strangetrip | [EP] Progress (OTA, Corbie or Curnen)

It was almost December, but the day was still more than warm enough to spend outdoors. So two girls were out in the sunshine, one fair, one dark, aware and amused with each other’s efforts but not particularly paying attention to each other.

Curnen’s fingers were starting to remember what to do with a guitar, though they were still incapable of being fancy. Sitting on the lawn with Rob’s guitar in her lap, she played anything that came to mind. Her sixth fingers were a bit lost, but it did sound like music at least. It would be some time yet before she could really play again, though that didn’t bother her much. If it meant she was scraping herself back together, becoming a Tufa again, it didn’t matter. And besides, the singing was always the best part. She wasn’t sure why this song, since there was no wind and rain, but in many versions of this same song there were two girls colored rather like the two of them.

There were two sisters came walkin' down the stream
Oh the wind and rain
The one behind pushed the other one in
Cryin' oh the dreadful wind and rain

Johnny gave the youngest a gay gold ring
Oh the wind and rain
Didn't give the oldest one anything
Cryin' oh the dreadful wind and rain

Corbie meanwhile was busy setting things on fire again, but this was different fire. Or at least it was for her. She and Regina had been practicing creating fire and putting it out. She set a circle of protection around a small stone, using what she understood of Cabaline theory to keep the spell literally grounded. And then she proceeded to do her best to destroy the shit out of that rock by throwing fireballs at it. It gave her something to aim at, gave her more than one thing to practice at a time. She was getting better at aiming and her ward was holding.

She stopped only to take the ward down and set another one, larger this time, on her knees in the road with a piece of chalk.

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Curnen smiled and tucked a strand of her long dark hair behind her ear self-consciously. "Kinda. Relearning. My sister taught me when I was small, but it's... been a while. Lost the knack." It was true enough.

"You have a sister? Older?" Not that her younger sister couldn't have taught her but it would be strange. "I don't have any siblings. My dad's boyfriend has a daughter though, so that's something at least." Not that they were particularly close. She went to birthdays, if she could make it, but that was more for her dad than anything.

"Older," Curnen confirmed with a nod. And despite sounding like she couldn't come more from the heart of the Bible belt, she didn't blink at the dad's boyfriend or his daughter. "Bliss can make a guitar recite Shakespeare."

"That sounds amazing. Is she a professional musician?" Bliss sounded like a musician's name. Like the kind of person who won Grammys. Non-televised ones, probably, if she played the same kind of music that Curnen had been playing. That sound rarely made widespread airplay.

Shaking her head, Curnen clarified, "Nah, she's an EMT, actually. Playing is something she makes time to do. Most people in the community do." Because it was part of their identity and well-being. For a Tufa there was no misery like being cut off from music.

Didn't she fucking know.

"That's awesome." Caroline leaned forward. "Will you play something else?"

Curnen ducked her head, shy but pleased. "Hm..." Her fingers shifted around on the neck of her instrument--it was hard not to think of it as hers now--she considered what she knew and what she could probably pull off. Did she know anything fun?

She smiled as she hit on something, launching into "Jackaroe"

There was a wealthy merchant,
In London he did dwell
He had a lovely daughter,
The truth to you I'll tell
Oh the truth to you I'll tell

Caroline's fingers were tapping before long. It was a sweet tune, a rambling little story about a girl and her sailor love that finished up with a sly proposal that made Caroline laugh. "Clever writer. I wonder if it worked?"

"If what worked?" Curnen asked, her fingers stilling the strings. She had never really paid particular attention to the ending, and she wasn't sure she wanted to do it now. It was a rare love song that ended happily, that was all she'd ever thought about it.

"The proposal. At the end of the song, the narrator asks her sweetheart to be together." Caroline leaned back on her hands. "I did something like that once. Do you know the song Eternal Flame?"

Curnen only shrugged. "I dunno. 'Jackaroe' is old, and it's got it's variations."

As for the question, she could only shake her head.

"It's an old song, from the 80s." Less old than Jackaroe, probably but older than Caroline, anyway. "By the Bangles. There was a band playing at the Mystic Grill, this restaurant bar in town back home. My boyfriend was mad at me, and I...kind of snapped. Hopped up onto the stage, grabbed the mic, told the lead of the band that he was going to help me with my rock star dreams and started to sing." Caroline smiled at the memory. "It worked."

That was something that would definitely happen in Cloud County, and Curnen grinned her approval. "Nicely done. I've seen more'n a few tides turned by spontaneous public performance."

Boy hadn't she. How was Stoney doing without his dick?

"It was pretty unreal." Caroline laughed. "I mean, that's like something out of a movie. But it worked and we were happy for a while." It didn't last. It couldn't have. And then there'd been Tyler. Her real first love.

Curnen nodded. "That's the way of it. You got a man and a woman and it's a love song. Most of 'em don't end happily, though. And then in real life of course, the song ends and then life happens."

"I heard once that this writer said the key to a happy ending is knowing when to stop writing. Otherwise, you're always going to be disappointed." Which made Caroline think about her own life so far. When would she have said to stop writing? That night at the Grill? When she'd fallen for Tyler? Would she erase Klaus from her life or hope that there was something better past that mistake?

"I think I'd rather have life. There's always the possibility of something better tomorrow."

Curnen's grin was sharp, but full of approval. "Damn straight. Only way to make it be over it to be dead. And nothing's worth lying down and dying over."

[EP] Progress (OTA, Corbie or Curnen)

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