Street Music [Penri * Ireth]

[Penri]

27th Day of Summer, 513 AV
Hooves clicked--no, feet, feet walked along the docks, and then a pause. A choked off cough, and a slight girl made a face.She didn't usually mind switching forms so much, but a collar rubbed around her neck still and made it impossible. Literally, impossible. Penri's stubborn face was tired now.

The girl had had a strange life of late. Taken as a slave from her home in Avanthal to Ravok; sold, multiple times; and most recently, abandoned. The Zith woman who had been Penri's odd mistress for less than a season had seemingly abandoned her, leaving her slave to wander Ravok for the past few days.

Axe had hardly been Pen's bondmate--Penri had no bondmate--but the young Kelvic could not help but feel...well, miffed. Angry. Angry at being left without a thought, with a collar keeping her in the weak, silly human shape. She liked human shape well enough. But, for a Kelvic left alone in a city that wouldn't let her out--well, perhaps a goat would be better.



Easier to eat as a goat, Penri thought gloomily. Her light, short hair was ruffled, and her temper frayed,and her stomach--growling. She was cross.
Penri sighed, leaning against a dilapidated wall for a brief moment. She'd slept around there, the night before, and wandered the other hours. It was evening, now. Time, the goat-girl decided, to go somewhere. An idle hand ran along her neck, under the collar, but the girl hardly noticed it. The other hand grabbed a rock jutting out from the wall, and, awkwardly, she hopped to her feet--in a goatlike movement. A brief shake of her head, as if to clear her thoughts, and she was off, down the streets, near Odds and Ends.

There, she paused for a moment. Had she been shaped as a goat, her ears would have pricked. As it was, her head tilted to the side, interested. It was music, lovely music. A flute? A flute! Penri paused, listening, a half-smile on her face, as the music stopped. The girl was a street musician. A very good one, though.

[Ireth Telemnar]

The lights of the NHC buildings and of the shops lit up the Nitrozian Plaza, and the city gulls were beginning to settle on the roofs and eves for the night. Their comforting coos mingled pleasantly with the soft notes of a shanty that were coming from the wooden flute of a single street performer, sitting up on a cloak across from Odds and Ends. A few folk listened to her play, humming along or swaying to the tune. This moment seemed to contrast greatly with the excitement and confusion going on over at the Silver Sliver, where the sailor-folk and the ravosalamen were going for an evening of delight with drink and women.

When her song ended, the musician put her flute down. The people around her applauded. "Well done girl." and "You'd make that daddy of yours proud." Some patted her on the back and some put coin in her little blue bowl. Ireth smiled, chatted with them, knew them by name.

After a bit, she picked up her flute again and began to pipe an old hymn. Her eyes closed in concentration as her fingers danced fluidly over the holes of the wooden pipe. When she swayed back and forth to the tune, the pigeon totem that perched on Ireth's flute nearly took flight, had it been real.

[Penri]

The bright sea air lingered in the fading light, keeping the feel of the city alive even as one set of its inhabitant began to settle, to leave, to quietly wander towards homes and nests and eaves. The flautist, though, seemed not to mind. Outside the music’s small, calm area the energy was high. Pen wondered briefly that the noise and bustle of the Sliver didn’t seem to clash with music, but it was Ravok: so many little worlds at once. Less charming when they clashed.

There was a brief pause in the music, and Penri started, jolted into reality for a moment. The flautist seemed to know all of the other by name—how? Ravok was a large, bustling city. A nagging voice in her head reminded Pen how she’d felt home in Avanthal, but she brushed it aside, stubborn. Ravok was different.

But, then she resumed, closing her eyes. Penri smiled, stepping a bit closer to listen. Her strange gaze fixed on the instrument, the strange birdlike ornament…all of it.

When the song ended, Pen waited for a moment, until the flurry of greetings and words had ended, and the flautist was less surrounded. Then, taking another step forward, off to the performer’s side, she decided to say something. “You’re quite good,” she said, offering a smile. One hand strayed, unconsciously again, up to her neck, the other fidgeted behind her back. She didn’t often stand still for so much of the day as this one.

[Ireth Telemnar]

Ireth waved a stray lock of hair out of her face and smiled up at the strange-pixie like girl. "You think so? Thanks." She reached over and collected the mizas that the folk had thrown into her little blue bowl. Not wanting to appear rude, she simply slipped them into her purse without counting them.

A cry rang out over the plaza from the Sliver, followed by the sharp crack of a chair breaking. Ireth watched the tavern for a moment, rubbing her flute in contemplation. The sun finally dipped beyond the lake's horizon, bathing the city in a brilliant glow of reds and purple shadows. Looking up again, she said "What is your name? I feel like I've seen you around, but we've never met. Although, I see a lot of people, being out on the streets so often..."

[Penri]

Penri grinned in return, glancing at the bowl before returning to the other girl’s face. Music, apparently, earned a good number of mizas... She wondered for a brief instant if she could learn to play some instrument to earn a living, but discarded it. Instruments cost money, of which she had none, and the skills took patience—another thing she was rather short on.

Oh well.

The girl’s head turned at a noise from the Sliver, and Penri’s followed. She was not one for the Sliver. So many people, being so very pushy. She didn’t much like other people being pushy (though she liked to ignore her own strong, loud opinions when saying so)—but her thoughts were interrupted by the girl, the flute-playing girl.
“What’s your name? I feel like I’ve seen you around, but we’ve never met. Although, I see a lot of people, being out on the streets so often…”
Penri’s reply was quick. “Penri. Yours? I suppose we might’ve passed one another sometimes, I’m on the streets all the time.” She thought for a quick moment. Oops. “I mean, it feels like all the time.” Crud. It was an innocent expression after all until elaborated upon. Time to change a subject? “So, uh, I like music, you must’ve noticed me listening some other day?”

[Ireth Telemnar]

Picking up her flute, Ireth gazed back down at the wooden instrument and smiled. It was a small smile, hidden in the shadows that the city's lights cast. "I'm on the streets all the time too, don't worry about it. My name is Ireth. But sometimes I don't comprehend all who are around me when I play. I get into a zone, ya know? The music just takes me away...' She felt silly, so she stopped.

"Please, relax." Ireth smiled up at the girl again, though she couldn't help but feel a bit off. What was wrong? The girl seemed normal enough, another of Ravok's street urchins perhaps? Ireth's family had never been overly wealthy, but they'd always had a home. Rhysol took care of the Telemnars.

[Penri]

"Not really," Penri replied. "I don't play any instruments. Takes all that time to learn one," she said, by way of explanation. "Maybe we've passed some other time, then. If you don't notice people when you play." She doubted that. Clearly, she noticed people--all those who'd come up to her probably knew her from watching performances, and she knew them...
The unimportant chain of logic was getting tangled, so she discarded it.

"I am relaxed," she said then, a bit grumpy. "I dunno, guess I'm tired. It's more tiring, getting around this way," she said, waving a vague indication at her body. The girl had probably noticed the kelvic slave collar, right? Though...she was being awful nice for a Ravok girl talking to a Kelvic. Maybe she really hadn't noticed. In which case Pen knew she may have inadvertently ended what had been a perfectly pleasant chat.

[Ireth Telemnar]

Ireth packed up all of her belongings, the blue bowl, the cloak she sat on, and her flute, into her bag. When she stood, she noticed the chunky collar around Penri's neck. The shadows pf the angle and the neck of Penri's shirt had kept it from Ireth's sight. She shivered a bit, the metal and decorations of the collar shimmering in the lights of the Plaza.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't... you're a slave? Wandering? Where's your master?" Ireth almost started backing away from the girl. She didn't want to be the cause of a slave not completing a task. Her family had never owned a slave, they'd never been able to afford one. But Ireth knew that most kept tight reins on their thralls.

[Penri]

There it was. The change.
Penri saw the girl shiver and realized, mood changing rapidly, that she'd outed herself. It's her own darned fault for not noticing before, she thought. "We were having a perfectly nice conversation..." she said somewhere between a mutter and whisper, too softly for Ireth to hear.

She sighed, less than patient, and set about answering. "Yeah, you noticed? I thought you'd've seen already." Disappointment colored her voice. "My mistress--" why did they always assume a master?--"sort of--" and here genuine confusion entered--"left me. I don't know what happened--she wasn't there anymore in the afternoon, one day when we'd come to the city. I can't change shape, I can't leave Ravok--because most people notice this--and I can't do a bloody thing." She was frustrated and, as usual, it showed. "It's not my fault, okay?" She took a step back, arms folded in front of her. "I had a nice family in Avanthal, I did something stupid when I was a kid, and now I'm stuck...here." Tirade finished, she wated defensively for Ireth.

[Ireth Telemnar]

Ireth froze, her mind in a muddle. "Please, I.... I didn't mean any offense." She wasn't sure what to say. The angle of her vision, she'd had to crane her neck and squint her eyes to look at Penri, and the collar of Penri's shirt hadn't helped either.

She hesitated, then stepped up and laid what she meant to be a comforting hand on Penri's shoulder. She expected the girl to shrug her off. "You're living on the streets then, huh? I'm not awful, I can see you're miserable. I have room, I guess, on my floor if you'd like to sleep off of the dirty walks. I'm sorry I've upset you."