Eli had thought his passion was music, but success never came and love for love's sake could only carry a young, unattached man so far before doubts grew beyond his ability to self-deceive.
Tall and perpetually seeming in need of a haircut, Eli wandered and hitchhiked along the coast. His dark eyes were filled with sorrow one day, crinkling in joy the next.
With a lightly stained overcoat and the weight of a saxophone in its case on his back, Eli came to Raven's Hollow with the intention of only passing through, but the weather was turning dark fast.
He entered a resort that looked vastly out of his price range, just to ask for the nearest, more peasant-friendly accommodations.
To his surprise, an old man in a blue suit had offered him a free night in exchange for just one dinner's worth of a solo concert.
Lead by a chubby woman in a navy blouse, Eli arrived in the Fir Room -- a spacious bedroom with furniture of untreated wood, brighter than much else of the old house and faintly smelling of forest.
With a deep breath, Eli dropped his coat and fell into bed. He wanted a hot shower right now, but every time he indulged himself, his thought wandered back to the words of his father. No, Eli refused to 'come crawling back', but trying to make it as a musician entirely out of spite wasn't going to work either.
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Carrying his saxophone along the corridor, Eli looked down onto the courtyard where peonies bloomed. With a space this big, he worried his tunes would end up distorted and echoing. Should he request moving the concert to a smaller room?
Thus distracted, Eli almost ran into a woman who burst from the first room by the stairs. She wore a knee long floral dress too scant even for the hallway's ambient temperature.
With an intense gaze from her large eyes, she stopped in front of him, curious, then full of recognition, then curious again.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, her voice exceedingly gentle. "I thought you were someone I knew. You don't happen to know a Kenneth Roberts?"
"My... my grandfather."
She was no older than thirty. She couldn't have known him personally. Eli's grandfather had been well known in his days, but those were long gone.
"Ah," she said. "I remember him well. His concerts..." She squinted. "I mean the recordings I've heard. Excellent. Oh and you've taken up his legacy, yes?"
Eli reflexively raised the brass instrument. "Yes, in a way. I... don't play much of his stuff but jazz was always my forte."
"Cecilia."
"Eli. I'm playing a few songs at dinner."
"Ah, I'll try my darndest to be there. It's not always up to me. I... I travel a lot, between places, and I feel I might travel again soon."
Darndest? Her whole mannerism was a bit old-timey. She looked detached enough to be a wallflower who had learned social interaction from books.
"I was about to call for a cup of tea," she said. "Would you like one?"
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The Raven's Green Room was quite crammed with memorabilia. If it had been a home, not a hotel, the gadgets, snow globes, stacks of books and piles of dresses wouldn't have been too unusual. Eli wondered of Cecilia was a minor hoarder who traveled with all her belongings but then how could she travel frequently?
The conversation was pleasant but not enlightening. Cecilia was strangely eager to talk about nearly every subject and sounded like she had personal experience with everything Eli could think of, but as soon as her private life became relevant, she changed to a different topic.
Before long, it was time to play.
The man in the suit introduced him as hotel guests sat in the glass-roofed courtyard eating fancy dinner. Even the employees sat and ate.
Eli played.
Approving glances turned into cheers turned into dance. One of the employees grinded on a muscled teen who couldn't stop giggling. A massive black man swung around a blond guy like he weighed nothing. The man in a suit danced stiffly with an old, thin woman in black. Cecilia stayed on her own but sank deep into the tunes with eyes closed.
The acoustics of the space were surprisingly good for jazz performances. It was as though the portrait of the black woman behind Eli hummed along and kept the echoes away.
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The suited man's name was Mordecai and as expected he owned the place. Even after the little concert he showed interested in the saxophone.
"Did you know your grandfather played with Laqueta Brown?" Mordecai said as he sat across from Eli in a little tea room off the courtyard.
"The name rings a bell but... Oh, there was a vinyl but it got all scratched up before I was born somehow. Dad wasn't always that careful."
"A shame," Mordecai said, sounding unsurprised as if he knew Eli's dad personally. "I thought you had a special gift, and no doubt you *do*, but it's figurative. I thought you have inherited something from Mister Roberts."
"Well, my passion I guess, though that's not shaking out quite as..."
"No, I meant literally. This wouldn't happen to be his saxophone, no? Didn't think so. Anything at all?"
Eli's brows furrowed. "I have a few things from him I left at Jason's. We... we were a five men band but things fell apart once we ran out of funds and had gotten nothing done. We were halfway to producing our own album but recoding renting equipment and... Chimes! I have grandpa's old chimes. I mean, Jason has them. I don't think those are what you wanted to hear about?"
Mordecai smiled. "They are. Could you get Jason to send them here?"
"Sure... Are they for a collection? Is this some kind of Laqueta museum?"
"Of a sort. How about five thousand."
"What?"
"For the chimes. Five thousand. If you have your bank data handy you can have it in advance."
Money alone wasn't going to bring the guys back together and in the recording studio but it was enough to *try*.
"Y-yes. Yes? I mean, there's no other answer, really. Oh, something I meant to ask. Cecilia, the lady from the green room. She was gone as soon as the encore was over."
"Ah, I'm afraid she couldn't delay her departure any longer." Mordecai rose with the help of a cane and stretched his legs. "Perhaps she is listening to Mister Robert's tunes right now. For some value of 'right now'."
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Officially, the Raven Resort didn't have night shifts, but Kamron volunteered for them anyway. The reception desk computer was more powerful than what he had at home and his MMO ran smoothly into midnight and beyond.
Slaying another goblin king, Kamron didn't notice as someone slipped through the entrance. The concierge jolted back to reality once the thickly muscled figure approached him.
The round-faced, brunet boy in a baggy sweater, camouflage pants and a reverse baseball cap clutched a skateboard like a lifesaver. He looked uneasy.
