Improvisations

[Penelope Fitzcain]

Penelope didn't like dealing with people, and being related to her in no way qualified you for an exemption. And Penny was capable of going to great lengths to avoid them when she didn't want to be bothered, lengths that her parents had a nasty habit of underestimating.

So after her mother had kept going on and on about a friend of hers who had a daughter her age who'd also caught versi and how it might be nice for them to visit, she'd climbed out the window and caught a bus so that she could find somewhere to play in peace. A half-finished melody looped through her head, waiting for her to figure out the next measure.

There were so many things wrong with that. Why did her mother insist on inflicting people on her? She hadn't enjoyed it any of the last hundred times, but for some reason this was different just because her pushy mother's chattering friend's dull daughter caught the same illness as her. Would that magically make her not boring? Penny sincerely doubted it.

Her parents seemed to think that because she didn't drive, she was effectively confined. It was likely that as a result they grossly overestimated the amount of time she spent in either her room or the backyard. Never mind that if she were really pressed she could fly, but she couldn't carry her violin that way and there was no point in finding herself some peace and quiet if she couldn't play.

The air in the house got dead and stale after a while, and her ears, always keen and even sharper now, needed new sounds. She enjoyed them the same way some people savored food. Even voices. They were one of humankind's few redeeming qualities.

So she found herself on a park bench, improvising as she half-listened to and half ignored couples and joggers and dog walkers and children.

[Eva Isaachar]

Most people, if they had an animal here, had a dog they were walking. Eva, however, had brought Magdalena, her perfect-in-every-way little white mouse. Usually when she took Magdalena on outings, she carried her in her purse, but it was just so nice out that she was letting Magdalena ride in her hair. Yup, there she was, just perched right on top of her momma's head amidst a nest of fluffy bob. Given that she was, as mentioned, practically perfect in every way, Eva trusted her so entirely not to pee or poop while she was up there that the notion had barely even crossed her mind. She gave more thought to that risk from overhead seagulls. The squawks of seagulls, however, were not what were reaching her ears right now. Instead, it was something far more pleasant. Music!

She didn't alter her path to follow it, but as it happened it got louder and clearer as she continued the way she was walking anyway, and soon enough she caught sight of the source. It was a violin player, a tall teenage girl with hair even shorter than her own. Eva didn't know much about music (she enjoyed what she liked, of course, but she wasn't any sort of expert) but in her opinion, the playing was pretty good! If she'd been asked to guess who was playing before seeing the girl, she probably wouldn't have guessed it'd be someone so young.

Well, Eva wasn't the type to just keep a compliment to herself. She hesitated a bit about interrupting the girl while she was at work, but if she had come into the park to play, she had to at least expect people there to comment, right? Public place and all. Stopping when she reached the park bench that the player was perched on, she put on her best cutesy friendly hello smile, and held up one hand to wiggle her fingers in a greeting gesture,

"Hey, sorry to bother you if you're in an artistic groove or something, but you're really good! Magdalena and I really like it!"

She pointed at the rodent riding on her cranium, then glanced around a bit in search of a hat or box or something, since she was expecting that the girl was probably a busker and figured it would probably be impolite to gush without giving.

[Penelope Fitzcain]

Penelope didn't respond until she finished -- well, finished wasn't right. She wasn't playing a pre-composed piece, after all. More like she reached a point where she could pause. (Sometimes, Penelope believed that the music never really stopped, just reached extremely long rests.) Her violin case was open on the bench with a notebook propped up in it. She'd hastily scrawled a 'Do Not Want $' sign on the open page.

Penny's audience spoke in a voice that was pitched slightly higher than was natural for her, creating that vaguely pleasant quality that you got when people were mindful of how they spoke. The higher tones suited her, Penny supposed, because she was smallish and delicate.

"...Thank you," she said stiffly. That was the awkward part of playing around people -- people. She didn't know what else she was supposed to say. Could she go back to playing now?

She stood very stiffly, very still, in stark contrast to her playing of a moment ago. In the uncomfortable silence (that wasn't really silence, there were still birds and dogs and people) her eyes fixed on Eva's head. "...That's a mouse."

Not that Penny had anything against mice -- she preferred birds, as a rule, but they didn't particularly alarm her -- but they weren't something you generally saw people taking a walk in the park with.

[Eva Isaachar]

If Eva had known of Penny's skill and sensitivity with sound, she would have liked that, even if she was picking up the fact that her voice was one that she had worked on rather than been born with, she found it suited to someone delicate rather than suspicious in any way. That was very much more the impression she'd prefer, and if someone with Penny's ears thought it met that mark, she must be doing a hell of a job, right?

Of course, that was just a lot of 'ifs' based around information Eva didn't actually have--all she knew was that violin-girl (who was not busking, it seemed, now that Eva's eyes had found the little sign) was commenting on her mouse.

The stiffness of her tone and the way she stated the obvious (what else would Magdalena be, a pelican?) made Eva figure she was just very surprised by the fact there was just a mouse hanging out in her hair like it ain't no thang, which was understandable since, as Penny herself had mentally noted, it was not exactly a common sight in the park, at least not in Eva's experience.

"Yup! She sure is! She's my pet."

Reaching up, she plucked Magdalena gently from her tresses, and then held her out to Penny cupped in both hands,

"Would you like to pet her? She's very calm, and never bites. Do you have any pets?"

It was just in her nature to make conversation!

[Penelope Fitzcain]

"...Okay." Penny gingerly ran one long finger down Magdalena's back, unsure how much pressure was too much for such a small animal, then put her hand out flat next to Eva's, so if Magdalena wanted to 'visit', she could. "Soft. Doesn't she mess up your hair?"

"I have a parrot," she continued; when Penny did talk the words tended to come out in big globs. "Sophie. Timneh African Grey. Mom got her so I'd have someone to talk to." She doesn't sound sad or self pitying -- it's just a fact of her life that she doesn't talk to many people, and that her mother really wished she would. Sophie was, as far as she was concerned, much better company than anyone -- largely because she didn't talk, not like people did. She just made lovely sounds.

"I don't take her... out. Aren't you worried something will happen?" she asked, switching the conversation abruptly back to the mouse.

[Eva Isaachar]

It seemed that Penny had been suitably gentle, and Magdalena examined the offered hand carefully. It took a few moments and several cautionary sniffs, but she put her front paws on to Penny's offered palms, and, once that went well, brought the rest of her on to the hands as well. Eva spoke softly so she didn't spook the mouse after that had just gone so well,

"She's really friendly. Most mice are super-nervous. She's more like a rat or a dog or a something."

Indeed, Magdalena was quite an anomaly. Eva would like to take credit for it, to say that she had just socialized her really extra well, but frankly her pet had been sweet from the start. Regarding if her pet ever messed with her hair, she shook her head,

"Nah, she only nests if I stand still. If I keep walking, she doesn't. If she was a boy I'd never let her near it because she'd pee in a second, but since she's female she's not interested in marking it, so I just don't put her up there unless I've seen her go number one recently."

"Oh cool, how exotic! Does she talk back? You know, I think I've heard of gray parrots, aren't they crazy smart and live practically forever?"

She took the conversation going backwards in stride, answering,

"I used to be, but she's almost always in my purse, not my hair, and she likes to stay there so she doesn't climb out and run away or anything. She's just on top of my head today because it's so nice out I thought she'd like it, and birds of prey just register her as being part of not-meal-size-me I guess. Plus, she's a magic enchanted fairy princess mouse, so there's that."

Yes that was a joke. She delivered it like it was fact, but that was meant to be part of the funny. Really, Magdalena was so absurdly perfect, was it such a stretch?

" I can see why taking a parrot out might be risky, especially if she doesn't have her wings clipped?"


(OOC: Magdalena is based off a mouse I really did have. She was indeed abnormally docile and sweet, I still have no idea how/why--clearly fairy angel magic mouse princess!)

[Penelope Fitzcain]

Emboldened by the fact the mouse seemed as outgoing as her owner, Penny offered Magdalena Sophie's usual seat on her left shoulder, opposite the one she rested her violin on when she played.

"Clipped, clipped, clipped," Penny said, in a decent approximation of Eva's voice, not perfect but remarkably good given they'd only been speaking a few moments. It helped her to get a grip on the strangeness of, well, talking to strangers. All the same, she knew it wasn't exactly normal, so she hastily continued. "Sometimes. I don't, Mom does. She talks a lot, but it's mostly not people sounds. I don't know how she feels about strangers. She doesn't meet many."

Was that all her questions? Penny thought so. She was right about grey parrots, so she didn't see the need to correct her. "Um. What music do you like? Like, what songs. If I know it, I can play it." She said it very matter-of-factly, not bragging. She just wanted to steer things back to an area she was comfortable with. Generally, she liked to sing other people's songs (complete with little idiosyncrasies of whatever artist she'd originally heard singing it) and play her own things, but translating things into violin on the fly was always fun.

[Eva Isaachar]

At Penny's mimicry, Eva cocked her head, her mouth a surprised little O-shape,

"Whoa! How did you do that?"

She sounded impressed. Eva could appreciate voice work. Normally if someone had thrown her voice back at her, she'd be irritated and take it as an insult, but normally whenever people repeated after you, they were mocking you and it didn't actually sound anything like you. Penny's accuracy made her (luckily) take it as a display of talent instead. As far as her other talent went, Eva thought for a moment, then suggested,

"Mmm, how about This Party Just Took A Turn For The Douche or Me, You, and Steve by Garfunkel and Oates? Or Over the Hills and Far Away by Nightwish, maybe? If you don't know those, I can hum a few bars or pick more popular stuff!"

Eva's musical tastes mostly ran towards cutesy Internet-based freelance stuff like, as she said, Pogo or girls-with-ukeles, but Nightwish was so pretty.

"How long have you been playing? Like I said, you're really good!"

[Penelope Fitzcain]

Penny ducked her head a little. "I -- practice. Sounds are easy for me. I'm a parrot too." It's only half an explanation, and also a little bit of a private joke. She smiles, broad and a little awkward. "And I love Tarja," she said, naming Nightwish's original lead singer.

She fidgeted for a moment, settling her violin neatly under her chin and checking that Magdalena wasn't in any danger of falling off her shoulder. Then, with almost no preamble, she jumped into the song, playing it through one verse and the chorus. Very quick, lively tempo, because the song always seemed to have a kind of urgency to it, not just sadness. It wasn't perfect, and even as she played she thought of little flourishes to make it better the next time through, if there was a next time.

"I'm cheating a little," she admitted sheepishly when she finished. "Since the Nightwish version is actually a cover of a folk song. It's practically made for playing on a fiddle."

[Eva Isaachar]

Eva of course didn't get the REAL joke of Penny calling herself a parrot, she just thought it was a reference to her mimicry talent.

"Oh hey, you know Tarja! Cool, are you a fan of them too? Or just of her?"

Apparently there tended to be some disagreement between hardcore fans over whether Tarja or Annette was better as a lead vocalist for the group. Not being particularly hardcore, Eva had no opinion. She just liked pretty music!

Magdalena jumped slightly when Penny began to play, but in typical rodent-reaction fashion she froze, and then relaxed when it was clear that the sudden music was no threat to her. Eva made an impressed face while Penny played, and impressed comments afterward.

"It is? Really?", she said when informed of the tune's folk song origins,

"Well I guess it does sound like it now that you mention it! So you don't just play music beautifully, you know a lot about it too, eh?"

Sure, knowing a tidbit of trivia about one song did not automatically equivocate to knowing 'a lot' about music, but when someone was playing a violin, could throw your own voice back at you, said they were good with sounds to the point of being a parrot, well, you just kind of got the hunch that they might well know their stuff about anything in the auditory ballpark. Didn't hurt to compliment/ask combo, anyway.

"Do you practice in the park here everyday?"