ic contact

[adamantlyardent]

audio, video, text, voicemail

Comments

[adamantlyardent]

[gawds.]

Can you at least sympathize with my concern? Optics mean a lot in this world.

[borntobebard]

Yes, I suppose so. In my world humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and the like all age at different paces. It can be hard to keep track of.
But really. "Such an older-looking man trailing me around". You make me sound like a lech.

[adamantlyardent]

Because it's exactly what OTHER people would think! Honestly, is that so hard to fathom?

[borntobebard]

That's not always what people assume! If I saw a man with a younger woman I might assume he's her father.
Oh gods, no, that's worse. I can't be seen like that. Never mind.

[adamantlyardent]

Cousin. Older, full-human cousin. If anyone asks, that's acceptable, right?

[borntobebard]

Does best friend simply not fly in this world?

[adamantlyardent]

Not between an 18-year old and a 30-year old!

[borntobebard]

19

[adamantlyardent]

18. See, we both can lie.
Anyway, my point stands. It's weird, and has the potential to paint you in a bad light. Lots of musicians in this realm get negative reception for similar things, so you ought to be more mindful of it!

[borntobebard]

I thought as much.
Fine. Fine. Your concern is noted and appreciated. Cousin would indeed be a better title than lech. You know I've oft been mistaken as part-elf myself.

[adamantlyardent]

I'm not sure I see it, but very well. It's an acceptable cover: A half-cousin, newly arrived, needing help navigating the world as it is.

[borntobebard]

It's my youthful good looks, so they say. You don't see that?

[adamantlyardent]

I wasn't raised around humans, so I can't say I can share the same lens of perspective in such a way; elves are a wholly different thing entirely as far as "youthful good looks" are concerned.

[borntobebard]

Oh. Was it in Golden Palaces or more like hiding away in the woods? Most the elves I know of these days tend to squirrel themselves away in woodlands. Scoia'tael; roughly translates to squirrel, in fact.

[adamantlyardent]

Not so grandiose as all that...or at least, not bedecked in gold. The city I grew up in was ornate, but more akin to replicating the ornate aesthetic of the nature we were within. And it’s not so much hiding out of necessity as it is...being willfully secluded? The city kept to itself for the most part, far as I knew it. Not that I’m an expert on its geopolitics.

[borntobebard]

Ah. It sounds rather wonderful, exclusion aside. Did you not venture beyond?

[adamantlyardent]

I did, though not for the joy of the journey.
Someone had forged my work, you see. I had to find out who and set things right...and burn every copy that made its way out of my hands.

[borntobebard]

That is quite the protection of one's property. Then again, I'm not quite sure what I'd do if someone were to copy my life's work. I've had many imitators, but none that have dared plagiarise.

[adamantlyardent]

Yes, well, I was not very keen on it, so I did what I thought I had to. Things didn't exactly go the way I planned.
Then again, does anything ever?

[borntobebard]

I find it best not to have a plan, then they can't go awry.
How did it go, then, if not to plan?

[adamantlyardent]

Not great.
Who knows, perhaps I’ll be doomed in exile here forever, never to know the ripple my work has caused out in that world. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

[borntobebard]

Sounds like the perfect get out clause to me.
Why was it such a travesty that your work got out the way it did? Was it forged poorly?

[adamantlyardent]

Worse. They were word for word my stories — stories not meant for popular consumption. It was humiliating.

[borntobebard]

Ah, many a private thought within.
But who you write your stories for, if not the general populous?

[adamantlyardent]

Myself. My dreams. The self in my dreams, better and wiser and braver in all ways.