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The Park, Tuesday afternoon

Having spent the last twenty-four hours scoping out the town (okay, so there was that whole part where he'd had to go back to the mainland to find a motel he could actually afford, and then spending the morning trying to ignore the harp's insistence that he come back but the hours other than those), Roland decided the park was his best bet for a good afternoon busk. It was pretty centrally located, and lined with some decent businesses, so it'd hopefully get some good traffic.

And if not, well. He could at least entertain the ducks.

He considered starting with something like "Kashmir", but that was hitting a touch too close to home, just now (seriously, it was still July, 1989 on the mainland, how was it September, 2013 here? At least now he knew he wasn't stuck in the future), so he went with a folk song about an old legend. Maybe somewhere Rebecca could hear it and appreciate it.

[ooc: so very open, indeed. Link to (hopefully) "The Last Unicorn" by America]

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And then there was a Kenzi, suddenly, behind him, licking a lollipop.

"This is new."

Come on now, Kenzi, sneaking up on the new guy was just rude.

Roland let out a short, invective shout nearly drowned out by the discordant note he managed to get out of the guitar when he flinched.

They were possibly lucky that he didn't accidentally set something on fire with that.

Kenzi snickered and circled him, studying the set-up and him at the same time, letting herself be seen. "Niiice," she admitted, grinning, then flopped down in front of him. "I should've thought of something like this, but I can't sing." She leaned forward to peer over his shoulder. "Is that a harp? Seriously? Are you a Ren Faire kinda guy?"

At some point, Roland was going to have to get himself a home. So he could leave the harp there.

"No," he said. Though considering how much magical folky music was in his repertoire, he probably shouldn't be surprised to be taken as such. "I don't even know how to play it, yet. It's a, uh. Recent acquisition."

The harp, thankfully, remained silent.

"Pretttty." No, Kenzi, you are not Jack in the Beanstalk, you are not stealing a musician's harp.

Kenzi pulled back to grin cheekily at the new guy, and add, "You too. And I liked that song. Little more old-timey than my usual, though. You know any Voltaire?"

It'd been a long time since a woman checked Roland out. He took a moment to return the favor. Not bad, though not quite enough meat on her bones to really get him going. "Thanks. It's pretty folky, but it's only actually about ten years old." He frowned, thinking. "Okay, 30 years old." That was going to take getting used to. "I think I had to read something by him in high school?"

Not that he did read it. But it might at least have been assigned.

Excuse you! Kenzi was petite!... and yeah a tad underfed, but hey, styles change, dude. She had a boyfriend. Didn't mean she couldn't look. Also, he might become Bo's next meal.

"So there's a book about the unicorn?" Kenzi hummed thoughtfully. That might be worth reading. For research purposes. "Not that I can hunt those suckers. And hey, live and let live, especially around here..." Internal monologue becoming external, Kenzi said, "I'm Kenzi, by the way. Haven't seen you around before."

Yeah, Roland wasn't even going to pretend to be able to follow all that. "Roland. And that's probably because I just got here, yesterday."

"Aahhahah, oh, dude. Welcome. Did you mean to come here? Or was there a magic storm and suddenly you woke up outside a castle and wondered where the evil wizard was?"

"No to the magic storm," Roland said. "Yes to the wondering about evil wizards." Well, elves. He hung onto his guitar a little tighter. "Does . . . that sort of thing happen a lot, here?"

"A lot? Nooo. Although, that's kinda relative..." Kenzi looked thoughtful, then patted the guy's arm. Why not, right? "I mean, every term, some students show up who are all, 'what the fuck castle, what the fuck electricity, what the fuck Earth?' But I think that's 'cause their parents didn't do their research, you know?"

She leaned back on her hands and squinted up at the sun. "Magic storms, those are, I dunno. Every few months or something. Not always a storm. Just something mega-weird. And it's not always evil. Just mind-blowing."

Goddammit, harp.

"So the balance gets out of whack either way and it just kinda . . . reasserts itself?"

Look, he was still new to this whole magic thing. He got to put it into terms he at least partially understood.

"Kinda?" Sure, why not. It would explain the stuff that only lasted a weekend. "Some stuff only lasts a weekend, then it all goes away by Monday. Like being a pony, that was awesome."

He wasn't going to ask. Asking would be foolish. He was just going to --

"Being a pony?"

Dammit.

"Everybody was a pony. Were ponies. Whatever." Grammar, not her thing. "I even had wings, and I was blue." Kenzi grinned at him. "And all the women on the island turned into guys for a weekend, about two weeks ago. How the hell do you guys manage to walk, some days?"

Of course she knew the answer to that, but it was fun to mess with the new guy. If a little mean. Heh.

"Carefully," Roland said. "And with practice." That was the one part of that little monologue he felt at all qualified to tackle. "And people still live here?" They even had a high school. What was wrong with people?

He was assuming they didn't all have magic harps that yelled at them when they tried to leave.

"It's fun, once you get used to it." Kenzi beamed at him. "Plus, you know, I was on scholarship. Way better than home, let me tell you. I just graduated in May. Free room and board, buddy. The people are cool. When something really evil kicks in-- and that's, I dunno, once a year? Maybe? We've got lotsa hero types that try to help." She grinned. "Some of them even have bows and arrows ans swords. So why are you not running yet?" Seriously, anybody normal would've run off screaming by now.

Once a year. Roland had gone 28 years without ever noticing that there were things in the world that wanted to kill and/or eat him, and -- Okay, that wasn't actually true, was it? Toronto was no New York City, but it was a city, and any city had its underbelly. He just had never noticed how much of it was magic before last summer. 24 years ago.

He shook his head, his fingers picking out a scale on his guitar. "Dunno." He could always ditch the harp, after all. "Guess maybe it's part of the training."

"Training?" Kenzi tilted her head, slightly confused. "For what?"

Well what did you know, the babbling wasn't actually a constant.

Roland quirked a smile, shifting from scales to "Greensleeves". "Apparently, I'm a bard."

Yeah, he still had trouble saying that without qualifiers. Ah well.

Kenzi could do quiet. It usually meant she was Up To Something, but still.

Snickering, she said, "For real? That's a thing?... wait, what am I saying, of course it is." She stopped to listen for a bit, then said with only a little surprise, "You are good. That makes you a 'bard'?"

Roland shook his head, giving Kenzi another once-over before shifting from Greensleeves into something . . . else. Something darker, rhythmic and just a little hyper, with a distinct Slavic tint. It'd work better on a balalaika, but he could make it work with the guitar.

Then, almost experimentally, he added just a touch of extra energy to it, and a faint, ghostly image began to take shape next to Kenzi, like her reflection bouncing off fog.

It was a hell of a thing to keep up, and he couldn't hold it for long. The image faded back out though Roland kept playing.

"That's what makes me a bard."

"Ooooooooooo!"

Kenzi tried to touch the image, eyes huge, but couldn't quite make herself make contact. When it disappeared she was staring at Roland with a good bit more respect and a certain amount of glee. "Do it again!"

Roland shrugged sheepishly. "Not sure I can. I'm still pretty new at this."

"That was cool." Kenzi waved her fingers through the air where the image had been, then something else connected and she pointed at Roland almost accusingly, but with a big grin. "And that music! That was Russian! Wasn't it? That was me!"

Roland nodded. "A little bit of old Russian folk. With some extra. People are actually very musical."

That was about as best as he could explain it. Well, other than saying "people are music", which he wasn't sure anyone else would actually understand.

"Learn something new every day." Hunh. What would Bo's music be, with her being a succubus? And Toby's, with him being a telepath? Kenzi shook her head, folding her arms over her knees. "And you're still training? Sounds like you've got a good start on it already."

"Seven years studying, seven years practicing, seven years playing. I've got fourteen of those down." Roland shook his head. "Just never knew it at the time."

"Wait, what? You didn't sign up for this?" Kenzi contemplated twenty-one years of work. "Dude, that is sooooo looonnng."

Edited 2013-09-25 01:10 (UTC)

"I didn't even know it was an option until about a month ago." Well, a month his time, anyway. "You ask anyone before then, I was just a good for nothing street musician."

Anyone other than Rebecca.

"Street musicians are good for music. And sometimes booze." Kenzi shook her head. "But way to find a destiny just laying on the sidewalk there."

"Technically it was in my friend's bed." That sounded wrong. "Or possibly under the lilacs at Trinity United Church." That didn't sound any better.

Kenzi gave him a very sober look, then patted his arm. "Yep. You're gonna fit in here just fine, amigo."

Roland looked down at her hand, then back up. "That's not actually reassuring."

"I know," Kenzi said. She grinned again. "But hey. Feel free to stop by Luke's Diner tomorrow. We've got some specials for newbies. Mexi-mocha shakes, burgers that make grown men propose marriage to the burgers, stuff like that."

Yes, Roland. Welcome to crazy-town. The food is good.

"Thanks," Roland said. "Depends on how much I manage to make today, but thanks."

Kenzi put the three bucks she had on her in the case, then got to her feet. "Shake's on me, dude. Hope to see ya."

Roland nodded and smiled, then swapped into "If I were a rich man" from ~~meta for~~ Fiddler on the Roof.

As you do.

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The Park, Tuesday afternoon

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