Her point made, the bard adds "Good night." then drops through the floor with alarming rapidity. Instantly devoid of her glow, the tavern is plunged into temporary darkness until the lamps are unshuttered and a semblance of normality returns.
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For everyone ensorcelled by Saelihnriel’s voice… you find her song growing quieter, as if you are hearing it from a distance, and you are drawn into yourself. You blink to awareness in a dreamscape drawn from your memories. You still hear her voice but all your other senses are firmly in the here/now of your memories. Each song teases out a specific memory from your mind, a sharp moment of clarity when you felt alone, isolated, lost, betrayed, rejected, or grieving. Or perhaps a moment when you left someone else feeling that way. Big moments and little ones – from your earliest childhood to your recent days. Perhaps it was a death of someone you loved, or a parent who chose to not hug you when your child-self was heart-broken, or the doubts you have about yourself because of your bloodline, or the isolation you feel walking a path few can understand. You live the moment again and witness a phantom of yourself living through it. Outside of yourself, you watch the weight of the moment land on your phantom self. Despite the raw sense of loss and isolation you experience reliving your private memories, you know that everyone in the Slattern is experiencing the same thing. Their memories are unique but this experience is not. And you feel oddly, whether due to the turnings of your own mind or the touchstone effect of Saelihnriel’s song, that this painful stroll through grief and regret is - in some way - a shared experience. It’s as if a voice is saying “You’re not alone. To be sentient is to know this pain.” When the bard’s final song ends, you are snapped from your memories and find yourself back in the Slattern. The tears marring Saelihnriel’s inhuman face have barely crept down her cheeks, but no one else in the tavern can say the same. Nearly every face is copiously tear streaked now. Some people dab at their faces, not recognizing how tears got there. Some look to the ceiling, expecting something must have leaked on them. Others merely look embarrassed. You feel emotionally wrung out and also ‘lighter’, like a weight has been partially lifted from you, or perhaps that weight is now shared. Saelihnriel watches the audience for a moment, her look unfathomable, before speaking. ”I was raised to believe that family and community are like gardens. I think this is true. But for a garden, or a community, to last through hardships and dry spells, it must sink its roots deep into the soil. Nothing sinks roots deeper than hard-learned lessons, like anguish or regret.”
Saelihnriel and the musicians begin a different sort of song, lighter in some ways, but also touching on loss… Her voice is good, certainly, but you are beginning to wonder if perhaps the bard’s reputation might be a bit over-inflated. A different musician, a guitarist, begins another tune. Shooting Star (song begins around 1 min mark) This song is far more haunting and expressive. You suspect the first songs were just a warm-up and not a measure of her skill… and that hunch is proved correct as Saelihnriel launches into a long set of gut-wrenching songs about heartbreak, longing, loneliness, despair, betrayal, sorrow, anger, and profound loss. Her voice grips you by the throat and never lightens up.
You aren’t sure what you were expecting… but it probably wasn’t an incorporeal elven woman rising through the floorboards of the tavern, glowing with a nacreous blue witchfire. Her fine silken dress and cloak – incorporeal as the rest of her – are in streaming tatters. Her clothing as well as her long hair, seem to billow in constantly shifting winds that none of you feel. She reaches out a slender arm, covered in a tailored leather cestus stamped with elven designs and half-shutters the stage lantern. Her own eerie glow is all the lighting she needs. All this is intriguing enough but she poleaxes the audience regardless of it. There is something compelling about her and it isn’t just the effortless grace of her movements or her otherworldly beauty. She is utterly magnetic . And yet for all her draw… you are, at the same time, repulsed. For the exquisite, inhumanly perfect angles of her face are overshadowed by her expression. Tears drip like thick syrup from her eyes and barely move down her translucent cheeks. Her face is a mask of despair, sadness, and all-consuming rage. If this is the tiger, you belatedly realize you are in the cage with her and she is already wide awake. Saelihnriel speaks without preamble, her voice a lovely (and chilling) mezzo-soprano, ”Good evening. This is a simple ballad some of you may know. Join me at the chorus, if you wish.” She gestures to the musician on the strange instrument who begins to play… A large number of the patrons do quietly sing the chorus with her. The song seems to be a touchstone for many of them. As the song ends, there is subdued and respectful applause. The bard nods, acknowledging it.
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