Back to School

Having given the question of what College to join considerable thought, you returned to the campus of the Bard’s College the following day. Tharwin’s conversation, and the interlude that followed, had stuck in your mind and occupied no small part of your thought since you parted, and had even stolen some of your sleep from you. The thought of what you would do with this decision had, ironically, overshadowed the joy you had of simply being able to call yourself a Bard, accomplishing the first major goal you’d set for yourself since running away, for fear of making the wrong choice. Even if you weren’t cut out to be a Sword like your mentor Chesale, you saw the benefit and his perspective as being entirely valid and necessary: examining any of the other schools of thought resulted in similar conclusions, hence the dilemma.

After you awoke in the morning, you had a sudden epiphany, realizing that you’d been thinking about the matter all wrong. As you ventured back to the College, you also realized that Thrawin’s ponderance regarding Chesale was still unanswered. As your first full day as a member of the Bards, you at least owed the man responsible your gratitude. You were able to find him easily enough, in the stands of an open air amphitheater, watching students practice a performance.

“Chesale!” You called out, trying not to be so loud as to distract those practicing. “Glad I was able to find you” You quickly and quietly found your way to sit next to him.

“Glad to be such a creature of habit that I could be easily found. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, very good,” You nodded, finding a sudden but short lump in your throat as a bout of anxiety came up “I just wanted to say thank you, for being accepted yesterday, and for everything you did up that point.”

He had a faint smile as he patted your leg “I did nothing, Margot. You put in all of the work and the dedication. The accomplishment is yours. I merely pointed you in the direction.”

“You’re too humble” you gratefully retorted “You say these things as if I could have learned to play a harp by myself, simply by stumbling upon it. Nobody else would have done what you did for me,” you felt your mouth dry up, causing another short pause “While I did want to come here and say thanks, that’s the real reason I wanted to speak with you.”

“You want to know why I did what I did?” you nodded quietly. With the affirmative answer, he rose to his feet, guiding you to follow suit “I suppose that’s a fair question, and if I’m entirely honest, one I’m surprised you never asked me before.”

“I think I was too focused on using the help you were giving me and trying to reach my goal to question anything.” You suggested “At the time, it didn’t matter why you were helping and giving me lessons. I was just appreciative that someone, anyone, was doing it.”

“And now?” He asked, probing “Now that you’ve accomplished your goal and the education begins for real, you suddenly find yourself in a contemplative sort?”

“No, not exactly” Chesale had a blunt way of speaking, that he typically used to illuminate a point or instruct, and you found yourself at the receiving end once again. “I stumbled into Professor Tharwin yesterday after the audition, and he brought some things up.”

“I’m sure he did” he smirked “the old horndog. Let me guess, he intimated that I was mentoring you in exchange for…”he paused to put a dramatic and literary flourish to it “horizontal refreshments.”

“Something like that, yes” You admitted “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He waived his hand as he dismissed the concern “It’s not your fault. Besides, I’ve put up with far worse than suspicions of my fellows. I can’t even hold it against him. Though Tharwin should know me better by know than to think I’d be up to that, it would scarcely be the first time such and arrangement were made. Not even the first time someone did something like that on this campus, if you can imagine it.”

“I think I can” you felt a small flush of heat in your face, recalling the sex you had with Tharwin in the open yesterday, something you were still surprised you had done. “But why would Tharwin know better?”

Chesale grinned “He knows that unlike most Bards, I am a strict monogamist. Entertaining a dalliance with you would dishonor the life and memory of my departed soulmate.”

“I’m sorry to hear that” You lamented “I know it’s been a short while, but you never spoke of her before.”

“And, forgive me my privacy, but I shan’t speak of her again.” His refusal, while polite, was most unusual. You’d never known Chesale to be closed off like that about much of anything. “At any rate, to your question. I helped you for a simple reason, because you showed up. I never once had to come find you or remind you, or find that you hadn’t been practicing or making progress.”

The thought was kind and endearing, though you recognized also incomplete “Chesale,” you began “pardon my being nosy, but that doesn’t really answer the question. That explains why you kept helping me and I couldn’t be happier that you did. I still don’t understand why you did in the first place.”

“Perceptive” He smiled and nodded. He pulled back the long sleeve of his left arm, holding it towards your face, “I don’t know if you can see it, but in my earlier days, when I was both Bard and Soldier, I had suffered a terrible wound to this arm. Broke the bone inside. Needed to braced and cast up for months to heal properly.”

“That sounds quite painful. I hate to be rude, but I don’t understand how that has anything to do with helping me.”

“Be patient, young lady” He pulled the sleeve back down. “My point is, my arm would not have healed all on it’s own. A choice needed to be made to heal the injury, and that healing needed to happen in a specific way. I helped you, because when we met and you told me your story, I thought of my old injury. I saw an opportunity to set the brace, so that we can hopefully try and heal this wounded world. If I hadn’t, you may have succeeded, you certainly have the tenacity, but I saw it all too easy for you to come to be spiteful and angry.”

He took your hands in his, pulling your full attention as you both came to a dead stop “In the shortest way I can think of, Margot, I helped you because even in the few moments I knew you, I saw what a lovely, gentle, remarkable young women you were, and couldn’t stand to see you be destroyed by indifference and apathy.”

You found yourself unusually at a loss for words “That is one of the kindest things I’ve heard said of me. Thank you.”

He let go of your hands and slowly continued about, walking through the central hub of the campus “Remember it, I beg you” He tapped his temple to emphasize the point “The time may come on you one day to repay the gesture, especially with young you are and how long your kind live. True peace is made in ways such as these. I’ve tasted war and all it’s served with, and I’ve had my fill of it for a lifetime.”

“And yet you became a Sword.” You remarked

“Indeed I did,” Chesale smirked for a moment “you must have had a lengthy conversation with my old friend to know about that,” You nodded in agreement, still daring not comment or suggest the full nature of the conversation “I’m sure to the inexperienced it seems a contradiction, to be so dedicated to the memory of war and yet want to see it’s eternal end, to see ____ unemployed, as it were. The people of the world need to understand what war is, the good and the bad, so that they are neither so detested that they shrink away from it in the hour of need, nor do they grow a taste for it as blood thirsty and heartless monsters.”

“I think I understand” You were finding a greater appreciation for your mentor in this short conversation, having a fuller picture of him in these few minutes than you had in the past months “What of me?” You asked, quizzically “You’d never said anything about this before, and I can imagine a few times when I asked about the Bards where you could have brought this up. Where did you see me going?”

“I didn’t want to distract you from the goal. I’ve seen hopefuls before aspire to be of the Songs or the Spells, and forget that they must become a Bard first. As to your future, I knew you were a capable woman with a keen mind, that you’d know where you belong without me.”

You smiled gently as you teased him “You didn’t want to recruit me as a fellow Sword, a proud mentor of a successful protégé?”

“I will be proud of you no matter what path you take Margot. I’m proud just to have known you, and I’m sure whatever course you take, you will ascend to greatness.”

“I wish I could be as confident,” You admitted, a slight melancholy and uncertainty masking the joy you felt in hearing his words “I was spending most of yesterday arguing with myself, trying to decide where I belonged. I realized this morning I was going about it wrong, trying to ask myself what the truest or most correct form of a Bard was. I realize now that it’s a question solely of me, but I still feel uncertain.”

Chesale warmly put his worn hand on your shoulder “In that case my dear, I find it is time to do less speaking, and more listening,” with his other hand, he gently pointed into your chest “Your heart is already telling you all you need to know, you just need hear it. Quiet any voice, internal or external, of what you are supposed to be, and instead focus on what manner of person you want to be.”

“Tharwin said something similar” You agreed I understanding

“He’s a good fellow, and he’d be able to teach you things that I can’t, if you were to join the Souls.”

“And that wouldn’t bother you?” You asked, tepidly, “Considering their reputation, and what I’d be doing?”

Chesale laughed “I appreciate your concern, Margo, but no. You are your own person with your own ideas and beliefs. You are no more bound to my feelings of monogamy than you are bound to me personally. Like I said, you can go knowing you’ll have my blessing and approval in any venture you take.”

“Thank you Chesale,” your eyes shifted, before quietly speaking again “I think that’s what I needed. I feel that I can hear what my heart is telling me now.”

“Than you best go do what it’s telling you.” As a farewell, you leaned forward to quickly give him a peck of a kiss on the cheek. As surprised as you were by your own actions, he was even more so, a beaming smile on his face as you departed, trying to find Tharwin. Having only met him by accident, it had taken some time and exploration. Recalling where you had crossed paths, and where he had been walking from, you tried retracing those steps, and eventually found him. He was guiding a small room of less than ten students through a piece of romantic poetry. Not being a part of this, you lingered in the door, watching and listening. Having seemingly arrived at the end, he thanked the students, and had guided them for their departure.

As you approached him after the last student departed, he greeted you with an ebullient energy “Miss Margot Mannekin, how wonderful to see you again. How are things?”

“I’m well, thank you,” You began “I’d given what you said some serious thought, and with everything, I would like to apply myself to join the College of Souls.”

“You’d be exceptionally welcome as one. There is no grand ceremony for such things, no membership pledge or sacred oath. It’s simply enough that you claim to be one of us, and mean it.”

“Wonderful, so what’s the first lesson?” You were eager, more so than anticipated.

“Less a matter of instruction, and more one of an assignment. I want you to go out there, and feel love.”

The abrupt change of your understanding threw you, the hopeful feeling gone. “Wait, what?”

“Souls must comprehend, and articulate all of the feelings of life, great and terrible. To do so, you must experience them yourself.”

“You want me to fall in love with someone” You said aloud, trying to wrap your head around the request

I never said you had to love someone, though that’s a good start. It’s how most go about it, and I think it would do you some good. I simply said to feel love. Real, genuine love and adoration. Something that stirs the soul.”

“Okay, how do you suggest I do that?”

Tharwin had a slight chuckle at the request “That you would ask the question is precisely why I’m asking you to do this. You have too linear a mind. You’re a creator now, meaning you have to leave the script of process and decide for yourself. You are your own person, who and how you love is different than I. You’ll know it when you feel it.”

“Professor Tharwin, if I may” You began to object “It’s been said that you can’t force love, that it must happen artificially. By asking me to do this, aren’t you asking the impossible?”

“Perceptive” he nodded along “most don’t spend the time to think through the contradiction. They rush off in order to accomplish their task without thinking it through.”

The professor clasped his hands together “I was going to wait until you came back in frustration and failure, but as you’ve seen through my little trick, I should skip the step and ask you to complete another task.”

“Yes?” You inquired. That the initial matter was a trick or a test in of itself didn’t thrill you, and so you were paying extra attention, for fear that this may be yet another.

“Bards are not just simple performers for their local community. Regardless of form, of manner, of interest, we’re travelers, adventurers, and the like. So, with that, I want you to go out and have an adventure, something worthy of a story. When you’ve done so, you’ll return and share it with me and an audience.

“This isn’t another trick?” You asked.

“Not intentionally no, though you may find this is not as simple and clear cut as you may think. You will want to take your time with this, and be careful with the decisions you make. For one reason or another, many would be students of mine are assigned this and never return.”

“Maybe they just haven’t finished yet” You quipped.

“Funny.” Tharwin, despite his remark, seemed less than fully amused. “I suppose for some amount of them, the work became too successful, that they went adventuring and enjoyed it so much that they never came back.”

Tharwin approached you, planting his hands on either arm, just at your shoulder “I would prefer you to return, but of the alternatives, that is the one I would accept. I need you to understand. This is a dangerous world you are delving into Margot.”

“I understand, Professor. If you don’t mind me saying, I had to endure no small amount of danger just to be able to get here. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“I hope so.” The professor lowered his hands “I’m sure you’re a capable lady, but if you haven’t already heard or met them, I’d look into the Pathfinders. They often have more work to do than they have hands, and could point you in the direction of somewhere to go.”

“What about you?” You asked kindly “I imagine someone like you keeps abreast of the situations in and about the area. Do you have any ideas?”

“I try to make a point to not hold my students’ hands through their instruction, but you’ve already been clever enough to see my trick, making you slightly ahead of the curve. I think I may have something, though if I tell you, you must keep it in total confidence.”