damned_institute | Day 39: Music Room

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Day 39: Music Room

Lunch had been fruitful. Celes had chosen not to eat, but that was fine enough for her; she’d eaten plenty at breakfast and it was not very good manners to eat while discussing war (for Celes, it’d always given her a bit of a stomachache), or plotting. Especially if one was in mixed company. Her nurse escorted her to the Music room, citing that her ‘sister’ had suggested that musical therapy would be good for her. Celes rolled her eyes. This was no music room, with their ‘electronic’ instruments; where were the violas and the harpsichords and phonographs? She’d been past this room before, but had never been interested enough to go into it.

The general sat down at the keyboard, staring at the odd device before prodding the buttons with a nail. On, off, rumba, tango, Caribbean (what in the world was ‘Caribbean?’), little numbers that changed the tone. It was the first time Celes wished that there was a real instrument before her, instead of this ridiculous thing. Still, it didn’t stop her from curiously stringing notes together with one hand, and the only song she could bring to mind was the Aria di Mezzo Carattere.

How dreadfully delightful.

[for Adel~]

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Mele ~~fell over~~ stumbled. Regaining her composure, she turned to him with her deadpan face. "...Before that."

If this guy had died in his sleep, that proved nothing whatsoever. Folding her arms, it finally occurred to her to ask, "What's your name, anyway?"

"Ah, be careful now!" Brook warned, and reached out to keep her from the fall she almost took, but she did well to keep herself from toppling all the way. Then she turned back to him, most of the redness in her face gone now, and asked him to elaborate.

"Well, let's see... oh yes! I was sailing with all my friends, and it was raining gumdrops at one point... the day was particularly excellent, I must admit! Yohohohoho!" He laughed at the memory, then swept into a half-bow (more of a bow and he might have hit her on accident) when she asked his name, "Forgive me! I should have introduced myself earlier. I am Brook, and it is a pleasure to make you acquaintance!"

Mele watched him bow, almost unconsciously taking a step back to get out of the way. Just in case it was cover for an attack. She wasn't usually this vigilant, but.

She really didn't know where she was, and the general idea she had was that this was some sort of purgatory. Not comforting even when you weren't in it. And the guy from before had certainly put her on guard for the length of that entire ill-fated conversation.

But Brook didn't attack, and he was so polite, she was reduced to just staring for a minute. Someone bowing at her when she wasn't his superior was...a foreign concept. "Mele. ...The same."

Though it did sound like she wouldn't be getting any information she could use from Brook. "Gumdrops?" Amusement returned to her face. "You're kidding, right?"

A gentleman was a gentleman regardless of the situation! Even if he still had every intention of asking her about her panties, the formalities would always be present with the pirate out of habit.

"Mele-san. What a lovely name!" Brook complimented it, then blinked when his mention of raining gumdrops was questioned. "Eh? Why would I be kidding?"

"Becau-...Never mind."

Mele's gaze swept the room, eyes alighting on each face in her field of vision before moving to the next. The guy from the other room had pointed out to her just how useless her question was, but Brook seemed friendly enough (if a bit...gumdrops.), and she couldn't just give up.

"I'm looking for someone. He's about this tall," Mele raised her hand to about a head higher than hers, "has brown hair that goes to his shoulders, and..." Mele tilted her head and bit her lip, thinking. "He...might be looking for me, too. Have you seen him?"

"Hm?" Was that not a common thing in the Grand Line? Oh! But she must not be from there! "Ah, I see what it is! We're not from the same place is all! Yohohohohoho! And I suppose even where I come from it is a bit strange, but stranger things have happened still aside from raining gumdrops! That was just one of the nicer ones!"

He listened and watched as she explained her missing friend, but sadly he was not sure if he could assist her. "No, I'm afraid that description could match many here. Perhaps if you put up a notice on the board in the Sun Room you may have better luck? There are always people who might be able to help you as well!"

Mele blinked. They may be from different places, but nowhere on earth were there--"Where are you from, exactly?"

She tried not to feel too late down when Brook repeated what Mr. Moody from before had said; it was what she had expected, after all. "Board? Sun Room?" Notices would get noticed much faster than if she were to go around asking. And really, Brook was way too nice.

"Well, technically I'm from the West Blue, but most recently," well, for the past fifty years, actually... "I've been sailing on the Grand Line! Lots of strange things can happen there, as I said, but you probably wouldn't believe some things even if I told you!" he laughed.

Brook looked up for a moment and found the door. "Ah, there. That's the door you came in from, yes? The room just before that is the Sun Room. It had a very nice posting board with all kinds of notices on it. I'm surprised they all fit sometimes!"

'West Blue,' 'Grand Line'...didn't sound like anyplace she knew. (Not that she knew very many to begin with.) "What's it like?" To her surprise, she was actually curious. If raining gumdrops was one of the "nicer things" that had happened there....

Mele followed his gaze. A posting board? Ah, right. She'd noticed something like that. Probably. Maybe. "That's useful! Thanks."

"The West Blue is different from the other oceans, naturally, and then the Grand Line is... well a whole 'nother thing of it's own! Which would you like to hear about first?"

By her response to him, he could only assume that she really wasn't from his own world at all. It was only natural to be curious! Brook would have been as well had she started listing off places where she'd been that had rainind gumdrops and whatnot!

"And you're quite welcome!"

She wanted to run off and see about this board, but curiosity made her stay. "Well...you said something about sailing?"

He'd kept saying it (except not in those exact terms), actually. Mele was land-based and had never set foot on a ship, so she'd naturally assumed he was talking about countries or...whatever. Not many people listed an ocean as the place they came from.

On the other hand, he could just be crazy and she was just humoring him. (The guy from earlier had said something about a 'hospital', not that she saw any evidence of that aside from the dressed wounds people seemed to be sporting.) But it was just too interesting not to hear him out.

Mele moved to a chair at the center of the room, assuming Brook would follow. Her feet were starting to hurt from standing on flat feels for so long.

"Of course! It's rather hard to travel the oceans of the world any other way, I would think. Yohohoho!" he laughed some more, then took her cue and followed her prompt towards a chair. Since he had longer legs and realized what she was intending to do, he swept past her and held the chair for her to sit. "My lady."

He kept surprising her. If he were an assassin, she'd be so dead. "Thank you!" Had she really said that? Twice in so many minutes. Sooner or later she was going to have to give the guy a medal.

She sat as gracefully as she could in the annoyingly tight and scratchy pants she was being forced to wear, and waited for Brook to continue.

"You're welcome!" he too had said the same thing a few times, but it was only natural. After seating her, he looked around for another chair he might use and spotted one just a bit off. "Excuse me, I'll be right back," he excused himself to bring a chair over, leaving her for a moment.

When his back was turned, Mele tested her rinki. She kept expecting to it settle more and then flare up to what she was used to, but for now it didn't seem to want to go anywhere. Something just wasn't right. She thought back to what Mr. Irritable had said. "Powers were limited" here, but was this it? This wasn't even a portion of her normal ki.

But then, that was probably the point.

Mele leaned back in the chair and sighed.

He got the chair over without much trouble and had a seat across from, but still near Mele. The chairs were made for normal height people though, so Brook's knees stuck up over the edge of the chair and then some as he sat. He was quite used to it though.

"There now, an excellent set up for a conversation! Yohohoho. Though I cannot seem to recall where it is that I left off..."

She'd have to re-train...newb practices didn't suit her (especially not after all this time), but she didn't want to be a weakling when she found Rio-sama.

And anyway, being weak sucked. Much better to be the one attacking than the one who couldn't--

Mele looked up when Brook re-joined her. "Hmm? Oh--" Mele cast her mind back, "We were taking about--sailing. Why are the oceans named after compass directions?" Did that mean someone had stood up somewhere and decided the names of the oceans relative to himself?

"Sailing! Yes right! Yohohohoho! I should practice with my memory better!" He laughed a bit, then calmed so he could discuss, "Yes, let's see... why are they named that? I'd guess it's because of Reverse Mountain. There's this one place where all the seas and even the Grand Line meet: all the waters flow upwards against a mountain on the Red Line. Then they splash at the top, making a big wave! It's hard to navigate, but if you can turn your ship just right, you can sail right down into the Grand Line from any one of the oceans at that place!"

Now that? Sounded pretty awesome. She'd heard of Juken (Rin or Geki? She couldn't remember where she'd heard it from) practitioners reversing the flow of waterfalls, but upward-flowing water that occurred in nature was a new one.

"Grand Line?" She could just about imagine it: an actual line drawn across the surface of the world. "Is it an actual line?"

Mele wasn't aware that she was leaning forward, already fascinated.

Brook raised a finger. "Well, to be precise it's just as much a part of the ocean as those around it, but you see, on either side is what's called the Clam Belt. Giant beasts call Sea Kings make their nests in these waters, making passage almost completely impossible, unless you've a death wish! So that stretch of Ocean between those Clam Belts is called the Grand Line! Yohoho. And the Grand Line intersects the Red Line at a parallel, so that's what divides up all the blues: West, East, North and South!"

"Giant beasts? How giant?" Mele had only ever seen giant beasts (well, they were still people, technically) on the land. Probably the only one she had seen in the sea were Rageku and Dokariya (the latter of whom didn't count; she hadn't actually seen that fight, only heard Bae's accounts).

"The size of this building!" Brook raised his hands high over his head to enforce his point, but then something stopped him. It didn't feel like anything had hit him, but for some reason his afro had jerked a bit and took his head with it.

"Oya?" Brook's eyes turned up, but he didn't see anything. Then, to be sure he put his hands up to his afro and patted it a bit. "Now I'm sure I just felt somethi-- aha!" So something had hit him! He wrapped his fingers around something plastic and gave a tug, freeing what looked to be a small flute from his mess of hair. He blinked at it, looked behind him, then looked back and blinked some more. "Now how... did that get there?"

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Day 39: Music Room

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