ELLIOT'S BREAD

Intro

Verse 1

She came through the docks at dusk
When the lanterns had just been lit
Six foot four in silver plate
That the salt air couldn't sit
She paused at every doorway
Like she's counting what she sees
And the shield upon her arm
Had an eye that wouldn't leave

Verse 2

The spear she carried hummed with marks
In a tongue the docks don't speak
And the armor caught the lamplight
Like it never touched a week
She didn't ask for directions
She didn't stop for bread
She looked at every single face
Like she was matching it to the dead

Chorus

And I know that walk
I know that weight
When you leave the only home you've known
And the door won't wait
She came from the mountains
She came from the stone
And whatever sent her down here
She is carrying alone

Verse 3

There's a scar beneath her bracer
Pale like frost across the skin
Shaped like something reached and touched her
And she let the winter in
She didn't see me watching
From my corner by the wall
But I've worn a mark like hers
And I know what starts the fall

Chorus

And I know that walk
I know that weight
When you leave the only home you've known
And the door won't wait
She came from the mountains
She came from the stone
And whatever sent her down here
She is carrying alone

Bridge

She'll find what she was sent for
Or it'll find her first
I've seen that kind of certainty
It's patience, not a thirst
The eye upon her shield was open
Staring at the crowd
But hers were looking further
Past the docks, past the shroud

Final Chorus

And I know that walk
I know that weight
When you leave the only home you've known
And the door won't wait
She came from the mountains
She came from the stone
And whatever sent her down here
She is not carrying alone

Outro

I never learned her name
But I wrote her this

Intro

Verse 1

I was down in the Blackmire, just my eyes above the line
The way a smart snake watches when the water's treatin' fine
And somethin' moved between the cypress
Somethin' big enough to block the moon

Grey-blue skin like mountain granite
Seven foot if she was noon
She was touchin' every tree she passed
Palm flat against the bark
Readin' somethin' in the roots
That I been prayin' to since dark

Chorus

The Mountain Woman
Came through my church and didn't know it was a church
These roots been talkin'
And she was listenin' from the first

Verse 2

She carried a spear that hummed with marks I couldn't read
And a shield with an eye that watched the water where I breathed
She stopped, looked right where I was floatin'
Two green lights in the dark

Decided I was swamp gas, maybe firefly, maybe spark
Kept walkin'. Didn't flinch. Didn't slow.
Dismissed me like the wildlife I suppose I am
And that's the best seat in the house
For a song you're gonna write by hand

Chorus

The Mountain Woman
Came through my church and didn't know it was a church
These roots been talkin'
And she was listenin' from the first

Bridge

Now here's the part the spore gods whispered after she was gone
She had a scar on her right arm
Pale like frost on grey-blue stone
Branched like lightnin', branched like roots
Branched like the mycelium that runs beneath this bog

And her daddy's name is Mosshen
And I already wrote a song 'bout Moss
The roots connect the names, the names connect the ground
And the ground been tryin' to tell us somethin'
That don't wanna make a sound

Verse 3

She walked straight through and out the other side
Never stopped to pray or kneel
But her palm prints on the cypress bark
Were warm for days, I swear I'd feel

Whatever sent her down from them mountains
Got the old roots stirrin' in their sleep
She was listenin' to the thing beneath the ground
The same thing I been singin' to
The same thing buried deep

Chorus

The Mountain Woman
Came through my church and didn't know it was a church
These roots been talkin'
And she was listenin' from the first

Outro

Sivart don't follow folk like that
Too big, too armed, too much to lose
But the roots she touched are hummin' still
And the swamp don't hum for nothin'
So I wrote her this instead of shoes

Intro

Verse 1

Where the cypress roots drink the blackwater down
And the fog don't lift till the sun goes brown
There's a shell in the mud where the herons don't stir
Ole Moss been prayin' since the world was a blur

Chorus

The Lonely Tortle
Too late to save them, too soon to let go
These hands still mend
What the heavens won't show

Verse 2

Had a nest in the dark where the warm mud lay
Little eggs in a row at the end of the day
But the birds from the north brought a sickness down
And the prayers of a tortle don't make a sound

Chorus

The Lonely Tortle
Too late to save them, too soon to let go
These hands still mend
What the heavens won't show

Bridge

He built a cairn from the river stone
Set a green gem where the moss had grown
Said if the spirits ever look on back
They'll find a light on the water's track

Verse 3

Found a tiefling face down in the swamp one night
And a cat with a book and a halfling light
Dragged 'em one by one through the cypress knees
Made a soup that tasted like a slow disease

Chorus

The Lonely Tortle
Too late to save them, too soon to let go
These hands still mend
What the heavens won't show

Outro

He ain't said much since he left that grove
But his staff still glows on the marsh-lit road
And the bard who wrote this shared his stew
It was awful
But the tortle was true

Intro

Verse 1

There's a dead man in my strings tonight
Not screaming, not angry, just... waiting
He smells like mud and iron and old fire
And he keeps showing me a road I've never walked

He shows me tavern debts and battlefield mud
A staff that never left his hand
A woman he loved in a town too small
And a boy he left behind

Pre-Chorus

And I don't know if he was brave or if he was running
I don't know if the stories he left were true
But the dead don't lie to me when they're singing
And this one's singing about you

Chorus

DOWN THE VAIL ROAD
WHERE THE THUNDER FOLLOWS AFTER
DOWN THE VAIL ROAD
EVERY STORY ENDS THE SAME
HE WALKED IT SO HIS SON COULD WALK IT FASTER
AND HE NEVER EVEN LEFT HIS NAME

Verse 2

He shows me muddy boots in foreign towns
Debts paid with a grin and a blade
A fortune won at cards, lost by morning
And a staff that cracked a dragon's tooth

He shows me the night he almost died
Somewhere cold, somewhere north
And the only thing that pulled him through
Was a promise to go home

Pre-Chorus

But he didn't go home, did he?
Or maybe he did and the story got lost
Maybe Garron told it wrong on purpose
Maybe the truth costs more than the cost

Chorus

DOWN THE VAIL ROAD
WHERE THE THUNDER FOLLOWS AFTER
DOWN THE VAIL ROAD
EVERY STORY ENDS THE SAME
HE WALKED IT SO HIS SON COULD WALK IT FASTER
AND HE NEVER EVEN LEFT HIS NAME

Bridge

Here's what I think happened.
I think Aric Vail was exactly what Garron said he was.
And I think he died on that road, alone,
holding that staff,
thinking about a boy he'd never hold.

And I think the reason this spirit keeps
showing up at my gigs
is because his son is out there somewhere
carrying the same staff,
walking the same road,
and he can't tell him.

He can't tell him any of it.

Final Chorus

DOWN THE VAIL ROAD
WHERE THE THUNDER FOLLOWS AFTER
DOWN THE VAIL ROAD
EVERY STORY WAS THE TRUTH
HE WALKED IT SO HIS SON COULD WALK IT FASTER
AND THE SON WALKS IT FOR PROOF

Outro

Intro

Verse 1

Got a new one tonight
Not from the Raven's list
This one's still breathing somewhere on the Sword Coast road
Came through the rift like static, like a scream pressed into glass

Poor kid grew up thinking talent was enough
Trained with the guard, earned every bruise twice
Had friends, had a name, had a place in the line
Then the sky split open and took it back

Pre-Chorus

And I can feel it in the strings
The way The Dirge hums when the dead ain't dead
Something alive is bleeding through my set

Chorus

STORM BOY, STORM BOY
RUNNING FROM THE THUNDER IN YOUR BONES
STORM BOY, STORM BOY
EVERY ROAD YOU WALK YOU WALK ALONE
STORM BOY
THEY DIDN'T EVEN LET YOU SAY GOODBYE

Verse 2

See I know what it looks like when a room turns on you
I'm eight feet of ugly with a mandate from death herself
But I chose this, right? I walked out loud
Flipped the bird at divinity and called it artistic freedom

He didn't get to choose
The storm chose him and the town said get out
Left in the dark with a dead man's staff
And a scar where belonging used to be

Pre-Chorus

The spirits that show up for this one smell like rain
Not grave dirt, not cold stone
Rain, and copper, and burnt air after lightning

Chorus

STORM BOY, STORM BOY
SWALLOWED BY THE THING THAT LIVES INSIDE
STORM BOY, STORM BOY
BROKE THE YARD AND COULDN'T BREAK THE PRIDE
STORM BOY
THEY DIDN'T EVEN LET YOU SAY GOODBYE

Bridge

Here's the thing nobody tells you about rejection, kid
It doesn't make you stronger
It just makes you better at pretending you don't need what you lost

I play loud so nobody hears the quiet parts
You run fast so nobody sees you standing still

We're the same song in different keys
You just haven't learned to scream yet

Verse 3

He's out there chasing ghosts his uncle made
Following a father who might be fiction
Staff in hand like it proves he came from something
When the proof was always in the storm

And the melody keeps changing on me
Dead men's songs don't do that
This one rewrites itself every time I play it
Because he's still out there becoming what he is

Final Chorus

STORM BOY, STORM BOY
LONELY DON'T SOUND LIKE IT WANTS TO BE
STORM BOY, STORM BOY
SOMEBODY TELL HIM HE'S ALLOWED TO STAY
STORM BOY, STORM BOY
(crowd chant) LET HIM STAY, LET HIM STAY
STORM BOY
(one voice, raw) They didn't even let you say goodbye

Outro

There's a boy on the road
And the storm follows after
And I don't know his name yet
But The Dirge does

Verse 1

I played the corner for an hour
Before I felt the second pair of eyes
Not from the bar, not from the bench
But overhead, where the crossbeams meet the ties

Tawny fur and dark rosettes
Ocelot markings, not the housecat kind
Bow across her lap like a sleeping child
And the stillness of someone who doesn't mind

Being alone up there
She'd picked the highest ground
And her cloak was the same color as the wood
And she didn't make a sound

Chorus

And I know that perch
I know that height
When you can't sit at the table
So you learn to read the room from out of sight
And the arrow's always ready
But you never pull the string
Tell me, is the watching what protects you
Or is the watching everything?

Verse 3

Her ears moved by themselves
One tracked the door, one tracked the fire
Like two musicians keeping time
On a song they didn't choose to play entire

And then I saw the tell
The tail
It curled around the beam when she was calm
And twitched when someone laughed too loud below
Like a metronome for every small alarm

She reached back and grabbed it, held it still
A gesture practiced past the point of thought
And that's the thing that broke me, that small shame
The part of her she wished she'd never brought

Bridge

I was pushed out of the conservatory
For what I am
She was pushed out of the militia
For what she's not

I burned down the room that raised me
She walked out of one that let her rot

Outro

She left before last call
Dropped from the beam like water off a branch
No one looked up
No one noticed she was gone

Except me
And the concertina hummed her key for the rest of the night
A minor
Of course

Verse 1

The Dirge don't lie to me about the living
It hums when something breathing walks too close
But this one made it purr
Not hum, not ring, not scream
Purr
Like a string remembering a hand that hasn't touched it yet

She was in the trees when Storm Boy passed
I didn't see her
The dead didn't see her
But The Dirge felt something warm
In the space where the thunder should've killed her
And it purred

Chorus

NINE LIVES, NINE LIVES
AND SHE AIN'T SPENT A SINGLE ONE
NINE LIVES, NINE LIVES
THE ARROW LANDS BEFORE YOU HEAR THE GUN
NINE LIVES
SITTIN' IN THE DARK LIKE SHE WAS BORN THERE
NINE LIVES
AND THE COWARD NEEDS AN ON-CORE JUST TO BREATHE

Verse 2

I need the crowd
I need the chant
I need eight hundred dead souls singing back at me
To feel like I'm worth the air I'm wasting
That's the truth under all the fur and teeth

She needs nothing
Just a branch and a sightline
And something worth protecting
And she'll sit there all night
In the cold
Not sleeping, not asking, not performing

And I hate her for it
The way you hate the mirror
That shows the version of yourself
You were supposed to be

Bridge

Here's what I won't say onstage

I perform because I'm terrified of silence
The dead show up at my gigs
Because my divine resonance feels like home
But what if I took away the resonance
Took away the noise, the fur, the stage
Would anyone stay?

She already knows the answer to that question
She lives in it every day
Up in the branches
Alone
Watching someone who doesn't know she's there

And she's fine with it
She's fine with the silence
She's fine with the nothing

And I will never, ever be that brave

Final Chorus

NINE LIVES, NINE LIVES
AND SHE'LL SPEND ONE WHEN IT MATTERS
NINE LIVES, NINE LIVES
THE ARROW LANDS BEFORE YOU HEAR THE GUN
NINE LIVES
SITTIN' IN THE DARK LIKE SHE WAS MADE THERE
NINE LIVES
AND THE COWARD WROTE A SONG ABOUT IT INSTEAD

Outro

She'll spend a life for him someday
And he'll never know it was her

And that's the bravest song I'll never write
So I wrote this one instead

Verse 1

I was layin' in the Blackmire like a good snake does
Just my eyes above the water, just a bump on a log
And somethin' moved up in the branches
Like a shadow with a pulse

Tawny fur with dark rosettes
Eyes like two gold coins in the dusk
She had a bow across her back
Longer than a prayer
And a cloak that was the same damn color
As the tree that she was on

Now I've seen cats before
Little ones, the alley kind
But this one cleaned her claws
While starin' at me like I owed her money

Chorus

The Cat Who Wasn't There
She was right above me and I almost missed her
The Cat Who Wasn't There
Two invisible things in the same piece of air

Verse 2

Now Sivart been watchin' folk since before he could speak
I have cataloged the crawl of every creature in this creek
But this one gave me somethin' new
A feelin' I ain't had before

She looked right where I was floatin'
Held them amber eyes real still
Then she looked away like I was nothin'
Like a cat that knocks your cup off of the sill
And I could not tell you, brother
If she saw me or she didn't
And that's the first time I been scared
By somethin' that ain't even grinned

Bridge

Now here's the part the spore gods showed me
After she was gone
She was followin' the storm boy
The one who smells like rain and wrong

That storm of his, it started somethin'
Started way back at the tree
The same dead tree where all my roots connect
The rift that cracked the world in three

And this cat, she's chasin' that
She's trackin' thunder through the mud
She doesn't know the roots connect
She doesn't know my church is underneath
But she's walkin' right along the thread
The spore gods wove between their teeth

Verse 3

Her ears moved by themselves
Trackin' sounds she didn't notice
One forward, one behind
Like she was listenin' to two songs at once

And the tail, oh lord the tail
It twitched when somethin' bothered her
She grabbed it like a kitten caught
Stealin' from the kitchen shelf

Nine lives they say about her kind
But she ain't used a single one
She just sits up in them branches
Groomin' while she loads her gun

Outro

The mountain walked through my church
The stone boy ate the soup
The storm boy cracked the air
And now the cat is on the loop

And the roots, the roots connect 'em all
But she don't know that yet
She will, she will
The ground remembers what the sky forgets

Intro

Verse 1

He came in through the side door
The one the regulars don't use
Touched the frame on both sides walking through
Like he was asking it for news

Sat down on the floor beside the hearth
When the bench was right there, empty, clean
Ordered bread and stew and ate it slow
Didn't leave a thing the bowl had seen

Verse 2

His skin was grey like river slate, earthborn, quiet
He read the room the way I read a room
Checked the exits, counted heads, sat against the wall
A glass broke and his hands went open in the gloom

Street kid's reflex underneath the monastic calm
And for one breath, gold cracked along his jaw
Surge lines through cooling stone, I know that light from theory
The wild magic's mark. He doesn't know. I saw.

Chorus

And I know that quiet
I know that weight
When the peace you carry cost you everything you had
And the calm came late
But the cracks along your jaw, boy
They glow like cooling stone
Tell me, did the surge that made you
Leave you something of your own?

Verse 3

The concertina screamed
A note I'd never played, a note I'd never heard
And the tavern walls fell open like a book
And I saw the word

A firbolg in a field with fire falling from his hands
A town called Thundertree collapsing into black
The earth split wide, the sky went wrong
And something in the ground pushed back

Verse 4

I saw a woman with the surge still in her skin
I saw the birth that took her at the end
I saw him born in stone and silence
With no name, no home, no father, and no friend

I saw the rift kids and the shadow at the edge
A boy who spoke to darkness while the ravens watched
I saw the monastery where they named him Tarn
Still water held in stone, the kindest word he'd known

Chorus

And I know that quiet
I know that weight
When the peace you carry cost you everything you had
And the calm came late
But the cracks along your jaw, boy
They glow like cooling stone
Tell me, did the surge that made you
Leave you something of your own?

Bridge

The vision broke when he stood up to leave
My hands were shaking on the reeds

I know the Thundertree story
Every bard worth a string does
But nobody sings what grew from it
What the wild magic loved instead of crushed

He is the answer to a question
The sorcerer will never think to ask
And the boy who gives his coins to beggars in the dark
Is wearing his father's chaos as a mask

Final Chorus

And I know that quiet
I know that weight
When the peace you carry cost you everything you had
And the calm came late
But the cracks along your jaw, boy
They glow like something true
And if the surge that broke a town could make a thing this gentle
Then maybe ruin builds better than it knew

Outro

He never said his name
But the concertina keeps humming it

Intro

Verse 1

The dead showed up with something new last night
Not their usual set, not their usual grief
Kettlebone was quiet, Silvertongue was still
And the ones from Thundertree were on their feet

They said: there's a boy on the road made of us
Made of the dirt we died in, made of the crack
A sorcerer broke a town and didn't look back
And the earth said fine, I'll build what you won't

Pre-Chorus

And they know his father's name
They watched the surge from the other side
They know the firbolg walked away
And never knew what his worst night made alive

Chorus

STILL WATER, STILL WATER
HELD IN STONE YOUR DADDY BROKE
STILL WATER, STILL WATER
THE PUNCHLINE TO HIS CRUELEST JOKE
STILL WATER
HE DOESN'T KNOW YOU EXIST
AND YOU DON'T KNOW HIS NAME

Verse 2

They showed me everything, the dead don't edit
A woman with the surge still burning in her blood
The birth that killed her, stone kid on his own
Rift-town, no name, nobody coming for him

He ran with another one, a tiefling in the dark
Two nameless kids who never said the word
Then the ravens came and took the shadow boy
And the stone kid lost the only voice he'd heard

Pre-Chorus

His mom died bringing him into the world
His dad was busy feeling sorry for a rock
A monastery found him, named him Still Water
And he never once complained about his lot

Chorus

STILL WATER, STILL WATER
HELD IN STONE YOUR DADDY BROKE
STILL WATER, STILL WATER
THE PUNCHLINE TO HIS CRUELEST JOKE
STILL WATER
HE DOESN'T KNOW YOU EXIST
AND YOU DON'T KNOW HIS NAME

Bridge

Hey Galyn
The dead are very thorough with their paperwork

You mourned a rock and missed a son
He sits on floors because he never had a chair
He fights with hands made of the stone you broke
And he is calm in a way you will never be

You don't deserve to know him
But I know both halves of this stupid story
And I can't stop playing it

Verse 3

Here's what gets me though
My mother came to Thundertree because of you
Your surge brought the Raven Queen to sort the dead
She met a bugbear with a broken lute and stayed the night

Your worst night accidentally made me too
Two sons of the same disaster, different dirt
You got the earth, I got the noise
You got the peace, and I got the shirt

Final Chorus

STILL WATER, STILL WATER
HELD IN STONE YOUR DADDY BROKE
STILL WATER, STILL WATER
THE BEST THING THAT HIS WORST NIGHT WROTE
STILL WATER
(crowd chant) LET HIM BE, LET HIM BE
(whispered) He doesn't need to know his name
He already knows his own

Outro

The dead keep bringing me your song
And it keeps rewriting itself
Because you're still out there
Still water
Getting deeper

Intro

Verse 1

Met a boy on the mountain road last fall
Skin like river rock, didn't say much at all
Touched the doorframe walkin' in like he was readin' what it knew
Checked the exits, found the wall, and that was all he'd do

He stacked three pebbles on the table by his seat
Knocked 'em down and built 'em back up neat
Ordered what we had and ate it like a vow
Licked the bowl and set it down and didn't take a bow

Chorus

The Stone Boy
Don't say much, don't need to, don't pretend
These hands ain't askin'
They just know where the hard road ends

Verse 2

Asked him where he came from, got two words and a look
Said "the city" like a door that someone shut and never shook
Asked him 'bout his family, got a pause you could fall through
Then he stood and checked his gear
And that was his review

Someone asked him once if he was wise
He said "I hit things with my hands, don't make it more than what it is"
Someone asked him what he feared
He said "starvation, true starvation"
And the fire got real quiet for a while

Chorus

The Stone Boy
Don't say much, don't need to, don't pretend
These hands ain't askin'
They just know where the hard road ends

Bridge

Now y'all remember Moss's soup
The shell-crust special, the swamp-gut stew
The one that made me write a whole damn song
'Bout how it tasted like a slow disease come true

I watched this stone boy take a bowl
Didn't sniff it, didn't wince, didn't blink
Finished every drop and held it out for more
And I thought: lord, what kind of hungry teaches you not to think

Verse 3

He left before the sun came up, 'course he did
Touched the doorframe on his way back out
The ground shook just a little when he walked
Like the earth was glad to feel him movin' about

Found his campsite after, fire still warm
Three pebbles stacked beside where he had lain
Didn't leave a name, didn't leave a note
Just warm stone and a stack of rocks
Like a prayer without the words to pray

Chorus

The Stone Boy
Don't say much, don't need to, don't pretend
These hands ain't askin'
They just know where the hard road ends

Outro

Sivart's seen a lotta folk pass through
The broke, the blessed, the barely hangin' on
But that boy ate Moss's soup and asked for seconds
And that's the saddest thing I've put into a song