Sewer Bard used to have a different name. He couldn’t recall it anymore, but he had recently remembered that he used to be someone else.

It was a disturbing thought. There were tales a’plenty of skinwalkers, shapeshifters, and those who could assume the form of your loved ones for ill intent. But vanishingly few stories where you were a stranger inside your own flesh.

Perhaps his name had been lost in the acceptance of his greatest role so far. His Noble Patron had named him, and there was power in a title bestowed by the Golden Prophecy’s instrument.

Sagas swirled within his head, and from them he plucked half a dozen that sang of the importance of keeping your true name safe from those who would harm you. Was that why he had been stripped of his birth name by the Hero? To protect him, even from himself?

The part time thief, full time Bard looked at the man to whom he owed his life, the one who would save their lands, the being on whom the burden of existence rested.

Sewer Bard was starting to realise that, on the whole, he didn’t actually like the Chosen One.

Oh, he respected him, secretly feared him, and would follow him into death itself. But as a person, he didn’t care for the man.

Had it been like this with other Heroes and their faithful companions? Could you lay down your life for someone who, when they weren’t ignoring you, treated you with blatant disrespect? The stories spoke of the deeds done by the followers of the great, but never of the thoughts that jangled within their heads.

The Bard’s gaze slid from his Noble Patron to his ever present shadow, the half-elf Healer.

She was, like all women, the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on. He wanted nothing more than to protect her, and whisper sweet nothings into her ear.

She also made him deeply uncomfortable.

At first he had attributed it to the fact that he had not known he was in the presence of a lady for so long, then that she was invisible. He’d found himself straining to try and hear her, wanting nothing more than to be able to tell her all the pretty phrases that bubbled forth whenever he saw a lady. Even when she’d rejected his words, it hadn’t touched the spring of chivalry that welled within him.

But the obligatory affection he held for her was very different from the feelings he had for Sexy Screamy Spider Lady. The Hunter made his heart race, though whether it was from the times she was both woman and spider, or because she seemed to see the world the same way he did, was impossible to tell. She appeared as more spider than Wood Elf, lately, but he loved her still.

Definitely Bad Guy was a monster. The Chosen One had shrugged off the sights within the Wizard Tower, dismissing it as “flavour”, but Sewer Bard had been unable to treat it with the same laissez-faire attitude. It stuck with him, and haunted his thoughts.

The Chosen One seemed to view this depravity, like he did most things, as a joke.

It all felt so wrong. The Healer and the Hero, they were both… frustrating. The world was frustrating, too. He had been a good Bard. Not the best, but solid. Good enough to be treated with basic respect.

Sometimes the Healer and the Hunter would acknowledge his importance, and for that he loved them both. Even when the Healer was at her most aggravating, he could not forget her kindness, and he pitied her invisibility in a way only one desperate to be seen could feel. To the man used to being the centre stage, there was nothing worse than being rendered invisible.

But no one else seemed to care. The Royalty that they had met had ignored him, even when instructed to speak with him by the Chosen One. His worldly knowledge was ignored or outright mocked.

The core of the Bard was diplomacy, charisma, and seduction. To recite lore, and create new. Bards were key to civilisation.

But he was being denied this. As he was denied his own name. As, at some points, he was denied the ability to control his own body.

And so frustration bled through him, until it became thrumming rage.

Undirected, but no less poisonous for it, it grew each time he was denied his role. His function. He didn’t know who or what, exactly, he was angry at. All he knew was that he was angry. And that someone, somewhere, was at fault for this.

And that one day, the piper must be paid.