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Terbisia, to a questionable attribute, was quiet. The people were hardy and kind, but rarely ever boisterous or brassy in the way Jinx had grown to expect from the world around her. The sounds of hustle and bustle, whensoever they were about, were wooden and acoustic, echoey in the open air and at no greater a decibel than the thick green menagerie that engulfed the further outskirts of the agricultural outskirts of the town.
The few rising voices that arched above the settlement were becoming increasingly familiar as the days waxed on, both by ownership and definition. While the Demacian language was an unaccounted for setback, it was no more esoteric than the runic script, and as such Jinx has been whittling away at it faster than sump-rot.
There was very little else to occupy her overflowing surplus of time, after the monotonous simple machines of Terbisia were in assuredly working order, and the children were sufficiently entertained. She was no good with the Demacian handicrafts the women entertained themselves with, as her hands were shaky and the stitches she kept memorized were utilitarian. She was too skittish and leery of the men to find out what they did in their wasted time. The children, friendly and diminutive as they were, played games involving their innate arcane abilities, of which Jinx had none. Ergo, in this slump that had ensnared her to overstay her welcome, Jinx had turned to observation and study as a pastime. Just as she came to memorize the Demacian writing system, she came to know the patterns of behavior that characterized the town and each of its eccentric occupants.
Of the citizenry there were very few she could not confidently name, and of those she couldn't she was fairly certain she could hazard an accurate guess. She knew all of the select few merchants that braved the mage encampment and could list all their usual wares, in both Demacian and her mother tongue. She knew the schedules of every family and lonesome individual living down the same lane as she. The ones farthest from the town rose before the brink of morning, while the ones closest to her rarely ventured out before the brink of noon. This schedule was inexact, of course, but it was reliable enough she had long since concluded that life out in the sticks was eerily predictable.
The town was meant to be settling into its routinely discomforting silence by this time after sunset. At this time of night, on any other night, every mystical child and sallow citizen would be huddled wearily under their own scant roof or shuffling off to get there. After all, the sky was cooling into a rich navy blue and steadily becoming wet with ink. But from Jinx's perch, atop her own perfectly thatched hut, this citizen clockwork was nowhere to be seen. Several houses had hunkered down for the night, but they were few and far between the houses from which no smoke or candlelight had ever arose. And then there was the sound. The sound of sprightly gaiety was floating above the too-crisp air faintly, but definitively.
Merriment was afoot in this humble refugee town, of that Jinx was sure, and it called to her desperately. Laughter and tawdry voices carried out into the night like golden bells from the center of town. The orphic glow that cast shadows down her cobblestone lane beckoned her curiosity further into the streets. She slunk off the roof, gifted linens snagging on the straw clumsily as she slid down.
Whether by habit or beaten-in instinct, Jinx wove circumspectly through the shaded alleys on her path of investigation. For lack of proper cover, she looped through each alley twice over methodically, though she paid scarce attention to what she found there. Jinx was too distracted by the music that poured indulgently through the cacophonous haze.
Contorted as they were by melody, rhythm, and open space, Jinx couldn't understand the words being sung. Nevertheless they seemed to strum the strings in her heart, plucking one from the bundle to string her along to their cantabile source.
The nostalgic smell of mead ushered her to peer furtively around the edge of a bricklane wall. Around the corner, Jinx found her prize.
Amber lanterns bathed the city square in warm autumnal tones that juxtaposed the chill in the air, hung from lampposts and the overhangs of their few scrawny market stalls. Lively people danced in the street singing on roughshod yet enthralling voices.
“Vad din kärlek är skön, min syster och min brud.
“Din kärlek ljuvare än vin, din balsam ljuvare än alla dofter.”
Recognizable words stuck out to Jinx like the particularly drunken voices through the crowd, but the gist was lost to her. Still, she was struck with the heavy glaze of the reverie; she watched the ruckus flare with glassy eyes and firmly rooted feet.
Women in long woolen skirts twirled and swayed like a rabble to the wooden block and mallet. The crisp percussion played by a farrier boy was accompanied by the sottish clapping of the ale-soaked onlookers. The song had almost a coy, demure quality, mischievous and lustrous but not paltry like some of the songs Jinx knew. Like an unplaceable but tenderly confederate scent on the smoke, it seemed to draw her in heedless of her inner protest.
“Jay!”
The honey-sweet voice of the governor girl broke the spell cast over her. Sheeny blue eyes smiled at her across the plaza, and bumbling welcoming arms flung open in invitation coaxed her from her recess.
The blonde had become a constant presence since Jinx had crash landed on her shores. She came to Jinx for mechanical solutions to public works when they were called for, and Jinx pestered her for just about everything else. As a rare Demacian somewhat fluent in the Piltovan trading language, she was Jinx's main method of communication before she had picked up the ‘yes's and ‘no’s. News, trades, and conversations were all passed along to Jinx through her, but she never grew peevish or short. She was ever shining and friendly, and insistent since upon Jinx's arrival that this was the place for her. An odd duck, surely, to surround herself with indigence and it's tricky partner desperation so readily, but she was a benevolent one that Jinx hadn't been able to shake.
Knowing nothing of her past, her use, or even her name, she'd extended a hand in aid, out of the seemingly endless goodness in her heart. Naïveté like that would've gotten her nothing but bitemarks and gangrene in Zaun; it was a good thing, then, in Jinx's eyes, that she was here where the air was as unencumbered as it could be and the streets were safe.
Someone so thoroughly guileless and inculpable belongs in an idyllic place like this, haloed by auburn light and the unmistakable scent of drink. That was what Jinx thought, anyway.
“Lux!” Jinx was absolved of her stupor, “What's going on out here?”
“Jay, darling ,” The woman's thick accent babbled serenely through both their languages, “Come forth! It is a party!”
“ Yes , I see that,” Jinx chuckled patiently as Lux fumbled to grasp her hands, “What are you celebrating?”
That, Lux seemed to study for a moment, with sticky corrugated gears churning just behind her dazzling eyes and stalling her attempt at Jinx’s hands. Finally, she produced a Demacian word Jinx was sure she hadn't heard yet.
“I cannot put a name to it in your language,” She explained, “But it happens at the start of every autumn .”
Ideas of solstice and equinox festivals held annually topside came to mind, but they were blurry and uncorroborated. The passing of seasons was hardly noticed in slate-gray Zaun, much less celebrated. Here, however, they seemed compelled to contrive some excuse to weigh themselves so heavily with drink, which was more than any Zaunite had ever needed, so Jinx considered herself satisfied.
Lux had since taken her hands and pulled her into a klutzy dance-like maneuver, a difficult task for a girl of Jinx's height and reluctance to keep up with.
“ What are they saying? ” She asked, the common question rolling out easily in Terbisia’s mother tongue.
Without translation, Lux merely responded by hanging her head down next to Jinx's and picking up the women's half of the song with her own playful lilt.
“I din luva, lustgård där växer,
“Henna, och saffran, finaste,
“Du är trädgårdens källa, en brunn, du är a,
“Källa med friskt och kallt vatten.”
Steins and glasses were emptied down harried gullets in the brief window of pause, and Lux lifted her head dreamily. With no further ado, the thunderous chorus erupted around them:
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek!
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek!
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!”
Lux spun her effortlessly with firm hands, much to Jinx's nervous malaise. This peppery closeness, especially parading through the middle of town, was new. Lux's liquor-ruddy cheeks were surely inspiring Jinx's own hot complexion, to speak nothing at all of the quickly heightening intimacy.
The taller woman roped her in tight to rest her head gently in Jinx's blue mop as she languidly swayed them to the building verse. The hair it disturbed, tickling between her hollow shoulder blades, felt like a reminder of the months passed dancing aimlessly like this, haunting this town like any other figment of the shadows. This close, Lux's inebriated breath swirled around her like a mist, vapid and fleeting as she recited the lyrics in dulcet tones;
“Jag sov, men mitt hjärta, mitt hjärta var vaket.
“Hör, min vän knackar på, min vän som får mitt inre att skälva.”
She held Jinx's head by the cheek and caressed her into meeting her gaze. Her cup was delicate and permissive, ever ladylike even under the burden of wiley spirits, but Jinx felt like she might be shattered in her wake anyway. Lux sang jubilantly with wild eyes as they drilled ceaselessly into her very core.
“' Öppna för mig, min syster, min älskade, min duva.’
“‘Mitt hår är fuktigt av dagg, mina lockar våta av nattens droppar.’”
Lux's hand dropped swiftly to her hip to whisk her into the fray with the second rising movement. She raised her voice to the glittering sky as she continued unabashed and untethered;
“Jag stiger upp för att öppna för min vän, mina händer dryper av myrra.”
The tumbling tune was spiraling up into a glorious furor that threatened to sweep Jinx off her steady feet. She could feel her convictions of caution subsiding, melting into Lux's fevered touch.
“Från fingrarna rinner myrra, som får mitt inre att skälva!”
The hubbub bubbled over as hands flailed to hold the song afloat for just a moment. Crass laughs and darkened voices from all around had never felt so innocuous in her whole damn life, accompanied by the smog of cigars and vaporous booze.
As quickly as it came, the peace was gone. A holler from the farrier boy set the whole group in motion again, to the simple chorus she'd already managed to grasp.
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek!”
Lux guided her limp hands to swing with the music, goading an active participant out of her seized dance partner.
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!”
A timid smile crept along Jinx's tentatively parted lips. She licked away the chapped dryness that had settled in her mouth after drawling days of disuse in the sleepy town. With a scrap of a cough, she began to sing along;
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek!”
Lux seemed to glow when she joined her in song, from the canines of her ever widening beam, to the shine in her crystal eyes. Her broad movements hastened with a renewed lucidity and excitement, and Jinx was merely along for the ride, hopeless to the whims of the gold-haired governor girl with slender steadfast hands.
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!”
With hands connected in a high arch, Lux spun them both around to the swooping finis. Jinx felt rapturous laughing broiling in her stomach as the dense air ceremoniously gave way to tendrilling feathery harmonies and pithy exclamations of glee.
A lone trumpet crooned from a man triumphed atop the tapped barrel of mead, with whom Lux was utterly fixated with wonder and astonishment. The hanging lanterns played off her glossy visage the way lights only do in paintings and memories. Jinx studied every inch with the telltale fascination of a lifelong scientist, daring to hope and envision for only an instant before she caught herself.
“Jay, the horn !” Lux impressed upon her addledly, never looking away from the gilded instrument of her fancy, “Oh don't you hear how wonderful?”
“Yeah, yeah Luxie,” Jinx humored her, “It’s wonderful.”
Frankly, there wasn't much to be heard over the arrhythmic pounding of her heart beating against her ribs like a pack of riled up baboons, but if it was half as beautiful as Lux looked right then, it must've been wonderful.
The question burrowed in her chest crescendoed to the surface once more:
“Blondie, what does it mean?”
Lux’s stupor with the droning brass was finally jolted by the prodding question.
“Hmm?” She leaned in closer as if her words had been inaudible.
“The song!” Jinx insisted, “The words! Berusa Er. What do they mean?”
She considered this question very deliberately too, with a sluggish reenactment of her usual chipper processing. Finally, the woman mercifully cradled Jinx's cold-bitten face in her light-bleeding hands and fixed her with a joyous expression.
“Drink your fill, Jay, that's what it means,” She grinned besottedly, “It means to drink it all! Drink life, drink joy, Jay!” With none of the propriety or inhibition of the Lux she knew by day, Lux pulled her sternly by the face into a closed-mouth kiss lasting not a second long enough. When she pulled away, Jinx felt the fluster fan out to slather her collarbones. Whistles and caterwaul rose to the occasion around them.
“Drink love!” Lux cried, as she cajoled Jinx by the jaw, “ That is what it means!”
With great haste and fervor the trumpet blared at a volume that bordered on unpleasant, and the chorus returned welcomely as if it had never fled, with Lux's angelic, discordant, ebullient voice leading the charge.
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek!”
Jinx freed the wolfish cackle from the depths of her bosom and fitfully joined the harmony to Lux's melody. She knavishly directed their path of travel while Lux discovered herself to be a bit too intoxicated to lead a truly stubborn Jinx.
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!”
The giggles were catching like any other ailment this time of year, so it was only natural that Lux was infected; with so much exposure to Jinx, after all, what chance did she stand?
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek!”
Lux had to hunch over dramatically to nest in the crook of Jinx's neck, giggles still seeping out like puss and eyes frenzied. Jinx tossed the hand from her shoulder over the blonde's upper back to anchor them together.
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!”
The two rocked and swooned as the festivities swirled unperturbed around them. The vivid splendor of the party could only burgeon and concentrate in the meager plaza, crushing its occupants flat beneath its unwieldy grandeur.
Jinx fleetingly wondered if Lux would remember this passion come the sunrise. However, Lux's instructions were unmistakable, and on her path to the straight and narrow, Jinx had found adherence to her advice to be wise and fruitful.
Drink it up, Jinx , she chided herself. Savor it.
They spun and sang and shuffled through the crowd, feeling the drinking song reverberate; Jinx, with nothing less than reverence, and Lux, with little more than elation. Neighbors graciously handed her helpings of their nectar, but she hardly indulged; she needed all of her wits up to snuff to record this accurately to her memory. New songs deluged over her and flowed like honey through her skull, sticking in patches and sections holding onto precious earworms and the facsimile of consummated steps. Patterns emerged in the girls’ graceless moves, only to be missed and superseded by the next instinct that tickled their joint momentary fancy.
Despite her most earnest attempt to elongate the seconds, the stars travelled the vast expanse of the sky in the blink of an eye while they pranced foolheartedly. The bells would be striking thrice, soon.
The thin leather flats that protected her feet plenty on a slow day left aches shooting up her ankles after so many hours had passed traipsing through the fugue. The congregation of merry mages in the thoroughfare thinned as the night waged on, till it was bereft of all but the two, slowly becoming one, conscious birds. Lux's drunken awareness fluttered, flimsy thing it was, following Jinx's lead with a bowed head and lidded eyes. Jinx's sober voice filled the hollow in the party’s stead, singing reedily with only the impression of accompaniment backing her.
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek,
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!
“Berusa, berusa er av kärlek,
“Beru-uu-uu-sa, berusa er av kärlek!”
Behind her bleary vision, she could hear the booming baritones crash with finality;
“Beru! -sa! Er!”