Notes for the reader:

This is a piece of fiction I wrote almost two and a half years ago for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I was playing in. This is about the same character that I’ve mentioned several times in past blog posts and even wrote another short story for. This is Lewis, my favorite TTRPG character I’ve ever made and the only one I still miss playing, even after about a year away from the game. What this piece is, more specifically, is me expressing my enthusiasm for this character to my fellow players and GM by writing about a specific night my character endured while waiting for his companions to return.

As a bit of background, this scene follows my character, Lewis, taking out a collection of local thugs and bounty hunters who belonged to an organization called the Zhentarim. He pretended to know where their target (one of his party members and another player’s character) could be found, lured them out of their base in smaller groups, and then ruthlessly murdered them all in the street while remaining entirely undetected until the last survivors hid in their base where he then killed the remainder.

It was not a fight that should have worked out as well as it did (it resulted in the DM nerfing one of the magic items I used in this series of murders) and it was the one time I made myself feel awful for actions my character chose. It was a turning point in the character’s journey as he realized he’d become what he hated: a powerful person hurting people because he could and he knew he wouldn’t be punished for it. Sure, he had a decent enough motive, but not everyone who died that day was a vile criminal. One was a petty criminal who still had a chance to turn his life around until Lewis ended it. That’s where the scene picks up, actually. Right after he left the bar where he’d offered weregild to someone who cared about the young man he’d killed.

As for the rest of what this piece is… Well, this format was one my friends and I used a lot while we were in high school, as we wrote stories or drew comics about our self-insert characters in the slightly fictionalized version of reality we collectively made up. This is as close to fanfiction as I’ve ever written and only isn’t fanfiction because I don’t think, by its very definition, that you can write fan fiction about your own characters…

Anyway. See this video for the vibe I’m going for (dude walking around playing music) with most of Lewis’ performances. Andrew Bird also did a pretty good Tiny Desk Concert that can give you a sense of his energy and the way he uses a violin, which is my mental image for Lewis making music. To show you the looping thing I mention a few times, and the way I see it, see this TEDTalk Andrew Bird did a while ago (the first song shows it off, you don’t need to watch the whole thing).

This information and the music is mostly about setting a tone and a vibe, sharing some stuff I use as a touchstone for the way I view this character in these moments and the music he creates. In the text below, any time there’s a link, just load the video attached and listen to it as you read (there won’t be any songs with lyrics unless the lyrics are incorporated into the writing somehow). If you get to a new song before you’ve finished the old one, you can pause and listen to the rest or move one. Just don’t, you know, overlap the songs.

Violin Concerto in the Quay of Baldur’s Gate

Coins thud against the door behind him and then jingle and clank against the ground. As if chased by his unwelcome gift, his unwanted weregild, he takes quick steps away from the door. The adrenaline still pumping through him, less now that the work is done but still a lingering presence as he watches every shadow, demands action. Instead, he slows and then stops. Deep breaths. A sigh from his horns to his toes as he tries to recenter himself after that exchange.

His allies are safe. Thanks to his work and the barkeeper’s efforts, doubly so. No one will find them if he cannot and there’s no one to find them in any case. All he can do is wait and, if they do not return by sunrise, return with demands.

Calm, at least mentally since his heart refuses the peace he is working to build in his mind, he walks away from this tavern. Once he is out on the main streets and certain no one is following him, he unslings his violin case, plucks the instrument from its bed, and spends a moment tuning it. Playing has always calmed his mind and heart in tandem, so he will play as he walks. This dark, close city could use some cheer and so could he. Anything, to chase the bitter taste of that man’s sadness and anger from his mouth.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Xl-KGr2Jk)

He tunes his violin, plays a few chords, and then deftly uses a single hand to close, latch, and stow his violin case. After everything is settled, he begins walking, measuring the crowd as he moves and finding the rhythm of the city around him. If he walks against it, pushes too hard, it will reject him and he won’t have room to play. But with the right gait, the right steps, he can bend and sway with his music. A bubble will form around him and people will listen and watch him pass, or become intrigued and follow.

It is a light song, this one, teasing and testing the city as it bangs and thumps around him. But the rhythm is there and he locks into it. A few testing notes that hint at further music to be found. A quick play, a few adjustments made as he tries the fit and feel of his rhythm, some silent steps as he adjusts the tuning to match the rough and cramped world around him, and he begins to perform.

Soft, gentle notes that reach out and push the crowd away. Violins are a rare instrument, taking years to learn and longer to master. Lewis is not a master, but he has spent many years honing his craft. He has had the time, after all. There was little else to do for many years, and then little else he could stand to do after. Playing requires his full attention, so he has long ago learned to lose himself in his music. In the hum of these strings, the stretch and movement of this bow.

Even now, he gives himself up to the movement and lets the rhythm of it guide his steps through the city. This road leads to the harbor. As long as he plays his music true, he will get there.

There are stumbles along the way. He sometimes loses the sound of the city in the music he makes and must hurry to reclaim its rhythm before it falls to pieces around him. Voices fade in and out, the sounds of the city disrupt him, and he must fix his music to match. A city is not a harmony, it is a symphony, and he must match the other musicians or else drown his sound in theirs.

It is a skill, to move through a city unseen. It is an entirely different one to move with a city unremarked. Not unnoticed, because a city notices everything, but unfettered. To belong to a city is to be treated with curiosity, interest, and even attention, but always some degree of acceptance. Perhaps begrudging, perhaps unwilling or even denied, but it is always acceptance at hand.

It took him a long time to learn and refine this skill, and it hasn’t always worked, but now it works most of the time. It is working now, letting him pass through the city as people stop and listen to his idle music, to the sound of his steps, his breath, and his violin as they play a part in the city of Baldur’s Gate.

As he plays, his mind considers his missing companions, free of his direction. Details to be provided to him when his music and movement are finished, the heavy labor done for him while his attention is elsewhere. This is not a skill he decided to learn, but is one he has practiced. If you are to survive this wide, varied world, you must learn to be able to think while you’re busy with something else.

So it is as he arrives at the quay, his steps slowing as the music shifts to accommodate this wider, more open space full of people and boxes and goods, he learns he has decided to wait. There is much to learn from this city, to listen for rumblings of his own actions or maybe the actions of his companions. If something is amiss, the city will hear it and speak it to every corner in time. He will feel it, eventually.

So, as the song ends, he takes a pause from his music, drops his things in his room on the ship, and returns to the docks. He spends a few minutes observing the motion, looking for the place he knows is there. There is one in every crowded market. Boxes that have sat too long, collecting salt from the sea and a seamless patina from the sun that states that no one has moved them in so long that no one will move them until they fall to pieces.

He sets up shop there. He will need to discover the rhythm of this place, a quiet corner ignored and left alone in a space where every other corner is filled and used with ruthless efficiency, but it will serve him well as he plays to the city at large. He settles in, takes a deep breath, and places bow to strings.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ValP2Tt2Q)

As he strikes the first notes, he plays against the city, pushing back in a bid for attention. The market notices him as it notices any new stall, distrust and surprise mixing with curiosity.

What new thing could this be?

He feels the question echo back to him, carried past his music and the sounds of the water in the bay behind him. This will do perfectly. He gives it more, feeding it a few rising notes and saying nothing as people begin to gather in a corner they so often ignored. They will ignore it again, before long. While he is there and then when he is gone. But, for now, he holds them here.

With their attention in hand, he shifts the music, dropping it away briefly, accompanied by the flourish they are all waiting for. There are rules, after all. All performers know them.

He bows, rests his violin on his shoulder, grips it with his chin, and raises his bow in salute.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0RTU6uvXE)

He speaks with the practiced jaw of a violin performer, holding everything in place with hands or chin, swapping in smooth motion as he speaks and gesticulates, never letting the violin dip but not stopping his patter either. He will hook them yet.

“Welcome, all! You do not know me, and I don’t seek to be known. I ask for nothing but a shared moment of joy, some bright mirth. Let me play for you tonight, and tomorrow I will be gone. This most ephemeral art is my gift to you. If you wish to give back, then instead give to this wonderful city. Give to those around you. Spread the joy of music, the love of sound, to your fellows. Accept this music as my currency and buy a round on me tonight!”

He plays a few more notes, returning his hands and head to his work and adding a flourish to let them know he spoke truth. This song may be spun silver or spun gold, depending on the ear that hears it, but it is a gift he values more than gold. The crowd grows and he feels their energy build, this intrusion of music and joy into a place of business and labor. This city will become his, for the night, and he will listen to everything it has to tell him as he plays until dawn.

Quietly, in his mind, in the corners where they have been pushed by his music and the peace he seeks, their faces watch him. It was easy, too easy, to make it here. Unhurt, even. But there is one face he will remember, long after this night has passed. If only he had known. Would he have chosen differently? Could this night have been peaceful on its own? It is an echo of the loss he feels, but it may yet outlast his. Should he have stayed in and written her instead? Has his work actually accomplished anything?

These whispers fade in the face of the music, but they are never silent.

The bells of the city call out nine times as the city moves below them.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtxZJnDZZg0)

Lewis walks through the quay, watching the hustle and bustle of life around him. There is still trade occurring in this too-tight city, people pushing against the restraints placed on them as they try to carve out space for themselves. Be it physical space or time in a day, they push for what they can get. He slips among them, silent except for the sounds of his violin and the sounds of his illusions meant to add depth to the song he plays.

He has been playing long enough now that most of the earlier wonder is gone. He has become the soundtrack of their lives, those who live and work nearby, and even the newcomers to the quay and the market stalls beside it barely pay him any mind. No one else is, so why should they? They take notice and then carry on with their lives.

A few people now and then stop, listening a while as he walks around, trying to offer him coins or food in return for his music. He smiles and waves it away, suggesting they buy someone a drink or give the food to someone who needs it. All he needs is to stretch his legs and listen for word from the city at large, so he asks for news, for quick stories, how their day went.

There are rumblings of what he did earlier, mixing through the minutiae of their daily lives, still echoing through the city despite how readily it accepts that they were done. But no other word. No pitched battles that reach his ears, no fires, no magical young women waging war. So he walks, he listens, and he plays.

It is an old song, this one. It makes him think of simpler days, simpler times, when life had fewer demands. He can see that resonate in the people around him, the way they hold tighter to each other, the way they sigh as his music comes in and out of their focus. This song does not speak of cities, but it speaks of something most city dwellers know. The green beyond. Memories of plants, bugs, animals.

This song doesn’t tell people how to feel about these things, it just speaks of them. His job, his half of the bargain as the musician, is not to tell people how to feel, but to give them things to feel about.

So, as he plays, he thinks of all the forests he has ever called home, all the places he has lived in peace. All of the near-perfect homes he occupied and has left behind. There will be new forests, new long days of quiet and solitude and rest, but now there is work to be done. And what comes after, only time will tell.

The bells of the city shout ten times that the night is here as the city flows on.
(https://youtu.be/2lW3mwQmpDU?t=133: wait a little bit and then read on)

The night is faster now, the pitch higher, as Lewis plays through the quay. There are few taverns nearby, but many people travel through here on their way to or from other places. Maybe this quay-side market is more central than he thought, or maybe the city is responding to his performance, sending people though the space he has claimed as his own for the night.

Whatever the reason, there is more energy now. In part because his performance has grown more energetic, but in part because the crowd is more lively now. He has finally worn through the adrenaline, so he plays harder, leaps higher, calls out more exultantly to compensate for it. The city, the people who come to hear him play, are drunker. They respond to his energy with cheers and calls, jeers and jabs, feeding it back to him stronger than he gave it.

He does not let it bog him down, though. He never stumbles when they try to trip him, he never pauses when they throw money at his feet, he plays on. He leaps higher when they dare him, he brings lights and sounds to his show with his magic, and he even manages to harmonize with himself once or twice. It is a wonderful night to be alive, to be unhurt, to have survived another day, and he expresses that with every fiber of his being.

After each song, he rests. He pauses long enough to take a drink, to catch his breath, to stretch his arms and neck, but never longer. He has decided the city will celebrate with him tonight, consequences be damned, and he does it all without speaking a word.

A few musicians, on their way home from gigs or on their way to play out the night at their local haunts, pause. Some play along. Some laugh, most try to tip him well. Solidarity between performers, to those who ply the trade, but he makes sure they get their coins back. All he will accept is a song, a piece they can play together in a celebration of this momentary meeting. It is a raucous event, his concert on the quay, and he revels in it.

Still no word of his allies, of course. But he has begun to believe that the bartender, Gustav, was correct when he said they’d be fine until the morning. It feels easier to believe right now. Everything does. This moment is so full of energy and life, it feels like nothing could ever touch him. That nothing ever has. So he dances, he plays, he sings, and he throws every fiber of himself into each song.

The bells of the city ring, eleven voices calling the city home and to sleep.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv5MmFKYF3A)

Lewis is resting, back in his place atop the forgotten boxes. There is a crew around him, revelers who decided this place he has claimed should be theirs as well. They sing along, they drink, and they call out to others. There was jeering and shouts as they settled in, but Lewis put a stop to that. This is a happy, cheerful, welcoming place he tells them. There is no room for anger if the heart is full of joy, so why not chase that instead?

As he plays, focusing on more complicated music with no words for the revelers to sing, he listens to them talk. He plays a rising and falling song, encouraging volume and closeness, so he can listen in. It is the lovely nothing of these friends’ daily lives, and though he barely hears it with his instrument so close to his own ears, he feels it give him the strength to continue playing. His arms are sore. He will need to rest soon. Not while these kind folks are here, though.

After he calmed them, after he brushed all negativity away with a few concentrated sweeps of his bow, they seemed to take his words to heart. Now, as they sit, tables and chairs and benches produced from a place he never saw, they invite passersby to join them. They share their drink and food. They buy more, when they run out, and they share that as well. What coins Lewis has wound up with he contributes to this effort.

A few patrolling guards eye this makeshift tavern, but there is no buying and selling happening, only sharing, and Lewis makes sure they get their share as well. All are welcome, after all, so long as they agree to peace and to talk. Connections form in front of his eyes, accompanied by his violin as often as he can manage, and he watches new friends depart together, their business and pursuits their own. He makes sure no one too drunk to travel safely walks alone. There’s been enough death and misfortune already.

Their faces are back, their whispered words, the doubts he has set aside. His music is just as lively, but these hours of playing have begun to take their toll and the doubts will have their due before long. 

Still, though, he listens. He watches. He makes sure that anyone heading to the ship will see or hear him, if not both. There is word of altercations, bar fights, pickpockets, and disagreements over shady dealings that spill out of allies and into the streets around the quay, but none disturb the space he has claimed. Like they can sense some barrier keeping them out, they all turn away rather than towards the quay. He hears nothing of his companions, but he is only half-listening now. They will return or they won’t. He has made his choice. He will keep his vigil.

The city cries out that midnight has come and silence will soon follow.

Lewis has had a few drinks, so the quay is a bit quieter now. Most of the revelers have gone home and those that remain are content to sit, eat, and drink in quiet conversation or silent appreciation as Lewis works his way through a song. Building it slowly, one piece at a time, he reflects on what cities mean to him. He does not play this one for the city, he no longer even plays the rhythm of the city. Instead, he thinks about other cities he has visited and he plays to the city instead.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwC0u0Yb3Zw)

The names flash and blur together, not as important to him as their feel. He has played in most cities he has passed through, most towns and villages as well. People are more willing to accept a tiefling wanderer if they think he is a minstrel, bard, or composer in search of a muse, and that is a part he is always willing to play. He plays it now, unintentionally, as he assembles this song line by line and searches for the words to fit it.

As he tries words, discarding or keeping them seemingly at random, he thinks of how he left most cities. Running, hurried, hiding. Sometimes, it was deserved. Most of the time, it was not. Learning to belong to a city and to keep an ear out while playing music… A skill learned for self-preservation. It is better to already be gone when the mob comes than to be seen running.

If he was gone when the concerned citizens arrived, they couldn’t say they kicked him out. He can say he left the city rather than was forced to leave. It is a lie, but only a small one, and mostly to himself. There is little difference in the feeling, but maybe someday he’ll learn to make himself believe the lies.

It is this thought that sprouts the others. The doubts are still there, but even they fall back in the face of his imaginings. A life in a city, a life of peace and stability. No jobs to pull, no dangerous adventures, no lives that need saving. Just a job. Just a home. Peace but never quiet. Plenty of time to play, to sing, to write, to live in a way he never has. Wouldn’t it be nice, he thinks to himself, and the words spring out of him. Rambling, nonsensical, and off the cuff as he plays.

(Pause until the lyrics start and then read the following in their place)

(feel free to listen to as much of the rest of the music as you’d like)

The bell rings once, a sullen voice in the hazy darkness.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-nb1SAA7ec)

“Good night Baldur’s Gate” Lewis says under his breath, playing a quiet song as the last of the revelers pack up what food remains, returning the tables, chairs, and benches to their rightful places, and sleepily trudge off to their homes.

It is empty now, save for a few lamps still burning, the distant stars overhead, and a moon hidden behind the rise of the city. Its light peers over the rooftops, but it is a dim thing against the darkness of the city, and Lewis is reminded of the way the moon would peer through the leaves of the last place he had called home. It was a cozy clearing, near a spring few knew of, with a bunch of berry bushes he only had to share with the occasional bear and plenty of wild game. He had been there long enough that he’d built a little lean-to, instead of using a tent.

He reflects on that, seated on his boxes, leaning back, and staring at the night sky above this crowded, dingy city as he plays a lullaby. He has always known this one, has been able to hum it for as long as he can remember, but he can never recall where he learned it. No one else he asked did, either. Even if he doesn’t know where it came from, it felt nice to know that it is his.

Fog begins to roll in off the bay and Lewis watches the distant corners of the quay market become ghostly and foreign. “At least I will have some company. Someone to share the night with, eh, fog?”

The fog swirls lazily in a breeze he can’t feel and its cool clamminess settles over his skin. He will have to move soon, if he is going to stay awake, but he is enjoying being a quiet figure in the mist as the stragglers of Baldur’s Gate make their ways through his quay to their homes.

The bell rings twice, shaking Lewis from his reverie as it echoes in an empty city.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6QjLjBZcqs)

As the final reverberations of the second bell fade into the night, Lewis rises from his seat, shakes the sleepiness from his eyes, and starts moving through the quay. He gently puts his violin in place, and slowly builds tone and volume with a few draws back and forth, warming up his arms and the violin. He doesn’t remember how long it has been since another person passed through, but this will not stop him.

He teases out a few more notes, shakes his legs to loosen them, and focuses his mind on the task at hand. They are not home yet. If they are fine, they will be sleeping now. Still, he will wait. This is his city, this is his quay, and he will play until the sun rises. Woe to anyone who thinks to stop him before them

He shifts the tempo upward, picks up his walking pace, and throws in a whistle to compliment his violin. Using his magic, he loops pieces of the music he is playing until he has built the sound he needs in the background. It takes a great deal of focus to hold this magic in place while playing the violin, but it keeps everything else at bay. There is room for nothing else in his mind while he plays like this.

He pushes himself further, walks faster, and then sings out.

(Pause until the lyrics start and then read in time with the song)

The bells ring thrice, mournful and distant in the fog, before drowning in silence.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4mHPeMGTJM)

Lewis sits, still, silent, and battling exhaustion. He hasn’t seen a soul since a squad of guards trooped through the quay while he was playing earlier, each of them shooting him a glance of mixed confusion and suspicion. They looped through the quay a few times, seemingly convinced he was doing something suspicious, but they gave up a while ago. Off to search for actual problems, no doubt. There’d been corpses in the street, after all. Better find the killer.

Lewis chuckles to himself at that thought. His violin rests in its case, closed against the damp, as he restrings his bow and rests his weary arms. He hasn’t put his arms fully at his side for more than a minute or two all night, so now he rests. There will be more music in a bit, but now his arms are weary, his mind is weary, and his instrument needs rest as much as he does.

The voices in his mind, the doubts, the fears, everything he has ever worried about, rush to fill the silence in his head. The boy’s face–he was little more than a boy, after all–fills his mind. Confusion, pain, and shock on his face. Lewis didn’t look long, he never had the stomach for that, but he made sure he took a good look. Actions have consequences, after all, and if he was going to end lives, he owed them at least the dignity of observing their final moments. Especially if there had been another way.

This time, the barkeep’s face rises up. Gustav. A man with more lines than his years would normally suggest, but someone who clearly cared about people. Enough to help two women find a place of safety. Enough to be angry at needless death. Perhaps Lewis shouldn’t have been so hasty. Perhaps he should have listened longer, spoken with his allies, and acted only if it was needed. If they wanted him to. If it was necessary.

It was done, though, regardless. There was no undoing what he’d done. Most of them probably had people who cared for them, didn’t they? There are probably people already missing all of them. Everybody has somebody, don’t they? He does, after all. However long and far he has traveled, even he does.

It has been so long, he can’t even remember anymore. He made himself a lot of promises when he left. When he’d been turned away. Sent out. Whatever he calls it doesn’t change the fact that it has been half a decade at this point.  Hadn’t one of them been to avoid needless killing? Not senseless killing, all killing is senseless when you really think about it. Needless, though. Some killing is needed, but most is not.

Lewis grabs his pack and flips through his book, looking for the piece of paper he’d left folded up and stuck into the binding at the front. It is tattered and worn when he finds it, ancient after years of being handled. Carefully, he unfolds it and reads through it. There is no promise to avoid needless killing on this paper. He studies it for a moment longer before folding up the paper and tucking it away again. He thinks about adding a promise to avoid needless killing, but sometimes there isn’t enough time to figure that out before blades are drawn and someone is dead.

Instead of putting his book away, he flips to an empty page, past his latest letter, and begins to write. It is a short and quick poem, no great work, but it feels right, in this dark quay. It feels right, as his mind roils. This is a sleepless night for him, but he knows his next few rests will not be much better. They never are, after needless killing like this. Maybe in the long run, it will turn out for the best, but that child… He may have been of age, he may have been older than Lewis was the first time he had been forced to kill or be killed, but he was still a child. 

Lewis frowned at the page, realizing he had stopped writing. The poem was finished. Quietly, he read it aloud, making a few notes as he went to fix it up. Once it was finished, polished as much as he wished, he created a copy, tore the page from his book, and looked around.

There, at the far side of the quay, was the locked stall of the orc woman who had kept the revelers supplied with ale through their time at his side. He slipped over to her stall, picked the locks quickly, dropped a few coins he had left inside, and tucked his poem in somewhere that she’d find it eventually. He had his copy and now she had something to thank her for staying late to keep the party going. This would not change what he had done, but having expressed himself, he felt the doubts and fears settle back into quiet in his mind.

As he walked back to his spot in the corner of the quay to pack up his things again, he recited the poem, as close to a confession as he will likely ever get, aloud.

My dreams are a dark unknown abyss
That always deny me restful bliss
As I try to sleep and only miss
Each and every attempt to end this
String of nights forever gone amiss.

My dreams often lose their frightful sheen
When they are so few and far between
I forget the horror I have seen
And eagerly await the next scene
Of whatever story I am keen
To introduce into my routine.

My dreams aren’t sweet, ephemeral things
Tied to secret hopes by hidden strings
But scaly monsters replete with wings
Moving in silence so loud it rings.

My dreams have no blood and guts and gore,
They have something even worse in store
As I toil through my nightly chore
Of knocking on the dark, horrid doors
Of my mind to find what it fears more
Than any monster to wash ashore.²

Four bells toll, their ringing voices stirring the fog and quay.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Alld8b9gYs)

Lewis is playing again. This is the longest night he has seen in quite some time, so he is moving about to keep himself awake. He plays and walks, trying to keep himself busy as the night stretches ever longer. There are stars, still, but they are mostly hidden now. The moon is out in full, slinking between clouds as it shines down on Baldur’s Gate and the bay, but it hides more often than it appears. The lamps have all burned out, as well. If it weren’t for his ability to magically produce flames, he’d be playing entirely in the dark most of the time.

As the night winds on, signs of life begin to return to Baldur’s Gate, the quay especially. People begin to show up again. Boxes start to move, early fisherfolk begin to see to their boats and their crews, a person with a sheaf of papers disappears in the dockmaster’s hut, and Lewis starts to attract attention again. None of the people who saw him last night are here this morning, so he sinks back into the rhythm of the city. Not quite loud enough to wake people or to disturb the pre-dawn stillness, but loud enough to draw people through the mist.

They begin to leave coins again or call out from their boats. This is the crowd he was waiting for. These are the people who are never serenaded while they work because a city’s nightlife caters almost entirely to the first half of the night. So he plays for them, a rising and falling song to help them work and pass the time until the sun rises. It will rise soon. It must. The night has been so long already, there can’t be much more of it left.

His thoughts are scattered now. Jumping from topic to topic, from excitement at the day ahead to worries that he has chosen poorly. Doubts that he will survive long enough to go home and anger that he couldn’t return sooner. He is alone, again. Not the same way it usually happens, but here he is in the darkest hours of the night, playing music for a quay because he lost his companions–people he has bled for, people he has now killed for–and entirely alone except for his violin, his music, and the city he has claimed for the night.

The sadness he has held back all these years almost overwhelms him, then, but he holds it off. He keeps his rhythm. He holds the song together and it, in turn, holds him together. Soon, the sun will rise, his companions will return, or he’ll go find them himself.

As the fifth bell tapers off, Lewis spots the first glimmers of dawn.

Birds call out, and Lewis almost stumbles as something else sings along with him. He has fallen into a bit of a stupor, focusing on his music and what has become pacing. There are more people at the quay, but still not so many that he has to return to his boxes. The music falls apart around him, but then he spots what looks like the first glimmer of light on the horizon. He’s not sure if it is real or if it is wishful thinking at this point, but the birds seem convinced. They are already starting to sing, after all, picking up from where he left off. Encouraged, but still desperate for true sunlight, Lewis lifts his bow to his violin and waits for a break in the bird song.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g3tL3CKuEA)

He plays, putting the song together quickly. Encouragement and dirge at the same time, he puts a spin on the song he played earlier to give him the strength he needed to get through the night. It is more quiet, less cheerful, but just as powerful. Or maybe he is more tired. It is difficult to tell at this point, so he plays on.

(Pause until the lyrics start and then read in time with the song)

As the sixth toll of the bells rings out, two women appear in the misty dawn.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlAahnk74x4)

He spots them coming, exhaustion and relief at war within him, the first notes of his song mingling with the dawn as he plays them closer, welcoming them gently to the place they’ve called home these last few days. All his worries can wait, his thoughts about futures or consequences, it can all wait because now the sun has risen, his companions are home, and maybe, just maybe, everyone can rest a little safer now that the shadows have shadows of their own to chase.

1. Lyrics copied from the video text of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6QjLjBZcqs. ↩︎
2. “Dreams” by Chris Amann. ↩︎
3. Lyrics copied from https://genius.com/Andrew-bird-nights-falling-lyrics. ↩︎