(Untitled)

[nostoppinglife]

All things considered, Moira supposes, her life's taken some worse turns. Ready though she is to get out of here, at least no one's actively threatening the lives of herself or friends. Rahne's not getting married on a mad whim and that whole day turned out just to be one massive mistake anyway. She's restless, but she'll deal. That part's been a

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[hyperspanner]

Scotty was casually strolling in the direction of the rec room, considering a nice half hour with whatever the bookshelf provided, when he bumped into someone with a look on their face like they were determined to be anywhere but here.

"Aw, sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," he said, moving back to let her aside, and that was when the unholy racket assaulted his ears. He gave the woman a somewhat startled look. "Is that the jukebox? What the heck did ye do to it, insult its mother?"

[nostoppinglife]

Moira glanced over her shoulder and back to the man, steadying herself with a hand against the wall. "I didnae do anythin' t' it," she said, slightly offended. It was out to get her, not the other way around. "I'm nae even sure what caused it. The damn thing's possessed."

That was hardly news, but good Lord, she wasn't sure she'd heard anything so bad as that yet in her few months here.

[hyperspanner]

"I know that, every time I come in here it starts playing the bloody Proclaimers - but that is something else," Scotty said, warily peering into the room and then backing away again.

"I don't trust that thing," he said, hastily moving down the corridor, thinking a sandwich might soothe his battered ears. "It won't let anybody take it apart, that has to be suspicious."

[nostoppinglife]

"I've nae seen a machine so virtually indestructible," Moira agreed. It was pleasant to hear a familiar accent for a change, other than from herself and Rahne. All the same, when she followed him out into the hall, it was more for the sake of escaping what passed for music in the other room. "Anythin' ye could do t' destroy it'd be too dangerous in here and even then, I'm nae sure it'd work."

[morilthesinger]

Moril had really only wanted the piano, and walking in to hear that is just unnecessarily cruel. He's apparently not the only one, because he very nearly walks into a woman who looks like she's trying to escape. "Oh, that is awful, isn't it?"

[nostoppinglife]

"Terrible," she agrees with a sigh and a shake of her head. "Whoever told those poor lasses they could sing was playin' a cruel trick on 'em." True, they can all just leave the room if it's so awful, but they certainly shouldn't have put up with being chased out by a machine.

[morilthesinger]

"Sometimes you can drown it out. Play over it. I could with a steam organ," Moril says wistfully. "But usually it's better not to try it. Takes it as a challenge."

[nostoppinglife]

Moira shakes her head with a rueful laugh. "Aye, I believe it," she says. "Better t' run or endure than t' see how loud that thing can get. D'ye think they can hear it in the kitchen?"

[tearsthrulife]

It's been nearly two weeks since Valentine's Day, and Rahne still isn't sure she's completely recovered her dignity. She doesn't have any real reason to lay low, not when she's well aware that she had no control over it and wasn't the only one affected, but that doesn't mean she's been made any more comfortable with the situation, or the prospect of running into someone else she made a fool of herself in front of. Though not very consciously, it has her spending less time around the Compound than usual, a trend she'd been planning to continue until she sees Moira heading out of the rec room.

"Where are ye -" she starts, having been approaching from the opposite direction, but cuts herself off, the where suddenly not mattering half as much as the why, which is all too apparent. Rahne raises her eyebrows, glaring suspiciously at the jukebox. "Don't tell me this is supposed to be some excuse for music."

[nostoppinglife]

"I dinnae ken what it's meant t' be an excuse for," Moira says, shuddering visibly. Catching a hand on Rahne's arm, she steers her away from the door. "It's nae safe in there, nae for a couple o' minutes at least, I dinnae think." The whole thing's just absurd. This entire place is absurd, judging by what it's put poor Rahne through, not to mention every last person still in that room.

[tearsthrulife]

"No, I'd not say so," Rahne agrees, casting a wary glance over her shoulder as she follows Moira away from the rec room, clearly having no objection to putting more distance between herself and that godawful noise. If it weren't so deafening, even from a distance, she might not necessarily mind the need to stay away, but as it is, the faint sound alone is grating, enough to really make her wish there were a way to break the @$!&ing thing. "How's that even possible?"

[nostoppinglife]

That makes Moira smile, just a little; as surprises go, they've had plenty and worse, but it's nice to see they can still be taken aback, at least in so harmless a situation as this. She makes for the door anyway, shaking her head. "What isnae possible?" she asks, though it's largely rhetorical. "Someone let a pack o' talentless bairns believe they had a whit o' talent, that's how."

[withoutasea]

Jenny's standing in the hallway with Ygraine clinging to two fistfuls of her skirt looking up at her mother. Jenny looks genuinely perplexed.

"Is this it, then?" she says, looking up at Moira. "Surely, a noise like that could only herald the end of things?"

[nostoppinglife]

"I think it must be," Moira agrees, shaking her head. "Ye know, I've heard some strange music from those I've lived with, but this - I'm nae even sure this is music." Still she smiles when she spots Ygraine, waving to the girl. "Hello, darlin.'"

[withoutasea]

Ygraine looks at her, solemnly. Half wolf, half warrior, the child is occasionally solemn and willfull, but given to sudden smiles.

"Not shy, surely?" says Jenny.

[nostoppinglife]

"Ah, dinnae be shy, sweetheart," Moira says. "They get like that, though. I'll walk away an' she'll bounce off the walls." It's hard not to miss the days, few though they'd been, when her own boy had been problematic only in the most blissfully ordinary of ways.

[oscaroscaroscar]

"What is-" Felix began to ask when he walked in to the rec room only to confronted by an utterly bizarre cacophony. He meant to finish the question in short order, but as the realization dawned on him that it was probably meant to be a song, all other concerns of his seemed to fall away. He even forgot to be completely mortified at seeing Mrs. MacTaggert and just looked to her for an answer, his eyes wide and confused.

"What."

[nostoppinglife]

"I've nae idea," Moira exclaimed, quickly sidestepping to avoid knocking into him in her haste to depart. She had to hope that his not paying particular attention to her was just further evidence that the whole thing had been the same kind of magically-prompted misunderstanding which had befallen Rahne and George. "It won't stop!"

[oscaroscaroscar]

"That's to be expected from that accursed jukebox, but what is it?" Felix asked, still dumbstruck and torn between the urge to follow her to safety and the impulse to stay behind to somehow warn others away from it. Eventually, though, he figures he do that just as efficiently from the hallway and takes his leave from the rec room.

[nostoppinglife]

"I havenae the foggiest," Moira said, shaking her head, "an' I'm nae sure I want t' know. I've heard better rhythm from children with pots an' pans." Wary though it made her, she was scarcely surprised to see him following along. No one could be expected to stay put and listen to that for long.