strangetrip | [EP] I am made of stars

Entry tags:

[EP] I am made of stars - OTA

It was night and everything smelled like the sea.

Snow White lay spread-eagle in middle of the parking lot, staring up at the stars. Her hair fanned around her head, inky black and, seeing as she hadn’t bothered to cut it since her arrival, growing almost absurdly long.

The sun had set over an hour ago and the sky was full into the black. The moon, not quite full but still nearly so, shone down silver and cool like a single huge, impassive eye. The sight of so much sky and so little horizon left her feeling dizzy, as though if she could forget the feeling of pavement under her back she might float upward and be lost in that eternity up there. It reminded her distantly of Mrs. H’s mirror and how it had caught the moon in its glass. But not enough to spoil the view. Not enough to make her afraid.

She’d had the nightmare again last night, the one where she was caught in the room full of fire. In the beginning it came every night. Then slowly but surely, it became less frequent. She hadn’t burned through the night in months. Logically, it would be months again before the fire, but she still couldn’t quite face going in, lying down, and closing her eyes.

She thought of Sansa and--because she had never asked--wondered if the stars in Westeros were different from the ones above her now. She wondered if that velvet black had a texture, and then if it was stupid to wonder that. She named all the constellations and stars she knew, some from her childhood observations, some from books she’d read in the library. Her gaze fixed for a time on Polaris.

She didn’t think anybody was around to hear her. “It’s so far away that no matter where we are, that’s still north.” It was a wild thought.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, that was good at least... though she was a little unsettling.

"Alright....... are you, okay?"

Snow White looked a little bewildered by the question. She understood--though she couldn't for the life of her understand why--people asked each other 'how are you?' as a pleasantry. She hated that question. It was a lie. Most of the time, they didn't actually want to know.

He did. Though she didn't really grasp why. "I'm fine," she said. She paused a long beat before asking, "Are you a gnome?"

He assumed this was because everyone knew Pike was a Gnome.

"Yeah. I am." All three feet of him.

Scanlan pretended to take off his imaginary hat and bow while he sat in a flourish and affected his voice a bit, "How do you do, M'lady?"

Snow stiffened reflexively. "I ain't a lady." Even when she'd been the only, indulged daughter of the big house, she had never been a lady. Her father had paid the staff well not out of the goodness of his heart but so they would keep quiet about her. She was a secret. A shame. Because somewhere along the way before he'd married her stepmother, he'd realized how badly he must have lost his damn mind to marry an Indian.

She took a breath and made herself loosen, if not quite relax. "I'm Snow White."

"That's alright, neither am I." A lady, that is. But Scanlan took note of how she said that and filed it away.

"I'm Scanlan. Friends with Vex and Percy." No one had really told him about anything about Snow and her relationship with Vox Machina, but he had seen the woman with Zahra at the spring dance and she had been at the wedding reception and hung around Trinket which meant Vex trusted her.

Snow nodded. "Gathered, from your musical number." Only a friend could get away with singing something that stupid and not get beaten with sticks. Though even friends got punched. To tell the truth, Snow was still figuring out exactly how friends actually worked.

"Did you like it?" Because Vax had enjoyed it, at the very least, and a few others found it amusing. Scanlan thought the song was fantastic and was now in his usual repertoire.

Snow's exposure to music was... limited. One of her governesses had played the flute, and she'd learned some rudimentary piano once upon a time as part of the things a marriageable young girl should know (though the marriageable part got scrapped eventually). Her stepmother could play piano and sing, and Snow had drunk her songs up like milk, eager as she was for a mother's voice. But most of what she knew about music and musicians came from watching countless girls in countless shitty saloons, playing for men who didn't appreciate it. Effort that went unrecognized, that she was expert at.

But right now what she had to say was, "I don't really know. I think so."

He'd never had someone answer like that. A yes or No were standard, but a maybe was new. How did you not know if you liked something?

"Not a big fan of music?"

"I haven't heard very much," Snow corrected. "Not until I left home."

"That's easily fixed." Like it was a problem not to be exposed to enough music or something. "Want me to play you another tune? I've picked up a lot over the years."

Regina hummed to her sometimes when she woke from a nightmare, but Snow could not recall any other time someone actually offered to play or sing for her. Miss Bornay's flute had been her private enjoyment. Mrs. H's piano had been for her father.

She hesitated. Not because she didn't want it, but because she had to give it a moment. "... Okay."

Scanlan took a moment to think of a song. Maybe not one of his more risque songs right now in the darkness of night. "Alright... I'll see you a song a wrote about a man I knew."

He started to strum the lute in a slight upbeat song. It's a song he hasn't sang in a while, but he knew it well.

" The palace guards are all sleeping Their fires burn into the night There's a threat of rain on the dark horizon And all that's left is a quarter moon of light He climbs up through the darkness No weapon but his surprise The greatest thief in the high Sahara Enters the room where a sleeping princess lies All your money, your pretty necklace This is my work on such a night There's a storm coming over the mountain I'll be gone long before the morning After the rain has fallen After the tears have washed your eyes You find that I've taken nothing, that Love can't replace in the blink of an eye He was as gentle as the night wind As no lover had been before And the rings she wore for her bride groom Slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor Take me with you, take me with you"

He continued to sing until the song was done.

Snow listened, she really did. She did her best to make sense of what the words were trying to say, but at the end, after a long silence, she admitted in an awkward mumble, "I don't understand."

Scanlan didn't seemed fussed about it. "About a guy who met a girl who was already spoken for." There was more to it, of course, but Scanlan didn't think it mattered. "You don't really need to understand the song to enjoy it, not really. One of my favourite songs is in Elvish and to this day, have no idea what it's about except, apparently a talking frog."

Snow hadn't picked that up at all, though she supposed this wasn't the first time something that should have been obvious went completely over her head. Why a song about a talking frog would be so appealing, that didn't make much sense either. She blushed, feeling the weight of her own stupidity. "Oh."

Scanlan found her reaction interesting. "For me it's more about how I feel when I play or listen."

He started strumming without singing. Just a little, soft and slow. Surely the girl would be able to at least attach a feeling to the sound of the music.

Snow turned her face back toward the sky and closed her eyes to listen. The sound was... lonely. Alone. The one image she had of her birth mother came unbidden to her mind, an Indian woman in a white woman's evening gown, walking into the woods and there hoping to end her life.

She opened her eyes again to the black and the stars, the blur of tears showing her not the sky, but the lesser vision of Gun That Sings's wedding dress. "Oh..."

It was clear that she probably understood that song, at least to whatever truth she had. Unless it was a drinking song, Grog also only really seemed to understand the songs without lyrics. He got too hung up on trying to understand the meaning of songs rather than letting the song guide yourself.

He let the silence linger. He hoped the memory or thought she had wasn't too sad. Maybe he should have done something more happy.

Finally his voice broke the silence of the dark. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she said. Snow may not understand why people couldn't just call a thing what it was, but damned if she didn't understand keeping certain things to herself.

And the truth of the matter was... yeah, while that memory still cut, it didn't make her wish she had died too, as it did the first time. She scrubbed at her face with her arm.

He seemed to take her word for it, absently strumming with no melody in mind this time. "Seems to me like you understand music just fine." He shrugged. "Just about finding the right kind you like."

"Maybe," Snow agreed. She didn't think so, but that didn't really matter. "Was always better at stories, though."

Scanlan liked telling stories, too. His interest was piqued, though. "Oh yeah? You have any good ones?"

"Dunno about good, but I do have 'em." Snow tried for the most part not to think about people she'd left behind in Gotham. It wasn't like letting go of her father and the servants, though. None of those people had cared anything about her well being.

She remembered Sissy then. Sissy had liked her stories, even when she could only tell them in whisper and didn't tell them as pretty as they could be told. Sissy--and Lian and Little B--were all growing up without her.

Well. They'd been doing that before she showed up. They couldn't miss her half as much, weird as she could be.

"One day, if you're up for it, I'd love to hear one. I enjoy a good story." He smiled, but didn't push any further. In fact, he stood up. "Would you prefer some privacy?"

[EP] I am made of stars - OTA

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan

Re: Snow & Scanlan