Songs to Move Stone Ch. 01-02

Foreword:

Did ya miss me? Trying to get back in the swing of things, working on some fantasy stuff before I go back to finish up some old untied story ends. In the meantime, here's something new. All characters are completely fictional and over 18.

If you don't enjoy: high fantasy schlock, dumb made-up fantasy linguistics, extremely indulgent descriptions, transgender characters, dominant / submissive dynamics, lesbian / gay / bisexual scenes, I suggest you look for a story more your speed.

Don't expect sex for the first several chapters, it's definitely not a quick burn and the focus of the story is decidedly the world and characters.

(edited and written on my jank ass phone apologies for any errors)

Chapter One: Harper Vale

"Tides bury this whole cliff," Harper Vale spat venomously as she gathered the linen hem of her skirt up to her knees. Her bare feet sank deep into the damp woodland forest bed. The soft verdant path she padded through sharply contrasted the certainty of timber she'd long since become accustomed to beneath her clawed toes. She gave a sharp sniff, noting her disapproval. "Sink the storming thing, convent and all."

"Patience," advised the cooler head at her side in a rumbling baritone, "and watch your mouth, miss Harper, you near blasphemy."

Harper's ears flattened from the admonishment, the rusty red-brown hair bristling on end. "Easy for you to say, walking tin-squalling-cup." Her tail flicked back and forth temperamentally. She could feel the mud seeping into every pore of her body. A dozen hot baths could hardly put a scratch on the filth she was accumulating. She'd be scrubbing her fur for months.

"I liked you more on the boat," the knight murmured in a defeated sigh. His sturdy steel greaves trodding easily through the yielding earth.

"You prefer me on a leash."

He paused, glowering.

There was a certain expectation on the decks of a Tyrmere ship. Everyone was family, and everyone was integral. Lines were toed, and the captain kept care of his folk. When Bramwell Warstone met her father aboard their ship, she was held to that strict standard. Despite her father's warnings, she was loath to extend him that same courtesy to the shore.

"I'd prefer you at the convent," the towering man stated plainly. Everything he uttered sounded like a command, and it grated her. She couldn't imagine a more insufferable being.

There weren't any Titans out sailing the Tyrmere seas. They were too stiff to run a vessel and their blood was not suited for the climate. Most preferred the mountainous landscapes of Valtund. The Titans were a tall stone skinned race, adorned in intricate mystical tattoos. Quiet, brooding. Boring. The Titans were little more than legends to Harper, at least until a week ago when fate swept her from her course. Her initial reaction was fear, though he didn't concern her nearly as much as the wild beast he led in his wake.

The Titan had initially insisted on her riding along on top of the snorting hooved demon. To which Harper thoroughly voiced her objections.

"It's just a horse. Ride or I'll carry you."

She knew what a horse was, she wasn't some backwater hermit, but reading and perceiving were two different beasts.

"You'll have to tether me to the anchor first," Harper had scoffed in return, her cheeks burning indignantly as the man shot her a stern look. Her wide, golden eyes flickered away, unable to maintain the intensity of his gaze.

Despite her grumpy disposition, Harper knew what was at stake. More than this ogre could imagine. The churning fool didn't know a fraction of how seriously she took this. If not for him she was going to be fleet captain, she was going to be an admiral. She'd be a burning wind reader if it kept her feet off of the dirt. If it weren't for this idiot, her father, and this wretched magic that seeped into her life. If not for him....

Harper paused, still ankle deep in muck.

... but that wasn't quite true. The rain started on the third day when they should have been arriving at the convent on horseback. Instead they had been caught in the deluge on foot. Since then it was as though the skies themselves plotted against them, one setback after another. If she'd been brave enough to climb the storming monstrosity, neither of them would be here. Swallowing her pride, which was a feat to choke down, she turned to address the Titan. The last thing she needed was to burn a port before she'd even set course.

"I-I a-apologize." The sudden admission was bitter as it spilled from her pursed pink lips.

The admission came as a surprise to her escort as well. Bramwell Warstone came to a halt, and Harper could swear she saw the briefest glimpse of softness seep into his features. It was one of the very limited glances at his inner machinations. The man had a face of stone and was nearly impossible to read.

Harper was far from diminutive, but side by side with the Titan she felt like a child. Bramwell was well above two heads taller than Harper, who already had a hand up on most of her female peers. His head was shaved clean, with the only visible hair being an unkempt steel colored beard and two very bushy eyebrows that were often drawn together in furrowed solemnity. Blue hued ashen skin gave him a complexion of rich marble, with intricate tattoos winding across his neck and torso. Bram's jaw was wide set and angular, as were his cheekbones, giving him a sophisticated look, counteracted by his jagged nose that had no doubt suffered countless breaks.

The man was a perplexing mix of civilized and feral, looking like someone had coaxed a wild animal into a suit of armor and taught it table manners.

Harper wondered if his skin was as coarse as it looked. Certainly his hands, which appeared calloused and well accustomed to the hilt of a hammer. Before she could even begin to wonder, one of those intimidating earthen hands extended towards her. She flinched preemptively, squeezing her eyes shut like a whelp expecting a boxing.

In a moment she felt her feet leave the ground, plucked from the ground like a common weed and just as easily. A yelp escaped her lips as her body was hoisted on top of the horse Bramwell led behind them. Harper's hair stood on end and she hissed vehemently as she was placed in the saddle. Even on the strange beast's back she was barely head level with the goliath at her side.

Harper clutched the reins to her chest, huddling against the strange creature she was placed atop. She shook like a leaf in the wind.

"Brute! Orcblood! Dimstone!" Harper swore, crossing several different dialects and punctuating the last especially vehemently as it was in Bramwell's native language.

"Your tongue moves faster than your feet and mind combined," Bramwell countered with surprising fervor, "did the Tyrmere waters not agree with you? Was there so much salt that it bled into your bones?"

A grim silence hung over the two as Bramwell navigated his warhorse through the last of the swamps, as well as the burden the beast carried on its back. In the past week he'd never come so close to losing his temper. Harper had taken his cool countenance for granted, and had done little to consider his feelings. Perhaps the journey was getting to them both.

"Selenean's do not apologize or curse," he offered after some time. The blanket forest roof began to thin, giving way to sparse rays of light.

"I-"

Bram stopped her indignant objections before they could begin. "You wish to continue peddling your lies?"

Harper couldn't muster a retort. He had her dead to rights. Before dropping anchor on the west coast near the Selenean border her father had made very clear the importance of hiding her identity, something she'd become increasingly adept at. Even before magic had blown in and complicated things, shore folk looked warily on girls like her.

She was used to being called a half-breed, she was Nivarien, it came with the territory. Half human, half fey, her people lived a double life and struggled to find amnesty. Most lived in the Selenean forests, happy to toil beneath the Elven monarchy. Permitted to exist, but little more. The rest were scattered to the winds, with many more finding homes in the island and fleets of Tyrmere. It was tough living, and many viewed them as pirates and petty thieves, but at least they were free.

More than that, however, Harper Vale was Dymrir. Called twin-souled by some, though the translation landed closer to "and-or" in common speech. It was used to describe those who were born as one gender, but lived as another.

Being Dymrir was a commonly accepted practice within her tribe, with other communities' reactions ranging from distaste, to prohibition or threat of execution in less civilized regions. The humans of the Wynthor plains were more partial towards the latter approach, a sentiment many in the Valtund mountains shared. Dymrir in Selenea lived as vagabonds, many seeking one another out to form caravans as they were stripped of land or title.

That left Thalassar, the head of the ecclesiarchy and their impending destination. There, the Convent of the Crystal Moon was founded as a haven for the magically adept. Those that lived and worked in and around the convent accounted for the majority of the population in what could hardly be called a sovereign country. Residence was highly regulated, and supposedly Dymrir were tolerated, so long as they held no aptitude for magic.

Of course that notion sent a stone through the sails.

Still, Harper was not going to risk the necks of her family and crew if things went stern side-up. None of them knew the truth of why she left, save for her father who had orchestrated the whole affair. He'd forged residency papers, and paid off two dozen different officials to buy her way into the convent; a feat that was neither easy nor cheap. The alternative however was bleak, and left her tribe at risk. At least here she might have a chance of controlling this thing.

In the end, Harper had no choice but to agree. She'd promised to be on her best behavior, and to safeguard these secrets with her life, which they could very well cost her. A week of travel in unnervingly unfamiliar landscape had worn her down and she'd fallen into her old ways, foolishly hoping the walking scowl at her side was as dull as he looked.

"I do not understand the secrecy, from you or the captain, it is not my place. That being said, I do not wish to see you harmed Miss Harper." Bramwell locked that frigid guarded gaze on her, sending her hair on end as a shiver rippled down her spine. She breathed a labored sigh of relief as he broke eye contact, focusing back on the path before them. "Mind your tongue and you may keep it."

"Drown your idioms old man," Harper retaliated, "mind this beast and you can dwell on my tongue another time."

Chapter Two: Harper Vale

The noise was the first thing that struck Harper Vale as she was led into the humble hamlet surrounding the convent walls. She couldn't make heads nor tails of the cacophony, as a thousand voices and objects rang together in an oppressive symphony. She whinged, whining quietly beneath her breath at the unfamiliar sounds of the bustling town. Pulling up the hood to her cloak, she drew the fabric tight around her ears in an effort to drown it all out.

The small islands and sparse docks she was familiar with paled in comparison to the presence here.

The second thing that struck Harper descended from the rooftops in a blur. A black streak plummeted down from the canopy above, and both Harper and the mysterious object impacted the cobblestone with a groan. Water drizzled down from the broken gutter above down onto Harper's head, the frigid sensation causing her to hiss in surprise and shaking her from her daze.

Legs drawn together beneath her, and nursing the side of her head with her hand was a sea elf. The woman looked mature, but far from old, and had to be with how quickly she bounced back from that tumble. Her long hair cascaded around her shoulders and down to the small of her back in strands that bled from blonde to green like waves of algae. She brushed a lock of hair over one of her sharply tipped ears, the numerous piercings clinking melodiously against the rings on her fingers. Seafoam eyes twinkled with mischief as they slowly assessed Harper with head to toe.

The sea elf held her cloak together at the clasp, which appeared to have broken in the fall. Beneath that leather garment, however, Harper could see smooth cerulean skin peeking out from behind a lavish sparkling dress sewn with sequins of every color in the rainbow. What would be gaudy or absurd on anyone else seemed flattering and even majestic on her. A vertical slit ran the side, parting quite high and indecently across her ample hips.

Harper instinctively pulled her own cloak tighter, shielding herself.

The elf leapt to her feet, stumbling her way through the motions of a curtsey. Apparently Harper was not the only one to find the gesture clumsy and absurd. The stranger's eyes darted to and fro, scanning the crowd behind them. Suddenly, her eyes went wide. Grabbing Harper by the forearm, the woman yanked her to her feet, which struggled to find purchase on the slick stone beneath her.

"There you are!" She exclaimed, earning a muddled look from Harper.

Harper let out a squeak as she was pulled flush to the sea elf's body. Her assailant was a head taller, leaving her protestations muffled into the warm welcoming embrace of the older woman's exposed bust. She leaned down, lips just a hair's breadth from Harper's ears. Long, delicate fingers reached up, plucking playfully at the tips.

"Oh 'Ylarel' you had us worried," came the stranger's sweet crooning voice, her tone then dropping casually to a whisper, "apologies, my Nivarien gem, I need to borrow you but a moment."

Harper reflexively leaned into her touch, overwhelmed by the concoction of lightning and fire that pumped through her veins. A last lingering semblance of reason told her this had to stop, but her more primal inclinations wouldn't let her. The fingers on her ears tugged and massaged deeper.

"Oh my, purring like a kitten..."

The Nivarien whimpered, helplessly unsure of whether to submit or flee. Her knees felt weak, and all the blood in her body was rushing to her face. At least, almost all of it. Harper squirmed nervously in her embrace.

"Miss Harper..." came a gruff interjection. Harper had never been so glad to hear that rumbling timbre. The sea elf released Harper, stifling a giggle as the smaller girl groaned at the absence of her touch. "You two may reacquaint yourselves another time. We have a schedule."

"Of course, my humblest apologies," she said to Bramwell before turning back to Harper, "you may call me Niamh."

Harper took a step back, hiding her mortification as she drew her hood down across her face. The woman also blushed, something that Harper would not have thought capable of given her flagrantly sexual presence. She unabashedly wielded the curve of her hips with the brazen skill of a master swordsman. Her movements betrayed that she was keenly aware of this, as each slight shift highlighted and drew the eye to her body.

Bramwell gave a curt nod in response as his stone brow remained stoically pursed.

"We may walk the rest of the way. Miss Niamh, excuse us once more."

"Farewell, Ylarel."

Harper mouthed an inaudible reply, still reeling from the encounter before being pulled back into the flow of traffic on the street.

"This girl, you two are quite cordial," Bram observed.

The two were complete strangers, but it seemed easier to just go along with it. "Something like that."

"She called you 'Luh-Reel', is that Tyrmerean?"

The butchered pronunciation was enough to make her laugh, but the significance of the word choked it down. Ylarel could be translated to 'beloved daughter', but never saw use within such context. The usage was more carnal and shared between lovers, particularly those with a skewed power dynamic. It was infantilizing, intimate, and not the kind of thing you called a stranger in an open street.

"Yi-Lah-Rel," Harper corrected his enunciation, hissing through gritted fangs, "and please don't say it again."

Bram nodded, his expression characteristically unreadable.

The crowd thinned as the two neared the convent walls. Imposing alabaster walls towered above the surrounding hamlet, all inlaid with golden sigils that pulsed with a gentle yellow light. Above the walls Harper could see the tips of several other buildings, as well as the tower that loomed above its surroundings. She'd never seen a proper village, yet alone a castle. It made her feel small and insignificant.

Bramwell nodded to his four fellow tin cans that stood watch at the gate, promptly gaining them access.

The massive large octagonal walls housed a flourishing courtyard in the center. Lush gardens lined the walls with hanging iron lamps illuminating the nearby brush with arcane light. There were twin fountains with a path that ran along to the south where the convent observatory cast a massive shadow over the expanse, like the pin of a sundial. Amongst the foliage, a colossal ogre in a wide brimmed sun hat tenderly trimmed hanging branches, his three fingered hands dwarfing the commonplace shears he held.

To Harper's left was a fairly humble building. Two stories, red and brown brick, with a pair of ancient trees leading to the entrance. The door was propped fully open, and Harper could spy a flurry of movement behind the linen curtains that covered each window. People carried crates and bulging rucksacks inside, darting around one another as they worked. She was surprised to see so many non-humans, as the surrounding town was decidedly a human majority.

To the right there was another building of similar architecture but on a much grander scale. Colorful stained glass windows were lined by ornate wooden embellishment, each depicting a different scene. It was three stories, but lacked the energetic nature surrounding the building across from it.

There were several other smaller structures scattered across the compound, as well as what appeared to be a chapel.

"That," Bramwell pointed at the two story building to the left, "is your destination. Ask for Elinor. Goodbye, miss Harper."

Harper's tail twitched violently with irritation as he handed her what few belongings she'd packed. "That's it?"

"That is it."

"Am I going to see you again?"

"Do you want to see me again, miss Harper?"

"I'm not asking to share your cabin!" she snapped, bristling with frustration. Talking to him was like trying to draw blood from a stone. Harper bit back her temper, taking a breath. "I'm not telling you to walk into the ocean either."

"It seems your spirits are recovering." Bram noted. She could've sworn she saw the slightest twitch of a smile behind that unruly steel mane of his. "I have assignment as a ward on convent grounds."

Harper internally chided her own hesitation to leave. Bramwell, strange as he was, remained her only connection in this foreign land. She didn't know what a ward was, but it was a comfort knowing he'd be around.

"I see. Then goodbye 'mister' Warstone." She bade him, turning on a heel and scurrying away while she still had the courage to move.

Harper's traveling companion had been an adjustment, but offered her plenty of privacy on the trip there. For all his faults, Bram was a kind and patient escort. A persistent lump formed in her throat as the pressure of what she was here to do bore into her. She was on her own now.

"You're late," a voice announced as Harper tiptoed through the open door.

"I'm-" she stopped herself. No apologies. "I'm looking for Elinor."

Harper did her best to stand up straight and manifest the sort of confidence a well-to-do Selenean might project. This was no easy feat, as a Titan woman shoved the Nivarien out of the way, sending her sprawling into the speaker. Her assailant only sneered and barked an order to move as she passed through. The woman she'd run into had a stern look about her, though there was a kindness in her eyes as she appraised Harper.