middaeg | haven't you noticed

Entry tags:

haven't you noticed

Who: Steven, Peridot, Lex, and potentially YOU!
When: Second half of May.
Where: The Haven, the Outskirts, the Outer City.
What: Steven plays music for the poor saps outside of the Bright Wall, explores the city, and also does some other things. Faerie traits begin to manifest. Sleep is disrupted. Includes some closed top levels, but also open stuff!
Warnings: Pop music.

★BUSKING PRO BONO (MAY 20+)

Power or no powers, if there's one thing Steven can bring to the table, it's the magic of music. Specifically, he's volunteered to lend his skills to the Outer City in the form of entertainment, playing his ukulele and singing his heart out while other people do tasks that could be considered more critical.

Not in his opinion, though. These people need food, and healing, and protection, but they clearly also need something to brighten their spirits. Unfortunately, his brand of otherworldly music may not be all their familiar to their ears.

Not quite comfortable enough to break out some of his newer creations, Steven has been running through a long list of Earth-based musical covers. Currently, he is performing a spirited rendition of Haven't you Noticed (I'm a Star), which seems to be drawing an equal mixture of interest and bafflement from the locals. He may have to fine-tune his set list in the future.

"Haven't you noticed that I'm a star?
I'm coming into view as the world is turning
Haven't you noticed I've made it this far?
Now everyone can see me burning~"

He finishes with a dramatic flourish, only now really turning his attention to the uncertain audience. Hm. Tough crowd. Maybe it doesn't help that after the recent full moon, he'll have developed the beginnings of glittery scales around his neck and shoulders, as well as to pink dots on his forehead that are clearly destined to be antenna.

★JUST STRAIGHT UP BUSKING (MAY 20+)

Beyond charity work, Steven can also be found around Aefenglom proper, playing music for pocket change. He can be found in a large variety of places, still playing mostly modern Earth music as well as a couple he's written himself. He's also using this as an opportunity to explore the city, now that he's feeling a bit better than when he arrived.

Also, his big pink lion is with him, playing chaperone and also giving Steven a ride. While Steven plays, Lion will happily nap nearby - though maybe that's not the best way to attract donars.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steven may be shrugging it off, but Toby's not going off the cue just yet.

"You must be on your way to growing wings and antennae again," she surmises, crouching to bring herself closer to the ground. "Is it painful? Some of those forming scales and such are distressed by it."

Ooof. The idea had occurred to him, but he'd also been trying to avoid thinking about it. Toby isn't one for ignoring the obvious, though, is she?

"...You think so?" he asks, sounding a little deflated. He lowers his voice, like he isn't sure he wants the various locals to hear, even as they disperse. "I mean... I know people are saying that they are growing fur and stuff, but..."

He's not sure how he feels about fae, or being part of them. He sighs, softly.

"It doesn't hurt, it's just kind of... itchy, sometimes."

"I suspect so. It fits the available evidence." This cue, she takes, though her voice is still a low rumble. It's unlikely to be overheard at least. Passersby prefer to give her some space, which is probably better for their health anyway.

The Animorphs were all altered by Andalite technology allowing them to take the shapes of different creatures. It seems like a very different thing, though - their shapes change in a disturbing manner over the course of a few minutes, and then they are entirely that shape, and must change back or risk being trapped.

"I'm sure there are medicines that would ease the discomfort. I can ask at the Coven - it seems this world has decided I am a witch."

She's lucky, he thinks. The randomness of who gets magic powers and who gets uncomfortable transformations is a bit disheartening. He feels both helpless and imminently dysphoric.

Mostly, he still just wishes he could go home. The idea hangs heavy on his heart as Toby speaks.

"It's not that bad," he says, his anticipation showing. "It's actually really pretty in the light!" His cheeks flush a little. "Being a witch sounds really cool, though."

"You're trying, but you're not comfortable with this," she says, again not taking a cue, or taking the chance to bring up her own concerns and apprehensions. "It's entirely understandable. There is not precedent for this here. Merrow are born as merrow, and so on, from what I can tell."

Toby considers him for a moment, and then adds, "Presenting a strong face is important, but it grows hollow if worn without respite. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to - someone should know, though. Even if it's only paper."

As the Seer for her people she gives counsel to them, though she's not the only one to listen to troubles. She talks to her parents, who might not be able to understand everything worrying her but are there, loving and faithful. If they were here, then the free Hork-Bajir would be entirely without an anchor. She can get by with a journal.

Sometimes just getting to the point may be the most effective thing with Steven, even if her directness makes him blush even more deeply. He suddenly feels very visible - even more so than when he was actively performing.

"...I just really thought we'd be home by now," he admits, with a note of reluctant anxiety. "We're still here, and if I'm changing... what if it's permanent? What if it changes other stuff about me, too?"

He felt the pull on the full moon. The feeling that his emotions weren't normal during that time is offputting.

"It might, and it may be." Toby's family history is... dark even for her canon. She's never learned the point of sugarcoating - it's only been in the past few weeks when she's even discovered that humans don't think stories featuring major injuries are good for casual conversation. "I don't know the future, not really. It could be that even if you return you will not be the Steven you left as."

She shifts a little, re-coils her tail to take her weight differently, and pulls those piercing red eyes away for a moment. "People change all the time, not always for the better. You will have to learn to manage, to adjust. The world can thrust a direction on you, but you are not helpless on the course of it."

Steven wraps his arms around himself, not really enjoying the thought. He knows about personal agency, he knows he's not completely helpless, but he just really didn't want this. He has so many things to be doing back home.

"I know..." he says, unhappily. "I just thought I was finally going to get a break. I miss my family... and they must be so worried about us..."

He starts tearing up, saying it. Really, it's something he's been holding back almost every day.

Edited 2019-05-28 03:54 (UTC)

Toby's never actually seen someone on the edge of weeping, let alone over it. Her eyes just aren't built that way. She's read about it at least and surmises that's what's happening, so she doesn't ask if he's sustained some dreadful injury.

She tries to make her voice gentler, and tries gingerly reaching out to lay a long ape-like hand on his shoulder. "It's not fair, to you or them. I know."

Better not say that the world doesn't care what's fair, that sometimes someone takes away something immense and leaves nothing in trade and there's nothing that can be done to correct it.

Steven sniffles and nods, wordlessly accepting the comfort. He knows there's nothing anybody else can do about it, at least not yet. It's just more of an enduring problem then he was hoping for. He rubs his eyes, wiping away tears.

"How... How are you doing?" he asks, apparently wanting to redirect the subject. "Is everyone treating you okay?"

All right, that apparently tears also come out of the nose is not something books talk about. That looks unpleasant and gross. Why do humans ooze so much.

There are ways to comfort Hork-Bajir children of loosely this size and these proportions, but this is not a month-old child of her people, and treating him like one would probably be counterproductive and get ooze on her. Toby nods and withdraws her hand.

"Well enough," she says, because her problems are her own. Still she has to add, darkly, "It will be worse on Earth, if my side wins the war. Most of these people think I'm something they understand and already respect."

It's okay, Toby. Steven cries more than average.

"Why would it be worse?" Steven says, like he might know what she means, but as if he still would like to hear more. "Because humans aren't use to you, there?"

The Gems haven't always gotten along perfectly with humans, but it hasn't been that bad, has it? Then again, they look a lot more human than Toby does.

Toby hesitates for a moment here, because she had a dream where she tried to explain this to a giant pink human-shaped alien who's not vulnerable and brushed it aside, and she didn't enjoy that.

"Humans have a long history of mistreating each other severely," she says slowly, deciding not to get into specifics. "They deny one another's humanity over extremely superficial differences and use those differences to justify the same atrocities we have already suffered from other species. The valley where my people live now used to host humans, but they were driven from their homes by the ancestors of the ones who live nearby now."

She may only know relevant history from some salvaged textbooks and the ramblings of a misanthropic preteen dropout, but she also knows the valley and has seen the signs.

"I'm much more like a human or like any other alien than the rest of my people are - we don't usually think like you do, and we appear alarming to most aliens. Aliens rarely see us as people." Even nominal allies will see Toby as a person, but not her parents, her community.

It's not that he doesn't believe her, it just doesn't ring true at all to his personal experience. In his experience, humans could be petty and mean, but they weren't often monsters. Earth was conceptualized as a precious thing to save, and its populace more often victims than the bad guys.

Maybe things are different on her version of Earth? He's not sure. It's weird to think that it could be. He's certainly not going to say she's wrong. She knows her own experience.

"I'm sorry..." he says, genuinely, though his confusion is obvious. "I guess... things don't really feel like that, on the Earth I'm from. I didn't know it would be like that for you." He considers that for a moment longer.

"How are the others different from you? What makes you more, um... human?"

"Then you are fortunate," she says into that innocent confusion, and leaves it at that.

Toby considers for a moment, weighing her options. Aliens usually say something like, the Hork-Bajir are stupid, but one in ten thousand is a freak with the intellectual capacity of its creator species. Hork-Bajir say something like, A Seer is different. Sees far, knows much. When Mother Sky and Father Deep say it is time, a Seer is born to show us a new way.

"We were created for a purpose. We are very good at that purpose, but we were not meant to reach beyond it. Our creativity is all in storytelling and music, not invention or extrapolation, and we are inclined to be... accepting, to a point. I'm what we call a Seer - I think differently. I can consider the past and future in more depth."

That sounds familiar - the idea of being made for a purpose. It immediately gives Steven a bit of emotional content, and he frowns and nods in understanding.

"Well... being good at stories and music sounds pretty great! Those are some of my favourite things," he says, smiling a little, unsure of if that's the right thing to say. It's true, though. "They sound really nice."

For once, Toby decides to take pity. She nods. Her facial expression has not changed a whole lot; she has some facial muscles, but the heavy brow ridges don't move.

"My father is a great storyteller. He can't... most of us never learned to read, so everything he has is from memory. Some of the epics take weeks to tell properly, and he never forgets the wording." Lowering her voice she adds, "I suspect that because I did learn to read my memory isn't as keen. This is the way of things, I suppose."

"Wow. Yeah, I definitely couldn't remember all that without having it written down," Steven says, curiously rubbing his chin. "What kind of stuff do they like to tell stories about? I wish I could hear one..."

Honestly, her species seem like the sort that he'd get along with just wonderfully, whether they are considered 'smart' by other aliens or not.

"Everything. The world makes more sense when you make it into a story. All of our old legends survive in stories, all the ways we understood the world. There are stories about the best times to harvest certain foods, and about people overcoming difficult situations we might meet. There are our histories, of course. And what is right for us, as contrast to what we are forced to against our wills. Lately, in the past two years, we speak of battle and the joys of freedom." Those and the histories are the only ones that feel entirely real to Toby, that feel relevant. Hork-Bajir as they had been are hard for her to grasp. Dak always said that when the Yeerks came and Aldrea urged his people to fight, their old selves died.

She can see already that her favorites will be too upsetting for this child. Humans seem to be upset by someone was injured and lived to recover. There are still some that might work.

Abruptly, she asks, "How are you doing about this 'bonds' business? Have you found someone?"

That is pretty sudden. One moment Steven seems fascinated by her explanation, and the next, he's wondering why she's asking that. He shrugs a shoulder, helplessly.

"Oh... I don't know! I haven't really done anything outside the city. I was feeling too sick up until a few days ago..."

He's not at all opposed to the idea of bonding - it's more the trouble of narrowing it all down.

"I could Bond with Peridot, she's one of my best friends. But... I'm pretty sure we're both monsters, so it wouldn't work as great without us having some witch partners, too..."

Toby's thoughts run on perpendicular tracks sometimes.

"When I go out, I stay within sight of the major wall." Which can be some distance when she's in the treetops, admittedly. What Toby really wants is to go further, make nests somewhere out in the deep wilds, in great old trees that haven't known the world tamed down around them. ...She does understand that that would be a bad idea.

"It will still help to a degree, as far as I can tell. As a... witch, I seem to be fine so long as I expend the magic I generate." She thinks she can identify it by now, a sort of tension or energy building in her chest, restless, seeking a grounding point. Growing. "We are nearly strangers, so I don't know if you would welcome a more structured alliance, but I could give some to you."

"Wait..." He sounds a little breathless for a moment, caught off guard but also fascinated. His eyes seem to sparkle a little, even as he's clearly confused.

"Are you asking if I want to Bond with you?"

It's true that he barely knows her, and she's also hella intimidating, but her offering to help him in any such magical capacity seems to touch him regardless.

She looks, if anything, embarrassed - she looks away for a moment, birdlike toes curling. "If you like. Or else I could provide you with charged items, which I understand is another option."

As far as she's been able to tell, while there can be emotional leakage with bonds one person doesn't control the other, or dig through their thoughts and memories. Toby's never had a Yeerk and doesn't want to be one, even indirectly, so if that had been part of bonds she wouldn't offer. It is always possible that it works differently when the 'witch' isn't human.

Assuming it works the same, though, someone should look out for small, hybrid children.

On one hand, he's so touched by the gesture, part of him wants to agree immediately. On the other hand, from everything he's heard, Bonds are a pretty big deal - will it really be a good thing to do it with someone he hardly knows yet?

"Oh... that could be great," he says, obviously fluttering with thinking about the possibilities. "But... we should hang out first! And be responsible! And make sure we're a good fit, okay? What do you like to do in your free time?"

He sounds like he's going to ask her on some kind of playdate.

"A good idea," she says, not sure if she's relieved or disappointed. "I..."

She likes to think of new ways to fight, new plans for raids and diversions, she likes to test traps and weapons and tactics, she likes feeling the unity and purpose of the warriors. They're stressful, often painful, but the nights when they can save one of their own and get the Yeerk out of his or her head are exhilarating.

Even as those come to mind she knows they're the wrong answer here. Toby refocuses. "I like climbing trees. I like seeing the world from above, and helping someone up who's never been allowed to climb. It's not the same as listening to a storyteller, but I like to read. Seeing my people happy is good, also."

haven't you noticed

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