Until the Music Returns

Slow, methodical footsteps led both of them up the steep return to the tavern. Sayane could now fully see Azag’s strained walk as he loped beside her, using his complex mechanical arm crutches for support. His breathing was heavy and strained beneath his metal mask, but it all seemed quite familiar for him.

Sayane could not tell if he was angry with her for leaving her room, or was simply being silent. After a moment, he finally spoke.

“I… I am glad to see you up and moving about,” he murmured nervously.

Even though he was enormous and imposing, with a rattling, husky voice, Sayane couldn’t help but notice a hint of anxious uncertainty in his speaking. It was as though the very act of engaging with someone alone was foreign to him.

Still, she was surprised and relieved by his comment.

“You are? You’re not mad I left my room?” Sayane asked.

“Why would I be mad? You are not my prisoner,” he replied without further elaboration.

The two of them reached the tavern door and recentered the neon cavern. Now that she had more time to observe, Sayane could see the individual booths of curved nooks that line the perimeter in staggered heights. Curtains hung across several. The center of the space was the lowest point, much like an amphitheater in her world.

“Would you like some water? Or, do you need some? Or something else to drink?” Azag offered as he moved to the bar space.

Sayane’s curiosity won and she couldn’t help but be tempted by whatever potential concoctions awaited her in this world.

“Do you have things I could drink?” She asked with a soft smile.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve served a Hume, but I have a few things for other races of your constitution. Don’t drink the green stuff though. It will melt your organs,” Azag said as he pointed to a vat on the left side of the bar.

Sayane limped towards the bar to join him. Stray flashes of pain in her knee caused her to grimace as she walked, and it was enough for him to notice.

“Are you alright?” Azag asked.

“It’s my knee. It was hurt back in my world, and it got hurt again by The Silence. It’s been a little hard to put weight on it,” Sayane explained as Azag poured a glowing pink liquid into two shells.

He kept one for himself then offered her the other as she sat in the large seat before him. His glowing eyes were simultaneously eery and calming as they pierced through the low ambient light like headlights in fog. Though Sayane could not tell exactly what his gaze was focused on, she could sense he was watching her.

“I can try to make you something in the interim. While you heal.”

His offer touched Sayane. Metal tapped against metal as Azag signaled to his own knee brace with one of his crutches.

“I made these for myself. You’re much smaller than me, but I think I can figure something out,” he said as she received her drinking shell.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that. I have no way of paying you,” Sayane replied as she observed the mysterious liquid before her.

“I don’t expect you to pay me, songstress. I simply wish for you to mend.”

With that, he held up the shell towards his forehead.

“…Until the music returns,” he said as though it was a familiar saying.

“Until the music… returns…” Sayane repeated.

Her lips met the smoothed shell and the pink liquid caressed them with a cool graze. The taste was bitter and earthen, yet floral and soft. Azag turned away from her and lifted his mask slightly to allow his mouth to meet the shell out of Sayane’s view. He downed the drink in one gulp before wiping his mouth and lowering his mask once more.

Sayane could immediately feel the drink’s relaxation drift through her body. It was a pleasant, subtle release. For her, it felt like she had drunk a lily.

“This is nice, thank you,” she said.

Azag bowed very slightly as he set his shell on the bar top.

“So, are you an inventor?” Sayane asked in genuine curiosity.

Azag chuckled a bitter, tired chuckle.

“A contraptionist at best. I just make whatever I need to survive. It was either that or die in the wastes many ages ago,” he said.

Sayane wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Well, if you are able, a brace would be very nice. It’s quite painful,” she admitted.

“I will start tomorrow. Just let me know where you are relocating to, and I will deliver it upon completion.”

His statement surprised and confused her. Sayane had no plan or intention to leave. This space was the only thing she knew, and she was only now starting to see more of it. But maybe she wasn’t welcome. Maybe she was a burden. Those concerns snuck into her mind and she felt a slight pull inward as she contemplated moving to a new place in this terrifying world.

“If you wish me to leave, I shall immediately. Thank you for all of the care you have given me,” Sayane whispered with a somber bow.

Now it was Azag’s turn to be confused.

“‘Wish you to leave’? I don’t wish you to leave, I assumed you wanted to go somewhere else. This is not exactly a place of noble reputation or comfort. And… I am…” Azag trailed off.

Sayane took another sip of the pleasant drink and luxuriated in its sensation. All around her, the soft, dimmed neon shined like glowing path markers to more secrets yet to be seen. At the middle of their guidance was the tall, shadowy creature she only knew as Azag.

“But, I like this place, no matter what others think of it. You have been kind and generous to me. And you saved us. Otherwise I likely would have died… again…” Sayane sighed,

Familiar stings of exhaustion and confusion burned her eyes as she struggled to process everything once more.

“So you truly are not from here are you?” Azag asked with a soft laugh.

“No one from this realm would willingly stay in a tavern owned by a Rabal. I am honored to host you, songstress. You may stay as long as you wish.”

His voice was rough, but still Sayane found herself drawn to it. Each word held layers of things he seemed to want to say but wouldn’t. Sayane had no comprehension of why others would shun such an offer, but she also didn’t care. As she drank the last remnants of the glowing pink liquid, she felt relief coat her fragile body and soothe the frayed edges of her psyche.

This realm was terrifying, and unknown. But at least for now, she had something comfortable and familiar to hold on to. This tavern, this being named Azag, this sensation. It could be her one totem of tranquility as her heart moved through the grief and acceptance of her new reality.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to disappear. She wanted to go home. But with every moment of clarity binding itself to her memory through sensory engagement, Sayane quietly feared that this was her new home. 

At least she had her own room.

Now, she just needed to rest and find something to keep her occupied.

“Azag, while I’m here, I’d like to be helpful,” Sayane said as he turned to face her.

“Is there any way I could help here in the tavern?…”