[Closed Post: Let Him Ply His Music]

Laertes has spent all morning in the garden with Sagramore and Sunny, getting the last of the tomatoes and peppers settled in the earth. It's a bit late in the year--they really ought to have begun planting in spring--but he has faith that the long summer and the advent of Rainbows will have them fruiting by fall. (And whatever the turning seasons can't do on their own, perhaps Magnus will speed along with Frey's gifts.)

Now, the dirt washed off of his hands, he sits on a sunny rock overlooking the lake and carefully retunes his viol. The instinct for when a note sounds wrong hasn't yet deserted him, but he's lost the knack of finding the right note. A gentle turn of the peg, and then a pluck. A gentler turn in the other direction, then a pluck. A series of notes as the peg turns incrementally, wavering ever so gradually from sharp to flat.