It was a nice and calm evening in the grove, the season had just ended so there would be no travelers, meaning al the places would be empty and the chances of getting disturbed was small, Stress sighed with a heavy heart and a mind full of troubles, “Well..at least that is over, 3 more seasons to go..” he silently mumbled to himself, cleaning the few last camping places up, and while he did he hummed a song to himself, he had put it together with the help of a traveler, there were no lyrics to it though, it was more just..humming and a instrument, but he never had one, and even if he did, he had no time for it, his life was always occupied, gods fighting, travelers requiring help, or one of his loved ones needing assistance, such calm moments like these where rare.
But not like it was much of an issue, he was used to it by now, he was the guardian of the grove! It was his job to watch over the place and make sure everything was cleaned up.. and that is how he ended up here, cleaning and tidying up a camping spot, “Huh?” Stress bumped into something, “What is this?” from somewhere out of a corner he pulled a guitar, “Oh..one of the travelers must have left it here..pretty long ago though it seems.” The guitar was dusty and had vines and plants over it, “But I wonder..” Stress his curiosity got the upper hand of him, and he pulled the strings, they..sounded decent, a bit out of tune but that could be easily fixed, he had heard enough travelers play a guitar and seen them tune it, a smile spread across stress his face as he took the guitar home, it was quit the walk though, so eventually he stopped at a campfire nearby and dusted it off there, “the vines won’t budge..funny.”,
Though they weren’t gonna be much of an issue..they weren’t blocking the strings, those only needed to get tuned, and so he sat down, plucking the strings and digging in his memory for how they sounded.
“Stress!?” Someone yelled, “What are you doing there?” He turned around and was met with Cameron, “Ah- hello! Just patching up this old guitar left behind by a traveler.”, Cameron looked with curiosity and sat with him around the campfire, “I see, sorry I didn’t mean to scare you-”, stress shook his head and chuckled, “It’s fine, really!” Together they shared a laugh, “Can you play anything?” He’d suddenly ask, it caught Stress a bit off guard, sure he has always studied chords and tabs, and got lessons from travelers but he had never really played by himself, “I could try..” he picked the guitar up and put it on his lap, “you sure?” Cameron asked in confirmation “you don’t have to-“ stress interrupted him, by playing a soft chord, despite the guitar being hidden away for so long it..sounded almost heavenly, “well, continue?” He said with a big smile, stress nodded in response, this was his chance to make that song he had in mind reality, digging further into his memory he began making a rythme, a song, it became reality, stress was gonna remember every single second of this, it was wonderful and made him sing or well, hum along, the setting also was perfect, the sun was setting and left nice warmth on their skin, it was a happy peaceful moment, “okay, okay..what is all the positivity going on?” Someone mumbled,
“Hey Paic! Come join us!” Cameron invited him over, he scoffed and groaned but did eventually sit down with them. Cameron was happily nodding along to the beat, Paic was humming along and Stress was playing the guitar and humming the main rythme, everything was perfect, this moment continued on, and somewhere Radio-A had also joined them too.
The later the evening got, the closer everyone sat together.
Eventually it was past midnight, Cameron had fallen asleep against stress’s side with Radio-Activity on top of him, and Paic sat almost back to back with Stress..also guilty of dozing off, by now Stress had slowly stopped playing, only humming, thought with every hum his eyes seemed to get more tired..and in the end he joined them in dreamland, leaning slightly on the guitar..
It had changed, the vines on the guitar had sprouted into beautiful flowers, it almost seemed happy it had been played on.
Soon the only thing heard was the campfire in front of them, and the grove around them, perhaps there occasionally was time for a peaceful moment.