fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes, Thursday

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Groovy Tunes, Thursday

It was Octavia's first shift.

Ever, on any job.

Just another thing to adapt to, she guessed. Jono had left her a note with instructions about running the store, and she was quietly grateful for it. Right now, she was learning to work the till – while shaking her head at the whole idea of it. Exchanging pieces of paper and bits of metal for plastic discs to take them home.

This was going to take adjusting to.

She was still wearing her tough leathers. She was yet to start feeling comfortable in anything else, at least anywhere in public. Maybe that's why the stereo was behaving itself, and actually playing the Elliot Smith compilation she'd wanted it to play.

Groovy Tunes was open and there was a Grounder behind the counter.

[ooc: Open, no OCD!]

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Magnus was on the hunt for some music. Be it some sweet violin on an elevator or Jock Jams on an old timey western piano.

Because that was his canon, folks.

"Hail and well met, shopkeeper!"

Who, in his mind, was an NPC voiced by the DM.

How dare he. Octavia was very much a PC!

She had also not entirely prepared herself for actually meeting customers. She was far out of her depth, here.

But the way he was dressed, at least, put her –– okay, it didn't quite put her at ease, but it was better than someone coming in looking like what she gathered people in this time and place tended to look like. "Hail," she replied. "Can I help you with something?"

Nope, she was Griffin doing a higher pitched voice.

"I was wondering what sort of music you have in this fine establishment."

Offensive.

"All kinds," Octavia replied, with a glance around the store. "At least that's what I've been told." She'd had limited time getting to know basically any of it aside from the melancholy man-and-guitar stuff he could hear over the speakers right now. "The CDs are arranged by type, though, if that helps."

If it helped, female NPCs were the only competent ones.

Also he was automatically translating it to fantasy cd's.

"Oh, cool! Thank you."

Octavia nodded.

She suspected she should've said something else here, to do her job right. Still didn't, though.

What, no plot hook? FOR SHAME, GRIFFIN.

"Where can I find the one playing? It sounds like this guy I know." Knew. Thanks, The Hunger.

Octavia slipped out from behind the counter to show him the right section. "Here," she said, flipping through some of the albums on display. "Elliott Smith. They have several discs by him."

Not 'we' have. She wasn't quite there yet, with this customer servce thing.

Well, she was no Tom Bodett...

Magnus hummed in agreement twice like he was totally following her here. "And how do I play these?"

"With the stereo," Octavia said, nodding towards the piece of tech in question. So far behaving itself. "Do you want me to show you how?"

It was perhaps the only thing she actually knew how to do, here.

"Sure," he said, also adding 'fantasy' in front of that in his head. "Is it mechanical or magical?"

He was being totally serious about that question too.

"... Mechanical," Octavia said, slowly. "Unless I don't know what you mean by magical."

"You know... magic." He twirled his finger in the air like that helped. "I can't, like, do any. But I know people who can. Usually with some competence."

Octavia wasn't going to tell him magic wasn't real.

She was just going to think it.

"Right," she said. "Well we use tech here."

This was going to be another 'Skeletons can move in this game, Justin!' situation.

"Works for me. No spells here." He held up a hand for a high-five.

Octavia recognized that for what it was.

She also gave it a look of 'really?'

And possibly 'why?'

And then she went over to the stereo. Jono's note had said nothing about high fives.

Which is why Magnus gave her the saddest of looks before manfully clearing his throat. "Okay, cool. Not much of a talker. Or high-fiver."

Just wait 'til the next invasion, Magnus. Maybe then she'd feel like there was anything to high-five about.

Because right now it wasn't happening, no matter how much that look did vaguely make her feel like she'd been more rude than intended. "Do you want to learn about the stereo or not?"

"Sure, I guess." He was just deeply saddened. See if he showed you Stephen now.

Octavia didn't care.

She just went about showing him how the stereo worked, explaining about how the music was on the discs, and how you put the disc into the slot, and which buttons did what.

"-- and that's basically how you listen to music in this time."

Well. She'd only barely heard about streaming.

Dante'd promised to help Kathy pick out a guitar, but it'd been a while since he'd really taken stock of... well, the stock.

He'd been planning to pop into the store just to look - he hadn't expected it to be open. "... Huh," he said, poking his head in. "New kid?"

Octavia couldn't help the slight dryness in her tone when she looked over and responded with, "Just new."

She figured 'kid' was probably just a saying, but it wasn't one she was fond of.

Dante snickered softly. "Fine," he said, "You're right, you don't look like much of a kid."

And he'd have actually hit on her a few months back, but not so much these days. "Starsmore hired you?"

Meanwhile, it was going to take Octavia at the very least several months before she'd start reacting to being hit on with anything other than stonefacing her way through it.

So the timing just wasn't there on either side.

"Yes," she said. "Does that make you a regular customer or someone who works here?"

"I'm Dante. I work Fridays," Dante said, shrugging casually with one shoulder. "Been here two years."

"Octavia. Thursdays." Well, obviously. Her tone was dry, so maybe it was a joke? "And I've been here for a couple of weeks."

Not long enough to adjust.

"You from anywhere like here or not?" Dante asked, lifting his chin at her leather outfit.

"From somewhere like here." In terms of geography! Someone needed to take her to DC, she was going to recognize several places. "Give or take a nuclear apocalypse and a century of nature taking over almost everything."

"So... not quite like here," Dante said, raising his eyebrows. "Got it."

"No," Octavia agreed. "Not quite."

"I'm from a place a little more like this, but we've got a ton of demons running around," Dante offered.

First the guy talking about magic, and now demons.

"Right," Octavia replied, not really giving away whether she believed that or not. Bellamy had said some things about how the island worked. "Did it take getting used to? This island."

"It was definitely different," Dante said.

Maybe not different the way it was other people's different. "Kinda fucked up."

"Fucked up how?"

Well. She had to ask. Genuinely curious, too - as much as he'd be able to tell.

Dante shrugged. "I'm sure you've heard the whole rundown," he said. "People turning into animals, crazy monsters showing up every once in a while..."

Octavia paused.

"My brother didn't say anything about monsters."

Was it bad that the subtle glint in her eye said she was positively intrigued by that? Like there was something potentially exciting about monsters.

"They're not here every day," Dante said, tilting his head. "But sometimes? Yeah."

Octavia could've pointed out that if they'd been there every day, she would've already seen them.

But instead, she asked, "What kind?"

"Gremlins, mutant alligators, giant bunnies, we've seen some weird shit," Dante said. "Evil space aliens too."

"What are you classifying as aliens?"

Well, a girl had to see if Skaikru qualified, even if she didn't expect them to. Everything else... pretty much sounded like some of the things that roamed some parts of the forests at home.

"Things from outer space that show up and start stabbing people?"

... Honestly, that wasn't too far off from the Skaikru M.O.

"Where I'm from, the ones that came from the sky were more likely to burn people alive," Octavia noted.

Dryly. Very, very dryly.

"Burning, stabbing, all in the same family of shit, right?" Dante said, shrugging. "They looked like weird-ass insects, if that helps."

Octavia --

Didn't quite shrug, actually. But her tone made it seem like she might as well have. "Well, we didn't look like insects. So there's that."

"Few points in your favor," Dante agreed merrily. "What, you're an alien?"

"Born in space."

So, not quite.

But also not quite not an alien? Depended on your definition.

"But human?" Dante guessed. "Hey, there's a new one I can check off my bingo card."

"A little irradiated, but human," Octavia replied. "What's a bingo card?"

Unsurprisingly it wasn't something that had been a thing on the Ark, though she'd heard 'bingo' as a saying before.

Dante blinked. Right, different world, differences happened, yadda yadda. "Uh, bingo's a game where everyone gets a card with a bunch of numbers on it, and whenever the leader calls a number, whoever has it on their card can strike it off," he said. "You get a whole row or a whole card struck off, you yell 'bingo'. It's pretty lame."

Octavia didn't look impressed. But she very rarely did. "It sounds it."

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Groovy Tunes, Thursday

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