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hailfax!
the public don’t dwell on my transmission
Maybe he was overreacting. Giggle couldn't even remember exactly what had happened, but he knew, he knew he had made Talitha angry. They had been drinking, they had been on the beach drinking. And he had done or said something? The details were foggy. No, he had definitely said something. Damn it, why couldn't he remember? He wanted to know what he had done. Now it was around his neck, an albatross. But he would make it better! She couldn't hate him, or anything. She was just mad. He'd apologize, that's what he'd do. But he didn't want to just apologize, 'cause it must have been bad to make her angry. Tal had never struck him as the easy-to-anger type. So he went to Hailfax, with his CD player. He had gotten it to start working again, thanks to Maserati's help. He even had a few CDs. Gig had been lucky enough to come across an old music store. They had everything. He'd spent a whole day there, once, listening to different music. Some he liked, the ones with a lot of rhythm. He liked the blues, soul-singers, jazz. He didn't like the crashing noises from the rock bands, though.
He entered the music shop, still trying to come up with an amazing way to apologize for his transgression. Oh! That's what he'd do. He'd find some music, some nice music, and he'd give it to her. But did Talitha have a CD player? He didn't know. Maybe he'd have to give away his CD player, too. The young male looked at it, frowning. He liked his CD player. Gig had even fixed it himself. With help. But his closest friend was surely more important than his CD player? Maybe he could find another one. Or maybe she'd give it back later. (He was being stupid, he realized.) Anyway, it was a good plan. Now he just needed to find music.
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He'd only been to Halifax two or three times before. There were often a lot of books to be found there, and paper and writing utensils. His stockpile was high on the later two, and he had enough books to keep him busy for now. Especially since he didn't spend much time reading these days, with the puppies growing and becoming more independent. He didn't like doing anything more than spending time with them and Savina. He even felt badly today for leaving them, but they were staying in today. His trip to Halifax was for them actually - his children needed some more toys.
Kansas pushed his beaten-up satchel higher on his shoulder and stepped into a two-lane street. Across the way was a store with windows through which he saw slanted shelves. Perhaps there was something the puppies would like in there. Grinning, the pale boy opened the door and walked into the cool room. A noise caught his attention before he was two steps inside - he looked around curiously, at last spotting a gray man down one of the aisles. Kansas moved slowly to stand a few feet away, surveying the shelves and the flat, square objects stored there. "Hey. Do you... know what these are?" He ran the embarrassing risk of not knowing something he should know, but as long as he had someone to ask...
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the public don’t dwell on my transmission
He was rummaging the dusty and worn down racks, pausing on an interesting phrase or name. If the disc looked in decent shape he would pop it into the player and listen for a few seconds, before shaking his head and throwing it back. Every disc suffered some slight damage-- the only CD he had ever come across that didn't sound scratchy or skip in certain parts had been a disc by a man or group named Beck. Giggle began to notice a pattern in the music- they seemed to be filed by certain categories. The categories housed nonsense verbs like blues or rock, and the discs filed there all sounded reminiscent of each other.
The coyote picked up a disc with a faded gold color. Approximately the same time he heard something behind him, and turned to see a white wolf. His instinctive reaction was to tense up and he gripped the CD to his chest, before realizing the other canine seemed to bare no ill will. In fact, he had been asked a question. About his music? Yes, that. 'Ah!' he muttered, his eyes flashing in the way they did when he was supposed to smile. 'Yeah, I do, though I'm sort of a minority. They're called, uh, CD's.' He liked the way 'cee-dee' rolled off his tongue. However, the Inferni member didn't know what it stood for. Giggle glanced at the gold-covered square in his hands and placed it back on the shelf before turning to face the wolf. 'They're a human thing. Somehow they recorded music on them, and they play it back when you put 'em in this thing.' He produced the CD player from his bag to show the white wolf, watching him with noted interest.
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I suck.
When the other boy exclaimed an interested "Ah," Kansas decided he felt comfortable enough to look at him. There was more excitement than judgement in his voice, so perhaps the Sadira's question had not been one too stupid. He, out of curiosity, traced the man's features, from the slightness of his build to the purple coloring of his muzzle. Kansas' eyes lingered on the the latter. He'd seen tattoos before - but never one quite like this wolf's. He wondered offhandedly what sort of meaning it had to him.
He was a minority. That explained why Kansas hadn't heard of "CDs" before - apparently, not many had. He smiled because now he knew something unusual. A first for him, it seemed. "I, uh, that sounds... amazing. I like music," he said, his eyes wandering to the gold-labeled CD in the stranger's hand. The gray then pulled out a strangely-shaped object roughly the same size as the CD he was also holding. "Would you... mind showing me?" Kansas requested nervously. It was hard for him to ask others to do things for him... but doing so had gotten easier over the months, he realized, because he wasn't torn apart with anxiety like he used to be. "My name is Kansas."
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the public don’t dwell on my transmission
Giggle had dropped his habit of self consciously rubbing his purple-dyed patch whenever he felt someone was looking at it. In fact, he almost had forgotten it's existence, except to note that it was taking curiously long to fade (it didn't occur to him that you would need to scrub it daily with human soaps and shampoos to begin to make an impact). Indigo eyes had switched to the player and remained there until he spoke again. Gig nodded in agreement. 'Yeah, I don't know how they figured all this stuff out. Sure,' he added in response to the male's question. He was a little reluctant to just hand over his precious player, but he didn't want to start something. Besides, the other male seemed genuine. 'Here,' he mumbled and looked up briefly to hear the male's name. 'Kansas, then. I'm Giggle,' his reluctance to give his name had also faded as he matured.
He held the player facing the white male and pointed to the latch on the side of it. 'This little thing opens it, you gotta push it to the left.' As he spoke, he demonstrated, releasing the top to spring open. It revealed the little space for the disc to be placed. Giggle paused and balanced the player in one hand, pulling out a random disc from the rows. 'Half of these don't work,' he warned lightly, in case the disc refused to play. 'You put the disc there. See how it has a hole in the center? It fits around the little sticking-up cylinder, right here.' The Imaginifer popped the disc into it's place and shut the top again. He pressed the on button located on the top of the player. It blinked into life, displaying the weird numbers he hadn't quite figured out yet. 'Uh, and then you just put on the headphones,' the hybrid held them up, then extended his hands so the other could take them, 'and press play. If the disc isn't too scratched up it'll play.' Hesitantly he held out the player for Kansas to take, ignoring the urge to snatch it back immediately and hide it.
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<3
300+
Kansas wouldn't have started anything with Giggle. After his scuffle with the hybrid trespasser, he planned on remaining complacent for a while. Not that he had ever been violent. He heard the hint of reluctance in the man's voice, and only then did he truly regret the possible rudeness of his request. Kansas had never seen a contraption like the CD player - so they were probably an extremely rare thing to find. The other probably would have preferred to keep his to himself, lest Kansas be some clumsy idiot or something. He chewed his lip, her anxiety increasing slightly.
With perhaps even greater reluctance, the gray introduced himself as Giggle. Kansas reacted in no visible way; the name didn't seem terribly odd to him. Different, but not ridiculously so. He imagined that there were many wolves here with even stranger names - his own was rather out of the ordinary. "Good to meet you." His eyes followed Giggle's movements as he explained the player, extremely interested. The things humans came up with. When Giggle offered the headphones and then, more slowly, the player, Kansas hesitated, too, still biting his lip. "Eh - if you're sure..." he mumbled lamely, gingerly taking the player out of the other's hands. He put the headphones over his ears, taking a moment to adjust them so he fit. His baby blue eyes found the "play" button, and he gently pressed it.
At first there was some strange instrument, reminiscent of a guitar but harsher, somehow. Words followed, and Kansas strained to understand what the singer was saying. Let's starve down to the bone, we're looking better boney, who needs figure anyway? He really liked it. He liked the way the music made him feel. Though he didn't want to stop listening, Kansas removed the headphones and handed the device back to its owner. "Thank you. Where did you find it? In... in a place like this?
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the public don’t dwell on my transmission
He felt a twinge of guilt as the other chewed his lip. Giggle hadn't meant to seem reluctant, even if he was. Another creature might've offered a reassuring smile, but that motion was foreign to his mouth. Instead he frowned apologetically, although he still cupped the player protectively. He was still worried about it breaking, after all. 'You too,' the Inferni member returned with a small nod. This Kansas fellow was actually quite nice. Now he really felt bad for his selfish display. What were the chances, after all, that it would get broken? (Okay, so, many chances, he though nervously.)
'Go ahead,' Giggle said, hiding any anxiety as the other took the player and nodding lightly. He looked back to the CD shelves, momentarily resuming his search for the perfect song or songs to apologize to Talitha with. The male's voice brought him from his search, indigo eyes first shooting to the player to involuntarily check it before going back to Kansas. 'Yeah, some abandoned store or another. At first I didn't understand it but this friend of mine worked with human stuff before and she explained it to me.' He thought fondly of Maserati and her funny manner of speaking.
Giggle looked at Kansas and back at the player, thinking. He spoke slowly as he thought: 'You know, there are a lot of music-related things in this store... I wonder if we could find another?' It was a slim chance, but maybe luck was on their side. And then he wouldn't feel so bad about being so protective.
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300+
He could honestly understand why Giggle was reluctant to let him use such a rare device. It must be difficult to find any sort of working human electronic object. He had gone into stores before during his brief ventures into town, and found odd contraptions that must at one point have been powered by electricity. But none of them ever worked, and were therefore useless. So Kansas, worried as he was about displeasing his tattooed acquaintance, figured he ought to be grateful that he was being allowed to use the CD player at all.
He hadn't focused so hard on the music that he wasn't able to watch the Inferni hybrid searching purposefully along the shelves. The look in his eyes made Kansas suspect that he was looking for something in particular. Kansas wondered offhandedly if he might ask if Giggle needed help finding something, in return for his time with the player. But he didn't feel comfortable questioning on a hunch. That would have seemed weird. Instead, Kansas simply nodded as the gray man explained how he'd learned to use the player; he thought maybe he'd read how somewhere. The Sadira didn't think he would have had a chance at able to figure it out on his own.
Kansas was alerted by the other's thoughtful tone of voice. And Giggle soon suggested that they look for a replica of the device he had. Assuming he meant for him, the pale boy nodded a little too eagerly. "Sure. Let's look around?" he said with a slight inflection, as if to be sure that was what Giggle intended to do. He couldn't imagine how amazing it would be to own one of those little things. Especially since he now knew where to find a wealth of CDs. He felt jittery with sheer anticipation.
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