The harper grumbled to himself as he jerked his precious instrument across the sands. The foot of the harp was balanced on a small sled, but it still wasn’t easy to get it across the loose ground all the way to the close-clustered clutch. The apprentice helping him made an unhappy sound, sweating visibly in the heat.
“Sorry, boy,” Jemeer said. “Tomorrow I’ll just bring my gitar."
Eventually the two of them got the heavy instrument over to the clutch, watched closely by Gwillanth as they narrowed the distance. Despite her natural wariness, she was very happy Jemeer had arrived. Excellent. What will we hear today?
The harper settled himself on his stool and pulled the harp to rest on his shoulder. The heat always did terrible things to the tuning, but he should get a few songs out of it before then... The apprentice set himself on a little box, quick hands drumming a beat on it. Jemeer looked up to Gwillanth with a smile, saying, “Since I dragged out the big one, hopefully several traditional songs, maybe something lively once the heat gets in the strings.”
The harmonious plings of pulled harp-strings pealed through the cavern, backed by the resonance of the box-drum, and Gwillanth’s hums.
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What is your first response to Jemeer, and his music? How does Gwillanth’s response contextualize it for you? Do you find you “get” it, or does it just feel like sound to you? Are you intrigued more by the experience of the music or by Jemeer’s competence with it as you hear his surface thoughts? Do you like it, would you prefer something else, or would you prefer total quiet?