datadiving | catchall for hk shenanigans

A fingertip ghosts over the surface of the blade. The blunt side- she feels if she touched those edges, even the silk she was made of would yield.

What an interesting, odd material. Unimpeded by the spike this time, Lace hums again, a handful of notes.

It's not merely the weapon that resonates, but, the entity holding it, though in rather different manners. There's a note of concord between little warrior and weapon, but, also, a grander, deeper echo to the former, than merely the cold, metallic ringing of the former.

The melody fades, and Lace tilts her head, eyes narrowing slightly. It's not without a more guarded note that she speaks again. "Well, now. Appearances can be deceiving, now, can't they dear?"

They're not really paying attention at first, to the sounds she makes. Sounds have always filtered through a little more slowly, for them; the mask clamps down on their senses.

Vision, and touch - those are unimpeded. But sound comes through a little strange, muffled, wrong. Sensations on the mask itself are barely able to be felt.

They feel the sound resonate through them, and even more - the darkness within them responds, a vibration too low to hear but enough to be felt. It rings within their mask, an echo of a voice they once had, and lost. It's enough to make them startle, jumping to their feet in shock - not hostile or afraid, just surprised. Confused, a little. Their nail is held loosely in one hand, not in a position of attack.

They nod, after a moment. Yes, that much is true. Appearances are deceiving; they don't look like what they are.

They would like to sing back, to return that resonance. But they don't think they can, and even if they could, they don't know how.

They don't know if there's an easy way to convey that they...liked? The notes. Or at least, they were fascinated by them, by her voice. Instead, they settle for patting at their own blank mask; covering the place where a mouth might be on an ordinary bug with a hand, then dropping it.

They can't ask her to do it again, really. All they can do is convey their lack of options to return what they see as something new, interesting, a favor.

At the sight of how much they startle, Lace buries a giggle in a raised hand. The idea of being able to catch someone off-guard with something as simple as that Song- well, they really weren't from around here.

And, as they indicate themselves, sound comes a bit beyond them. "A voice is an easy thing to have on hand for some, but not for others, I suppose." A bit of her usual airy tone is punctured; she has... some sympathy, for being fettered by design, she supposes. There's no real way to observe the total lack of a mouth and not understand that it isn't an indifferent oversight.

"There's plenty of workarounds, though, in a place like this, if you have a bit of ingenuity."

She supposes she can do them a small favor, spare a bit of time. They have helped her, and so amenably, they don't ask more of her.

"Song runs along the kingdom's veins, it echoes and finds purchase in anything that has the slightest freedom to move." A bit of rigid stone protrudes from the muffling blanket of moss; with a quick swing, she strikes it broadside with her pin, lets the two ring off each other even as the resonance travels up her arm. A voice of metal, a voice of stone. Different timbres and pitches. They call, disrupt the deep, damp stillness, for a moment, and then their waves fade, settle to silence again.

"Of course, not every movement is music. Bereft of meaning, it simply becomes noise."

They're being given a lesson. As always, when someone is trying to teach them something, they are attentive, focused in a way that blocks out everything else.

They cock their head to the side as the noises ring out. Metal, stone, chitin - all things to be surpassed, toyed with perhaps, ultimately cut through. The sound of the vast stone door being broken down, the clatter of the metal railings, the frenetic chime of the stagway's bells. Echoing footsteps through carven rock and rain.

They've never viewed it in this way before, not really. They'd found some amusement in the sound of bells and levers and switches, the recorded songs in the gardens and the trams, but that was all.

They look for a suitable stone of their own to strike their nail against, to follow her example. Their first attempt provides more of a cracking sound (too much force, they think). Not enough to cause a lot of damage, but it's not a sound that sings freely in the air.

They try a gentler approach, turning their nail's blade, striking the stone with a blunter edge. The combined sound isn't as strong as the one the stranger had made, but it's still a sound of some kind.

It's something new, something they haven't tried before. They try again, several more times, attempting to convey different notes in childish curiosity.

Edited 2019-06-24 10:29 (UTC)

She's easily prone to amusement, perhaps, watching someone make rudimentary steps in an area she's known since her weaving, but this isn't the pampered child of an aristocrat calling themselves the greatest minstrel known to bugkind when they can hardly hold a harp straight. As such, this is perhaps a feast of relatively unguarded sincerity from her, and yet, there's sincerity to their efforts, as well.

She watches them attempt (and what an arm that little thing has, easily taking a piece out of the stone, and the nail no worse for wear, every delicate-looking carving still pristine), reevaluate and strike again, and then they seem to get the hang of it, even with a weapon not really designed for resonance.

"Well, it certainly seems like you have an ear for it already." Useful, that this is so far out in the wilds. Closer to Pharloom's heart, making such a ruckus would attract... dubious attention. Out here, the only thing to hear them are moss beasts, really. Not much of a discerning audience, that.

She hums, flicking her pin upward in the air to the first position and calls a ringing butterfly out of the ambient light. It lands on her free hand, opening and closing its wings.

By the way they straighten their posture from where they're hunched over in concentration, it seems they're happy to have her approval.

They amuse themselves with the sounds a while longer, and they probably could have done it all day if not stopped, but the butterfly distracts them. They've seen bigger butterflies before, ones that sang and spoke. This one reminds them of the little winged lights that flutter around them, or the small companions called to existence, when they use certain charms.

It's magic they've never seen before, and thus is wonderfully new to them. It feels different to the soul they're used to wielding, the restless spirits of the dead; it hums and sings with its own kind of special resonance.

They leave off their music-making and sheathe their nail, tilting their head up in clear curiosity to watch the fluttering light.

catchall for hk shenanigans

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