[Introduction] All boundaries are conventions

[waiting4_6smith]

[Spoiler (click to open)]Made it to limbo. Blew my brains out in the bathtub with Ayr's handgun. Only felt the slightest pinch. Much greater pain seeing Sixsmith catching him at the last minute. Worlds of regret, but it's only a matter of waiting

Comments

[fckingperfect]

Natalie's currently in the library, looking for some new music selections to play. She's looking for some good piano pieces--just to practice, since she wants to keep up her skill level and dexterity.

She sighs a little in frustration--after a while, everything is starting to look too easy for her. She should have ended up at Yale instead of the Mansion, she thinks to herself.

A distraction would be more than welcome.

[waiting4_6smith]

Frobisher may be distracting indeed. Looking for sheet music. Browsing the F composer section feverishly, like a madman.

Whatever this place is, it holds answers about the future - was the Sextet ever played, or was it only a merciful dream? Hard to tell.

Hasn't really thought of looking for records either. Just looking at who wrote what.

Messian.

Bloody poser.

[fckingperfect]

She sees him and decides he must be a fellow music lover, and also, she hasn't seen him around before. Interesting.

"What're you looking for? Maybe I can help? I, like, know this library inside out." She shrugs, smiling softly at the man. "I'm kind of a nerd about music. And other stuff, too."

[waiting4_6smith]

No idea what a nerd is. The girl speaks strangely - must be an American, but even those expatriates had more grace. Could use her help, though.

"The Cloud Atlas Sextet. Composed 1931."

A beat.

"Very helpful, Miss...?"

In canon, it's a rare piece - so the sheet music may not be available, but they might find a vinyl hanging around somewhere. It's unlikely Nat would have heard of it, unless she was the type to hang out in obscure music stores - there are 6 copies of the vinyl in the US, quoth his canon.

[fckingperfect]

She shakes her head. "Never heard of it, sorry." She's surprised by that--though she doesn't really deal with rare pieces, she does have a breadth of knowledge about music.

"And you can call me Natalie. I mean, I'm Natalie Goodman, but you don't have to like, call me 'Miss Goodman' or...whatever. We're pretty chill here, at least the people I hang out with."

[waiting4_6smith]

Best effort not to look put out. Father will never know, then, maybe. Sixsmith would have done his best, Frobisher knows. Trust unbound.

His greatest love.

"Robert Frobisher," he replies. "Are you a musician, Miss Goodman?"

Ignores completely the admonition to be 'chill' - remains himself, no matter what.

[fckingperfect]

"I'm a pianist," she replies with an easy, open sort of smile. "And I'm in a band, too--Death and the Maiden, we're called. It's really cool and fun. It's nice to meet you."

[waiting4_6smith]

Can't tell if she's talking about jazz or baroque musique. Very confusing.

"Schubert? Interesting choice for a pianist - a string quartet. Did you transpose it?"

Can't resist testing her. She talks like a broad straight out of Harlem, but who knows. Rough diamonds do exist.

[fckingperfect]

"Ah, we're more of a rock band--but I guess we could transpose some string quartets. It wouldn't be impossible."

She grins, thinking about the challenge.

"I feel like Johnny--he's the lead singer--would be a little confused, though."

[waiting4_6smith]

"All boundaries are conventions," and a smile comes unbidden. Appreciates the way she gets enthused - passion makes her lovely.

Wonders idly how she looks, mussed and pleased.

"Jazz, then? You hardly have the bearing of a flapper, though I understand people here are from many times and places."

[fckingperfect]

"Well, like...I'm from the year 2009," she says. "So jazz is kind of...old, at least from my historical perspective. But I had a boyfriend once who liked it. I appreciate the unconventionality of it. Classical can get super rigid at times, so it's cool and fun to be able to mess around with music."

She's sort of thrilled to be able to talk to someone about stuff like this.

"But I play keyboard in the band, and it's like...rock music. Modern rock, really. It's neat, because it's not rigid, but it's not jazz, either. It's something different."

All boundaries are conventions. What a cool guy, she thinks.

[waiting4_6smith]

"Music from the future - I need to be edified." Finding the perspective close to terrifying - but then maybe that will include... but wouldn't know, really. Well, no, would know - something in the gut will twitch, since apparently the lower body has resumed existing as well as the upper.

"Is that your preference? Your contemporaries' works?"

Could understand that, really. Is rather the same.

[fckingperfect]

"I like...a lot of music, actually," Natalie says with a little laugh. "Like...Mozart and jazz and like...The Rolling Stones, and then some really recent--for me--music as well." She smiles broadly. "I'm a total music theory nerd, total music history nerd...yeah. I'm hopeless."

[waiting4_6smith]

A, quote, total music history nerd, unquote, and hasn't heard a peep about the sextet, or Frobisher himself, some seventy years later. Dark times.

"And you do not compose or transpose?"

Some don't. Not everyone has talent, or absolute hearing.

[fckingperfect]

"I could try," she says with a shrug. "Maybe I should, right?"

[waiting4_6smith]

"Did you learn at all how?"

Is a Caius man, with much pride in it, too. Not everyone can claim to have been Vivien Ayrs' understudy.