The chilly woods of the Forks had long become a place of ease to Sedriks. The Bard found an easy rapport wandering the shaded places. Logic said he should’ve brought Azais or Quiz, that there would be better safety in numbers, but everyone seemed to be so busy since the escape from Sou’Brook, plots and plans, making ready for the trip to Wyford and gathering information.
Sedriks however, felt strangely cut off. Or maybe himself cut off, distant and nodding, giving out bags of coin when necessary and being strangely ghost like to the others. Until now, away from the guild, walking without rhythm over logs and through bush.
No one followed him, and so no one was there to see the slow transition from Sedriks the Bard to Ceridwen the….whatever she was.
The sounds of the forest led her, the song half whispered beneath her breath parted branch and bough before her. The idea of the lodge as a physical building was an archaic one. It was steeped in hearsay and whispered rumor. What others thought, was of no concern to the Lodge. It was a place, it was an idea, and it was beyond such petty categorization. Something in the song twisted the trees around Ceridwen until she found herself in an empty field of stone, behind her the framed branches of thorn and wicker twisted and danced, in front, this strange space between stars.
The Lodge was no singular thing, it could be clamorous, voices airing their grievances and ambitions. It fought amongst itself, it pushed against the rules of reality that sought to squander its power. Sometimes it could be docile, some voices urged for calm, or to entreat, others to conquer or despoil. Ceridwen paid them little mind, instead she tread the open void for mentors, for words, for friends.
The daemons, the old gods... sometimes they were lonely.
It was a thing a bard knew well. The need to dream, to talk, to extoll, to laugh, and be listened to. There were bards who played capers, who cartwheeled and danced, there were bards who played elaborate songs or told stirring tales. Sedriks could do these things as well, but Ceridwen had long learned the art of listening.
Many aspects of the Lodge had traded magic, secrets, whispers. Some sought to teach her magic, mastery of shadows and silence, or her most recent ability to walk the lodge itself at a whim. Some of them promised to assist her, to send their walkers and strange malformed shapes of twilight and defend her. But to a one, as she pulled the viola from its case, they fell silent to listen to her play. Captive and enchanted, the Lodge listened and danced. Sometimes words and language failed the Lodge, its mysterious whispers of half formed thoughts difficult to decipher. But it had an adoration for Ceridwen, a love for its most precious daughter, the music she brought... and the hours fell away in this strange whirling nowhere.
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