Post by Sevanstarre on May 13, 2012 21:02:00 GMT -5
Well, it all started in Frogmorton. Or so I'm told. Could have been anywhere, really - my family travelled a lot. I'm pretty sure that Frogmorton was just the nearest town at the time. My dear old mam wasn't the sort to lay down in one place for too long. Anyway, I'll spare you the details and simply say that, when my family left Frogmorton, there was one more mouth to feed.
My folks were farmers, and farmhands. Damn good ones, too. I swear my dad could lift a pig twice his size. My mam could throw bales of hay around like a champ. Two sisters, and between them they could stare at a crop and tell you how long until it'd need harvesting. One older brother who took care of all the bookwork - numbers, columns, stuff like that. Someone has to keep track of what goes where, how much it costs, whether it'll be worth the trip. If you've ever eaten food, there's a good chance, at some point, my family helped to make it. Somehow. Dad and mum for the heavy lifting, sisters for the harvest, big brother for the bookkeeping, and me...
...well, I could hum.
I tried. Honestly, I tried. Farming was all my family was famous for, and come on! Who doesn't want to please their folks? Besides, they were making quite the pretty penny off it. They had their own empire, all across the Shire. I hear it was one of my ancestors who helped out Old Odo and his leaf farm, which I admit I never really understood the point of. Problem was, the family kind of already had everything covered, so there wasn't anything I could do. Apart from, you know, getting in the way.
I got a very Hobbit-y education - on the road, nothing formal. How to tell which mushrooms were good, which ones would kill you, and which ones would just make you wish you were dead. How to add numbers together, the right way. How to speak, how to spell, you know, the basic stuff like that. At one point I even learned how to tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue, but that's another story. Point is - what I learned, I learned on a farm.
Ever tried living on a farm? Not just farming stuff in your spare time, but actually living there?
I had a secret I kept to myself - and that secret was music. As you probably worked out, if you know me. I didn't care about lifting pigs, but I listened to the noises they made. I didn't care about tossing hay around, but I heard the pretty noises you could make if you took the twine that tied the bales together, put your finger juuussssssst there, and twanged. I didn't care about the numbers in the book, but I wondered what else the book could be used for. I didn't care about watching the crop, but I listened to the wind in the trees.
I was making music before I knew there was a name for it, or a proper way to do it. Sometimes my folks would hum little passages to themselves as reminders of chores that needed doing - I'd take that music and arrange it. Add counter-melodies, extra instruments in my head, whathaveyou. Of course I didn't dare tell anyone about it - on a farm, that equates to daydreaming, which is pretty much the worst thing you can possibly do. Daydream at the wrong moment, and you're left with an empty paddock, hundreds of pig-hoof markings in the dirt, and the mayor of the next village stomping up in his pyjamas to have a 'chat'. I still have nightmares about that.
When I hit thirty years, my dad sat me down and had a bit of a talk. Basically, he wanted me gone. The whole family did. I wasn't angry about it, and I'm still not today. After all, I can't really blame them. And then something happened, something that changed my life forever. He told me that the Shire was not, contrary to what I'd always believed, the entirety of the universe.
It's a terrible thing, to be nearly an adult and still not have worked out for yourself that the Brandywine Bridge actually DOES have something on the other side of it.
Anyway, we were passing through Stock at the time, and I might possibly have only just made another big farm stuff-up. Something to do with crop rotation. My family took a day off to give a heartfelt goodbye, and promised to give me whatever I wanted to help me start my life as a not-farmer. At the end of that day, I was gently pushed towards the bridge with nothing but the clothes I was wearing, a little sack of money, a blank book, and a heartfelt goodbye.
Now here's some advice. When you're being shoved out into the Real World and get to take something with you, you DON'T ask for a blank book. You ask for a weapon. Some armour. Heck, a pair of shoes. An amulet that protects against bug bites. Anything you can use to defend yourself with. Not a book.
When you have no practical way to defend yourself in a hostile world, it's up to you to find an impractical solution. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, you'll have all the time you need to work out a decent strategy, and maybe make your way around by hiding. I wasn't so lucky. The first thing I remember was a bear, as big as a tree, waddling down the road towards me. I did what any sensible Hobbit would do in the circumstances, and shouted. Really, really, really loudly.
Aaaaaaand the bear dropped dead, right there, in the middle of the road.
I think I spent half an hour worrying about whether that shout had carried over into the Shire and wiped out any of the Bounders. Funny old world, innit.
When I finally made it to Bree, following the simple principle that the road I was walking on had to lead somewhere, I met up with a group of human bards, the Strolling Players, doing a concert just outside the gates. That, I think, was the first time I'd heard real instruments playing real songs. And my goodness, it sounded amazing. I listened to all their songs, to the way the instruments blended with each other, and started scribbling in my book. When the concert finished twenty minutes later I very nervously approached the leader, Smilin' Jack they called him, with the song I'd written. It was about a duck.
It wasn't a very good one, but Jack must have seen some potential, or something like that. Anyway, when the Strolling Players strolled off that night, one of them was running to keep up.
I stayed with them for years. I learned every instrument they had. I learned to make a living by collecting metal and wood, and selling it in the towns we passed. I learned how to make my own armour to keep me warm. But most of all I learned how awesome the rest of the world is, outside of the Shire which we even visited once or twice. Nature. You can't beat it. It's a beautiful thing. Sure, it'll kill you if you're not careful, but it's still beautiful.
When I finally decided to make my own way in the world, I was exactly where I'd started out - the Players left me at the bridge leading out of Stock. I made my way back to Bree, using not just my voice but a few quirky drum rhythms and harmonies that seemed to have interesting effects on the bad guys that heard them, and I was just starting to think I was getting the hang of all this music stuff, when I bumped into a pair of shins while I was writing a song about how amazing it is to not have to worry about crop rotation. We both ended up on our butts in the middle of the road.
That's how I met Faral.
Luckily enough, he turned out to be pretty well disposed to having a Hobbit run into him, and in no time at all he was back on his feet and I heard him doing his famous Alliance speech. I don't remember the words, but in my mind it sounded like "Join the Alliance! We don't live on a farm! Well, actually, some of us do, but you're not obliged to. Oh, and something about pie."
And here I am! Sevanstarre - bard, explorer, tailor, songwriter, daydreamer. Honestly, I only wanted a kinship that'd put up with me, maybe give me a place to sleep after I was done playing off in the pub somewhere, have a few interesting people that wouldn't mind sharing stories and maybe twang an instrument with me, putting up with my annoying tendency to improvise.
Instead, I found a kinship full of the most amazing people I could imagine, the most amazing musicians, the most amazing storytellers, hunters, officers, raiders, crafters, trainers, explorers, even farmers! And the most amazing friends. And, so far, two of the most amazing Hobbits. And on top of all that, there's enough story and music material here to last a lifetime, and a kinship that's happy to give me the perfect environment for using it.
I think you're stuck with me for good.
My folks were farmers, and farmhands. Damn good ones, too. I swear my dad could lift a pig twice his size. My mam could throw bales of hay around like a champ. Two sisters, and between them they could stare at a crop and tell you how long until it'd need harvesting. One older brother who took care of all the bookwork - numbers, columns, stuff like that. Someone has to keep track of what goes where, how much it costs, whether it'll be worth the trip. If you've ever eaten food, there's a good chance, at some point, my family helped to make it. Somehow. Dad and mum for the heavy lifting, sisters for the harvest, big brother for the bookkeeping, and me...
...well, I could hum.
I tried. Honestly, I tried. Farming was all my family was famous for, and come on! Who doesn't want to please their folks? Besides, they were making quite the pretty penny off it. They had their own empire, all across the Shire. I hear it was one of my ancestors who helped out Old Odo and his leaf farm, which I admit I never really understood the point of. Problem was, the family kind of already had everything covered, so there wasn't anything I could do. Apart from, you know, getting in the way.
I got a very Hobbit-y education - on the road, nothing formal. How to tell which mushrooms were good, which ones would kill you, and which ones would just make you wish you were dead. How to add numbers together, the right way. How to speak, how to spell, you know, the basic stuff like that. At one point I even learned how to tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue, but that's another story. Point is - what I learned, I learned on a farm.
Ever tried living on a farm? Not just farming stuff in your spare time, but actually living there?
I had a secret I kept to myself - and that secret was music. As you probably worked out, if you know me. I didn't care about lifting pigs, but I listened to the noises they made. I didn't care about tossing hay around, but I heard the pretty noises you could make if you took the twine that tied the bales together, put your finger juuussssssst there, and twanged. I didn't care about the numbers in the book, but I wondered what else the book could be used for. I didn't care about watching the crop, but I listened to the wind in the trees.
I was making music before I knew there was a name for it, or a proper way to do it. Sometimes my folks would hum little passages to themselves as reminders of chores that needed doing - I'd take that music and arrange it. Add counter-melodies, extra instruments in my head, whathaveyou. Of course I didn't dare tell anyone about it - on a farm, that equates to daydreaming, which is pretty much the worst thing you can possibly do. Daydream at the wrong moment, and you're left with an empty paddock, hundreds of pig-hoof markings in the dirt, and the mayor of the next village stomping up in his pyjamas to have a 'chat'. I still have nightmares about that.
When I hit thirty years, my dad sat me down and had a bit of a talk. Basically, he wanted me gone. The whole family did. I wasn't angry about it, and I'm still not today. After all, I can't really blame them. And then something happened, something that changed my life forever. He told me that the Shire was not, contrary to what I'd always believed, the entirety of the universe.
It's a terrible thing, to be nearly an adult and still not have worked out for yourself that the Brandywine Bridge actually DOES have something on the other side of it.
Anyway, we were passing through Stock at the time, and I might possibly have only just made another big farm stuff-up. Something to do with crop rotation. My family took a day off to give a heartfelt goodbye, and promised to give me whatever I wanted to help me start my life as a not-farmer. At the end of that day, I was gently pushed towards the bridge with nothing but the clothes I was wearing, a little sack of money, a blank book, and a heartfelt goodbye.
Now here's some advice. When you're being shoved out into the Real World and get to take something with you, you DON'T ask for a blank book. You ask for a weapon. Some armour. Heck, a pair of shoes. An amulet that protects against bug bites. Anything you can use to defend yourself with. Not a book.
When you have no practical way to defend yourself in a hostile world, it's up to you to find an impractical solution. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, you'll have all the time you need to work out a decent strategy, and maybe make your way around by hiding. I wasn't so lucky. The first thing I remember was a bear, as big as a tree, waddling down the road towards me. I did what any sensible Hobbit would do in the circumstances, and shouted. Really, really, really loudly.
Aaaaaaand the bear dropped dead, right there, in the middle of the road.
I think I spent half an hour worrying about whether that shout had carried over into the Shire and wiped out any of the Bounders. Funny old world, innit.
When I finally made it to Bree, following the simple principle that the road I was walking on had to lead somewhere, I met up with a group of human bards, the Strolling Players, doing a concert just outside the gates. That, I think, was the first time I'd heard real instruments playing real songs. And my goodness, it sounded amazing. I listened to all their songs, to the way the instruments blended with each other, and started scribbling in my book. When the concert finished twenty minutes later I very nervously approached the leader, Smilin' Jack they called him, with the song I'd written. It was about a duck.
It wasn't a very good one, but Jack must have seen some potential, or something like that. Anyway, when the Strolling Players strolled off that night, one of them was running to keep up.
I stayed with them for years. I learned every instrument they had. I learned to make a living by collecting metal and wood, and selling it in the towns we passed. I learned how to make my own armour to keep me warm. But most of all I learned how awesome the rest of the world is, outside of the Shire which we even visited once or twice. Nature. You can't beat it. It's a beautiful thing. Sure, it'll kill you if you're not careful, but it's still beautiful.
When I finally decided to make my own way in the world, I was exactly where I'd started out - the Players left me at the bridge leading out of Stock. I made my way back to Bree, using not just my voice but a few quirky drum rhythms and harmonies that seemed to have interesting effects on the bad guys that heard them, and I was just starting to think I was getting the hang of all this music stuff, when I bumped into a pair of shins while I was writing a song about how amazing it is to not have to worry about crop rotation. We both ended up on our butts in the middle of the road.
That's how I met Faral.
Luckily enough, he turned out to be pretty well disposed to having a Hobbit run into him, and in no time at all he was back on his feet and I heard him doing his famous Alliance speech. I don't remember the words, but in my mind it sounded like "Join the Alliance! We don't live on a farm! Well, actually, some of us do, but you're not obliged to. Oh, and something about pie."
And here I am! Sevanstarre - bard, explorer, tailor, songwriter, daydreamer. Honestly, I only wanted a kinship that'd put up with me, maybe give me a place to sleep after I was done playing off in the pub somewhere, have a few interesting people that wouldn't mind sharing stories and maybe twang an instrument with me, putting up with my annoying tendency to improvise.
Instead, I found a kinship full of the most amazing people I could imagine, the most amazing musicians, the most amazing storytellers, hunters, officers, raiders, crafters, trainers, explorers, even farmers! And the most amazing friends. And, so far, two of the most amazing Hobbits. And on top of all that, there's enough story and music material here to last a lifetime, and a kinship that's happy to give me the perfect environment for using it.
I think you're stuck with me for good.