(no subject)

[wontturntofoam]

Who: Shrieky, Jae and Wolfgang (in separate threads)
What: DAY TRIPS GALORE!
When: Last Misdi for Wolfgang, Givdi for Jae
Where: The Beach and Howl Barrow respectively
Warnings: Potential for the risque revelation of nipples in the beach thread.

[words for all in the comments below]

Comments

Last Newdi, Ilde Decima, HARP PLAYING ADVENTURES

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky sets out early to find his way to the waterfall, because he is entirely confident of his ability to get lost on the way there. He stops maybe five people for directions along the way, and only bothers to memorize the beginning of what they tell him, since he can always just ask someone else once he's gotten some of the way there.

Eventually, he manages to piece together the route to his meeting place with Ilde, and arrives maybe half an hour before noon. So he hangs around, watching the water crashing down on the rocks, and the light shining off the water. As far as places to meet people go, this is one of the better ones in his book.

[rhinemaid]

It's a while later that Ilde surfaces, pulling herself up out of the water and wrapping illusion around herself as she does; by the time she stops beside him, she looks almost human (almost-- there's an otherworldly edge that she could hide, and chooses not to). The illusory dress spun around herself is half-hearted and gauzy, seasonally inappropriate to say the least, but unlikely to raise any eyebrows in Raven's Gate among people who've seen stranger or are simply already accustomed to her comings and goings.

"Hello," she says, twisting some of the excess water out of her hair as she straightens, smiling.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky grins widely and rises to his feet as Ilde arrives. He looks considerably less mysterious and wispy than she does, in his second hand tee-shirt and slightly oversized sweat pants, but pleased to see her never the less.

"Hello! It's good to see you again!" There's still a pang of jealousy there, at the way she can move so seamlessly from water onto land, but he pushes it down into the bottom of his stomach, and pretends it doesn't exist, "So, your home is close to here?"

[rhinemaid]

"Pretty close," she agrees, barefoot and unconcerned by it; there's a languor to the way she moves that's more some kind of mental exhaustion than mysterious fae behaviour, but her illusory appearance hides any other possible tells, so maybe it is just some manifestation of otherworldliness.

(It's nice when what you are will hide, sometimes, what you are. As well.)

"Do you mind dogs--? Orion is very well-trained, but he'll come and say hello." More accurately he'll come to the gate, flank Ilde, and warily keep an eye on the stranger.

[wontturntofoam]

"No, I'm very fond of them, actually." Shrieky's never actually seen a dog from above eye level before, since most of his contact with them has involved him slumped up over the edge of his moat, and the dogs in question trying desperately to figure out what exactly he is.

His steps are still slightly awkward, as if he's not quite confident in the way he moves yet, but his spirits are undampened, and he's not astute enough to pick up on any of Ilde's weariness.

"So how did you learn to play the Harp? Is it a common thing, where you are from?"

[rhinemaid]

It's a bit awkward to watch someone to lipread while walking, but Ilde's been doing it long enough that she manages, and tends not to miss as much as she used to. (It used to involve a bit more tripping over her own feet than it does now, too.)

"No, it's not really," she says, shrugging, "but my family's very musical. My father." Her extended family is mostly unrelated; it had been Emery and his baby against the world for a long time. "He's a composer, and we had a lot of instruments; the first one I learned was piano, and I mostly focused on the cello, but we had a concert harp that had been in the family and I really liked it. He taught me, mostly."

Piano first because it was Emery's own instrument of choice, then singing lessons with the piano lessons, then the cello and harp later, and she's picked up violin on her own in Baedal so as to offer it as one of the instruments she can teach. There's a lot of music in Ilde's life, one way or the other, and she's accustomed to it being that way. It's the only thing, above the water, that she never has any difficulty in hearing.

It resonates in other senses.

[wontturntofoam]

"You inherited it then." Whether he means the ability to play, or the opportunity to learn, even Shrieky's not entirely certain of. Still, he gives a slight nod in response to her answers, "I don't believe I've ever heard a cello being played, but I think that harp music is wonderful. I think... to be able to use one, you must be very gifted."

He resists the urge to tell her that she's lucky, because it feels like putting it down to luck would detract from the fact that she's clearly spent a long time learning these things, and being taught them. He suspects that there are many people who have the luck and opportunity to do things, but never the actual conviction to do them.

[rhinemaid]

Both the ability and the opportunity were inherited, ultimately; her sheer talent comes about by nature, as much as she's dedicated time to it, and she'd been born into almost obscene privilege. She and her father would've had very different lives, if not for the safety net of the family fortune-- it's something she never quite forgets, how lucky she was before Prometheus and the storm.

She's stopped wondering what she would've done with herself if not for that now that she could satisfy her curiosity simply by asking Jae or Hasi. She doesn't really want to know.

"It's not a very practical talent," she says, with an odd, skewed little smile, "but I'm not a very practical person." Not really, however much she'd often like to present herself that way. Her tone is confiding and self-skewering; inviting him in on a joke.

GET OUT OF THERE, PROFIT :|

[wontturntofoam]

"Well, I've always felt that practicality is vastly overrated." Although being the single most useless being ever created, Shrieky kind of had to think that, or else he'd be doomed to a life of extremely low self esteem. He flashes her a little grin though, catching the tone used as he continues onward towards her home.

"I'd much prefer to listen to someone play the harp than... I don't know, than listen to them explain the mechanics of hunting to me."

i lol'd

[rhinemaid]

"Speed is important there," Ilde says, absently, "and patience." ...underwater, anyway, and she assumes he's sufficiently familiar with catching a fish himself; for all that she's spoiled by restaurants and homecooking, it's sometimes completely impossible to resist the impulse to bite something swimming quickly by her, wriggling and scaled.

i wept :c

[wontturntofoam]

"You see? The harp is far more interesting." He replies automatically, because it's the truth. The convenient thing about living in a relatively enclosed ecological environment, was that Patience had never been much of an issue when it came to his needing to catch fish. There were only so many places for them to hide in the moat, and as a hungry mermaid, Shrieky had tracked down all of these places while he was still relatively young.