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Rodney's little bubble of joy was still fizzing at the end of the day, even after washing up the dishes after dinner and barely being able to dodge the water fight that had broken out amongst the rowdy young students. It felt almost as good as when he'd proven one of his theories correct and he was nearly desperate to share it with someone as he walked away from the Collegium kitchen. He briefly considered Cadman, then discarded the idea. The horse-faced she-devil would never understand why he was so happy. After all, she'd been the one to tear him away from all that to begin with. No, he needed to talk to someone else.
He thought about going to Carson, but as of late the man had been looking at him with concerned eyes and asking too many prodding questions. He didn't want Carson to smother his happiness by being a wet blanket and insisting on questioning why he'd been so unhappy before. Radek was probably already back at the Compass Rose and would likely mock him anyway, and then suddenly Rodney hit the end of the list of people that he could talk to.
He stopped short in the hallway at that realization, stumped. His happiness a little dampened by the lack of someone to share it with, his shoulders slumped and he turned and headed for his quarters. Maybe he could read ahead on classes instead. Not that it did him any good for most of them. As he walked past John's door he heard some music drifting from the room and he stopped dead in his tracks and turned to stare at it. The bubbling happiness picked back up and he realized that he could tell his good news to John. He reached forward and tapped on the door.
The music halted and the door opened to reveal John. It also revealed a Bard with a gittern in his lap sitting in the chair that Rodney normally sat in when he came over. Rodney felt the smile on his face fall off. "Hey, Rodney. What's up?" John said smiling at him.
Rodney back up a pace and began wringing his hands together. "Um, sorry, I didn't know you had company. I, ah, I'm sorry to bother you. I'll see you later. In class. I'll just go now."
John grabbed Rodney by the bicep and pulled him in. "Geez, Rodney, you're not imposing on anything. Come on in! Lorne, this is Rodney. Rodney, this is Lorne, an old friend of mine. He was just playing a few tunes for me," he said, waving a hand between the two of them as he made introductions.
Rodney waved awkwardly. "Um, hi,"
Lorne nodded at him with an easy smile. "Hello there. John tells me you're new here."
Rodney felt a dull flush creep up his face. "Er, yeah. Cadman. Hauled me out of the Compass Rose." He shifted on his feet uncomfortably.
John gestured toward the chair he usually sat in as he flopped onto his bed. "Have a seat, Rodney. What brings you here? It's too early for a game of midnight chess."
"Oh, um, I just found out something and I uh..." Rodney stumbled out, missing the odd look Lorne gave John, "well, I suppose I wanted to tell you about it. But it's nothing important. I could wait till later."
"What is it?" John asked, looking interested. "You're already here, you might as well tell me now."
Rodney quickly glanced over at the bard and cleared his throat. "Um, well, the Queen's Own has decided to take me off housework duty and have me teach classes again. I ah, start tomorrow. After Weapons class."
John grinned, his whole face lighting up. "That's great! You'll be scaring the Blues again almost as much as Ronon does the Grays."
Lorne piped up with, "What classes do you teach?"
"Math and sciences," Rodney crossing his arms over his chest. Somehow this was not what he'd had in mind. He wanted to talk to John not have to make polite to some Bard who'd probably write up some scathing satire about him when Rodney screwed up and did something that he thought was rude.
This time he caught Lorne as the man looked back and forth between him and John, who was looking at Rodney with a look of puzzlement. "You know, I probably need to get back to my..." Lorne began, shifting forward in his chair to get up.
Great, Rodney thought sourly. Here he was, trying to not be rude and he was still scaring off other people's guests. "No, no, I should leave," he gritted out, popping up out of his chair.
John jumped up off the bed and caught Rodney by the arm. "Rodney..."
Rodney shook his head and crossed his arms again. "You have company. I shouldn't have interrupted."
"Yeah, Rodney, I have company and you're part of it," John countered. He let go of Rodney's arm and placed his hand in the center of Rodney's chest and pushed him back towards the chair. "Come on. Sit down."
Rodney looked into John's calm eyes and allowed himself to be convinced, much against his will. He sighed and said, "Okay," and returned to the chair.
John laid a hand on his shoulder as if to pin him to the seat and turned to say to Lorne, "So how about you flaunt some of that repertoire of yours and give us a tune out of Queen, there?"
Lorne looked at John, then shifted in his chair and set the gittern carefully aside, leaning it against the wall. "Actually, I think I'll bring out Windrider instead and give her some exercise. I never play her enough," he said, reaching over and pulling another case close to him. He opened up the case and pulled out a harp. The evening light from the window gleamed off its golden wood, highlighting the fine birdseye maple it was made from. Rodney's breath caught. It was a beautiful instrument and he knew instinctively that it would sing in the right hands.
Lorne placed it on his lap, leaned it against his left shoulder and set his hands gracefully onto the bronze strings. He ran a quick arpeggio, stopped, tuned the two strings that Rodney agreed were out of tune, and ran another arpeggio making sure the tuning was true. Lorne then closed his eyes, started playing a slow haunting tune and began to sing in a strong baritone:
The moon-cradle's rocking and rocking
Where a cloud and a cloud go by
Silently rocking and rocking
The moon-cradle out in the sky
Then comes the lad with the hazel
And the folding star's in the rack
'Night's a good herd' to the cattle
He sings, 'she brings all things back'
But the bond woman down by the boorie
Sings with a heart grown wild
How a hundred rivers are flowing
Between herself and her child
The geese, even they trudge homeward
That have their wings and the waste
Let your thoughts be on Night the Herder
And be quiet for a space
the moon-cradle's rocking and rocking
Where a cloud and cloud go by
Silently rocking and rocking
The moon-cradle out in the sky
The snipe they are crying and crying
Liadine, liadine, liadine
Where no track's on the bog they are flying
A lonely dream will be mine. *
Lorne played the refrain a second time, no longer singing and then lifted his hands away to let the ringing of the strings die slowly on their own. Rodney blinked as he realized that calm had washed over him and realized that this Bard had the Gift.
John cleared his throat. "That's a new one," he said, lifting his hand away from Rodney's shoulder. Rodney was vaguely disappointed to feel it leave.
Lorne coughed and licked his lips. "Yeah. Picked it up around somewhere. It sounded like something you would like."
The corner of John's mouth quirked up. "Well, yeah."
Lorne shrugged and Rodney's eyes fell back to the harp as the strings glittered in the light with the movement. He'd been right. It was a glorious instrument, better than his had been. His hands twitched, and he wished for a moment that he could play it, just once, to feel it sing under his fingertips.
Lorne followed his gaze to the harp and asked, "You play?"
Rodney blinked and then turned his head away, discomforted. "When I was younger. I've not touched an instrument in a long time though."
Lorne pulled Windrider away from his shoulder and held it out. "Want to have a crack at it? John's been working me hard for a while now and I could use a break."
Rodney grimaced even as his fingers itched to grab it. "It's been years. I'm sure I'll sound awful."
Lorne snorted. "It's a harp. How bad can it sound? I grant you a fiddle played badly sounds like a cat being slowly tortured, but a harp is more forgiving to the ear than that as long as it's in tune. Go ahead. Give her a whirl."
He did have a point, Rodney realized and gave in to his badly concealed desire to play such a wonderful instrument. He slowly reached out and took the harp away from the bard, turning it so it could rest in his lap. "I warn you, it's been forever. Don't expect much."
"Yeah, yeah, we heard you, Rodney. Just don't play 'My Lady's Eyes' and we won't mock you," John commented as he sat back down on his bed.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding? I'd rather stick hot needles in my eyes than play that piece of crap." He sat back in his chair, resting both feet solidly on the floor and leaned the harp onto his right shoulder. The really nice thing about harps was that it didn't really matter if you were left or right handed except when you had to tune them. He lifted his hands into position, hoped that his fingernails were long enough to pluck the metal strings properly and, after some thought, began a slowish, grim marching tune, emphasizing the base line to make it even more martial in tone. He hummed in counterpoint, not trusting himself to remember the words after all this time, concentrating ferociously on trying to imbue his playing with the proper emotion. That had always been his downfall before. Technically perfect, but somehow the emotion had always been out of reach. He tried anyway. A harp this perfect deserved no less than his best effort.
When he came to the end and damped the strings with the edges of his hands, he was surprised to find his hands trembling. He set them down on his thighs firmly to stop the tremors and looked up to see both Lorne and John giving him odd, restless looks. "What?" he snapped defensively, feeling a headache coming on. "I told you it had been a long time since I'd last played!"
Lorne jerked back in his chair at Rodney's snappishness and then ran a hand over his hair. "Well..." he said a little unevenly. "I guess you didn't have the Bardic Gift back then. Otherwise, that harp would probably be yours."
Rodney blinked. "What?" He felt weird, and his head had somebody pounding on it like an anvil in a smith's shop.
"You have the Bardic Gift," Lorne replied. "A reasonably strong version of it, too. I was ready to run off and join the army there while you were playing."
Rodney blinked some more. It was difficult to understand what Lorne was saying because he sounded like he was halfway across the kingdom. Since Rodney's head felt exactly like it was being squeezed between two boulders at the bottom of Lake Evandim, that didn't come as much of a surprise to him. "Oh," he said faintly as he deciphered Lorne's words and then fell sideways, his vision going black.