Finding a comfortable place to rest during Loshis, when you had no home, was not exactly the easiest thing to do in the Rose. Not only did the place need to have some overhang or other kind of roof, but the floor configuration had to prevent the water from pooling where you would seat. And be reasonably clean. A bit of dirt is not a problem, but no one likes to sit in mud, not to mention the worse possibilities.

So, Robert was surprised when he found such a comfortable spot, free of charge, waiting for him. One with sea view, even. The ceiling was a bit low, but he was going to seat anyway.

And seat he did. He dragged his guitar out of the oiled tissue bag that protected it from the rain, settled it comfortably on his lap, and lighted a cigar, watching the sea colours change with the passing of rain clouds.

Music, apah, and sea view. And two apples in his pockets for later. Today was turning out to be very comfortable after all.

Aye knew she was living in a friends kint at the moment, but she still liked to visit her shelter. She had many all over old rose, though she suspected other people used them too, she would go to different ones at different times to sleep or find shelter from rain, or to check up on little valuables she had hidden. This shelter, however, was her favorite: view of the sea, stayed mostly dry in rain, had a special hiding place for her things... oh she loved it.

The girl was turning the corner to get to her shelter, when she heard music. Her eyes widened in surprise, she didn't often walk around this area and hear music... She walked faster and when she turned the corner, there he was. The source of the music. She stopped short and listened for a minute, before she began to worry about her things, and realize that, this here, was her favorite shelter. Who was he to sit there?!

"Hey! That's my seat!" She yelled out. The girl hadn't even stopped to consider the fact that she no longer needed the shelter, nor did it have her name anywhere on it, she just knew that she wanted it.

Robert took the time to pluck another chord before turning towards the source of the voice. The smile he was preparing, his special smile for children, soured a bit when he saw Aye's face, her tattoos, and her clothes. He stopped playing.

"And what makes this your place more than anyone else's?" Is it just because you're a vroon? His eyes thinned a bit. Robert tended to be wary of wicks. In his mind, if they didn't use their magic to steal away all good things from humans, it was simply because the pure-blood galdori had done it before.

"Every living thing got its place on Vita, no one has to claim everything his." Looking at the young girl to see how she would answer, he pulled on his cigar, letting blue smoke mix with the mist over the grey sea.

And he made absolutely no move that could let think he was ready to acknowledge her claim, or even compromise and let her a little half of the dry space.

She held still, not knowing really how to answer him. What did make that her spot? Her eyes kept glaring, but her mouth fell open. She tried to speak a couple times, but she still didn't have any kind of a comeback. Finally she stood straight, and crossed her arms.

"Well what makes yeh think it isn't mine?" she asked, clearly, she didn't have a good retort.

That might not have been a good retort, but it gave Robert a pause. The young musician had never heard discussions about burden of proof or such legal complexities, and he stared at the witch, clearly not sure how to reply. It might really have been her spot after all! As much as one could own a place in the Rose, anyway. Which, when you thought about it, was better than in the rest of Anaxas. Here, the lower races could actually own things! The problem was you needed the muscle power to back your claim, as violence was often what made law around here.

Aye did not look much in the muscle department. But she was a vroon! And beside, Robert had decided violence was the wrong way to live, it would be chicken to use it when it suited him. Especially against someone who was still so close to childhood, witch or not.

Finally remembering he held a half-smoked cigar in his hand, Robert took a long sip of smoke, before slowly answering back. One who didn't know his laziness could have thought apah was hindering his brain. Actually, the young musician tended to be like that very often, even when sober.

"So, that's really your place?" This time, he had less of a frown and a more questioning look; and he seemed to be making the effort to shift to the left, though the actual move was minute at best. Not enough for Aye to enter comfortably, but enough for her to sit dry if she wouldn't mind a guitar wedged against her ribs.

Aye stood there, arms crossed, and watched the man watching her. She didn't like how he was sitting there, she didn't like how he said things that sounded like questions but weren't, and she didn't like how he moved such a tiny bit.

The girl squinted at the musician, and pursed her lips. She didn't need the spot, in fact all she wanted to do was take her things and go back to her friend's kint, but with this guy sitting there, trying to make it known that it was his new place.... Well that just kicked her stubborn nature into gear.

She frowned and walked up to the man, and plopped down in the space next to him. She made a pained noise as the guitar hit her, it really made the seat uncomfortable, but that was it. She crossed her arms and legs, and stared straight ahead. She didn't want him knowing it hurt, he had to believe she would sit there all day if she had to, and she had every intention of doing just that.

Robert was taking another sip of smoke when Aye hit the guitar's body with hers. He had to cough it out to talk, and that made him miss her hiss of pain.
"Be careful! That's fragile!"

The tall human put his cigar down on a dry stone and withdrew the guitar from the young witch side to inspect it. Satisfied it was not chipped, he tried to gently put it back on his lap, and noticed Aye's position prevented him to. He couldn’t get a good playable position without digging his elbow into the child's side, a thing he was not ready to do, vroon or not, or shifting more to the left, which would put the headstock uncomfortably close to the wall. He finally settled into a more awkward position he knew was usable for simpler songs, and retrieved his cigar.

He wondered what the child wanted. She had been silent when she sat, and he didn't know if she just wanted to rest in the dry, or something else.
Oh, whatever. She can talk, it's her problem if she doesn't want to.
The situation was not uncomfortable actually. Rob had just exchanged a bit of playability on his instrument for the warm feeling of a human body against his, and that perfectly suited him. No, not in that way. Despite his womanising ways, the musician had morals, and Aye was a barely out of childhood, or even not out of it yet. But he was a man who loved human contact, even if of a more tame type, or even of a more violent type as long as it was in good spirit (he sometime suspected that was why he had liked to play rugby so much).

Rober briefly wondered if Aye would like to taste apah and share the cigar. But after a short internal debate, he decided regretfully that she looked too young for such a strong thing, and fished behind her a sheet of paper with tentative lyrics he'd been mulling with.
"Would you like to help me try that? You know how to sing?"

From what he knew, wicks had one quality: they were much more often musically minded than the average human.

The girl sat there as the man readjusted his position, and smiled inwardly when she noticed he seemed uncomfortable. He was still sitting in her spot, but at least the guitar was out of her ribs.

She exhaled feeling relieved, and rubbed her side with a hand she hoped was hidden by her other arm.



She looked up at him, eyes wide again, they darted to the paper in his hand, and then back up to his face. Of course she knew how to sing! She may or may not have been any good, but honestly who cared? The thing she was worried about, was the fact that she couldn't read.

"Oes, but, uh.. I cant read,", she said, "I have a benny memory though, you c'n tell me th'words an' I c'n sing 'em." She smiled lightly, maybe this guy wasn't out to be mean, after all.

"Well, let's try like that." I suppose you don't read music too. "I need you to help me on the chorus: here is how it goes."
Robert sang the words, while he fingered the corresponding chords on the guitar, playing again and again and waiting for Aye to join him. He used that rhythm he loved, with only the bass note on the downbeat, and the chord plucked on the backbeat.

When the young witch would seem to have memorized her lines, he would stop.
"Let's try the whole song ? Take care, I'm not singing the same thing than you on the chorus. Will be starting a beat earlier, like that."
Robert sang his own chorus line, then took a deep breath and launched into the whole song.

(( SFSR, + no poetic skill or inspiration today: you'll have to imagine those lyrics. ))

(( sorry it took so long, and i tried to come up with a song, i really did it just didn't work out that well lol ))

She copied his words, trying to sing them the way he did, and trying not to forget them. The girl smiled at his guitar playing, it sounded wonderful. It had been a while since she had sat with someone as they played an instrument, and it was nice to be doing it again.

"Oes, ready, kov." She said nodding. She took a breath when he did, and then sang when it was her turn to do so. She sang what she remembered, perhaps forgetting a few words, but then picking them back up the next time she sung them.

After the song was done, she grinned and looked at him. "How'd I do?" she asked, wondering if she sang the song well, and if her voice was better than she thought it would be.

I feel love, I feel love,
I feel love, I feel love between us

"Fine. You could work a bit on your tuning, but you have a good sense of rhythm." Robert had not expected Aye to start her part on the right timing on her first try. That was a good surprise. Good enough for him to forget he was talking with a witch. Maybe her being too young to have a strong field helped, but his cigar was extinguishing on the ground, forgotten too.

"But now that I hear it sang with someone else, I find the lyrics lack something. Too simple, too easy to forget, even the chorus. Take thoses line, there." The musician indicated a part of the second verse on his sheet of paper, before remembering the young witch could not read it and sang the lines.

We'll be together
We'll eat together
We'll lie together
On my humble bed
"I'm not trying for golly poetry, with complicated words. I'm human, I'll make do with simple words. But this is just too plain. Too easy." He shook his head, frowning. "Where's the feeling of intimacy, of sharing in that? I'm just describing people having dinner at the same time, then going to bed at the same time. They might as well be lying side by side looking at the ceiling and hating each other. Where's the love?"

Robert's hands were absentmindedly reviewing the chorus chords while he spoke, and he automatically started to repeat his question on the chorus melody. "Where's the love?" And suddenly stopped and turned enthusiastically toward Aye, nearly shoving her out of the shelter in the process.

"That's an idea! Instead of stating I feel love, why not ask the question?" He started the chorus again.

Is this love, is this love,
Is this love, is this love that I'm feeling?

(( Credits: corrected chorus (and general idea for the song) borrowed from Bob Marley. ))

Her tuning? Did that mean the sound of her voice, or how she was singing? She drew her eyebrows down over her eyes, and pursed her lips. She would need to work on both, then, she decided.

She blinked when he pointed at the lyrics, and had smiled when he started singing them. She too had thought they lacked something, some soul in the song. Maybe she could start having fun with it, throwing in nice twists of her voice, or swirling the words around as she sang.

She flailed her arms and regained her balance when he turned, grinning wider at the smile that was all over his face. She nodded still grinning, and picked back up the song where she was supposed to, this time trying to have good tuning.

After they had finished singing the song again, she nodded and placed her chin in her hand. She thought it was still missing something, but couldn't be sure what. "Should there be more words? It seems like it repeats th'same ones an awful lot." She bit her lip as she tried thought about what could be added. "Maybe the song should talk about things that the person thinks're wrong...." She didn't think she was explaining her point very well, so she started singing.

We'll be alone, because you are gone
Ill eat alone, because you aren't here
Ill lie alone, you are off on your own
Your mind is on other things, off with someone else, on my humble bed

Robert felt like the young girl was actually more out of tune the second time. What had just been minute shifts the first time, probably not detectable by the average audience, were now clearly off, like her being conscious of the problem magnified it.
Sorry.

But he had no time to discuss that, as Aye launched into a verse idea, in tune that time. He added the guitar while she sang, and nodded at the end of the idea.
"That's nice, but I'm not sure... I mean for this song. I wanted it just to say I love you, not I feel alone and I need you or something like that." The tall musician reached for his cigar, frowning as he found it extinguished. That happened regularly when he tried to smoke and play music, but he always hoped he'd be able to have a small part of his lazy mind keep track of such trivial facts the next time.

"Repeating lyrics is not boring if they are good. Looks like I'll have to leave this one alone until I come up with a better idea. Name's Robert by the way." He nodded in introduction as he searched for matches in his pockets.

"Did you notice you were in tune when you sang the new lyrics? Maybe I'm wrong, you shouldn't try to work on it. Just be confident and sing loud, and you'll place your voice naturally... Want to try it on another song? Something more tricky?"

She nodded when he spoke, "Oes, I was thinkin' that, jus' like teh... well I don't know, the song seemed sad teh me I guess.", she shook her head. She understood how the song said I love you, she just thought the "Is this love?" sounded sad.



Aye grinned, "M'names Aye, Junta, Robert!", little did Aye know, she already had a few nicknames for the man, shelter stealer wasn't going to work anymore, so guitar dude and Rob were fighting over first place.

She grinned and blushed when he said she was in tune, she was pretty sure being in tune was a good thing. "Oes, somethin' tricky sounds fun."

"Let's try this." The tall musician took a deep breath, and plucked a suit of serious sounding arpeggios on the guitar, while humming to himself. The song sounded very different from the previous one. It wasn't dancing. It just flowed, each tonality blending into the next, until you were not sure when the beat was. Robert had closed his eyes. His hand weren't moving that much, but he still found the song tricky. After a short time, he stopped, opened his eyes, and smiled to Aye.

"I think I can remember enough of it. Your part goes like this."
He started the guitar part again, and added his voice on it, on a different melody than the one he'd been humming.

Oh Oh, Alioe,
Let your eyes on us,
Let your eyes open,
Let your eyes on us,
We praise you tonight,
Tonight, we praise...

The lyrics were simple, but took a long time to actually sing. There were rests, there were long holds. There also might be dangerously high notes, but they didn't strain Robert who was singing it in his lower register. The tall human shook his head as he stopped.
"From Lucida's mass for the queen's birthday. The lyrics are the usual golly nonsense, but the melody's gorgeous don't you think? You've got to give them that, some of them gollies really are outstanding composers. And it sounds even better with a piano. Ready? I'll sing the soprano part under you at first, then we'll see if I manage to add the baritone without one of us getting lost."

On Aye signal, he'd start the piece again.

Lacey was bored. Bored as a shipless, crewless, slightly toasted pirate captain could be in the rainy, muggy harbor. Sure, it had its pleasentries. Men..women..rum...but it was all wearing thin on the blonde. Wandering down the streets of the haphazard seatown, heading toward the ocean Lacey looked for something...anything..to staive off the bordem.

"Ye! I'll fight ye! C'mon! Don't run away...aarrgghh...damnit." Shaking her sword at the quickly retreating commonfolk, she sighed heavily, then stopped.



The piratess turned her green eyes to the offkey childs voice, coming from a shanty near the water. It was a familiar childs voice. And the song, whilst off key, was actually pretty catchy. Sheathing her sword, the woman walked towards the shanty, slowly showing in view the young wick from the prior evening and a curious man with wick like hair. Interest perked for now, she walked closer.



Smiling slightly, the pirate crossed her arms. Not quite her cup of tea, but a nice tune none the less.

"Gollies an' their clocking worshipping crap. Wrecks perfectly good tunes it does. Aint anythin' worth praying t' when yer a fat golly sitting on yer fat erse doin' fat nothin'. Now, ou' on th' ocean...thare be some prayin' time."

She smiled, "It does sound benny." Then she nodded, and right after she had the second word out of her mouth...



She looked up at the source of the familiar voice, mouth still posed to sing. And then Aye recognized the woman standing there. Dressed in boots and swords and an awesome hat, this here, was a real pirate. The girls mouth spread into a wide grin, and if the roof of the shelter had allowed it Aye would have jumped for joy. Oh how Aye loved pirates, it was her dream to become a pirate, and so she looked up to Lacey.

"Oes, th'ocean..." The girl would have drooled. The ocean was where you sailed, on a pirate ship, as a pirate. She turned to look at Robert, "Eh, epaemo..." she had forgotten all about singing.

"The ocean…" Robert shook his head at Aye's reaction. "A beautiful place, sure, when you're an officer. But more about damp cold and back-breaking work for average jack! No time for praying there. Or for music if you're not the shantyman."

The musician cast a long look at the sailor. Wide hat, weapons... He did not know her, but unless she was working for the drain, she was clearly higher than him in the harbour hierarchy. He'd better be wary with her. But he could not let her disparage Lucida like that; golly or not, that woman had been one of the best composers of Anaxas' history. It was not very consistent of him, considering he'd been the first one to criticize the lyrics, or was often badmouthing gollies, but the young man didn't like other people to do it.

"What's your problem with prayers? One does not need to be afraid for his life to open his heart... The only problem with this song is praising a false god instead of directly praising Vita."

Robert sighed, picked his cigar up and foraged in his pockets for matches to relight it.

Grinning down at the little wick, Lacey winked. She reminded the blonde pirate of herself as a youngster. Wirey, witty and bold. Moving to uncross her arms, she hooked her thumbs in her belt and looked at the musician, still grinning.



Lacey snorted a chuckle.

"Quit yer bellyachin'. If yer in love with th' ocean as any true pirate is, yer don't care whether yer swabbin' th' deck or drinkin' in th' capn's galley. What you care about is th' wind in yer hair an' th' salt in th' mist that sprays up o'er th' bow....ahh..tis a sight t' behold..." She sighed with a wistful smile.



The green eyed woman rolled her eyes, shaking her head and squinting at the man.

"Y'think Vita or the Gods want t' hear that jabber e'ery day? Arr, I think I would reach down an' smite all those bloody landlubbers praying day in day out about how hard thare lives are...sittin' on thare behinds, eatin' food cooked for them an' dictating to th' lower folks..." Wiping a hand across her brow, she shook her head.

"Clocks that be a hard life. Lucky thare be prayers for them poor folk." Crouching down beside Aye, she took off her hat and planted it on the little girl's head.

Aye wrinkled her nose at the blonde's words; if she were vita or the gods she would probably get tired of complaints, too. She could see where the pirate lady was coming from, but she also thought the song was pretty sounding.

"It does sound good, though. Even if'n it’s got complaints and such all through it." she said, looking down at her knees. "An' th'sea... Oh it sounds benny, chip." She grinned up at the woman.

The next thing she knew was that there was a hat on her head. A pirate hat. Worn by a real live pirate. The girl inhaled for a few seconds, eyes going wide as a hand flew up to feel said hat. Her grin grew fifty times wider, as flashes of life at sea and commanding ships danced in front of her eyes. Not to mention the loot, oh the things she would steal!

She was tempted to steal this hat, even, but with as happy as it was making her she couldn’t imagine what she would feel like if it was hers and some boch stole it. She decided it would be cruel to steal something so important to someone, even if she wanted it. Aye bit back her stealing desire, and vowed that she would get her own hat, possibly with feathers. Some big fluffy green ones.