Chapter 533: The Lyre and Bow

"Are you sure about this one?" Owyn asked.

"If anyone knows where there’s a fight club, then they’re here!" Raven said confidently... just like she’d said so at the docks, the bus stop in the shady part of the city, and the stable where the Knights kept their landbound mounts. On the bright side, he was now very familiar with the bus routes. "Just stand there and look scary."

They were almost in the center of the city, at a place called the Lyre and Bow, whose sign depicted a woman using a lyre as an arrow. Despite being early evening, at least by the murky appearance of the starless sky above, which Owyn found creepy, the tavern seemed already to be at full tilt, with a noisy crowd partially singing along with an orcish bard playing jauntily on a piccolo.

As they passed patrons, Owyn was forced to lean in so he could be heard, "Then why didn’t we come here first?"

"Because they’re associated with the House of Stars, duh. How do you think they’d react if I asked where to find a fight club so I could go toe to toe with a scion of their House?"

"Uh..." Owyn remembered Amarena and Ferro, how unconcerned they’d been about Arc taking him on when he was more than twice her size, "They’d tell you where she is and wish you good luck?"

Raven hissed, actually hissed, at him before stomping off towards the bar, where a human woman with fiery red hair streaked with silver was serving drinks and chatting with customers.

She waited impatiently, rattling her fingers along the bar as Owyn did his best to slide over to her, arriving just as the woman behind the bar did.

"Sorry, loves, we don’t serve students in uniform."

"We’re," Raven turned quickly to verify Owyn’s presence, "not looking for drinks. We’re looking for a fight."

The woman sized up Raven, rolling her tongue in her cheek before she let out a sharp, piercing whistle that silenced the whole bar. A burly giant, even taller than Owyn, approached, casting his shadow over Raven before stepping aside to reveal a raven-haired elven woman who seemed about as old as the woman behind the bar. She reached into the air and pulled out something that wasn’t a rifle but that Owyn definitely recognized as a gun.

"Best be explaining yourselves fast, before we have you out on your asses," the barwoman said, producing a heavily enchanted club of some sort made entirely of what looked like mythril.

Not wanting to get beaten half to death by the most expensive thing he’d ever seen, Owyn quickly covered Raven’s mouth, which had started making aggressive words, and said, "We’re not looking for a fight, ah, here. We’re looking for a friend who went to some kind of club for it- ow!" He startled as Raven bit his finger, forcing him to let go.

She glared at him before declaring, "What he said."

The woman behind the bar looked over at the one holding a gun. "This one’s yours, Hunter."

The woman, thankfully, put the gun away and crossed her arms. "Could be I know where there’s fights to be had. But you interrupted Nels over there," she thumbed over at the orcish bard, who was drinking a glass of water. "That means you owe us a song."

The audience burst out laughing, and Nels trilled a mocking set of chirps on his piccolo.

As if on cue, the crowd started stomping and demanding, "Sing! Sing! Sing!"

"This is ridiculous," Raven complained, turning on her heel as Owyn tried to recall one of the few songs he knew well enough to occasionally sing to himself.

Awkwardly, he started,

"So we danced all night ’til the sun came up,

one for the road and another for luck,

I didn’t know that I fell in love,

In love with an island girl."

He paused for the briefest of moments, trying to remember the rest, but then went with the first thing that came to mind as the crowd regarded him with critical eyes.

"Hair like twilight, eyes like the sky,

She fights like a ferret, yearning to fly,

I didn’t know, but now I can see, I’m in love with a island girl..."

Once he started on the refrain, the crowd actually joined in, and soon the whole tavern was stomping and clapping to his song. Even the barkeep pulled out a lyre and started strumming along, though Owyn felt the song called for a different sort of strings. As he sang, Raven took up leaning against a post and glowering.

And when the song wound to a close, Owyn remembered why he knew this song. It was the song his father sang for his mother whenever he was in a musical mood, and he remembered reaching for the bow of his father’s fiddle as he sat on the man’s lap.

And then after the final la-dee-da, the song was over, and Owyn was left feeling embarrassed and oddly tired. It was almost like he’d been using magic, but with none of the pain that normal spellcasting caused him.

"Well now," the barkeep said, passing a mug off to Owyn, which was filled with some sort of juice, "Don’t see that every day. Ever consider becoming a bard? You’ve got the magic for it."

"Rose, don’t poach the boy," the elf named Hunter jabbed the woman, Rose, on the shoulder.

"It’s true though!" Rose turned to Owyn. "You have a bit of the gift, even if your lyrics are as rough as dirt. Who sings about ferrets?" After Owyn stammered a bit about making some of it up, Rose gestured him into silence. "Follow Hunter. She’ll get you two set, won’t you love?"

Hunter led them away from the crowded common room, past the kitchens and into a large space filled with barrels and bottles of wine. A very sturdy-looking safe had a sign that said "Not For Serving" in letters that somehow managed to convey a sense of threat, perhaps because of the skull drawn at the top.

Hunter stopped at a set of lockers, which she leaned against. "First thing, why not go to the Knights if you’re worried about your friend?"

Owyn answered, cutting off Raven, "She’d get in a lot more trouble with them than if we find her."

"She got a bit of history, I take it?"

"Something like that," Raven stepped up. "Why are we back here? Couldn’t you have just given us directions?"

"Tsk. Kids nowadays are so untrusting. Where you want to go, those uniforms will get you beaten up on principle." She opened a locker, revealing some rather worn-looking clothes all bunched up. "Get dressed, I’ll be back in five minutes."

She left as Raven expressed her annoyance, but Owyn saw the logic and immediately started searching for something his size. After three and a half minutes, he had a pair of pants that were slightly long and needed to have the hems rolled up, and a stained shirt that refused to close.

Raven came out from behind a stack of barrels in a much more servicable set of pants and tunic, belted at the middle with her school belt. "I look like a sack with legs," she complained.

"More like a skeleton in a sack," Hunter reappeared, with Rose in tow. "Where are your uniforms? I’ll stow ’em."

"I have a storage item," Raven said, indicating a bracelet on her wrist.

"Can you fit mine in there?" Owyn asked, having bundled his uniform under his arm. After receiving an instantaneous "No," he handed his clothes over to Hunter, who produced a small bag before cramming his clothes in. It was clearly a dimensional storage item.

"Bring that back by next weekend, or I’ll hunt you down," the elf, perhaps half-human, now that Owyn got a good look at her, warned.

"The location, please," Raven snapped as soon as Owyn had the bag pocketed, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Hold up," Rose said. "Owyn, right? I want you to write down that song for me."

Raven scoffed, "That wasn’t what we agreed!"

"As I recall, we didn’t really ’agree’ to anything," Rose shot back, still wearing a smile, "Your boyfriend sang for us, and we liked you two just enough to send you somewhere potentially dangerous without calling the Knights. Based on your intent alone, there is literally no recourse for you students to negotiate, and that includes fighting."

"Doesn’t sound like you like us at all," Raven pouted.

"At least not you," Hunter said without missing a beat. After lightly smacking her shoulder, Rose looked up at Owyn.

"Are we agreed?"

"Can I promise to give you the song when I return the bag?" Owyn asked.

"Swear it, sure," Rose crossed her arms. "Make it a good vow. This old bard’s a sucker for drama."

Owyn nodded. Amongst the Titan Hunters, one’s word was one’s bond - or one would very quickly run out of friends. When he absolutely needed it, Owyn had one thing he would swear by.

"I swear on the graves of my mother and father, and my dying hope for a life renewed, that I shall return what you have given me, and the song you heard me sing."

"You really could be a bard," Hunter shared a look with Rose before clapping her hands together lightly. "Alright, you two, listen well. In the Fourth Ward..."