Down Through the Ages by StarSpray

Let's Have a Song

Prompt for this chapter: Age of Sail

The tavern was filled with rowdy sailors calling for at least a dozen different drinking songs. Daeron laughed and picked a song that no one had requested; it was immediately taken up by half the bar. Alcohol flowed freely, as did laughter and shouting, and the bartender and the barmaids were kept quite busy. It was hot in the tavern; Daeron blinked sweat out of his eyes as he changed the lyrics to the song to better-rhyming ones as he sawed out the notes on a fiddle someone had thrust into his hands, when he had mentioned that he could play. It was not a well-made fiddle by any standards, but it got the job done.

When the song finished someone dropped into the chair beside Daeron, and thrust a flagon of ale into his hands. "Well done. I couldn't have made anything of that ridiculous instrument."

"It doesn't really matter," Daeron replied, grinning at Maglor as he took a swig of his ale. Its quality matched the fiddle's. "They're all too drunk to notice." He was also drunk, and felt that he could blame that for the way the flush on Maglor's cheeks, and the way his dark hair came loose of its queue, caught and held his attention.

"I bet they aren't too drunk to learn a new song," Maglor said after a few minutes. "Where's that fiddle? Strike up a tune, minstrel." He hummed a few bars, and, laughing, Daeron picked up the fiddle again.