[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____Aside from pulling a wagon of various liquors back to the camp site, Laurel had taken interest in lifting various instruments. Partially out of his own interest to play them, partially out of interest to see what he could pawn off to the others, but something needed to pick up the mood of the place. Far too many nights had gone by since he had even laid a finger on his own instrument of choice, but that wasn't to say that the previous nights hadn't been exciting in their own way. If he wasn't dealing with crazies crawling out of the woodwork, it was something along the lines of blissfully drinking himself to sleep. Any length of time he didn't have to hear the voices, cries, and screams of the sick, he was fine.
_____Pulling the blue tarp off of the wagon after he had set his banjo to the side, he rummaged around in the old wagon momentarily. It wasn't really a bottomless pit by any stretch, but it had been adequate enough to drag back an oboe (which needed a reed much to his misfortune), a viola and a violin (of which Laurel couldn't tell the difference in other than size), the accordion he had left sitting in a warehouse some time ago, a tambourine, and a harmonica that had decided to hide itself underneath the tambourine. It was the harmonica he was interested in, having seem them in action before, but it only ended up in his pocket for now.
[/html]
[html]
Day by day, Ahren was getting better. It was a gradual process, and one that involved no small amount of self discipline from himself. The smoking had picked up again, but he was glad for the familiar taste and feeling in his chest. In many ways, he was still an addict, though the cigarettes were not the only thing. He had given up on one drug for another, perhaps even two. The violence though, that was all right. The people he went after deserved it; by this logic, anyone and everyone was a target.
“Ain’t so saints without sinners,” he chuckled to himself, and continued along his merry way.
That was something he had realized he was doing. Talking to himself, that was. It was an idle habit, like playing with his hair or the tongue ring. He recalled reading or hearing that only crazy people talked to themselves.
“Ja, ja,” the blonde snorted, and noticed that a familiar form was approaching. Well aware of their last meeting (from the stories, at lonely slighsmiled thinly, realizing he had to look less out of place now with the shorts and the belt carrying all of his worldly possessions; all that was missing was the crossbow. Advancing easily, the blonde studied the toys in the wagon and kept that half-cocked, half-mad smile on his face.
“Starting a band, Laurel?”
[/html]
Ahren talking to himself made me laugh. XD
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____He wasn't so oblivious to the fact that someone was coming up on him because it was fairly common. It seemed like the only time people walked up on him was when he was out in the open either lost in thought, half out of his mind from a good drink, or trying to do something. But the thing that got him this time was the fact of who it was walking up on him. He had really no more changed hands with the tambourine to put it back in the wagon when Ahren had spoke up from over his shoulder, leaving the older man to promptly drop what he was doing mentally to focus in on him.
_____It seemed like he was better, though Laurel wondered if he was cured. He remembered the gold-haired girl talking about giving them things, he knew that Endymion was giving them things, and now that they had Khaden, their chances of getting things fixed around seemed higher. So many it was natural to see that one of the four sickly things crawling around were feeling better. Nikita was still staggering around, anyway. “I might be,” he returned steadily, letting a faint smile spread across his features. “Are you a music man lookin’ to join?”
[/html]
[html]
Even as Laurel was speaking, Ahren closed the distance between them and bent over to look at the instruments. It was a motley assortment, and they all looked a little worse for wear, but they seemed all right. One hand grabbed the violin, and he looked up to Laurel as he straightened his back. “I used to be,” he offered, and picked up the bow. Very quickly, he drew this across the strings, found it out of tune, and frowned. “Didn’t get to keep the one they let me use on the ship,” he said, twisting knobs with the know-how of a well versed musician. They had needed the music, the singing, on those nights when it seemed like everything was falling apart and they were on some vastly different planet made up of stars and darkness.
Another check proved it was right, and Ahren placed it under his chin. He played a short piece, a folk song he had learnt from one of the Russians on the boat, and then drew back the bow and studied it closer. “This needs cleaned and waxed,” he stated, and then looked at the other instruments. “Actually, they all need cleaned.” This time, he smiled a little amused by the ridiculousness of it all.
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____Back to the old adage of learning something new everyday, he was impressed by the skill at which Ahren played. It was natural and flowed easy and most of all, a welcome sound against the hustle and bustle of the forest around them and most of all, kept the smile on his face. “Yeah, that's one thing they definitely need,” he said, recalling much of the dust that had clogged his sense of smell for hours. “They could use players too, so you can keep that one if you want it,” and he surely hoped that he would, preferring to listen to folk songs that he had never heard over the sick around them.
_____“So I take it that you're pretty much back to your old self now, huh? You look like you're feeling better.” It probably wasn't one of those things that needed to be asked because looks said a lot, but looks had been pretty deceiving as of late. He hadn't started to question the validity of what he saw because he wasn't sick, or at least he didn't think he was. The worse of Nikita became, the more he pondered his own demise. “Sorry about tying you up, though.”
[/html]
[html]
Even if Laurel had not offered him the violin, Ahren would probably have kept it. He missed the feel of string and horsehair, the sound of music, even in small bits. He missed these things because they reminded him of so many other things he had lost along the way. Smiling faintly and putting the instrument back with the others, he spoke. “Sure. I’ll help with the rest of them too, if you want.”
At the next few words, the smile turned a shade darker, hinting at the madness still deeply imbued in his blood. One hand moved in a subtle motion, and he pushed his hair back behind an ear. “I’m all right. Better then I was. And really,” he added as a chunk of his bangs fell back. “, don’t worry about it. I would have done the same thing.” Oh he would have. Ahren, above all people, knew what he was capable of. What he had done, and what he could do. What was coming around the corner like an eighteen wheeler.
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____That answer alone was enough to give him a glimmer of hope that everything would straight back out and go back to the way it was. Knowing that whatever medicine they were all being given was working well also meant that the sooner one of them had time to concoct another batch, the sooner he could give it to Nikita without her going insane on him again. She may have come to her senses the first time around, but the second? “Works for me, I could use the extra set of hands,” because more than one person made the job go even faster. “Got any idea what we could clean up the fiddles with, though? I know water and wood don't really play nice together and I'd rather not screw them up.”
[/html]
[html]
The disease was isolated, but only by so much. Jasper was nearly comatose, and Laruku drifted in and out. He had not yet heard about Nikita, but he would in time. Perhaps it had been lucky Ahren had been the one to turn so violent—he was smaller then nearly all of the other males here, and easier to control. At least in some sense of the word, given he fought like spitfire and a wet wildcat all at once. “Alcohol,” he responded almost instantly. “Why don’t you take care of the accordion and I’ll deal with the strings, ja?”
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____Alcohol, at least, was one of the many things they had on hand. With a nod, he pulled the accordion from the wagon and let Ahren deal with the stringed instruments, momentarily parting ways with the blonde to retrieve a couple of rags that they could use. When he returned and tossed him one of the rags, Laurel rather unceremoniously plopped down on the ground and went to work with his own drive and focus and figuring out top to bottom of cleaning an accordion. He knew very little about them outside of how to make one work, but cleaning it was completely foreign to him, though instinctively he slowly worked at getting the grime and grit away from the keys and buttons, working carefully. “So how long have you known how to play the violin?”
[/html]
[html]
As soon as Laurel returned, Ahren took his rag and settled on the grass. He had missed the feel of it under him, so used to the dirt in the shed. It was a welcomed change, and he was glad for that. Once he began, the cleaning process was like a warm and familiar meditation. The stings made horrible wrenching sounds as he cleaned them, causing his hair to stand on end. Soon he finished up, and looked up as the green-eyed coyote began small talk. “About three years,” he said, folding one leg against the other. “You play the banjo, right? How long have you been doing that?”
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____“Something like four, maybe four and a half years,” he returned, wondering if it had really been that long. Time usually stuck with him when it didn't pertain to himself, given that parts of his life were nothing more than a jumbled blur where he hadn't known up from down and left from right. “I picked it up a couple of months after I left home as a kid.” The funny thing was that he couldn't remember what it was that had drawn him to it. Maybe it had been the shape, or the sound, but either way it was the one thing that he had kept as a constant in his life, other than the travel.
_____“The other coyote around, Nikita, she plays the cello. Not really sure where she picked it up at, but she's pretty good at playing it. Really shy about it too though,” he said with a faint chuckle. She usually wanted her privacy to play and for that often, played in seclusion. But he had listened a number of times, finding its deep, rich tones to be soothing. He tilted the accordion a little bit, at that point merely wiping it down of the dust that clung tightly.
[/html]
[html]
The time given offered him a guess at Laurel’s age, though he had not asked him this question outright. Nodding, he turned the violin over and began to scrub at the dust and the dirt, finding a still solid body underneath. It would work all right, given the way it sounded before. Luckily, he spotted the wax he would need for the bow in the wagon. “Laruku can play the piano,” he offered, reaching out and taking the small block of wax in his right hand. “I don’t know if you’ll ever hear it, but he’s pretty talented.” Random facts about the people they cared about, making them more then strangers to the other person present.
“Tell you what,” he continued, eyeing the bow-string and deeming it appropriate. “We should get everyone together sometime and see what sort of fucked up band we can make.” Letting out a bark of laughter, he shook his hair from his face and put the violin aside. He began to clean the viola in the same matter.
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____Laurel nodded when Ahren mentioned that Laruku could play the piano, recalling his conversation with the hybrid prior to him turning up in the Hollow. “I met him about a week before you brought him here. He was reading over sheet music then,” which was one of many things that Laurel couldn't read, which was funny in itself. “I told him I was going to find this one bar that I saw that had one. It had a little bit of everything, really, like one of those saloons you'd see way out west. Had a stage, even.” Which when Ahren suggested that they wrangle up a few others that could play, made the play even more desirable to find once again. There was little doubt in his mind that they had some musicians in their motley group.
_____“Poe told me that she could play the fiddle too, so maybe we could give her the smaller one. I think she'd be all over something like that, knowing her.” She just had that kind of spirit, he had found that to be one of the familiar things about her, though he wasn't sure why. They had probably crossed paths somewhere before, just like he had probably crossed paths with many others that could have been around. Anyone who was well travelled enough ran that chance. But he reckoned if they could round up enough people, they would certainly have something worthwhile to do, something that would pull back the depressing drape that had been cast over them.
[/html]
[html]
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he offered to both statements, finishing up the viola smartly. It would need tuned, and if it was for Poe, he would make a point to decorate it for her. She was a colorful girl and deserved something spectacular—especially for the way that he had left her both times, still aching and feeling guilt for such terrible absences. “I’ll keep these two and make sure I give it to her.” That much, at least, he owed her.
The idea of a group of them performing in a saloon, all done up as cowboys and streetwalkers was a ridiculous image that made him laugh again, only to be cut off by a heavy burst of coughing. When finished, he swore under his breath and took a moment to clear his lungs. “Maybe someday you and I can find Poe and we can go look for it. She spends about as much time in cities as I used to.”
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____“Sounds like a plan to me,” he laughed, shaking his head at an equally entertaining thought. How uncoordinated could they really be, if they knew the instrument they were playing, anyway? “Maybe the next time I see her I'll ask her if she knows where the place is.” With any luck, as much of a city girl as she was, she would know. Then it would only be a matter of getting everyone well enough to make the trip there and back. “What about that boy of yours, does he play anything?” Someone had once told him that music ran in their veins in the same way that apples didn't fall far from the trees, so he figured it was worth asking.
[/html]
[html]
The blonde nodded absent-mindedly, and after a moment, let his hands trail to his pouch. From this, he drew a cigarette, and lit up. How many was that today? He couldn’t remember anymore. “Jasper? Ah, I really don’t know. Maybe if he turns over those pots and pans of his we can have a drummer.” That he could remember the kids doing, back in the castle. Chuckling and pushing his hair behind an ear, the red-eyed man eyed his leader (and quite possibly, newest friend) with amusement. “You and I should play together. I’d be interested to hear how that sounds.”
[/html]
[html] http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... el/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">
_____Hell, if they wanted to give him a regular drum set, Laurel knew where to find a gas can and a broken cymbal to balance out the sounds. But maybe the real trick would be getting the boy out of his shy little shell; Laurel had never really gotten to know him before he had gotten sick. However, what Ahren spoke next drew out a bit of a laugh from him, the thought honestly amusing him and intriguing him at the same time. “A banjo and a violin,” he said, absently rubbing his jaw for a moment, “that would be interesting. What did you have in mind?” Whether it was something random or something more commonly planned, Laurel was entirely up for the idea.
[/html]
[html]
“I really didn’t have anything in mind,” he said, and picked up the violin. The blonde turned the wood over in his hands, taking in the weight and the feel. Eventually, it would no longer be a stranger in his hands. Adjusting his weight and planting his feet, Ahren put the instrument under his chin and shut his eyes. Though the names of songs were long since lost, he remembered tone and key, despite the fact many of those he had learned were not intended to be violin pieces. The bow worked in an even pace, singing a quiet song whose lyrics he could still just barely remember.
[/html]
|
