out of step from both Wild Roses and Pangaia . .
Title: the dvd used the encores as alternate endings
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Yasha, Aodh, Takashi
Prompt: 93A "pavement cracks", 'musky/spicy perfume' (billradish)
Word Count: 950
Notes: This was not one of the requests from March. *solemn*
Aodh disappeared abruptly from Yasha's line of sight, and he automatically checked the roofline--interesting graffiti on the top of the awning, actually, half-looked like someone writing from impressions of Helvet scratch--before looking down.
Aodh was crouched on the sidewalk, peering fixedly through a shop window at a display screen, which appeared to be showing a rock concert from some time ago. After a moment, not looking away from the window, he remarked "The quality on this's really good."
Yasha eyed it, and the glass panel between them and the speakers, which meant he could just barely hear that the sound wasn't turned off. "The special effects?"
"No, t'recordin'--" Aodh tapped a fingernail on the window, which distracted Yasha for a good five clicks while he tried to calculate when he'd last seen Aodh wearing human-style nail polish, let alone how long he must have been wearing it to get chipped up like that, and then discarded the whole packtrain of equations when he remembered that two clicks before the tap Aodh's nails had been clean anyway.
Reconstruction put Aodh's sentence at "I can see how he's doing it," while pointing at the lead singer. Which made No Sense.
"Aren't those supposed to be run by the stage guys, not the band?" he asked, crouching down next to Aodh to peer at a better refraction angle, squinting at the recording, which did look pretty nice, as live capture went.
"Supposed t'be, oui," Aodh agreed, then touched two fingers to the glass--which went away, disconcertingly--and tapped at the figure of the singer, just as another set of pyrotechnics went off. "But he's still doin' 'em. Looks to be about a five tail. Might be pushing six, if he's doing almost all the shows."
"You're kidding," Yasha said flatly, squinting harder at the screen.
But, looking at it closely, he could see the curve of spine and fingers, mostly hidden in the music and the bouncing of the singer, the flick of nails--he caught Aodh doing the same Loki-sent motion in the corner of his eye, flicking a light for his cigarette up from his chipped thumbnail, to all appearances unaware of the echo on the screen--the twist and pull of fox magic, even the air currents being flicked around by invisible tails.
"Huh."
"'s even more 'terestin' is tha' I could swear I know 'im," Aodh said around the cigarette, putting out his light with another flick.
Leaning back on his heels, Yasha considered the stage the band was on, looking for underpinnings and markers of time period, construction, and modifications for the show.
Half-idly, "You having a good reflex day?"
" . . Oui?"
"Se maith."
Aodh barely flailed when they dropped through a widened pavement crack.
The shop window faded back in to existence.
--
'Loud' was his first impression, followed by 'Of course he'd drop us in a standing room only concert with no warning.'
Three twists got him on his feet, back next to the kid, who was a little big eyed, and both of them shoved through the massed bodies on the theater's main floor until he had the kid between him and the back wall. Someone's musky perfume had managed to crawl into his clothes, and he was reasonably sure someone else's cologne was what was nimbusing the kid's head, and he muttered a couple of words to dissipate the scents within smelling range of them both. Anyone going to a concert should really know better anyway.
The sound balance was actually ridiculously good--there wasn't even a hint of cross-speaker feedback, even with recording cameras rolling around and gleeful pyrotechnics--and he tagged it as something else the fox on the stage was keeping track of. No bet on how he'd got the fifth tail.
And then the actual voice got through, and he froze, long enough that the kid put a hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to turn and explain, before he started near-howling with laughter.
By the time he stopped, gasping for air, Yasha was giving him a 'what did you lick?' look and people were staring. So he grinned, leaned down, half-yelled "Figured out where I know him from!" for the kid's benefit, grinned at the starers, and then started paying real attention to the concert.
They stayed through all four encores--it'd only taken the kid a couple of songs to get into things--before the wall behind them irised, and he could smell horses and grass in the dark space, instead of people.
Dutch gave them both funny looks when he dropped the kid off. He supposed it wasn't every day that the kid came in smelling like fireworks and singing rock songs--he fully expected everything the kid could remember to go viral through Dutch into the system and probably anyone who tagged someone from the system before Trap managed to shut it off--but he just grinned at the doorman, and took his leave.
---
He was still singing when he dropped noiselessly onto the boards of his mother's porch and opened the door, slipped inside.
His father was home, because he could hear the fox's brain miss the mental window and smack into the wall, which was really, really funny.
He did his best to keep the smile from showing in his voice, and concentrating on that was all that kept him from faltering when a baritone harmony line came up under his tenor lead, just as easy as if they'd practiced the way he and Niamh used to.
They found each other in the kitchen, his father wandering in slightly after he did, and Aodh bowed a hello, then ended the verse with a full-fox trill of greeting-glee. "Mamán never told me she bagged a rock god!"
Takashi cackled, his voice climbing effortlessly from baritone to tenor before he replied in the faint-rasped timbre of the singer "I got bored after I hit six, and I was a seven when we met. Found a show, did you?"
Aodh grinned, bright-sharp-white and laughing. "You give good show, father-mine."
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Yasha, Aodh, Takashi
Prompt: 93A "pavement cracks", 'musky/spicy perfume' (billradish)
Word Count: 950
Notes: This was not one of the requests from March. *solemn*
Aodh disappeared abruptly from Yasha's line of sight, and he automatically checked the roofline--interesting graffiti on the top of the awning, actually, half-looked like someone writing from impressions of Helvet scratch--before looking down.
Aodh was crouched on the sidewalk, peering fixedly through a shop window at a display screen, which appeared to be showing a rock concert from some time ago. After a moment, not looking away from the window, he remarked "The quality on this's really good."
Yasha eyed it, and the glass panel between them and the speakers, which meant he could just barely hear that the sound wasn't turned off. "The special effects?"
"No, t'recordin'--" Aodh tapped a fingernail on the window, which distracted Yasha for a good five clicks while he tried to calculate when he'd last seen Aodh wearing human-style nail polish, let alone how long he must have been wearing it to get chipped up like that, and then discarded the whole packtrain of equations when he remembered that two clicks before the tap Aodh's nails had been clean anyway.
Reconstruction put Aodh's sentence at "I can see how he's doing it," while pointing at the lead singer. Which made No Sense.
"Aren't those supposed to be run by the stage guys, not the band?" he asked, crouching down next to Aodh to peer at a better refraction angle, squinting at the recording, which did look pretty nice, as live capture went.
"Supposed t'be, oui," Aodh agreed, then touched two fingers to the glass--which went away, disconcertingly--and tapped at the figure of the singer, just as another set of pyrotechnics went off. "But he's still doin' 'em. Looks to be about a five tail. Might be pushing six, if he's doing almost all the shows."
"You're kidding," Yasha said flatly, squinting harder at the screen.
But, looking at it closely, he could see the curve of spine and fingers, mostly hidden in the music and the bouncing of the singer, the flick of nails--he caught Aodh doing the same Loki-sent motion in the corner of his eye, flicking a light for his cigarette up from his chipped thumbnail, to all appearances unaware of the echo on the screen--the twist and pull of fox magic, even the air currents being flicked around by invisible tails.
"Huh."
"'s even more 'terestin' is tha' I could swear I know 'im," Aodh said around the cigarette, putting out his light with another flick.
Leaning back on his heels, Yasha considered the stage the band was on, looking for underpinnings and markers of time period, construction, and modifications for the show.
Half-idly, "You having a good reflex day?"
" . . Oui?"
"Se maith."
Aodh barely flailed when they dropped through a widened pavement crack.
The shop window faded back in to existence.
--
'Loud' was his first impression, followed by 'Of course he'd drop us in a standing room only concert with no warning.'
Three twists got him on his feet, back next to the kid, who was a little big eyed, and both of them shoved through the massed bodies on the theater's main floor until he had the kid between him and the back wall. Someone's musky perfume had managed to crawl into his clothes, and he was reasonably sure someone else's cologne was what was nimbusing the kid's head, and he muttered a couple of words to dissipate the scents within smelling range of them both. Anyone going to a concert should really know better anyway.
The sound balance was actually ridiculously good--there wasn't even a hint of cross-speaker feedback, even with recording cameras rolling around and gleeful pyrotechnics--and he tagged it as something else the fox on the stage was keeping track of. No bet on how he'd got the fifth tail.
And then the actual voice got through, and he froze, long enough that the kid put a hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to turn and explain, before he started near-howling with laughter.
By the time he stopped, gasping for air, Yasha was giving him a 'what did you lick?' look and people were staring. So he grinned, leaned down, half-yelled "Figured out where I know him from!" for the kid's benefit, grinned at the starers, and then started paying real attention to the concert.
They stayed through all four encores--it'd only taken the kid a couple of songs to get into things--before the wall behind them irised, and he could smell horses and grass in the dark space, instead of people.
Dutch gave them both funny looks when he dropped the kid off. He supposed it wasn't every day that the kid came in smelling like fireworks and singing rock songs--he fully expected everything the kid could remember to go viral through Dutch into the system and probably anyone who tagged someone from the system before Trap managed to shut it off--but he just grinned at the doorman, and took his leave.
---
He was still singing when he dropped noiselessly onto the boards of his mother's porch and opened the door, slipped inside.
His father was home, because he could hear the fox's brain miss the mental window and smack into the wall, which was really, really funny.
He did his best to keep the smile from showing in his voice, and concentrating on that was all that kept him from faltering when a baritone harmony line came up under his tenor lead, just as easy as if they'd practiced the way he and Niamh used to.
They found each other in the kitchen, his father wandering in slightly after he did, and Aodh bowed a hello, then ended the verse with a full-fox trill of greeting-glee. "Mamán never told me she bagged a rock god!"
Takashi cackled, his voice climbing effortlessly from baritone to tenor before he replied in the faint-rasped timbre of the singer "I got bored after I hit six, and I was a seven when we met. Found a show, did you?"
Aodh grinned, bright-sharp-white and laughing. "You give good show, father-mine."