A harmonic metal trill mixed with a pair of rhythmic beats in the town of Inway, creating a peppy marching tune of ambiance in the center of the marketplace, providing a background for the merchants and townsfolk hurrying by on their daily errands. Fae Silverwater sat at the base of the memorial that marked the town center, humming energy and life into her music as she blew note clusters from her harmonica. It was what she did, music, and she was pretty good at it. The only problem with this place was that nobody paid attention to her.
“You’re a cute one,” a ruddy halfling man said, leaning against the statue of Henron Inway I, the founder of the town and the namesake of the current patriarch of Inway, “How’s about you put that toy down and show me what else you can do?”
“No thanks,” Fae said impassively, cringing inside. Halflings. As a gnome, she usually stood a good two and a half feet shorter than any adult she met, dissuading them from any sort of unsavory propositions, but halflings were the rare exception to her normal patronage. And they were always so forward.
“I wasn’t asking, little miss,” the halfling said, leaning down. Fae could smell the ale on his breath. That was another thing about halflings. They always drank more than they could handle. “You’re coming with me, now.” He reached out for her and grabbed her arm, his rough calloused hand rubbing uncomfortably against Fae’s bare forearm.
“And I wasn’t negotiating,” Fae said, slipping the dagger from under her tunic and placing it gently just under his chin.
“Woah, miss, I didn’t mean no trouble,” he protested, trying to step back, but Fae seized his shirt and kept him in arm’s reach. Her bongos fell out of her lap and clattered against the cobblestones.
“Don’t bother me anymore,” Fae instructed, removing the dagger, then added for good measure, “Run.” The magic deep inside her stirred, charging the word with arcane energy and flowing from her lips into his ears. The halfling’s pupils shrank as pure fear shot through him. He bucked and yanked himself away from Fae, turning and scrambling away from the young gnome. Fae waited and watched him run, crashing into people on the way and tumbling over market stalls. She felt bad for those people, the ones picking themselves and their groceries off the ground, but that halfling deserved it.
“Shit,” she said. When she dropped her bongos, they snapped in half. She really shouldn’t have bought the discount pair. Fae muttered a word as she picked up the two halves, an old Dwarven warsong playing in her head. The word combined with the music and wrapped itself around the bongos, mending the instrument and putting it back the way it was. They broke all the time, but it was really just annoying more than anything now. But she needed both her bongos and her harmonica to play her music, so she kept them all around. It was fortunate that she could fix them without really breaking a sweat. Fae looked around and tried to gauge her audience. There wasn’t that much of one. Everyone was too busy to pay attention to a little gnome with her little instruments. Fae sighed. This town wasn’t supposed to be a performance stop for her; she was just passing through on her way to the other side of the Firmament. It just happened that her caravan was making a stop here, so she had to find a new ride out east.
Fae watched the people walk by, tapping on her bongos and drumming out a nice beat while life went about its daily routines. Nobody was paying attention to her. That had to change. Fae stood up and blew a single high note into her harmonica, then touched the state of the first Lord Inway. His granite codpiece lit up like a star and cast bright light across the square. People stopped and marveled at the shining crotch of their town’s founder. Exactly what Fae wanted. She quickly sat down and struck up a lively tune, drumming a beat and piping out an upbeat melody for the assembled audience. As she played, people slowed down, halflings, humans, elves, and more exotic types. They stopped for a few moments, which was more than enough for Fae, and some of the more generous ones even tossed a few coppers. By the time she finished her song, there was probably five silver’s worth in her bag.
“Thanks a lot,” Fae said as a tall elf tossed a pair of coppers into her bag. It was a pretty good haul for the day, especially considering how sleepy this town was. For fifteen minutes of work, she’d get a nice hot meal and a clean bed. Maybe she’d grab some food down at the docks and come back here for another round.
Fae extinguished the light adorning Lord Inway’s nethers and set off for the docks. Almost every port town she’d been to had amazing seafood. Hopefully, Inway wouldn’t be an exception. It was a nice town, she realized, and not at all as sleepy as she originally thought. It was just small, like her. She spent so much time with tallfolk that she was used to everything being bigger, faster. Inway was built smaller than the rest of the cities she’d been to, but it didn’t disqualify it from being nice. The tang of salt and the stink of fish reached Fae’s nostrils and she wrinkled her nose at the smell. The wharf always had good food, but the smells she could live without.
“Can I help you with something, ma’am?” A grizzled fishmonger asked, tipping his cap. Fae was actually relieved to see that he was a bearded dwarf. Halflings weren’t uncommon where she was from, but they looked a little too close to gnomes for her taste. The stocky familiarity of a dwarf was just different enough to set her at ease.
“Oh no, I’m not a ma’am,” Fae chirped, “I’m probably a tenth of your age.”
“Aye, halflings are a tricky bunch,” the dwarf agreed, “You all age weird. Least we end up with the same expiration date.”
“I’m not a halfling,” Fae said, ice-cold, “I’m a gnome. I’m fifteen years old now and I’m going to live to be twice your age.”
“Calm down, little one,” the dwarf said, lopping off a fish head and tossing it onto a pile of ice, “You really do look the same.”
“Racist,” someone said from behind Fae. She turned to see a tall human with a slouch in his step and a gold coin jumping through his fingers.
“What’s it to you, dire-gnome?” Fae asked, cocking her hip and an eyebrow.
“It’s not,” the human replied. He scratched his blonde hair with the coin and peered over Fae’s head to the fishmonger, “I’ll take two.”
“Heads on or off?” the fishmonger asked, ignoring Fae, “If you want to eat them, there’s a place down the way that’ll deep fry them for you.”
“And let me guess, your brother runs it?” Fae asked. The fishmonger shifted uncomfortably.
“My sister,” he admitted, “But what’re you gonna do for a livin’?”
“Then three fish,” the human said, “And we’ll even get them fried by your sister. Not that she would look any different from your brother.”
“We?” Fae questioned, “Who do you think you are?”
“Lando Salaxis,” he replied, “And I figured I’d buy you lunch. You don’t look like you can eat more than one fish.”
“Buy your own lunch, Douchebag of Holding,” Fae scoffed, “You can’t charm me that easy.”
“I, uh, wasn’t,” Lando said, “You just look, you know, poor.”
“Alright, that’s it,” Fae said, then turned to the fishmonger, “I’ll buy my own fish, then I’ll get it fried by someone who isn’t your sister, then I’m going to eat it without this tool.” She tossed a coin at the fishmonger and snatched one of the headless fish from his ice tray.
“And to think this was going to be a peaceful day,” Fae muttered as she turned to walk down the wharf. And that’s when the town exploded.
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