Mos Chantars Li Plai

[feredar]

Title: Mos Chantars Li Plai
Year: 986 FY
Characters: Princess Nolani, Lonura
Notes: The song quoted here is Bernart de Ventadorn "Can la Frej'aura Venta" (I quoted specifically this translation). The title comes from the untranslated text. Also, for reference, midnight and firebird penstemon; tanbur.


Nolani was incredibly bored. And lonely. But mostly bored. No matter how she tried to approach the problem, the fact remained. She'd broken things off with Mikane, then Isshiri had left for Feredar, Riluke was even farther away and had been for over a year, and Kirana's visit home wasn't for another three months. And of her other close friends, the ones who were in the City proper were off indulging their driving fires, and none of those appealed to her at the moment. In theory, of course, she could talk to Mother or Papa or Uncle King, but it wasn't the same by any stretch of the imagination.

So she wandered out into her favorite courtyard, the one with the trapped-light fountain in the middle and flopped down on a bench next to it. She watched the light dance, fiddling with a loose thread on her skirt, trying to come up with something to do that she could do by herself.

"When fresh breezes gather,
That from your country rise,
I seem to feel no other
Air but that of Paradise,
Through love of a lover
Who binds me with love’s ties..."

Nolani looked up. Musicians are usually fun to talk to. And she has a pretty voice... She stood up and headed towards the sound.

This was a much smaller, more private courtyard, with firebird and midnight penstemon near the walls to add a little color. There was a woman, maybe two or three years older than Nolani, sitting on a stone bench, restringing a tanbur and singing softly to herself.

"I ought to speak out freely
With words though that will take,
For it can scarcely please me
When the tricksters rake
More love in than is at stake
For the lover who loves truly."

Nolani kept herself screened by the flowers, and rested her head against the wall. She was beautiful, and not someone Nolani already knew, and she sang so prettily and had a real wooden tanbur, not a similar one made of bone or shell. So few people played them because of the expense, but Nolani found the increased richness of sound all the more precious because of its rarity.

"If there were none to annoy,
No vile slanderer, or thief,
Then love I might employ
But they cast it in my teeth:
It’s human to care and not be coy,
On occasion, and seek relief,"

Still listening and watching the beautiful stranger, Nolani carefully selected a few of the flowers and twined them together into a bracelet. If everything went well, and the singer wasn't a pretty face and voice tied to not much of a brain or personality...well. Nolani needed a new favorite.

"As I felt, and feel all through,
For all else but this is vain."

Nolani came out from where she was hiding, and joined her in on the last four lines.

"I’ll believe her again
If she assures me it’s true;
But if it’s not, I’ll disdain
To trust her, and you, and you."

The singer was clearly startled by Nolani's intrusion, but only missed a word and then smoothly started harmonizing around her. Nolani's heart skipped a beat, and she let the silence hang for a moment after the song ended. "Hello," she said.

The singer bowed her head. "Hello."

"I heard you singing," Nolani said. "I wanted to come meet you."

She looked up, smiling. "I'm glad you liked it." She hesitated a second. "My name is Lonura."

Nolani smiled, and went to sit next to her. She hung the flower bracelet on one of the tanbur's tuning pegs. "I'm Nolani."

Lonura flushed, and took the bracelet off the peg, delicately brushing Nolani's hand as she did. "I'm glad to have finally met you."