Jonatan wiped the tear from his eye, as he stared at the second-hand lute that lay in his hands, as well as his empty pockets, empty savings, and an accompanying written ban from entering that shop again.

“I hate everything right now.” Jonatan tried his best to grumble but this damn voice made it sound like avant-garde performance art, which only served to irritate him further.

It wasn’t as terrible as first thought, however. The instrument in his hands may have been dull, plain, and more than slightly out of tune, but it was perfectly serviceable. Replace a few strings, polish a few scratches, clean off several unidentified stains and replace the body strap with one that hadn’t been the host of a rat banquet and it would be as good as new. Close enough that drunken tavern-goers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway.

He sighed, walking back down the street towards his house looking like a lost puppy that just got told it wasn’t allowed by the fire. Truly a pitiable spectacle.

The walk back felt longer and longer, so he passed the time by trying to tune the existing strings to a point where they weren’t painfully discordant to little success. That would be his first priority when he got home, assuming that his mother didn’t start immediately lecturing him and make him go back immediately with all his savings in hand with a heartfelt apology.

Jonatan would sooner give up his legs than apologise for something that wasn’t his fault. At least, he assumed it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t much remember anymore but he was certain that he had planted his feet now and he was too stubborn to stop.

The grilling that he had received from Gareth, the short-tempered gnome that had just banned him from buying from his shop again, had only lasted twenty minutes or less. He had plenty of time to procrastinate until he had to brave that dull tower and the strict rules of the lizard that lived there.

He laughed to himself, but quickly snapped himself out of that mental image. Sylvia promised to quite literally murder him if he called her that again, and judging by her bite scar on his chest, he was inclined to take her threats seriously.

“Ya left me to take that earful alone, ya berry-brain.” His father’s voice called out from in front of him, both tired and good humoured. His cheeks were tinted red from being pinched, and his eyes seemed to have gained a dark circle or two from being told off.

“I’ve had my own earful to deal with, don’t complain about yours.” Jonatan shamefully lowered his head, shoving his papers into his father’s hands.

“Last straw, eh? Can’t say I blame the poor man. Your line of work hasn’t exactly been kind to his instruments. That’s your seventh isn’t it?” He chuckled, pointing to the instrument.

“Fourth. The other three were just props but it’s not like drunk people treat them any differently.”

Bill sighed, shaking his head at his son’s ridiculous habit of breaking things.

“Want me to take the gold to him for ya? I ain’t paying mind you.”

“I’ll bring all that I have downstairs.” Jonatan nodded, patting his dad on the shoulder.

Jonatan ducked into the house, running up the stairs to avoid the gaze of his mother, who was enjoying a small mug of ale by the window, her previous rage replaced with smugness at having ‘won’ the argument by making her husband suck up to her and give her a foot massage. At least that’s how things usually went.

He reached his attic room, placing the lute onto his bed and pried up a loose plank beneath his pillow, digging out the large pouch that lay hidden beneath several layers of carefully wrapped lute strings and tossing it to his father from the roof window. For a stay at home dad, he was an ace at catching things.

Jonatan put aside the thought of giving up all the money he ever earned by busying himself restoring his new instrument so that it actually looked fairly new. He was better at singing than he was at playing, but it was far easier to count on himself to get the right notes than people only half as drunk as he was when he usually played.

All the strings were worn and frayed, but changed easily enough. The bodywork needed a clean and a dusting, but other than that it was just as strong as the day it was made. The few scratches that were dotted around the neck were shallow and would only take an hour or so to repair in total. The tuning screws all needed replacing due to overuse, which would be a bit of a pain, but manageable enough so long as he had enough intact spares.

As he worked away, wiping layers of dust away and quickly restringing the instrument, his thoughts began to wander to the events of the last day or two. His dream was far too vivid to be alcohol based, and much to specific to his current situation. Besides the old elf of course, which stumped him at every turn.

Then there was his voice. Not just that, but everything else. The world seemed more in focus, sounds around him seemed to be sharper, more distinct. He was less tired than he used to be, his hangover was less intense than he was used to, his hands worked faster than before. And now his voice sounded like honey dipped in platinum! He wasn’t exactly complaining that he got more attractive, but he hated not knowing why.

Especially since he had lost his accent, a precious heirloom from his father that was now lost to him. As much as he acted like a total vagrant and wild child, he loved his parents intensely. And now he sounded more like some dream elf that he had never even seen who had told him about some fate or another, which only boiled his blood further.

“Fate can go to hell.” He muttered to himself. He made it no secret that he hated prophecy and would mock it at every turn he got. ‘Born to be a Drunk’ was one of his best original songs in fact.

He blinked a few times. He had never taken the time to think like this recently, and the way he was angry at this new voice of his was uncharacteristically serious. For once there was no sarcasm in his voice, but undiluted distaste for this new part of his life.

He scanned the lute, looking for mistakes in his restoration. For all her knew, he had lost hours tinkering with it, but it was worth it. It shined up remarkably well, a glossy undertone with glinting strings waiting to be played by a practiced hand to make some lovely music. He picked up the instrument, plucking each of the strings to make sure that they would hold their tuning for more than five seconds.

Satisfied, he strummed a few chords, the pleasant sounds swimming through the attic. He started humming a tune as he improvised through a sequence of notes, losing all feeling of trouble as he immersed himself in the rhythm of his song. He started gently swaying, following the music where it led.

Before he could stop himself, his humming was replaced by the voice of perfection turning the wordless music into a waltzing ballad of a lost lamb, separated from its flock seeking shelter, moving from stormy bank to hot desert, mournfully lost in ever expanding fields unable to find a place to rest or a shoulder to fall on when all seemed lost.

The shattering sound of his window cracking snapped him out of his trance, bringing him back into reality with a thud. He looked around, his room just as empty as before, besides the occasional flake of glass that had fallen from the window that closer resembled a spider web than glass at this point.

Jonatan tilted his head in mild confusion, brushing the tiny debris off him and his instrument. He had replaced the chewed and broken leather strap with an old leather belt from his mother’s broken sword sheath that she kept because everyone keeps their first sword sheath right? He started walking downstairs, expecting to hear the regular friendly bustling of his parents, but was instead met with absolute silence.

A twinge of worry gripped his chest, and he jogged down the stairs, searching for any signs of his parents. His eyes caught two unmoving beside the fire, side by side, their mouths hanging slightly open in shock, as if mesmerised.

“Uh…you two ok?” Jonatan looked behind him to see if something had spooked them.

They didn’t react in the slightest, their eyes glazing over as they stared into the middle distance, not acknowledging his presence in the slightest.

“Helloooo?” Jonatan took a few tentative steps towards them, scanning their faces for any sign of movement. He waved his hand in front of them, whistling as loud and annoying as he could, which would have mentally broken most people before too long.

His parents blinked several times, looking around the room with a dazed look plastered on their faces.

“Huh?” Their faces switched from dazed to confusion in unison.

“If you lot were drinking something then I want in on it.” Jonatan raised an eyebrow at them.

“Oh can it ya wee…what ‘appened?” Bill scratched the back of his neck with a perplexed sparkle in his eyes.

“No idea but I need to be off to see that lizard before her bedtime.” Jonatan patted his parents on the shoulders, made sure they were not passed out standing up, then left the house behind him before they found the window and gave him another lecture. His mood was fairly good, and he didn’t want yet another painful lecture ruin it.

The sun was now a deep amber, a pretty colour that accented his rising panic that he wouldn’t reach the tower before she activated her social recluse mode and would turn him away without a second thought. Maybe send him off with a blast of fire if he was particularly lucky, which was entirely possible knowing his history with her.

His lute bounced lightly against his back, a comforting rhythm to time his running footsteps to, something to focus on rather than his dislike of running. Even as he broke into a sprint, his eyes set on the tower in front of him, his chest didn’t hurt, his legs felt light, the breeze that rippled across his face felt cool and free rather than the annoyance it once was.

He thought about what happened to him that night. All this had started then. His voice, his senses, the weirdness with his music and now this running? Was it connected? He needed answers if he wanted any peace, but he had to swallow his pride to the depths of his stomach to find them, which left a bitter taste on his tongue.

Then there was that kid, Jasper. There was something about the way his expression changed from exhaustion to such a guarded gaze that rubbed him the wrong way. It was so alien, so foreign from what he had experienced in his life, but so irritatingly familiar that it struck a painful discord in his mind. If nothing else it was another anomaly that he was thrown in this day of bad days.

He was swiftly smacked back into reality by the tower doors flying towards his face. But it was backwards, he was flying towards them. He skidded himself to a stop, breathing his breath back in seconds, another strange thing to deal with. He had never run that quickly before, but it felt normal, which added another irritation on his good mood, pushing it further towards prickly.

Jonatan looked up the ugly stone structure, 4 stories of boring, plain grey rock and iron barred windows. He failed to see the ‘aesthetic’ of this miserable place, it just looked like a high maintenance, overly extra prison in his opinion. That would probably go some way to explaining why she wouldn’t tolerate his company.

“Let’s get this over with.” He muttered to himself, slamming his fist down on the oversized oak doors.

After approximately 30 seconds of silence, he got bored of waiting and knocked again, this time calling out to the windows above him.

“Sylvia! I know you’re in there, answer the door for once!”

Immediately after he shouted, he heard the door lock click open. He seized the opportunity and stepped inside before she closed it on him again, expecting it to slam into him the moment he dived through. When the door did not attempt to kill him moments later, his proud grin faded, and an irritating reality dawned on him.

“She thinks I’m someone else, doesn’t she?” He slapped his forehead with a groan. He hated this damn beautiful voice.

The stairs were just as boring as the exterior, yet seemed to stretch on for miles longer and many times more boring. Grey step after grey step, the occasional sparking torch igniting and extinguishing as he walked past, as if purposely trying to break down his attention span to that of a toddler.

He was immune to this particular effect due to the fact that he was already there. He tried to make his boring climb up the boring stairs a little less so by whistling some colour into the dark ascent. He quickly flicked through the library of songs and tunes in his head, before settling on his father’s favourite whistling tune: The Owl on Top of the Fog.

The sweet and perfect notes that sang in the halls brought a whole new world of melody to the nursery rhyme, smaller lines of harmony seemingly twisting in the echoes of the music, brightening the flames all around him and making them apparently dance in time. He fell into a bouncy step to his own music, tapping the body of his lute in time, strumming the occasional chord.

“What is that magic?” A distracted voice spoke quietly in front of him, snapping him out of his musical trance, replaced by a quiet sense of fear and distaste.

Sylvia stood in front of him, dressed head to toe in white robes, tied at the waist with a red cord, and a faintly glowing necklace of a scroll and sickle jangling noisily around her neck. Her slender figure would have been the desire of everyone if it didn’t come with the caveat of being a lizardfolk with smooth scales covering the entirety of her body, with the sole exception of her judgmental amber eyes.

Which were now staring straight at Jonatan with what could best be described as pure irritation with a slight hint of murderous intent.

“What in the nine circles of Hell are you doing here you drunken muscle-head?!” She screeched at him, flapping her arms at him as if he were a spider that invaded her personal space (that didn’t give him much confidence either because he had seen her eat spiders first-hand. Terrifying stuff that.)

“I mean I’m not drunk at the moment but if you want I can come back—”. Jonatan slung his lute over his back again, leaning against the cold staircase wall.

“NO. No.” She shook her head in a muddled mix of anger and betrayal. “What are you doing here? Is there someone else with you?”

“Surprisingly, no. Thought I’d try out your lonely way of life for a day, and trust me, it sucks.”

“If you want me to throw you on the streets again I’d be happy to oblige.” Her eyes turned cold as she reached for the large book hung at her left side.

“Much as I love the streets, the help I need can’t exactly be found there. I’m sure someone of your oh so great intellect has already figured that out though.” Jonatan folded his arms, replying to her coldness with his trademark sarcasm.

Sylvia narrowed her gaze, looking him up and down several moments in tense silence.

“The voice I heard from the door, that was you?” She probed.

“Happened the other night after I drank myself onto cloud nine and found my way to the top of the hill.”

“Why should I be surprised that you did something stupid?” She raised a scaly eyebrow.

“Hush you, it takes talent to be a functional idiot. Anyway, sang a song there, passed out, woke up sober sounding like a king’s favourite choir boy. Thought you might know who did it or at least something about it, since you never stop saying that you’re knowledge dwarfs mine.”

“You…sang a song and your voice changed?” Her voice shifted from extreme annoyance to hyper curiosity.

“Well I had a dream about sentient waterfowl, but I don’t think that’s the culprit.” He shrugged.

She didn’t reply with her usual indignant wailings of intellect, which disappointed Jonatan slightly, but instead started muttering various things in her native language, though her tone suggested she still thought he was an idiot. She raised her head, her expression serious but her eyes twinkling with excitement.

“Follow me. I’m going to check you for magic or spells.” She ordered, turning around on her heel, and striding away from him, not even glancing back once.

“Positive emotions don’t suit you, you know?” Jonatan grumbled, jogging to catch up with her.

She ignored him. He didn’t like when she didn’t retort, so much less entertaining. She led him to a laboratory looking room, vials of who knows what in racks on the walls, books full of words, he assumed, stacked in every empty space, a table with crystal balls and orbs of various sizes sat in the middle of the room beside a torture table of sorts.

“Didn’t realise you used those crystal balls for THAT kind of thing.” Jonatan whistled, impressed.

“It’s a divination table, so that subjects don’t thrash when I’m exploring their minds and future. And if you make another crude comment like that, I’ll turn you inside out and leave you as food for my birds.” She looked at him with disgust. “Lie down.”

“My safe word is—”

“LIE. DOWN.” She yelled at him, her hands beginning to accumulate ice crystals, likely from her urge to freeze him and throw him off a cliff.

Jonatan held up his hands in surrender, taking his lute off his back and placing it gently on the floor while trying and failing to make himself comfortable on the ‘bed’. She strapped his hands and ankles down, threatened him with a dagger when he opened his mouth to make another joke, and began reading various notes out loud from that large black book of hers.

While she set up candles, arranged her orbs and generally ignored him, he allowed his mind to wander. That boy he met in town, Jasper, stuck in his mind. He couldn’t place why, merely that he had a certain…something about him. Like looking at a painting of a theoretical brother you don’t have. It gave him a headache thinking about it, not that he noticed with all the killer hangovers he’d had.

His lack of attention was broken by the sound of shattering glass right next to his head. Not wanting to become a human pincushion, he recoiled away from the noise, earning a creak from his restraints.

“Oh drat. You broke one of my orbs!” Sylvia complained, letting the rest of the shattered orb fall to the ground. She made a whistle, and the small tinkling sounds of glass being swept off the floor by some invisible servant filled Jonatan’s ears. He hated it.

“The only thing I can break right now is your sanity.” He shook his wrists, drawing attention back to the fact that he was still, in fact, pinned to one of her beds. He giggled at the thought.

She grumbled, holding back the urge to slap him.

“Listen, oaf. I don’t know what you did or what you’re playing at, but since I don’t trust you, I’m going to put you to sleep. Understand?” She started rearranging the candles and orbs into a different complicated pattern.

“Do I get a say in—”

“Good.” She didn’t wait even a second before she started chanting gibberish and holding her hand above his face.

He felt a warm chill run over his face, making his eyes feel heavier, and his breathing get slower. Jonatan, having the common sense of your average toddler, decided to do everything he could to try and stay awake to get a funny reaction out of her. He went limp and started fake snoring like he used to when his mother caught him playing lute at midnight when he was young.

The strange feeling that she was sending into him stopped soon after, Sylvia sighing in annoyance shortly after.

“Maybe I should strangle him and be done with it. Wouldn’t that be a dream.” She mumbled to herself, a slightly scary twinge of glee in her voice.

She didn’t speak much after that, though the arcane mumblings that she was doing were just as boring as her usual conversation. Jonatan decided to mess with her a bit and pretend to sleep talk about the other ways she could use the straps on the bed.

He was both amused and disappointed when she gagged him, swearing in her native language as she did so.

After several tedious minutes of trying to pass time pretending to be asleep, she finally did something interesting by lighting all the candles around him with a snap of her fingers. He felt a strange sense of pressure build around him, as the candles glowed brighter, a harsh odour of burning incense, wax and…steak? Magic confused him.

A shrill metallic jangle broke the atmosphere, making her stumble over her words and scoff in irritation. She mumbled various complaints before moving to the far side of the room, making eavesdropping that slight bit more inconvenient. He couldn’t make out the words being said, but it sounded eerily similar to one of the guards he covered for playing cards the other night.

“Oh fine, if its urgent then I suppose you better come inside.” Sylvia’s tone of voice shifted from annoyance to tired formality. She had always felt in debt to the town guard for saving her from bandits several years ago and let her take over the old clock tower to set up her business, so always treated them with the utmost respect.

It’d be admirable if Jonatan hadn’t heard the guard’s actual opinions on her first-hand over a game of dice. Apparently they had a betting pool to see who could sleep with her first. Cruel? Maybe. Funny? Absolutely.

He remained in pretend sleep out of sheer curiosity for this apparently urgent news. He loved gossip, especially when he wasn’t supposed to hear it.

“What can I do for you?” Sylvia sounded a lot more intimidating when she was being formal, like a reprimanding parent.

“Sorry for not sending word ahead, lass.” Jonatan couldn’t quite place the name behind the voice, but he could hear a slight quiver in it, as if they didn’t want to be here. “Mayor Akhil said you would want to know of this.” The sound of rustling paper exchanging hands was not one he expected, and one that did nothing to help his curiosity.

“Has this been made public?” Sylvia seemed oddly concerned. It didn’t suit her.

“Tomorrow at midday. He said he’d give you a cut of taxes in exchange for using your magic whatchamacallits to aid the search. In the name of security however, this’ll be off the books, no public fear or snooping that way.”

“Divination, thank you.” Jonatan could hear her raising her eyebrow. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I will begin making preparations and you can tell the Mayor that he has my full support.”

“Much appreciated. What with all the travellers comin’ through here, its good to know we can still trust our own.” If Jonatan weren’t pretending to sleep he’d have rolled his eyes hard at that. “Sorry for intruding, we’ll be…is that Jon?”

Sylvia paused for longer than necessary, as if savouring the looks on their faces staring at Jonatan’s restrained figure.

“Apparently, he got himself hexed and came to me for help. He’s asleep at the moment, so I plan to charge him double.” Jonatan could hear the guards holding back laughs. He let out a comedically loud snore, setting a few of them into fits of giggles, earning him some tightened restraints. Worth it.

The guards left before they all broke professionalism, just in time to avoid Sylvia’s irritation flaring up. She returned to the side of the table and restarted whatever ritual she was doing, they all sounded the same to Jonatan.

Several arcane babblings, weird lights, and strange smells later, he felt the cold sting of a slap across his face, breaking even his attempts to feign sleep. He blinked the stars out of his eyes, taking in the surroundings again.

There was a strange net of connecting glowing lines above him, that seemed to shift and shimmer randomly. Sylvia was staring at it intently, her face a worrying mix of shock and awe.

“Do you practice that slap or what?” Jonatan complained, craning his neck to look up. “Go on then, what’s wrong with me?”

She didn’t respond, which was even more unnerving. She stared at the magic web above him, barely able to muster a word. She almost sprinted over to a table picking up a sheet of paper and reading it again and again. It had a familiar crackling sound, the one that the guards gave her, and an all too familiar shape.

Jonatan had seen enough of those in his two-year long bar crawl to know exactly what kind of thing was written on there.

A wanted poster.

Her cold eyes raised to meet Jonatan’s, staring daggers into his soul. She snapped her fingers, the door to the room slamming shut and the clicking of locks.

“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”