fandomtownies | The Park, Saturday evening

Roland still hadn't managed to get the magic back in his music. He also hadn't managed to figure out why his nose was going crazy. He could practically smell the difference between the trees.

The trees.

Sure, it had made the cup of coffee he finally convinced the Perk folks to give him a revelation in hot beverages, but now it was just really distracting.

Then he saw Kenzi. And her illusions. "You didn't tell me you were a bard."

The images popped away, or faded away, and Kenzi spread her hands. "I wasn't! Or I'm not. I just started doing it this morning. It's fun! But it still doesn't make my shoes work."

DAMN YOUR SUDDEN IF INEVITABLE BETRAYAL, LOUBOUTIN.

"Pretty sure I couldn't fix those, either. Not in a non-emergency, anyway." It was always easier to work this stuff out when it was an emergency. "I've broken things with it, but not fixed them, yet."

Kenzi hopped onto the nearest park bench. "W should both try to do this! What other stuff can you do, when you do the bard thing? Emotions, right?"

"A skilled musician can do that, anyway," Roland said. "But I've used it to actively avert another person filling an audience with depression and anger."

"What kind of creep does that?" Kenzi asked in dismay. "Hmmm. Oh oh I wanna be sedated!" No, she hadn't sung that, but she was already tapping out the beat with her shoes.

"Yeah, try not to accidentally sedate people," Roland advised. "He was an Adept of the Dark. Actual pure evil. So the creepiest kind."

"Holy crap." Kenzi blinked at that, then started humming the Dark Helmet theme. A very short guy in a very big helmet kind of fuzzed into view for a moment, arms crossed and toe tapping in irritation, then blinked out. "And you beat him? Wicked. Except, actually, the opposite-- you know what I mean."

"It was . . ." Roland nodded slowly, looking pleased. "It was a hell of a thing." The pleased look vanished. "Of course, then he sent me to his hell of a world and I spent a couple days being chased by man-eating giants, avoiding child-roasting witches, and then trying to keep a court full of dark elves entertained until I could get rescued."

By a cat.

Dammit.

Swallow. Hard swallow. "Child-roasting witches?"

EEP. Welcome to Kenzi's nightmare.

"And what kinda 'entertained'? 'Cause ... gah!"

"Straight out of a fairy tale," Roland said. He raised an eyebrow at the swallow. "Yeah, that's about how I reacted." Only in the other direction. A lot. And there might have been some crying.

A lot of crying.

"I played for them. And it didn't occur to me to beg for my life, which amused them."

And, you know, let the princess seduce and have her way with him.

Well sure. That's right up there under 'if someone asks if you're a god...'

Kenzi shuddered all over, gulped again, and said, "I probably would've been drop-kicked out of a balcony, 'cause, all the begging. Really. Pride, what pride." She sat down again, shaking her head, then squinted at him. "Being a bard got you into all that?"

Could she maybe give this new superpower back now?

"All that is the reason I learned I was a bard," Roland said. "Rebecca's the one who dragged me into it all."

Quite literally, in fact. She'd had one hell of a grip.

"She was a girl I knew, back home, used to come watch me play on her lunch breaks. The Dark Adept had one of her little friends -- by which I mean actually physically tiny, I think he was some kind of gnome or something -- killed, and she didn't know what to do and knew her social worker wouldn't believe her without someone to corroborate, so she came to find me."

Kenzi frowned, and said, "I'm afraid to ask what the Dark Dude wanted with the little guy. And your friend had gnome buddies?"

"You know, I was never entirely clear about that. He kind of just ran around doing evil things. He managed to start a riot at a Jays game. A Canadian baseball riot." Roland shook his head. Talk about evil. "And Rebecca . . . Rebecca could be friends with just about anyone or anything. She was . . . something special."

He liked to think she was over in the Light watching Roland on Evan's little scrying thing. Probably asking why he wasn't just going around smelling all the things he couldn't smell before while he had the chance.

"Aww." Kenzi grinned. "She back in Canada still?" She paused, considering the magic Evil Dark Fae types she met when they'd gone back to get stuff straightened out for Bo. "You know, the only 'evil' types I've met, they didn't seem to have much in the way of plans either. Mostly just... power. Being dicks." She shook her head in disbelief. "Starting a riot at a Jays game is just ridic, though."

"The Dark wanted to take over our world, I think," Roland said. Honestly, he'd never really tried to get totally clear on the details. "He was throwing off the balance of good and evil to open a gate. Managed to summon a damned dragon through the thing before we got it shut." That dragon still gave Roland nightmares. "Rebecca . . ." He almost said she didn't make it, but that wasn't at all accurate. "She went into the Light. Turned out it was where she belonged all the time."

Edited 2014-01-19 09:13 (UTC)

"What, like... the Light?" Kenzi asked, blinking. "Wow. Sorry? I mean. That's nice for her, but kinda sucks for other people..." She paused, considering the dragon and the Dark, and decided: so not able to process. "Hey, if I'm really a bard now, and this isn't just a weird weekend, do I have to go do good things with this, and stop evil?"

"The actual Light. With a Light Adept we summoned to help out." He probably shouldn't be thinking about Evan too much while hanging out with a teenager. He still had dreams about him, too. . . . "And, well." He shrugged. "I don't actually have a manual on all this. But where I'm from, it's a pretty big deal that it be your choice to fight for the side of Light."

"Okay, so: not fighting." Kenzi paused from that automatic declaration and added, "Well, unless Bo needs backup. Or someone tries to mess with Toby. Or, you know, there's a few other people..."

Shush. "I'm a pacifist, I swear. I'm not draftee material!" She took a breath, got a grip. "But I'm not gonna think about it too much 'til Monday, if it's still here, and Cecil's still got telepathy, and Jonothon's still not talking."

"My part in the big fight was singing a song about a goddess," Roland said, because, well. Did he look like he'd ever tried to hit someone? "Wait, your friend has telepathy? Just today?" And his music was . . . lacking, and he could smell the difference between the coffees at the Perk -- "You have my bard . . . ness!"

Give the man a kewpie doll.

"Maaaaaybe?" Kenzi had kind of been hoping his bardness was still there, but since he said his music was kinda off today... "Yeah, Cecil's usually pretty normal for a de-aged guy, but now he can talk in my head, and the guy who usually, doesn't seem to wanna, and... uh." She stared at her shoes, then held them up. "My shoes are broken?"

No, just her ability to walk in them.

Roland looked at her shoes. "You're lucky your ankle isn't broken. Does this Cecil have a super nose?" Roland rubbed a little self-consciously at his. "Because I'd like to get to sleep sometime tonight without having to smell my own refusal to do laundry, and if he has any tips. . . ."

"Years of practice," Kenzi said automatically, then tilted her head. "Actually, Cecil's usually pretty verbose, and he was kinda stuttering today. And Jonothon was going to town decorating the outside of Groovy Tunes. Which, not usually his thing, so... Hunh. Maybe, you got somebody else's super nose?" She held out her hair in front of her. "What kind of shampoo did I use today?... and really, man, you gotta do laundry. Or shoplift new clothes."

"Tea tree oil," Roland said. "And -- at least two different flowers and some sandalwood." He crossed his arms and huffed. "And I'm a street musician. We're supposed to be grubby."

"The rule is, if you can smell yourself, so can everyone else," Kenzi counseled him. "I speak from being homeless. There are showers and laundromats out there, man... and you were dead-on there. Holy wow. Maybe you can get a job with TSA?"

"I can smell the difference between the trees, right now. There's no situation in which I couldn't smell myself."

"Okay, that's freaky... and don't go down by the docks, you'll probably pass out." Kenzi did wonder who the super-smelling person was, yeesh. "Sorry? I mean, I'd give the bardness back, but. Yeah."

The Park, Saturday evening

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