Sounds like a fool's tale

Who: Angelo
Where: One More Round
When: last call (roughly 2 AM)

It was dim inside the Round, as usual. The house lights were down low, leaving the burden of illumination on the bulbs behind the bar where drinks were being poured and the sconce fixtures at the handful of booths the place held. Angelo had to take a moment to appreciate it from where he sat, the way those little pockets of light were framed in murky edges, seeming to bleed in and out of themselves with ripples of smoke moving across the air. The fair crowd that lingered in the place was unknowable, a sea of silhouettes that moved and swayed of their own accord; heads turning, figures rising and settling or cutting through the darkened mass of the bar's main space.

Even up onstage, even with the steady ramble of his bandmates around him, he could hear the low buzz and murmur of muted conversations as it flowed from patron to patron, falling around him like the storm outside. Inside or out, it always rained in Eidolon City. And while rain was usually a guarantee of some audience, it didn't hurt to have more of one. Angelo knew that a fair share of these patrons had come to hear the Shadowed Angel sing, more than had come in to escape the downpour, but neither of those factors bothered him in the least. They were here now, swaying between a hope for the rain to die and a desire to live up to the bar's name. One more round before closing time, right? Last call? One last shot or pint to dull away the daily torments, the poverty, the crime? He knew the feeling, the need for any kind of hope against the powerlessness this city imposed. Angelo always got through it with a smile, feeling like the simple expression could confer private strength unto itself, and maybe he could share it. So few people in this city smiled.

"One last piece for all you fine people," he murmured, leaning into the microphone they kept ready for when this sort of mood struck. The instruments were plenty loud for the small bar, and the Angel? Well, it was hard not to hear when she started singing. But when Angelo felt like talking? It took a little more, so he'd paid for it himself. It wasn't like he could indulge this sort of mood up at the Kitten Club, after all. "Little slice of a story to take home with you, since you can't take your drinks," Angelo went on in a low, velvety tone, grinning at the handful of laughs he got. "This right here's a story 'bout the beginning, 'bout how all stories start... seems t'fit, since we at the end for tonight. Think on it, keep it. S'free, people, dust it off tomorrow if you feel like."

He sat back as his bandmates followed the cue, the bass rising in life slightly to lay out a steady bump, mixing with the easy rhythm of the drummer. Before the soft chains of notes even sprang from the piano off to Angelo's left, he could see the effect in the crowd. The ebb and flow of the crowd was more on the ebb side now, losing the punctuations of rising forms and steady recession of bodies moving to the bar. He wouldn't presume all eyes were on him? But there was enough curiosity for him to share, for the customers to listen. "You think you know the beginning, the start of the story. 'Let there be light', yeah?" he asked the crowd, shoulders rolling in loose time with the ramble the band had going behind him. "Let's just say... it didn't all make it in the good book they love so hard up at St. Pete's."

Laughing again, Angelo's head tilted back to the bass player, grinning as he jived in his seat to the music. He started to nod in a silent count, watching for recognition from his bandmates as he counted down from four. When he sat forward again, one hand gripping the mic, the music dropped with him to pulse steadily, setting an easy pace for Angelo to work from. "In the first heartbeat of the world, there was brothers," he began, letting his eyes rove across the crowd even if he couldn't see distinct faces, "No light, no dark, no heaven or hell. Nothing except Harmony, nothing except Dischord. They was all, they knew only each other, and without knowing there was something missing? They was happy."

Angelo bent low, swapping out his trumpet from his other hand to grab a glass that sat near his chair on the stage, raising it for a sip as the band strutted for a moment of emphasis. " 'Course, like most brothers, they was due a fight. Got themselves one, too. Harmony said he was the best; he flowed like rain in a gutter, like honey in tea. An' Dischord? Hell, any y'all got brothers?" he asked the crowd, flashing a hint of tooth in a smile, "Dischord knew he was best, said he was like a hint of sun in a storm, an' that what stands out from the flow's what makes it all worthwhile. So they fought, an' they argued, an' like so many of us think when you hit that wall? They both decided they din' need each other. One went left, one went right, an' didn't neither of those two fool brothers know where they was goin'."

He loved these moments, feeling like he'd be just as happy raising his trumpet to his lips but savoring the palpable curiosity of the onlookers and the ease of the music that brewed and bubbled around him. "Now Harmony, he grew tired of that dark as he walked, of feelin' the path beneath his feet but not seein' it. And there was day, and a world to be lit by it. Dischord, he was jus' walkin', keepin' to himself when he found the day. He'd been jus' fine with that dark, and now that it was gone? Damn if he din' miss it... and there was night. Now when Harmony found that black again, he got mad. How dare his fool of a brother? Who'd want more than light? An' just like that," he purred into the microphone, "We got ourselves sunrise, sunset. Harmony 'tween the day and night, see?"

Another little collective laugh echoed up to him from the crowd, and Angelo returned it easily with a shake of his head. "I know, right? Sounds like a fool's tale, but you'd best believe they kept at it just like that. Dischord made the ground grow to spite the air, an' his bro made it rain 'til we got us the sea. Mountains raised, valleys dipped, an' the seas grew to hold it all in. Harmony reached inside himself an' pulled out the birds, the fish, an' every beast of the Lord fool enough to be stuck on the ground," he went on, lazy in his cadence, "Din' matter for a sec, 'cuz his brother? He made a crow for every dove, made snakes that swim, squirrels that glide, birds that can't even fly. An' then... he turned 'em on each other. Bears ate the fish, birds ate the bugs, every bit of harmony in the cycle of his brother picked up these notes of dischord, an' suddenly they was vital to surviving."

Angelo knew it was a silly story, but it wasn't meant to be plausible. All he ever hoped for was to provoke some thought, even something as simple as enjoyment of the music or consideration that his own story was no less absurd than the Bible's. "So it went for a time we can't know, each brother twistin' on the other. Today became yesterday, became tomorrow. One star turned into a million, even if we can't see 'em too often 'round these parts. An' finally? On the day the light became an eclipse? Two brothers crossed paths again, two brothers saw each other an' everything they'd done made, this whole world..." He fell silent, letting his words hang for a moment before Angelo leaned sidelong into the mic, giving a crooked smile into the crowd. " 'Nice job, lil' bro,' they both said," he finally went on, laughing with the crowd this time, "Din' neither know who was older, wasn't no such thing 'til they made 'young' and 'old' just to spite each other. So there they was, looking an' seeing everything, how all their works was how they was because of each other? And both understood, both saw the need. Weren't neither one better, greater, or wiser. Both was the same, but different. An' for the first and only time in a young world that just keeps gettin' older, they made somethin' together... and here we are. Harmony and Dischord in one package, livin' our lives to a rhythm, dealin' or dyin' when it spikes an' jumps."

He sat back, bringing the microphone with him as the band wound down their jam, waiting for the last notes before speaking again. "Now maybe it's jus' a story, maybe it's not. Don' matter, does it? Or can y'all look at this life, this town, and see the rhythm? The flow? The shatter-sharp moments when that flow gets cut off? If you can, I guess it's not just a tale. If you can't? Thanks for listenin', anyway. You come on back soon, we still got the cheapest drinks in this 'burg." One last laugh for both him and his audience as Angelo pushed the microphone away to a brief scatter of applause, grabbing his trumpet and tipping it in salute as the lights came up in the bar. It was closing time, which meant he had a walk in the rain ahead of him. And at the end of it? A fresh pipe to puff on, warmer than any towel for drying off, and so much more conducive for dreaming up whatever story he might have for next time. Was it his harmony, maybe? The drugs certainly smoothed over Angelo's frame of mind. But at the same time, it was his dissonance; the only way he ever saw the beauty he tried to speak of, to capture in music or art. So maybe it's both, he mused as he cased up his trumpet, Nothin' wrong there. Hell, it means I'm not tellin' no lies.