dorothy's slippers.

[highf]

So here's what you missed on Glee:

Puck and Santana have been stranded on an island that kind of reminds them of Lost, except without the cool polar bears and the smoke monster, and both of them are missing home and feeling way out of their league, even if neither will admit to it. ( "Not your type of party, is it?" "If I say no, you're going to

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[tooktheblack]

Jon tried to avoid the Compound for the most part as he and Ghost were much more comfortable outdoors but he had developed a taste for coffee in the few weeks he'd been here and, considering he couldn't get it anywhere else but the Compound, he braved it a few times a week for a cup or two. He had just gotten a cup and thought to go to the bookshelves when he heard the singing and stood to listen for a moment, appreciative.

He was no bard and never would be but this boy (man...he looked of an age with Jon, anyway) seemed to be well-trained even without a high harp or a lute.

"You have a fine voice," Jon said during a break in the music, not wanting to interrupt.

[highf]

"Oh," Kurt exclaimed lightly in surprise, turning around and smiling sheepishly as his gaze landed on someone who had, apparently, come along and decided to listen to the song. While Kurt certainly never had a problem with people watching for any kind of performance, casual or otherwise, he did wish that the man had made his presence known earlier, if only so that Kurt could have paid more attention to his pitch, to the presentation. No matter, though. He'd been paid a compliment, and while Kurt didn't need them quite as much as Rachel Berry ever did, that wasn't to say that he still didn't feel pleased, a light fluttering in his chest and a faint tinge rising to his cheeks. "Well, thank you, you're very kind."

Only when he took a closer look at the man, he had to wonder about that hair.

Momentarily struck silent, Kurt raised a playful brow and relaxed into a wider smile. "I'm not sure if people here sing along with the jukebox much, but when given a Broadway tune, you just figure why not, right?"

[tooktheblack]

"I don't know anything about Broadway," Jon admitted, wondering if that was yet another thing this island had that Westeros didn't and never would. It seemed the island was much, much different from Westeros.

"Was that the name of the song you sang? Broadway?"

[highf]

"The song?" Kurt repeated, taken aback by the fact that the young man wasn't familiar with Broadway. While it was true that most people couldn't explain exactly what made something a Broadway performance, still Kurt was fairly certain that the majority of people were at least aware that the theater was involved, and that colloquially, Broadway had become a synonym for a successful theatrical performance. "No, no, the song is called 'Corner of the Sky,' and it's from the play Pippin, one of hundreds of plays to make it to Broadway. Think of Broadway as being a selective filter for theater. If you've made it to Broadway, you know you've made it big."

Letting his weight shift from foot to foot, Kurt smiled as he turned to shyly sit back down on the couch, crossing his legs and waiting for the other boy to join. "But how is it that someone who clearly knows a good song when he hears it, hasn't heard of Broadway?"

[tooktheblack]

Jon crossed the room to settle next to the other boy on the couch, Ghost padding alongside and settling at Jon's feet. Once they were both settled, Jon turned to address him. He didn't know anything about theater aside from the occasional troupes of mummers that came to Winterfell and those had been few and far between.

"We don't have anything called Broadway in Westeros, I'm afraid. The only singing and performing we have are bards and mummers and those are few and far between where I come from. I don't have any real experience with music at all, though my sister liked the harp."

[highf]

Only once the boy had settled down did Kurt realize the rather alarmingly large- almost too large to be a regular wolf, he wanted to say, though Kurt knew precious little about wildlife in general- canine by his side. Brows raising towards his hairline, Kurt blinked, then exhaled through his teeth. "Wow, that's a really big... dog you've got there," he remarked with a tilt of his head, wondering if the animal took kindly to strangers, and making no move to pet it unless given the direction to.

"Anyway, wow. So, I've personally never heard of Westeros, although bards and mummers were rather 17th and 18th century, where I'm from, so I was born about three-hundred years too late, if I wanted to see any of that first-hand," he went on, biting down on his lower lip in a moment of disbelief, that he was walking candidly with someone about medieval forms of entertainment.

[tooktheblack]

"Nobody on the island seems to be familiar with Westeros aside from my brother and sister," Jon agreed, laughing, and tilted his head slightly toward Ghost. "He's a Direwolf, no mere dog. They're from Westeros as well."

Singing wasn't a common activity among boys in Westeros either, aside from the troupes and bards, and it was strange to see someone embrace it the way this boy did.

"Where did you learn your trade, then? Were your parents singers too?"

[highf]

"Direwolf, right. I think I remember learning about them back in middle school, though they don't- they're extinct in my world, as far as anyone knows," Kurt remarked, eyes darting from the wolf, majestic and beautiful, to the young man laughing by his side. There's something about him that Kurt's pretty sure he's never seen in another person before. And while he knows that, being from Ohio, that shouldn't surprise him, it's still enough to send his stomach turning with a feeling almost like hope

[tooktheblack]

"In Westeros, a man may make a living off his voice but it's a hard life and you depend upon the kindness of noble houses and innkeepers who won't throw you out in the snow. It's not a soft life, or an easy one, and many of the men who do it end up plying other trades at some point, whether they like it or not."

Satin had been in a mummer's troupe, maybe, but even he'd ended up a whore in Oldtown before coming to the Wall. It wasn't easy, not by far.

"Easier to make a living forging or crofting, if you ask me."

[highf]

"Art often does seem to be the first thing to go," Kurt admitted quietly, with more than a touch of bitterness on his tongue. He knew that there was no way to suddenly change the way that Maslow's hierarchy of needs worked. People would always need to eat, and needed shelter, and beyond the basics that kept them going from day to day, people would always tend towards areas in which they felt they could be successful. Areas which commanded respect.

Art tended to fall to the wayside, and even so far away from McKinley and having transferred to Dalton, Kurt couldn't help feeling frustrated still.

He smiled nonetheless, resolving to be resilient. "But I've never been a fan of easy for easy's sake, and I know that music is the only thing that makes me truly happy, so... here I am. From what I hear, the island will be a little kinder than most places as I try to make my way to my goal."

[tooktheblack]

"The island seems welcoming enough of all walks of life," Jon agreed, thinking the island seemed better than Westeros in many respects. A bastard might rise high on the Night's Watch, as high as Jon but there were very few men in Westeros who could spend a lifetime chasing dreams as this boy wanted to.

Jon only hoped that he'd keep at it and not give up, many a starving bard turned to theft if the winter was hard.

"Is there anyone else from your homeland here, then? I have my brother and sister, Robb and Arya Stark."

[highf]

The quirk of his lips grew strained at the mention of family. It'd only been three days since Kurt was home, only a phone call away from his parents if he needed them, still seeing Finn every evening- for a piecewise family, the four of them were closer than Kurt had ever expected to find in one that hadn't originally been his own. And being away from them, knowing that they might potentially not see one another again for years yet, was overwhelming in a way that he wasn't prepare to face. He took a quavering breath, still smiling, even though the expression is faint.

"Yes," he nods. "I have... two friends from school. The school I was attending before I recently transferred, at any rate. They're both good friends. No family on the island, though. I'm not sure they'd like it, anyway."

[tooktheblack]

"I've been away from my family for about four years now, give or take. I was still a boy when I chose to go to the Wall."

Jon had thought he was wise to the ways of the world when he took the black and in so many ways, he hadn't been. He'd been a boy, summer-green and soft from a lord's life even if Catelyn Stark took pleasure in reminding him he was a bastard at every turn. He hadn't even seen a true winter, not one he could remember anyway.

"You grow used to it, even if the ache never fades."

[highf]

"I'm sure," Kurt murmured, even if his eyes were still too wide to be entirely believing, even if his voice was too quiet to carry much confidence. If it made him weak to already be pining after family in such a way, Kurt didn't care- there were certain areas in which it was pointless to try to keep up impressions for the sake of pride, and he couldn't help thinking that this was one of them. That said, he didn't want to burden the other man overmuch.

What was three days, when compared to four years?

"I've never been away from my dad for over a week," he confessed with a watery smile, thinking of how things would be at home now, without Kurt to watch over his father's diet. Hopefully Carol would manage. (At least she didn't think Slim Jims and Red Bulls acceptable for lunch.) Pressing his lips more heavily against his cheek, he tilted his head. "What's the Wall? Sounds kind of ominous."

[tooktheblack]

"Oh, incredibly," Jon said, describing it with more relish than he would normally both because he did miss home and the other boy seemed worried about his father which, years ago, Jon had felt the same way. He could understand it, just as he'd understood Sam Tarly's cowardice when he first joined the Watch, and he wanted to try and take his mind off it.

"Thousands of feet high, built of brick and mortar and solid ice, it's been in Westeros for centuries. Helps to keep the North and the rest of the Seven Kingdoms safe from Wildlings and giants and everything else that roams the wild."

The Others, he thought, but didn't say.

"I'm lord commander, actually. Irony, considering they used to call me Lord Snow."

[highf]

Even though the two young men had only just met, Kurt had the feeling that he was being taken under another person's wing, the tone too bright compared to most other people he'd met on the island. Too hopeful. As though trying not only to bolster himself, but others in the process too. He was grateful for the effort, to be sure, the very gesture helping him to breathe more easily as he focused instead on the young man's words, briefly closing his eyes to imagine the description of ice stretching tall and to the sky, sun catching it at sunup and sundown alike. How cold it must have been.

But how warm the light would be, in comparison.

"Pretty appropriate name," he agreed with a small grin, betting that there was a story behind it, no matter how simple. "Was that seat one you were looking to inherit, by chance?"