "What do you think you're doing here?"
"It's a free road!" he protested. "And anyway, you can't leave me behind Master Elowen! The Forest of Sorrows is my specialty! You know I planned on working on a song cycle to claim my Master Status! If there's something going on up there, I can't let someone else get to it before me!"
She could feel the headache coming on with all the exclamations her young student imparted.
"How do you know that's where I'm going, Vern?" The Bardic Circle had been determined to keep a lid on it, for just these reasons. They didn't need any more people hankering to go before the entire endeavor had been checked out. But if Vern had learned about the trip, who else knew?
He shrugged and gave her an unrepentant grin. "I have my sources," he said. "Just as any Bard should."
Given that Bards often acted as the spies a Herald could not be, outside of certain notable exceptions, Elowen grunted in acquiescence. Still…
"You are only a Journeyman and have no experience on the road," she tried, already knowing somehow, in her bones, that this would be futile. She should have known this was coming. Vern had been planning a trip North since he'd graduated to Journeyman.
"Maybe not," Vern said, pulling abreast of her mount and slowing down with obvious relief. "But isn't that the point of the Journeyman status? To go out and learn the land as well as the people? Besides, you do, and there was nothing saying you had to go alone, right?"
Elowen considered this and shrugged. He wasn't wrong and the company could be nice. And there would be safety in numbers if they were to run afoul of something on the trip. That was a consideration she hadn't thought of and planned to bring back to the circle when her - well, their - excursion was completed.
A few hours later, she was taking it back when she looked into a pair of yellow eyes while setting up camp and screamed in surprise.
"Mrrroww!" came the echoing scream as the black shape leapt into the air and lunged for her student.
"You brought a cat with you? On a trip to the middle of nowhere?" she hissed, a hand to her chest to calm her racing heart.
He gathered up the black cat and it curled into his arms, purring loudly.
"I didn't, actually. Void here smuggled away in my saddlebags and you were already so far ahead of me, I didn't have time to turn around and bring her back by the time I found out!"
"You know you're not allowed to have pets as students," she pointed out, finally getting her breathing back under control.
"I don't," Vern said, scritching Void behind the ears. "Don't you know about the family of black cats that live on the grounds? Most of them adopt themselves out to someone, but there's always a couple that roam around free. Void's one of them. The ones that like to cozy up to the Companions. I've seen Void taking rides. It's a very striking sight."
Now that she thought of it, she did recall that. There was even a song or two.
The cats in question didn't normally go out towards Bardic, which she'd always thought was strange but she hadn't thought to question it, since it made sure none of the students tried to smuggle a cat into their rooms.
And Vern was right, the cats themselves did a mighty fine job of assigning random people to be their caretakers, and the servants, she heard, didn't mind them since it kept the rodent population at bay.
"I'm not chasing after the damn fool thing if it takes it in mind to pull a disappearing act," she muttered, mostly for face.
Vern grinned at her.
She found Void sleeping on her face in the morning.
It had been months since Vanyel had hijacked Firesong's Gate, and the brief time with all that company had simply illustrated how lonely the three of them were after their little horde of guests were sent on.
Not that Vanyel would ever regret spending the time with Stefen and Yfandes. In fact, he was grateful for it, since he and Stef certainly had not had nearly enough time with each other the first two times around. Guess third time's the charm, Vanyel thought wryly as he and Stefen made the rounds in their valley, encouraging this bloom or that.
The biggest problem was that outside of the occasional invasion attempt from the North, or the ill considered startup of a bandit group, or following the progress of a Herald on circuit and hoping they could play some music, there just wasn't much excitement around here. And it wasn't even excitement they were necessarily missing, but more that… every day was almost a carbon copy of the one before it, lending them to blur together. Which was a problem when you were stuck in one place for several hundreds of years. It would be nice to have something different happening once in a while, something to look forward to.
Three months later, something different did happen.
Vanyel and Stefen were relaxing in their tiny little hot spring when the tickling awareness of travelers went from simple awareness to an alert.
Stefen sat up straight and blinked.
'Are they -?'
'Not following the path,' Vanyel agreed, already casting his, and therefore the forests, senses outward. Anyone who strayed from the path was of concern, but… it was coming from the wrong direction. It wasn't from the North, where most of their trouble originated from. And it wasn't a Herald either.
Nor, with the proximity of the various towns and villages spread throughout this region, did the travelers bear any semblance of familiarity. They were, most definitely, not from around here, and anyone like that piqued Vanyel's interest immediately.
And then Yfandes laughed softly, saying, 'Oh my… I hadn't expected that.' just as Vanyel caught sight of their unexpected guests - for guests they were as they pushed their way closer and closer to his and Stefen's sanctuary.
The Mini Vale as that young Herald, Skif, had named it.
'Is it just me, or is there something familiar about those two?' Stefen asked, his other senses also extended outward to see what Vanyel and Yfandes could see.
Vanyel didn't answer, merely humming as he took a closer look, trying to pinpoint just what Stefen was getting at, because he felt it too. And Yfandes' comment had also pinged something in the back of his mind, and then -
Blinking in shock, Vanyel reeled back to his ghostly form, where it still lingered in the barely felt hot spring.
'Bright Havens!' He looked at his companions. 'I knew it was possible. Companions are proof of it, though most Heralds have no idea, and then there's you…'
'Van, what are you saying?' Stefen pleaded with his lover to give him a straight answer.
'It's Breda and Medren,' Vanyel said, dropping the knowledge like a rock in a pool.
Stefen blinked, then focused back on the two travelers once more. Outwardly, the two, despite being dressed in Bardic red - and bless them for being Bards again - looked nothing like Breda or Medren but… but Van was right. There was something about them, some spark that called to Vanyel and Stefen in a way only familiarity and love could.
Exchanging equally startled and longing looks, both ghosts moved out of the pool and went about the task of envisioning wearing clothes again before hesitating.
'Do you think they know we're here?' Stefen asked.
'Hmm…' Vanyel considered that. 'We might frighten them if they're not expecting us. Perhaps… let us see if we can determine why they're here before we reveal ourselves.'
Agreeing with Vanyel that it might not be a bad idea, the three of them faded from view, but kept an alert - and eager - watch as the two Bards stumbled into the little clearing.
Elowen and Vern could feel the difference the second they got out from under the trees and into the little valley. The trees looked just the same as every other tree in the forest had. But there was something… something they couldn't put their fingers on as their horses stepped into the clearing.
Light poured down gently on them, and there was something… almost cultivated about the arrangements of plants. But surely not? Across the way was a spill of stone that housed both the mouth of a cave and steaming water, beautifully overgrown with climbing ivy's and some flowering plants she couldn't begin to recognize.
At least they'd have shelter. They'd managed a village or town inn as often as they could but sleeping out had been inevitable, and she was already sick of sleeping in a small tent.
I'm too old for this, she thought, watching a bit of fog - it would have been spooky if it hadn't been so bright out, and if there hadn't been some sort of comfortable familiarity that seemed to be rolling off the entire valley - swirling over the close cropped grass. Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to figure out how that had been managed way out here away from farmland - but then she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, a family of deer slipping behind a tree, a hop of a bunny going to ground under a bush.
Then Void leapt out of Vern's saddlebags and began prowling toward the center of the little valley, towards the little bit of fog, thin enough that it was the light shining through it that caught the eye, like dust motes in a sunbeam.
Surprised, Elowen watched the black cat making its way with clear determination and absolute surety of destination. She had been well behaved - for a cat - on the way up to the forest, never straying too far from their camps, or their places at an inn - though Elowen had half hoped the cat would adopt a human on their way and rid themselves of their twice uninvited guest - and so she was taken aback by this sudden behavior.
Did the cat know something they didn't?
Void came to a stop and began to purr.
Vern pulled up beside Elowen. "I've heard it said that cats know things," he whispered. "Or that they might be able to see ghosts."
Elowen snorted, but inwardly she wondered. Vern had long since admitted that he'd felt the same overpowering need to come to the forest as she had. The cat couldn't possibly have felt the same, right? And Herald Skif had mentioned that their music would be for the benefit of several ghosts.
Void began to twine her body around thin air, acting, for all the world, as if there were actual legs to press against.
Elowen and Vern exchanged looks and slowly dismounted.
With every second they were here, the more certain both of them were that the Herald had not been mistaken. And if there really were ghosts here then one of them had to be -
"Herald Vanyel?" Elowen called tentatively, cursing her own timidity. But then, it wasn't every day you met a legend, and a ghost at that. Or should that be the other way around?
A form flickered into view, caught in the act of leaning down to scratch at a very ecstatic cat's ears. He wore an ancient Heraldic uniform, and was unfairly beautiful. He grinned sheepishly at her.
'Guess the cat's out of the bag, huh?'
Vern and Elowen stared at him in disbelief, their jaws dropped open at the, frankly terrible, joke, while another figure slowly faded into being, a little less solidly than the first, shaking their curly red head.
'That's what you're going with?' he said, before turning brightly to the two bards. 'Hullo! I'm Bard Stefen, and, as you've guessed, that's Herald Vanyel. His Companion, Yfandes, is also lurking about somewhere. And I, for one, think we're going to greatly enjoy your company. We're absolutely starved for new tales and new music.'
Well. Elowen still wasn't sure what to make of this whole, ghostly business, but music. Music she could do.
"Right. I think we can handle that. I'm Bard Elowen, and this stowaway -"
Vern protested but Elowen cut him a look and he rolled his eyes and quieted.
"Is Journeyman Vern."
"And the real stowaway is her," Vern said, nodding at the cat that had now, somehow, crawled into a ghost lap. When had Vanyel sat down? How was Void not falling right through him? "Her name is Void. She smuggled her way onto this trip in my saddlebags and hasn't been interested in anyone else until now. Looks like she's finally picked her person."
Vanyel's head shot up. 'What? No! She's not my cat!'
And for some strange reason, Stefen began to laugh, his ghostly form dissolving till the sound of his mirth was practically the only thing that could be heard throughout the valley.
Elowen wasn't sure, but under that laughter, nearly hidden, she thought she heard the words, 'This is not happening again!' coming from the Herald Mage.
A grin began to spread on her face.
She was so very glad she'd made this trip. Something told Elowen she would never regret it, and neither would Vern.
And the songs they came home with would likely be the envy of the circle.
Tackling the horses and setting them loose to graze while a ghost had a meltdown over a cat, Elowen and Vern stashed their packs inside the cave, grabbed their instruments and sat down in the soft, soft grass and got ready to give a trio of ghosts and an irreverent cat the concert of a lifetime.