[ooc.] the sun came up with no conclusions flowers sleeping in their beds private for beast. mia 17th, 81381. [ic.] the city cemetery’s hummin’ i’m wide awake it’s morning Gabriel often came out in the morning on weekends to walk from his condo to the nearest Tsujrokct (both of which were seated on the prestigious Jylump Avenue). It was 8:14, and the cloud-strangled sun was rising lightly in the skies, shades of bloody crimson and gold surrounding the gaseous ball of hell-fire, smeared through with fiery, acidic hues. A light wind had begun to blow. The snow still pelting down from the night before had lightened up, but it hadn’t shown any signs of stopping. The temperate blanket covering the campus was piling up in increments of multiple inches each few days. The rime-colored arden attempted to peer through frost-impregnated skies, monochrome clouds inadequately covering the day-star. Icy tendrils cut through thick, pale coat and cloth, and even though it easily soaked up heat from the hazy sunshine, Gabe still felt a little chilled. The ice-eyed boy readjusted his trenchcoat and striped scarf; brushed a few flakes of snow off of his tight, ink-black pants, and plucked at his cream/brown-colored shirt- which was emblazoned with the word “PARALLAX" (one of the greatest and world-renowned rock-alternative-grunge bands in Ramath) in onyx ink. Lifting the flap of his khaki-colored messenger bag to pull out a battered black wallet, the lemon and obsidian-haired male pushed the glass door open and walked inside. There were a few people scattered around the boho-esque coffeeshop, but there wasn’t anyone in line. Pulling a few bills out of his wallet, ‘Riel walked up to the counter and ordered a Vanilla Chai Latte. Holding the steaming, Styrofoam cup in one hand, Gabe sat down on a plush, burgundy-colored coach, took a long sip, and began to finger his way through the CDs in the rotating rack right next to him.
Already seated on the opposite end of the wine-colored couch sprawled a lightly grinning Khell, his wide white wings, completely unblemished and unpainted, drooping behind him over the back of the sofa. His long-sleeved shirt, also white and with the top three buttons undone to expose part of a scrawny chest, made his thin, bony frame seem even more delicate than it really was, and his spindly ankles were exposed where dark pants were just a smidge too short to reach. Perched precariously across one knee was a small metal instrument -- a glockenspiel. Each tap of the wooden-ended mallets in his lithe fingers made the tiny metallophone wobble, but he didn't seem to notice, his eyes half-shut in bliss as he drew the clear, bell-like notes into the air. When the stranger sat down, his eyelids fluttered for a moment, but he continued playing the soft, eerie tune; it was only once the unknown 'dragon began looking through the CDs that Khodan sat up properly, put out one hand to steady his glockenspiel, and opened his eyes. "You're wasting your time. There's not much good music here, unfortunately," he declared, eyebrows raised. A faint smile teased his lips, but he was entirely serious about the music -- it was one of the few subjects he was willing to state his opinions about. "Much too serious, the stuff. All about 'deeper meanings' and 'poetry.' Do you like it?" He transferred both mallets to the hand steadying the glockenspiel and leaned forward, grasping a small white cup on the table with his free hand. It was tea, and he sipped it thoughtfully for a moment before setting it down again and settling back in his seat. After a pause, he added, "Most people here say they do. Like the music, that is."
With his eyes sealed shut, it took Gabe a few moments to realize where the clear, chiming notes were from- a young khell male sitting besides him. He tuned to face the other as he began to speak. "You're wasting your time. There's not much good music here, unfortunately," To this, the stripe-haired boy offered the half-grin that was his trademark, the rightmost corner of his muzzle tipping upward for the briefest of moments before settling into neutrality. "Much too serious, the stuff. All about 'deeper meanings' and 'poetry.' Do you like it?" Turning a little, his burnished coat gleaming like so many pinpricks in the chill of a fast approaching winter, the moon-painted arden lifted his magnificent head and looked over at the other. With an eloquent tilt of his head, he gazed obliquely at him. “Depends on how I feel," he said, shrugging. “My tastes in music vary almost on a day-to-day basis. Right now, I feel like some jazz." He motioned to the instrument lying on his varicolored counterpart’s lap, folded his slender legs into a lotus position, and sipped at his latte. "It sounds beautiful," he mused thoughtfully, ruefully, "like bells. That’s a glockenspiel, right? I just love that clear tone." Dipping his stone-washed muzzle, he nodded as if in quiet confirmation of this- acceptance, perhaps; acknowledgement? -and straightened again. Lucky for Gabriel, Khodan's smiles were rather contagious, and he felt the corner of his muzzle tug upward in a ragged grin that- lo and behold!- stayed in place for the space of a few moments. "Most people here say they do. Like the music, that is." ‘Riel offered a quiet, smirk-accompanied shrug in response. Noncommittal, but not at all rude. The khell had achieved what most strangers didn't dare breach with the icy-eyed arden- a familiarity that collapsed the artist’s walls of formality and implacability. “Mhm. I guess that a lot of them do, but some of them… they just seem poseur-like when they say that. I’m an artist, though, and I find that listening to music related to whatever I’m drawing or painting about helps my creative juices flow even more." Khodan's amusement was warming, as warming as the sun itself, and a sigh of contentment rippled through the alabaster pendragon’s form. He extended a slender, gray-dipped, long-fingered and ring and bracelet-banded hand to the other male in a casual handshake. “I’m Gabe. Gabriel yv sha Azela."
"Jazz?" Khodan echoed, a larger smile overtaking the small grin on his face. This was an answer he had not expected -- an answer he rather liked, actually. There weren't many random strangers in this coffee shop who hadn't declared their undying passion for the array of CDs on the racks; there were some who had even gotten upset with him for his own opinion on the music. The candid answer provided by this stranger, this colorless arden, was enough to make Khodan incline his head in a small nod of appreciation. At the sound of the other's praise for his glockenspiel, his mind abruptly switched tracks. "It sounds beautiful." "Oh. Thank you. Unless you mean the instrument in general, not specifically my playing, in which case I would just agree. Yes, it's a glockenspiel. Simple enough to play, once you get a basic grasp of scales. Do-re-mi and whatnot." He didn't even attempt singing any scales, knowing already that his singing voice was somewhere between "nails on a chalkboard" and "small animal dying." Instead, he tapped the mallets along the bars right to left, big to small, starting with the lowest note and ending with the highest. Placing the mallets again to the side, he leaned forward once more to pick up his little cup of tea, listening to the stranger say his piece on music as Khodan slurped the steaming beverage. When he was finished talking, Khodan was finished drinking, and he set his cup down, steepled his fingers, and took a moment to formulate a reply deep in the recesses of his head. What finally came out was, "That may be true for you, but I am a musical artist -- that is, a musician. And I think it would be somewhat impractical for me to listen to music while creating my musical art, for obvious and cacaphonous reasons," accompanied by a teasing smile and a glimmer in his green-gold eyes that made it clear he wasn't the sort to discuss any deeper thoughts than that. "In all seriousness, however," he continued, sobering slightly but retaining his amiable smile, "Music is -- generally -- a wonderful way to, as you say, get those creative juices flowing." Without further conversation, he reached to accept the outstretched hand of the arden and shake it gently, his grip neither hard nor soft. After nodding once at the other's name -- Gabe -- he said as simply as he could, "Khodan Spinner. Call me whatever you feel like."
A kaleidoscope of shafted light and iridescent morning-glow crept across the polished granite floor, filtering through the brushed-steel-framed windows. They trees outside shifted wearily, wind tugging their boughs, a crawling groan croaking in aching depression into the atmosphere. Taut, nearly invisible buds nipped the spinal protrusions that were limbs, but the constricted leafy contraptions would remain in tedious patience until spring- and then theyÂ’d expose their virginal greenery to this docile world. The shadows were heavy laden and smitten with an ebony akin to charcoal. Gabe liked the winter. It was cold, windy; a preserver and formaldehyde for infant green life. Even with his fingerless gloves on, his hands were a little nipped, still, and he clutched his latte tightly before taking another sip and setting it on the low-set table besides him. His pale eyes, rimmed with an obsidian border of eyeliner and shadow, blinked the sleep out of his mind. The caffeine was starting to kick in though, thankfully. Shrugging his chiseled shoulder blades unconsciously, Gabriel raised his narrow muzzle to gaze at the glockenspiel and its posesser, sea-colored eyes wide with curiosity and awe in the same precise moment. "Oh. Thank you. Unless you mean the instrument in general, not specifically my playing, in which case I would just agree. Yes, it's a glockenspiel. Simple enough to play, once you get a basic grasp of scales. Do-re-mi and whatnot." He laughed at the other's jest on the instrument and himself. It all felt so strange to a body that wasnÂ’t used to harboring such much positive emotion constantly. Usually, it came in little bursts. A world he had once been desperate to be a part of didnÂ’t understand him and his precise, quiet way of going about things. He was one of the "cool kids" now, though- but oftentimes, some people didn't understand him and his sudden pangs of emotional pain. Life could take horrible twists and turns, delve him into sticky situations- and he just had to cope, because what else could he do? His world had faded to a dirty shade of gray, and his paradise heaven had merged with his hell. The boy didnÂ’t even care enough to try and rebuild that that had crashed around him, but unfortunately heÂ’d suddenly been forced to find that that made him even more emotionally unprotected. With that reawakened vulnerability, old scars on his soul were destined to be ripped open again and unable to heal more than they already hadnÂ’t. Nevertheless, Gabe rolled his black-banded shoulders in what he would currently describe as a light mood. HeÂ’d turned his back on the cold world, feeling a previously absent joy at the promises the future might hold. "I'm an artist in the physical sense, as I previously stated, but I used to want to be a singer." Nonchalantly, he raised one brow with a subtle, hoyden grin sliding up one side of his face. "I've always loved singing, but my parents never wanted me to- they wanted me to just stick to the material arts." 'Riel sighed; shrugged again, frowning slightly. "And, well, I've obeyed their wish, even beyond death." He sipped at his coffee again. "So, Khodan, you're a student at Dragonbach's I assume- or have you already graduated? 'Cause, I've never seen you around Janardan before." Deep down inside of him, there was some emotion he wanted to express; something he wished to share with another. And becoming what he was today was never in his life plan at all. In fact, had things turned out differently, he wouldÂ’ve loathed the creature heÂ’d become. Still, scaling through all of those layers that comprised the young adult, there was a good 'dragon with a good heartÂ… maybe with his innate chivalry being the only thing in which he could express such buried desires, and not completely succumb to a cold, broken existence- more so than he already had.
Khodan sat back in his seat and let his arms fall to his sides, limp and relaxed, and smiled as laughter burbled from the mouth of the other arden. He sighed contentedly and basked in the glow of it, the simple expression of mild-to-moderate joy, because it was the one thing he loved doing most for people: making them laugh. It was a passion, an addiction, his gift in life -- and he was, he liked to think, very good at it. But he didn't just enjoy any merriment; no, it was that specific, nonchalant, conversational laughter achieved through witty words (or sometimes simple statements in the right situation, like the one he'd just issued) coupled with genuine happiness or glee -- that was what he loved. So when he seemed to be able to open this stranger up, on a subconcious level he recognized this and felt a certain warmth in himself. It was this sort of warmth that he lived off of, and, usually without even trying, received from people generously. He smiled back and met the aqua gaze of the other arden with his own bright green stare, the corners of his eyes lifted in amiability. A light smile, not so small that it wouldn't be noticed whilst not so large as to come off goofy, traipsed across his lips, and he awaited the arden's reply with ears attentively swiveled forward. "...but I used to want to be a singer." Those words, above everything else Gabriel said, rose like a great wave forming, an overwhelming crescendo of possibilities welling up inside Khodan's mind. He took a deep breath in, leaned toward Gabriel a little, and managed to look only slightly crestfallen at the statement, "And, well, I've obeyed their wish, even beyond death." But he had made up his mind the moment Gabriel had uttered the word singer: He, Khodan, would no longer have to write songs with spoken lyrics. He could -- would -- have Gabriel sing with him... And he seemed to believe, without a doubt, that Gabriel could sing; it simply felt right to him. "Dragonbach's? No, I'm too old for them. I go to an obscure little school -- you probably wouldn't know it," he murmured distractedly in reply to the question posed, but a strange fire danced in his yellow-green eyes at an entirely different thought. He leaned forward, grasped his tea from the table in one thin hand, took a long, deep pull on it, and set it back down with a decisive clunk. Thus prepared, he turned his intensely green eyes back on Gabriel and smiled. "What would you say," he began slowly, though the words were expanding quickly within him, trying to burst out all at once, "If I were to offer you a position in a band? (Well, not 'band,' per se, as I am the only member -- at the moment. You can change that.) "But, see, the thing is: I can't sing. Simply can't. At all. You, however -- I don't know, it feels like you can. Of course, a formal audition would be necessary, and if, for some ungodly reason, it turns out you're as bad as me... No, no, it won't turn out that way. It can't." He paused, tilted his head to the side quizzically, and smiled that smile, at once enigmatic and entirely plain, uncovered. "You would say yes, wouldn't you?" he guessed, and hoped with all his being that he guessed right. "Please say yes." With one mallet in either hand, he tapped the glockenspiel several times -- the high, light notes seemed to be echoing his request.
Rain was just pouring outside. Fatigue blew bullet holes in his stamina, and had caffiene not been spurring him on, the ashen male would've been sleeping, silently laying his lean, lanky form over the wine-colored couch. Gabe didn’t mind the fact that the air was a little cold and damp, nor did he mind the fact that it was rather stormy out. Actually, he loved it. And he didn't understand it. Just like he didn’t understand why he did, what he did. Gabriel lived in a dreamland. Behind the haunting cobalt eyes there was a twisted catacomb of information. However, it seemed as though his dreams were in a plague like a chimera flame, and overhung with a symphony of hymns. No, not he who was the master of the puppet. He was the maker. The khell grinned back at him, and he felt a sudden flush in his face. 'Riel flashed a small grin, wagging his tail a bit more boldly. And then, he asked him the question. No, no. The Question – the one that could get him out, recognized, shoved into the public eye. "Yes, yes!" he cried. "I'd love to, Khodan!" Life likes curveballs. In the groin.
