damned_institute | Day 29: Music Room

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Day 29: Music Room

Quatre was thankful that his "name" wasn't called to be visited, but there was always the next shift. He knew he probably should have hunted down his comrades to see if they were safe this shift as well and if they could think of a plan to escape. It was strange being in captivity, Quatre had never been caught by OZ and when one of the remaining White Fang factions had attempted to assassinate him, the action had resulted in the deaths of many innocent politicians and bureaucrats; people who had families and who had honestly been hoping to do the best with the peace that Quatre and so many like him had tried so hard to obtain.

There were a few things that could completely take Quatre's mind off even the most horrible of facts, one of them was music. So when the nurse mentioned that he could go to the 'Music Room' he couldn't help but want to at least look in the room. There was an assortment of instruments for him to choose from. There were no classical pieces to speak of, but Quatre considered the fact that an attentive enough patient could use a number of the pieces of a piano to kill someone. That and you couldn't really use headphones on a real flute.

He ran his fingers over the electric keyboard before sitting down to it.

He had once told a good friend, Noin, that he played what he felt and at the moment his anxiousness was overwhelming. If he played at least a little bit of it, it might release from him, might take some of the pressure from his heart.

That, and it would be reassuring to be doing something he loved to do. He placed the headphones on his ears, trying not to allow his emotions to affect any of the patients that might enter the room after him, and started to play.

The sound was dulled, probably for safety reasons, but that was probably for the best. If anyone spoke to him he would be able to hear, even if he let the music that his fingers played with electrical sound take him away from Landel's prison walls.

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"Old.. records, hm?" Peony couldn't help but repeat, a little confused himself. Records like.. information files? Those weren't very interesting at all - in fact, they were downright boring most of the time. And Peony had done his best to mess with them as little as possible. That sort of stuff he pushed off on Sesemann.

But if they were records that had music on them, that was completely different. How did one access something like that?

"Wow, nothing like this where Peony comes from," Peony said cheerfully, echoing her (cute-as-a-rappig!!) manner of speaking. It was true that fonic music discs did exist on Auldrant, but they were such an old technology that they had been largely forgotten by the masses. The emperor was used to having live music, anyway. "I have no idea how this works!" He gave a booming laugh, then reached out for a jewel case. The Three Tenors.. ..no, that sounded boring. Christmas Hits for a Very Happy Holiday...? That was totally more like it. He wanted a very happy holiday, after all.

He looked down at her. "Maybe we should figure it out.. together?"

"Uh-huh," responded Rena, her lips stretching into a smile. She wasn't sure why had they had these silver "mini-records" around. Hadn't they converted to cassette tapes some years ago? Then again, fads usually traveled in circles; it was not altogether impossible for a newer, better, shinier disk to have been made between 1983 and...whatever year this was.

The girl didn't have to explain further as Peony appeared as ignorant about them. Glad for the shared bafflement, she immediately agreed to the man's proposition (without fully realizing she was missing out on other factors). Figuring this matter out with another person--especially one as good-natured as her current companion--was bound to be exciting!

"Oh, okay!" Rena happily answered. "We'll probably need a player of sorts. Where can we find that, I wonder? I wonder?"

"Not quite sure," the emperor said, looking around. The room wasn't too terribly big; he was sure he could find something. "If you're sure it takes a player..." He took a few steps in one direction, and then another. Finally he turned around dramatically, and pointed to a little array of cassette tape players a few feet in one direction."Well, I have no idea what those do, so they're probably it!"

He smiled down at the girl beside him. This seemed not only to be a good opportunity to build planetary relations, but also a good chance to flirt with a really cute girl! A girl with a fresh melody about her~ "I'm not from around these parts, you know. I mean, planet-wise, and all."

He grinned, pushing one of the buttons on the cassette player experimentally. Nothing happened. "What about yourself, little melody?"

Rena's eyes followed Peony's movements carefully, wondering if the man had an idea in mind. He must have found it as he suddenly indicated to a set of devices with a striking gesture. "Those?" repeated the girl, who immediately recognized them as cassette tape players. (Of the portable sort, it seemed.)

The chance any of those silver records fitting through, however, was slim. "Hmm." Rena mulled over the possibilities. "They look like players, Peony-san, but for cassette tapes," she explained sheepishly. "Cassette tapes are half the size of these--" She pointed to the CD case. "--and somewhat thicker. The players we're looking for would probably be bigger."

So the man was from another world? Although she had heard otherworldly folk were common in Landel's, Rena hadn't met many "foreigners" during her stay. At least, those who actually let their origins known. This would be a good time to learn about other places. "What is your home like?" Rena asked, blatant curiosity entering her tone. "Is it much different from Earth? Is it?"

"Rena is from here," she added. "Well, not here here, but the same planet. I think they might have pulled me from another country, though." Another time as well, but that probably wasn't important.

Well, at least he'd had the right idea? None of these things really made a lot of sense to him, much less the idea of a 'cassette tape' or a 'record' needing some kind of fontech (or.. tech? Since no one here seemed to know about fonons?) to operate correctly. "You're right," Peony said with a sigh, ignoring the perfectly good CD players a a few feet over - they didn't look like players to him, for some reason. More like.. puffed-up silver lily pads, or something. "Maybe we can find something that fits, though it'll be a crying shame if we can't both listen to whatever this is at once, won't it?" He wanted to do it together, after all.

"Ah? My home?" The emperor tapped his lip all of a sudden, now that she was asking. How was Auldrant different from this 'Earth'? "The planet's called Auldrant, and so far it seems to be very different. I mean, the sky's still blue, and stuff. And there are monsters back home, too, except they don't ever go into the buildings or anything." He nodded, then pointed a finger in the air, as if he'd just remembered something. "Oh! And here they call fonic artes 'magic,' and there aren't any rappigs here, as far as I've seen.." He looked around. "Unless they're hiding them from me, of course. But I keep getting asked what they are, when it really should be quite obvious.."

Then he blinked. "Another country? How's it different?" Well, she did seem different from the other cute girls he'd talked to; her speech patterns were different, at least, but maybe that was just a function of culture. Even though most people seemed the same on Auldrant. ...Except for some of those guys from Daath.. they could be pretty wacky.

Peony indeed had the right idea. Perhaps if his younger companion had caught sight of those CD players, Christmas Hits for a Very Happy Holiday would have only been two-clicks away. Instead, Rena decided to search for a suitable replacement in the form of a cassette tape. "It would," she said thoughtfully, digging through the first of the music boxes. "If those tape players had speakers built-in, maybe we can listen at the same time."

"All-der-ant?" Rena attempted slowly. It was a strange name, but it also had a pretty tone to it. Kind of reminded her of Star Wars, actually. "You have monsters in Allderant, Peony-san?" Images of deadly dragonflies and clawed midgets flashed through her mind. "How do you defend against them? Do you use the fonic artes 'magic'?" She wanted to ask about the rappigs as well, but the man seemed pretty tired of explaining them.

"Uh-huh. Rena is from a country called Japan," began Rena as she peered into another box. "It isn't very different from here; I haven't had trouble missing most things." Or so the girl thought.

"The language is confusing, though," she continued with a frown. "I sometimes can't understand what people mean when they say things like, um, 'getting out of the wrong side of the bed.'" Courtesy of her nurse, who used it whenever Rena was too quiet. "Is there a specific side we have to wake up to?" she asked, although no answer was expected. Peony wouldn't know anyway, right?

Ah, here was something! "Aww, aren't they cute?" A starry-eyed Rena brought her search results to Peony. Three seemingly rodent-like illustrations in red, blue, and green topped the cover, overlaid with the words A Chipmunk Christmas. "I don't know if they have all the Christmas carols in here, but... Hau~ I wanna take them home!"

She really did. Those chipmunks would make a great addition to her collection of the cute, the cuter, and the cutest.

"Huh, maybe some of them have 'speakers', you should check. Though I'm sure it'd sound much better if that guy over there would stop banging on the piano," he said, starting to fiddle with the tape player, finding the eject button, and a button with an arrow that started the little cogs inside turning, and one that made them stop. The kid who was on the piano was a good player, but Peony wanted to know what was hip to the modern times. Unless that was it, which would be boring. He'd heard a little bit of what was on the radio, but he wanted more.

"Yeah, a few monsters," he replied, not even bothering to correct her pronunciation. He wasn't really a very 'correcty' sort of guy. "They never come near the pala- uh, my house, though, so I don't really have a lot of experience with them." He had been trained a little bit to fight with a sword, but that had been years ago and he didn't really remember any of it.

"Though people fight them off with weapons, they also use fonic artes and stuff. I don't use any of that stuff though, not back home. Here I have a nice meat cleaver I can use on the monsters, though," he said cheerfully. Jade had been kind to use the contamination effect at the cooking store. It really did make him a natural thief, didn't it? Good thing he was usually Mister Lawman.

When Rena spoke of her country and her language, Peony had to cock his head to the side. He'd never not been able to understand people here, though now that he thought about it, that expression was kind of weird. "I think the right side of the bed is the one with a rappig on it." He nodded, as if that were the end of that.

Though the little chipmunks he saw on the cover of the CD weren't nearly as cute, Rena certainly seemed to be excited about them. "Yes! This is good art. This is what we will listen to," Peony said, dropping the jewel case with Christmas Hits on the floor and immediately forgetting about it. He was sure Christmas was a band or something, and it hadn't really struck him to ask what it was..

Fortunately for Peony, Rena paused in her fifteen seconds of ecstasy to consider his suggestion. She examined the cassette player while it was still in his hand before moving her gaze to the others. There were no telltale signs of speakers, and they all seemed to be the same model. So much for the ease of listening together.

"I don't think they do," Rena said with a disappointed sigh. "Usually, you can tell if they have lots of tiny holes on one side. My father had a couple of players like that." She glanced over at the keyboard and its player. "But it would probably sound better anyway if there were no other sounds. Headphones are usually good at blocking distractions." Usually, but the girl had never used the Institute's before.

As Peony revealed more concerning his world's management of monsters, Rena couldn't help but give a look of awe. "It must be a pretty difficult," she stated, "to have to deal with them." He appeared to have that department under control, though; meat cleavers were certainly handy in dealing with unpleasantness.

She then giggled at the rappig comment, but secretly, the expression made better sense. Never mind she only had a vague idea of what a rappig was. Probably an animal; a type of pig, even.

"Okay!" Rena answered as she pulled the tape out of its adorable case and slipped it into the open slot of the player. Peony seemed to have gotten the workings of player so the girl decided to let him have the reigns. She held out the attached headphones. "You can go ahead and put this over your ears. When you're ready, press play--err, the button with the triangle on it."

Hopefully, Peony would find the good music he was searching for. Although Rena had heard of the Chipmunks, she had never actually listened to any of their songs; it was simply not something she was into. But such cuteness could only produce quality, right?

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Day 29: Music Room

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