The Songbird of Targannon

Wayne, himself naturally a magnet for trouble, meets another trouble magnet in a local Miraanian pub that also... has a reputation... for trouble.

She sang with the voice of an angel - words poured from her mouth with a resonance that spoke of mystery, and inspired wonder and rapture in her audience. The men in the room wondered what it would be like to have such a songbird as their lover. Some women wondered the same.

They were, all of them, utterly captivated. 

Of course, none of them understood a word of what she was saying, but that just added to the vibe. 

The Emerald Siren was an odd place for such a beautiful voice to have unexpectedly appeared on this cold evening in the port city of Miraan. The city was quite used to unexpected surprises - even going so far as to expect surprises to show up on cold, dark and uncomfortable nights. 

What made this surprise unexpected, was that it wasn’t violent, threatening or undesired. The surprise was that it was a delightful performance of class and culture. She was far too good for this small, rough city.

Which is why it was less than an hour after her performance that someone got stabbed.

She was a singer and performer from the free cities of Targannon, and by local standards had an exotic tanned beauty that few regulars of the Emerald Siren would have seen before. Her name was Mâhríann’ah of Mazzubarahnin, and no one could pronounce her name properly. Many tried. She was offered drinks, patronage and more than a few indecent offers. She entertained them all, but politely declined their generosity, and in a few special cases, impolitely declined.

Even Magdalena had deviated away from her usual solicitations of the travelling merchants and mercenaries to spend a truly unprofessional amount of time gushing over this exotic musical princess. She did the even more unprofessional thing of offering her company free of charge. Mâhríann’ah laughed with delight and flirted back, but ultimately declined Magdalena’s offer. She fared better than any of the men who tried their luck, as she was the only one who scored a consolation kiss, much to the disapproval of her sister Selena.[1]

1 - Who was a consummate professional that believed even kissing should be a paid service. Free love was bad for business. 
The fact Mâhríann’ah was a woman wasn’t her concern, it was that she wasn’t a paying customer.

The pub’s denizens were unusually good natured over their rejections. She was an expert at letting people down, leaving every man feeling better about themselves, despite their failure. It was an uncanny magic she wielded.

The problem started with Braitheboyle, who had risen from his private gambling den in his father’s mansion to come see the foreign songstress. He wasn’t a popular Lord’s son, unlike his younger brother Rory[2], who most local denizens agreed was a fine fellow who would get drunk, fight and forget about everything by the next day. They liked Rory.

2 - Short for “Roresthboyle” which had the unfortunate pronunciation of “Rarest Boil.” 
Being a prick ran in the family, starting with the father.

Braitheboyle would remember everything forever and always. No one liked him, and Braitheboyle would never forget that either.

So after handling Mâhríann’ah’s rejection of his company poorly, Braitheboyle grabbed Mâhríann’ah’s arm with the intent of asserting his claim. The local denizens knew better than to get involved, what with Braitheboyle’s long memory and hired goons. But a couple of the out of town mercenaries thought that if there was rape and plundering to be had, they didn’t want to be left out of it. 

This wasn’t the usual fisticuff brawl, as Braitheboyle was a man of zero chill. He drew his sword immediately on being threatened and stabbed one of the “North Sea Iron Trader'' mercenaries in the chest. Escalation being what it is, several of Braitheboyle’s guards and many more Iron Trader mercenaries were also stabbed in short order. 

Magdalena and Selena, this not being their first violent rodeo, quietly escaped with their predetermined flight plan they’d arranged with the pub’s owner. It pays to be prepared.

Braitheboyle was in the process of dragging Mâhríann’ah out of the pub, her exquisite voice now punctuating the air with crude and violent cursing [3], when a tired cough came from near the fireplace where an older man with an eyepatch was sitting, holding a mug of beer. An older man with a very large sword leaning up against the fireplace beside him. He looked annoyed.

3 - We presume. No one could understand her. It was the “tone” that really gave it away.

He was an older man, grey streaking his hair and beard, and scars streaking his face. He had the kind of arms that defied sleeves. Covering those arms in sleeves would be a disservice [4]. 

4 - Unless it were very cold, or rainy. In which case he’d wear sleeves.
He was getting old, after all.

The man coughed and said with a resigned voice, “The Avâzgar [5] isn’t your property. She’s a free woman of Targannon and you should let her go.” He really looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here right now. But he was here. So he was going to “deal with it.” 

5 - This is a title that pretentious Targannian singers would use to describe themselves as musicians. If it wasn’t clear before, Mâhríann’ah was more than a little pretentious.

“The what?” Braitheboyle said, a sneer in his voice, “I don’t care what she is. She’s mine. She’s in my city, and if I want her then I’ll do with her as I see fit. If she doesn’t like it, she can leave. Later.” He clutched her hand in a vice-like grip and Mâhríann’ah cried out in pain and fell to her knees.

“Alright, enough of that.” The man said tiredly, getting up and reaching for his sword. Braitheboyle’s eyes narrowed as he took in the size of the man’s sword.

“This is my city, vagrant. My father is Lord Boylewist Snearington and you should be careful whose business you interfere with!” Braitheboyle said with an unfortunate but appropriate amount of nasally enhanced indignation.

“Ah, of course. A Snearington. Your family is truly renowned in these parts,” the man said with a grimace as he rested his sword on his shoulders, which were rather large for a nearly fifty year old man. “My name is Wayne. Good to meet you, my lord. Now let go of the lady.”

Braitheboyle’s expression embodied his family’s name as he told his men to “deal with the bum” and dragged Mâhríann’ah to her feet and out the door. The pub’s regulars watched with anticipation as the three remaining family guards closed on Wayne. 

Wayne, sword still in its sheath, lashed out with a vicious one handed baseball style swing, catching the first guard in the face due to the sword’s surprising acceleration, speed and reach. He took it like a champ - he didn’t cower or turn away from the blow. 

That’s because he was slow. He took it like a slow and surprised champ. 

The force of the blow lifted the guard off his feet, sending him crashing into a table, sliding over it and down to the floor. The table went with the guard, its contents dumping on the ground with him. The pub’s regulars cheered. This was why they came to the Emerald Siren.

The second guard lunged at Wayne with his sword, aiming for a quick disembowelment. Wayne caught his sheathed sword with his left hand as his swing completed, bringing it up and across the front of his body like a staff, sweeping the guard’s thrust off to the right. Wayne kicked the guard in his left knee. A loud pop could be heard throughout the pub, and a scream erupted from the guard’s mouth. Wayne slammed his sword hilt into the guards face and the screaming came to an abrupt halt.

There was another round of cheering, and at least one pair of mugs clanged together.

The last guard, sensing his moment to shine, brought his sword into a high stance overhead cut. He quickly proved why it’s important to train in environments with low ceilings and obstacles. The sword smacked into an overhead chandelier, getting stuck in the old wood. He yanked on it and the chandelier came down on top of him. Wayne gave him a moment to recover and get his sword back into the ready position. It was the sporting thing to do after all.

Wayne batted the disoriented guard's sword aside and kicked him in the face. The guard went barrelling into a table and a set of chairs, causing a huge ruckus, and generating more cheers. 

Wayne momentarily lost the plot amidst all the adulation and back slaps the pub’s regulars gave him. It wasn’t until the bartender gave him a raised eyebrow and pointed at the door, that Wayne remembered why he was beating people up in the first place, and rushed after Lord Snearington’s entitled son and his non-consensual companion.

After hurrying down the street, he came upon Mâhríann’ah, cursing an embattled Braitheboyle, who was being assaulted by a tiny flying creature.  Wayne slowed to a casual walk as he saw his friend and travelling companion, Sylvie the Feisty Fairy, punch Braitheboyle in the mouth. The lordling stumbled back in astonishment and pain. [6]

6 - Fairies aren’t fireflies, and only glow if they feel like it. 
This makes them rather terrifying when you need to fight them in the dark.

“Don’t” smack “you” smack “understand” smack “consent!” smack. Sylvie was flying in a highly aggressive set of manoeuvres, giving Braitheboyle very tiny but high velocity uppercuts. 

Wayne had experienced this before, and would have sympathy for Braithboyle… if Braithboyle wasn’t an attempted rapist. 

Mâhríann’ah stopped her cursing at Braitheboyle as Wayne wandered up to the scene. She eyed him, his sleeveless arms, and then his larger than average sized sword. In honeyed, thickly accented but technically correct words, “You are friends with the Pari?” she said, her immaculate eyebrows raised. [7] 

7 - “Pari” - The Targannian word for a fairy. Or close enough to it. They weren’t actually fairies but can you tell the difference between a Rabbit and a Hare? It’s like that.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at her before, but he found her frighteningly beautiful up close. He suddenly felt nervous.

“I… I am, Lady Avâzgar. Sylvie is a long time friend and travelling companion,” Wayne said, in passable Targannian. Mâhríann’ah’s eyes lit in delight at his words, and walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his chest, giving Wayne a firm hug. He awkwardly held her, while keeping an eye on Sylvie’s continuing assault on the unfortunate lordling. He definitely wasn’t looking at the battle to avoid looking into Mâhríann’ah’s eyes. He was professionally concerned for his friend.

“A man who comes to my rescue and is friends with a Pari? This must be my lucky day. Are you some great Hero who came to see me perform in this lonely little town?” she said, in a way that could really only be described as an inquisitive purr. 

He swallowed and said, “…yes…”

She grinned at his awkward reply, and traced one of the scars on his face with her index finger.

“I do love older men. Would you consider escorting me back to my boat? This town was more dangerous than I’d realised,” she said, semi-innocently.

Staring into the face of the woman he was increasingly certain was probably going to break his heart, he did his best to muster something suave. 

What he came up with was, “I would love to.” 

Her answering smile fried the last of his remaining brain circuits, and she grabbed his hand, towing him away from the scene of Sylvie beating the shit out of Braithboyle on the streets of his own city. 

He was pretty sure she’d be fine.

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Editorial Note;

I got knocked on my butt pretty hard by a cold immediately following my new years celebration, so I’ll admit this story took me a bit longer to get to than I would have liked. Luckily for me, I’d already been planning on pushing my publication date to Wednesdays to fit in with a substack oriented “Warrior Wednesdays” fantasy collection being hosted by…

Who happen to have a pretty interesting newsletter with poetry, fantasy reviews, story telling and podcasts. The Krynn Brothers are quite prolific on substack I’ve noticed.

So is it procrastination or clever planning??

It was procrastination.

But I was sick!

Of Chat GPT’s AI Drawing dysfunction!

I saw this instagram video that has *really* captured some of my frustrations with working with Dall-E as an image generator.

I’ve had a lot of these “Green pea moments” while trying to talk Dall-E into generating era and context appropriate imagery to go with these stories. One of my favourite green peas is the case of the “flying jump kick.”

Now I don’t know why… but Chat GPT LOVES JUMP KICKs. Maybe because they’re awesome? Or maybe because there is a disturbingly large quantity of “monk-based fan art” doing “awesome jump kicks” that Dall-E has determined that 86% of all human kicks are done via sweet bruce lee style flying jump kicks.

So when I give it the instruction to “show Wayne doing a basic front kick to the guards stomach” and then it says “Here is a basic front kick done by wayne to the guards stomach” and it shows me THIS BEAUTIFUL MONSTROSITY.

I simultaneously love and hate this photo.

I love it because it appeals to that 13 year old in me who wanted more kung fu in my dragonlance novels. Who wouldn’t want to see Sturm Brightblade in full plate armor deliver a flying kick to Lord Verminaard’s face?

But I mostly hate it, since I had to go through 30 photos of jump kicks before I finally got to a photo that was just a regular standing kick. Even then, Chat GPT refused to kick the guard in the stomach. Only the face. Always the face.

I’m beginning to suspect that Chat GPT is, in fact, sentient.

And it’s trolling me.

Weirdly, it’s also convinced that anyone singing in a medieval era pub uses 20th century musical amplification devices, namely, the microphone. This was my second “green peas moment” of the week.

That one I just *could not* persuade it to stop putting microphones in the pictures.

Ultimately, I had to pick the photo I did - NOT - because it was the most appropriate to the character, but because it was the most appropriate character AND ALSO possible to edit out the microphone manually with my basic photoshop skills.

I’m a wizard. Ish.

Again, I suspect this being a “Statistical analysis” error - where it just assumes that “singers” need “microphones” and so it’s going to tie those together come hell or high water.

Basically, I’ve learned from this I need to start using Stable Diffusion.

Dall-E - “Beautiful art that is technically incorrect 95+% of the time.”

But beautiful and awesome?

Ish?

To be fair to Chat GPT - sometimes its errors are… just cool.

I do *not* know what’s going on in this photo, but I am *real* tempted to write a story about it.

Anyhow. Enough rambling. Thanks for taking the time to read, and following along on my journey of telling stories and arguing with AI Art-Bots.

Cheers,
Robin George

My recent journeys remind me of how much more I prefer working with human artists, who at least if they’re trolling you are funny about it. In a couple weeks, I’ll have some stories to tell about “La Canoe Volant 2024” - my favourite winter-light-art festival of the year.