As the party was starting to get onto its first stages of rowdiness and the guild members were getting their cups of alcohol, Valerie walked down the stairs down to the messhall, a fiddle and bow in hand. A party required lively music, not the melodic beauty of her harp. Her regular harp, not Chiron. That majestic instrument wasn't meant to entertain. Hopping onto the bar counter with practised ease of having done it countless times before, Val placed the fiddle into the crook of her neck and began to play. A lively FIorean jig, commemorating Ur's recent and no doubt hair-pullingly tedious trip to the western continent to meet with the Magic Council. Val's legs kicked left and right in tandem with the jig as she recalled how she came to be here.

Two years she'd been a member of Fenix Tear. Two years since she left home and her dear mother told her at the gates not to return until "she learned how to behave". Well, she didn't say that exactly, but that's what she meant. Kind of her to give her a stipend on her way, though. She figured the solution was obvious: join a guild. What guilds were there in Hizore? Fenix Tear was the only one she knew of without asking around, so there she went. She's learned since that the S-Class members of the guild vet their members, but her entry to the guild was approved right then and there the moment she walked in by Ur herself. Val wondered if Ur knew her, or her family, but she never mentioned it. The rest of the guild, not even the S-Class members seemed to be aware of where she came from.

And what a blissful thing their ignorance was. A life of freedom and adventure beckoned her to Fenix Tear and there she'd found her place as the guild's resident bard. She knew how to play before, but certainly not bawdy jigs and risque ballads she's learned since then.

Ur's announcement of a new guild member drew her gaze and the first thing she noticed about this Aki was his red hair. Like hers! How nice. Fenix Tear needed more redheads. Though, it made her wonder. Red hair could be either a blessing or a curse, given how much people put stock on it being a sign of a good lineage (thanks a lot, Firelord). Gods know how much it wanted to make her pull her own hair out when she was younger. She hoped the boy would take it in stride.

Val snapped out of her reminiscencing and surveyed the room. Voss and his fan club, check. She did find the man very pretty, but found the concept of fawning over the man quite a bit too much. Give the poor man a little space. And there was Gray at the very bar she was dancing on, having a drink. Sterling was an apt name for the man, given how his eyes shone at the mention of profit. No surprise given his family history. Double check. Then Mizore, technically her superior in the guild thanks to their healing inclinations, making an appearance and putting on a lewd display and courting Voss and Gray into a shady mansion raid. Triple check. 

Who she didn't account for was the Guild second-in-command Ifrit coming down from his perch to admonish his fellow S-class and subordinates. Not the admonishing part, S-Class were always at odds with one another. It was making an appearance at all that surprised Val. Usually he didn't bother.

But Val continued to play and dance uninterrupted despite her musings, filling the messhall with lively music as she oft did.