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February-March 2024 Test Drive Meme
February-March 2024 TDM
Introduction
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.
All TDMs are game canon and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Playing and interacting with the TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.
and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.
🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.
Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.
Content Warnings: Power Nullification, Potential Kidnapping, Potential Animal Spirit Harm
The island of Never Fade can no longer be seen in the sky from elsewhere in Folkmore, enclosed within a large purple tinted cloud. Within that cloud, the island is under water—a dreamy purple underwater that all Star Children can breath in if they breath and function in if they function on electricity, so on and so forth. It causes no more difficulties than reduced visibility and greater effort to walk. It's even possible to swim underneath the island, so long as Star Children make sure to make landfall before they get too exhausted and… well… fall.
Friendnapped
Spread the Love
The island of Never Fade can no longer be seen in the sky from elsewhere in Folkmore, enclosed within a large purple tinted cloud. Within that cloud, the island is under water—a dreamy purple underwater that all Star Children can breath in if they breath and function in if they function on electricity, so on and so forth. It causes no more difficulties than reduced visibility and greater effort to walk. It's even possible to swim underneath the island, so long as Star Children make sure to make landfall before they get too exhausted and… well… fall.
Friendnapped
The purple water has streaks of silver shot throughout it. Beware, these silver streaks neutralize powers, canon and role abilities alike, for at least an hour. A neutralized Legend won't be able to sense others in danger. A neutralized Myth won't sense danger coming. A neutralized Familiar won't be able to shapeshift to help others. That may set of a danger alarm but not any spidey-sense. These silver streaks are harbingers of spirits recently returned to Folkmore thanks to donations at the Shattered Spoon Shrine: lonely sharks.
The source of the silver streaks in the water, these silver gray sharks swim up and gently bite people. These bites make people go instantly limp but otherwise don't do any damage. They won't even break the skin. Once limp, the lonely sharks take theirpreynew best friends down to a cave or grotto off the underside of Never Fade. These caves are full of silver water, saturated by the magic of lonely sharks, and the entrances are covered by a thin silver barrier that prevents Star Children from leaving. That means should a Star Child track down where someone is being kept, should they enter its home, they too will be trapped there.
Being held by the lonely sharks isn't the worst experience. These spirits will try to please their new friends, giving them their favorite foods and perhaps even an item from home. This may even be a weapon or magical item. Mind, the magic of these items will be neutralized in the shark's cave. It is possible to fight a lonely shark, even to kill one, but that will only be a temporary measure. Star Children will remain trapped and have to wait for the lonely shark to revive—with even more golden cracks than before. In the end, the only way to escape are hugs, cuddles, and other measures of friendship. Once all the golden cracks have thinned and disappeared, Star Children can leave.
Spread the Love
By the time mid-March comes around, most of the lonely sharks have been fully healed and no longer kidnap Star Children. Instead they swim the None of the Above tunnels below the island's surface, where they provide guidance to Star Children who ask them how to get somewhere. If Star Children have nowhere particular in mind, the lonely sharks encourage Star Children to make their way toward the Shattered Spoon Shrine.
The lonely sharks still create silver streaks in the water that neutralize powers, but they will accompany Star Children and warn them of some of the dangers. When voices call their names, the sharks will snuggle up against Star Children to provide comfort. They're devoted to helping Star Children reach the shrine. Once there, they will encourage the Star Children to donate Lore to one of the broken spoons there, each spoon representing spirits who have left, spirits who became shells of themselves from lack of lore, or ghosts.
Star Children who donate Lore will find their companion lonely shark presenting them with an item from home. This may even be a weapon or magical item. Mind, the magic will be neutralized until the Star Child has spent at least an hour away from the silvery water lonely sharks create. Lonely sharks will happily spend as much time with Star Children as they're willing but will show the way back to the surface either via LIM (Lavender Institute of the Mind) or the None of the Above tunnels.
- Never Fade is underwater within a cloud.
- Silver streaks in the water neutralize powers, both canon and Role based.
- Lonely sharks kidnap Star Children and take them to caves on the underside of Never Fade.
- Star Children who find those caves are trapped too.
- Escape by hugs, cuddles, and being friends.
- By the second month, most lonely sharks are healed and found in the tunnels.
- Lonely sharks guide Star Children to the Shattered Spoon Shrine to donate Lore to help others.
- Either when captive or once donating Lore, lonely sharks will give Star Children an item from home.
Content Warnings: Forced Relocation, Potential Secret Revelation, Potential Coerced Physical Intimacy
With the wide range of Star Children from many different worlds, sharing similarities, it's no surprise when moments of deja vu happen. That sense of the familiar with the new, the sense of something that happened before without quite being able to place it… or perhaps it being impossible. Regardless, when that connective moment happens, the Star Children involved are transported to a windmill home from the Cloud Colonies. They land together on a couch before a large television with all the makings of a movie night. There could be wine and cheese. There could be soda and popcorn. There could be tea or other hot beverages. There's a cozy blanket (only one). The movie has already been selected, and it starts playing.
Headliner
Remake
With the wide range of Star Children from many different worlds, sharing similarities, it's no surprise when moments of deja vu happen. That sense of the familiar with the new, the sense of something that happened before without quite being able to place it… or perhaps it being impossible. Regardless, when that connective moment happens, the Star Children involved are transported to a windmill home from the Cloud Colonies. They land together on a couch before a large television with all the makings of a movie night. There could be wine and cheese. There could be soda and popcorn. There could be tea or other hot beverages. There's a cozy blanket (only one). The movie has already been selected, and it starts playing.
Headliner
The movie is roughly based off one of the Star Children's lives, specifically for the Star Child that experience deja vu and triggered this experience. Regardless of the moment of deja vu, the plot of the movie is based off of some real or potential relationship—romantic or queer platonic—in their life. That Star Child can recognize some similarities immediately. If they had any doubts, they get a text message on their relic as the movie starts:
You need to get closer with your companion(s). You can either talk about what happened (or didn't) or not talk wink wink about it with them. The choice is yours (and theirs)! Have fun!
It's possible to ignore the message, at least for a while. The longer the movie plays, the more apparent it becomes that it's based off that Star Child. The starring character's clothes will change to resemble theirs. The cadence of their voice will shift to imitate theirs. Their facial features will shift. These changes will become more and more heavy handed as the movie goes on until even the most clueless companion will have real trouble not picking up on it. It may get harder and harder to distract them from talking about it! There's no pause button, and the only way to mute the movie is to *ahem* distract themselves from it until it becomes an indistinct background murmur.
Remake
If any Star Children thought this experience might have been a Valentine's Day prank, they'll be poorly mistaken come mid-March when it continues with a twist. The movie less closely resembles any one Star Child's life (whew?)… because it blends the lives of all those present together into a new story. One character is based off each Star Child, and it fits the other Star Child into the role of someone who was or could have been emotionally and/or physically intimate with them. If they had any doubts, each Star child gets a text message on their relic as the movie starts:
You need to get closer with your companion(s). You can either talk about what happened (or didn't) or not talk wink wink about it with them. The choice is yours (and theirs)! Have fun!
Not only does each Star Child have to decide what approach they want to take, but the other Star Child may pick up on what they're putting down! One Star Child may want to talk it out, but the other one desperately doesn't. Oh noes, how shall it be resolved? Well, the longer it takes, the more clearly the film demonstrates one way they could resolve it—a fictionalized ending, happy or sad or bittersweet or anything else, between the characters as they more closely resemble those watching them on the sofa. No one's free until they have a heart to heart or a something to something else. Any physical intimacy can do.
- Experience a moment of deja vu and get transported to a cozy living room in a Cloud Colony windmill.
- For the first month, the 'host' Star Child gets a text letting them know to get intimate—emotionally or physically.
- For the second month, all Star Children get that text.
- For the first month, the movie is based on the 'host' Star Child's experiences, what did or could have happened. As the movie progresses, it becomes more and more obvious that's the case.
- For the second month, the movie is a story blending Star Children's experiences together. That too will become more obvious over time.
- Some form of intimacy is the only way out!
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That was surely what wheeled through the Shark's head as he turned on Javert. He smiled a broad, predatory smile, glassy eyes sparkling bright, and lunged. It wouldn't matter how hard Javert kicks, or how firmly he could swing a desperate punch; he saw plainly, now, that he would go down with the unfortunate woman in short order, if he did not think quick.
So rather than kick or punch or attack at all, he waited. He waited until the shark was fully upon him, and when the time was right, and the woman was close enough to hoist by a limb, he grasped her firmly and made to wriggle her free of those toothy jaws, shimmying inside to take her place.
It was an attempt at a bait and switch. Would it work?
"Get away from here!" he hissed in her ear as he passed his lips. "Quick!"
Let him be the one to go, instead!
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Not that she was about to let him get dragged under in her place.
Fortunately, she was a strong swimmer and she immediately took off after the two of them, performing a graceful breaststroke. "You don't understand, my lord!" she shouted after them, kicking her legs as hard as she could. "You can't fight it. If you fight it, you wouldn't be able to get free!"
It occurred to her, as she gave chase, how ridiculous it would sound to explain that he had to cuddle a shark.
Good thing she was used to people laughing at her, she supposed.
Reaching out, she just barely managed to catch the shark's tale. Thank Thirteen! This wasn't a pace she could keep up on her own. Better to be dragged along.
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"What are you doing?" he questioned, instead of denying the respectful title, nearly too quiet to hear. The shark teeth cradled his body painlessly, his muscles slackening in its jaws. Clinically, he wondered how the shark could express such gentility, a bizarre disassociation from his dire circumstance flooding his head. He raised his voice, to be heard more distinctly.
"Listen here! I don't mean to fight it, Mam'selle, I mean to take your place!"
Madwoman! Don't let his efforts be in vain! If he could, he would lash out at her, thrust her off the shark's tail, who seemed more than thrilled to keep his first friend hoisted along.
"Now, release the creature and spare yourself!"
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It would have to wait, though.
Meanwhile, she was going to earn the title of madwoman for good.
"You don't understand," she said, still clinging to the shark. "There's no sparing! The shark doesn't want blood, it wants company."
He was absolutely going to laugh at her. Well, after the terror wore off.
Ariadne suppressed a little sigh. Sometimes, she wondered if the true trial Thirteen was putting on her was the eternal struggle to be taken seriously.
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(Go on, there's plenty of room.)
"Company, indeed! What a wretched idea!" Javert shouted back incredulously, his neck limp. There was no laughter; indeed, there was nothing funny about their predicament at all.
He felt the shark jostle her into place beside him. He laid quite still in the jaws throughout the adjustments, loosed, dangling like a rag doll, watching the silvery streams and dark zipping shapes of other fish swirling through the water. He had no choice but to stare straight up and out, with his faculties stripped from him. The shapes were hypnotic to behold from this angle; dizzying, too. His eyes fluttered shut, closing out the whirling noise from his aching head.
"Well, one was enough for company," he appended wearily. "One man and plenty of other fish in this sea. You should have gone when I had given you the chance."
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The rest was just unpleasant.
She offered the stranger a weary smile. "I'm not the type of person who just abandons someone when they're trying to help," she replied, the cheer in her voice genuine, even if their circumstances were less than idea.
Her faith in Thirteen helped.
That and the fact that she'd already been through it and was reasonably sure the shark would continue to follow the same pattern. That was usually how these trials went.
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"I beg your pardon. That was unjust and untoward."
And then he fell utterly silent and unresponsive, brow drawn tight. At this close, she could, perhaps, see the deep lines burrowed into his face, the world-weary exhaustion weighting down his spirits. He was pensive and melancholy, lost in a sea of dark, destructive thoughts, and looked rather like it bothered him little to be carted off to who-knew-where within the jaws of a shark.
He would not stir or speak again until they were deposited in the lonely shark's cave grotto.
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Silly, of course, also seemed to be something Thirteen enjoyed.
"Don't worry," she told him, "Thirteen will protect us." And then lapsed into silence, sensing that his mind was somewhere other than in the shark's possession, at the moment.
When they were finally deposited in the silver world that was the shark's home, Ariadne stood up and gently stroked the shark on the head. "You did a very good job of bringing us here without hurting us." Much, anyway. It was still an uncomfortable ordeal. "You're a very, very good boy." She leaned her forehead against his. Ariadne knew that sharks needed to continue moving, their tails undulating to keep them afloat. But she could swear the shark was wagging his tail like a puppy.
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As soon as he asked himself, an image of the ethereal red fox's face flickered behind his eyes. Ah. He did remember that she mentioned numbers, among everything else she poured upon him. The Fox-woman must have been significant to all of Folkmore, and not a mere beast-messenger sent to fetch him from the grave.
Javert pushed himself first onto his elbows, pressing the flat of his palm hard against his face. Then, equally tender, like the whole sack of his body and bones ached with the effort, he glided up to his feet, testing one sloshing, squelching boot, then the other. He watched his companion and her (?) shark through narrowed slits for eyes, slowly folding his arms close in an embrace, a shield, against the sights before him.
"That's all very nice," he murmured, a dearth of emotion in his tone. "But where is here? It is nowhere I recognize. We ought not be able to breathe this water, let alone do whatever-it-is this creature brought us for."
There was a beat, the corner of his mouth twitching with what Ariadne suggested. He jerked his squared chin toward the wagging shark tail for emphasis.
"For company. As you say."
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"I think we're beneath the island of Never Fade," she said gently. "Which is part of the land of Folkmore. The Fox explained it to you, right?" Some people retained the memory better than others. At first, that had mystified Ariadne, but she was starting to understand that not everyone was from a world where encounters with the gods and divine visions were natural.
Some dismissed it all as a dream.
They tended to be the ones who regretted Folkmore the most. Ariadne herself didn't believe in regret.
She gave the man a polite curtsy, although it was more of a bounce than a curtsy. It went with all of Ariadne's mannerisms, the eternal spring child. "I know this is all probably a bit overwhelming, my lord. But I promise you, we're safe. And I always keep my promises."
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Javert gazed upon the girl's curtsy with a heavy pinch of skepticism. He wondered inwardly what gave her the right to make such a promise, and if it was hers to make. He could not recall if the Fox promised safety, but she did promise potential and a place where he could leave his world and its suffocating bleakness behind him.
After a long moment of scrutiny, his nostrils flared with a silent sigh. It was likely this girl was simply young, optimistic, and naive, making promises she could not keep. He knocked himself down a peg, preparing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"I did not forget Madame Fox so soon. Nor what she told me," he said, his tone shifting suddenly to one of curt business, one accustomed to making the interrogations and being answered in haste. A blot of melancholy dampened his authoritative speech, slowing his syllables and lengthening his clipped vowels. His lynx-ish ear flicked unconsciously.
"Who are you? An associate of hers?"
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"No," she said gently, her tone a silk glove around his steel fist. "I'm just one of her chosen. My name is Airy." A pause. "Well, actually, it's Ariadne, but no one really seems to call me that. Everyone just goes with Airy."
And it was a nicknamed that suited her. After all, everything else she did--from her light tone of voice to the birdlike way she canted her head to her tendency to stand with her fingers splayed, twitching at her sides as though she was a bird about to take wing--gave one the sense of a girl defying gravity. It wasn't just that her name happened to sound like the word 'airy.' It was that she was airy.
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Javert was nothing if not intractable. And in his current mental state, full of thoughts of self-hatred, inadequacy, and listlessness, damn near anyone qualified as his better. Mademoiselle Ariadne, and no more familiar than that, would be his name for her; never Airy.
He grinned mirthlessly, a heavy sadness weighting his shadowed eyes.
"A pleasure enough. Though it would be moreso under better circumstances," he drawled brusquely. He surveyed the grotto for a place to set himself down, a place where he might lie somewhat comfortably and make do with what was at his disposal. He grunted, as he began to slowly make a loop around the perimeter, examining the accoutrements, "Were we not hauled like helpless vermin into this cave. Now, since you evidently know Madame Fox's wiles better than me, what do we do with these creatures now?"
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Far too many people focused on the hardships of Folkmore, forgetting all the good things.
And forgetting they came of their own choice.
"Well," she said, clasping her hands behind her back. "Thirteen encourages connection when possible. Doesn't matter much if it's between the Star Children or--"
She was cut off by the sudden return of the shark, who was using his flat nose to nudge a silver tea set forward, across the hazy ground. It had a lovely, porcelain teapot with an orange and gold fox pattern, along with matching cups. Piled high on a plate beside the tea were several rich, indulgent cakes with thick frosting foxes prancing along across them.
"Our host has brought us a gift," she said, the corners of her lips twitching in amusement.
CW: Brief reference to death by drowning
He was much less delighted by the sight than she was. He, who has suffered shockwave after shockwave, one after another relentlessly, upending the very deepest corners of his soul, merely beheld the extravagance with a tamped-down exhaustion.
He felt himself letting go, an invisible string snapping over his head.
Of course the shark served tea. Of course Foxes spoke. Of course they breathed underwater with the ease of fresh air.
The land of Folkmore, as fantastical as a child's fairy-land. Surely this was a dying delusion, a mental aberration while he twisted and turned and gasped for air that would not come.
(Then why did he feel merely tired and hungry, and not feeble, not fading?)
He quit his pacing and slunk down in a seat in front of the plate, back stiff as granite.
"Star Children. I remember that name pronounced." The shock was setting in. He delicately plucked up a piece of bread, sniffing it like a hound distrustfully. He set it down as quick as he tested it, reaching instead for one of the pots and carefully jiggling it to listen to the steaming liquid inside. "That is what I am become, isn't it. Yet I remember the stars darkening before..."
He tapered off into an indiscernible mumble. His brows knit, a frown blooming at the corner of his mouth. He carefully poured her a cup first, then his own, and set the pot down with a heavy clink, a breathless growl of a Thank you absently directed toward the Shark.
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It was Javert, it was totally Javert.
The shark she was beginning to understand loneliness was a universal sensation. The need to connect, to have company, to find fulfilment in the pleasure of others. It made sense, it was easy.
Javert, on the other hand? He seemed much trickier.
Nevertheless, Ariadne reasoned that she'd been put in his path for a reason. And if it was as simple as explaining what Thirteen could not, or something more complicated, she would just have to figure it out. Cautiously. Curiosity. Carefully.
She bowed her head graciously as she accepted the cup of tea, curling her fingers around the porcelain to savor the warmth. As much as she wanted to dive headfirst into the pile of cakes, she waited. Right now, Javert was a bit more important. "You are a Star Child," she said, giving him a weighty nod. "You're here for the same reason as the rest of us, to unlock some kind of hidden potential deep inside of you. But that makes it sound like our lives here are very grand. Really, they're not. All of us here work and study and go to sleep and wake up in the morning."
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Javert cradled his cup, gazing into the smooth brown surface. The consequences of his choice were starting to sink in. Whenever the Shark released them from this underwater hole, there was a land out there full of people, with towns, cities, schools, workplaces. He would have to start from the bottom again, and which bottom that would be, he hadn't the slightest idea. He had not thought far enough ahead to consider a life for him. He had not figured he would be forced to find work, to continue onward, when he could no longer piece together right from wrong, up from down, underwater from up in the air.
He was rarely this impulsive, to follow an apparition on a whim. Not he, not the meticulous, exacting Javert, who always crossed every t and dotted every i. He always had an idea or a plan brewing, when he acted.
He wished again that Ariadne did not come back for him. (But then, he would not comprehend until much later down the line how dangerous lonesomeness would have been for him at this moment; he had only one idea sweeping across his mind, and it was something he could not allow himself to do in the presence of decent company.)
Javert forced himself out of his reverie, drawing his cup close. He slid the sugar and cream Ariadne's way, an unspoken token of gratitude for having the patience to sit with an old, disgraced cop's vacant, scattered thoughts.
"So there is a functioning society out there. If I am to join it upon our release," If he was to, his frown lopsided, as his glance flicks back toward wherever the shark had gone, "What manner of work is most wanted?"
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Somehow, she sensed that Javert needed to be more than just a frog. Ariadne was tragically inept when it came to idioms, but she understood symbolism and metaphor. At least, most of the time. Likewise, she understood that some didn't see the little things as important as the big things. Didn't see the connections between the two.
Apparently, that was Javert's line of reasoning. Hardly the first person she'd met like that. Not even the first in Folkmore. Hopefully, experience would begin to show him.
In the meanwhile, she perked up considerably at his question. "Teaching is actually the most demanded occupation," she said. "There are a number of different schools in Folkmore. Star Children are encouraged to learn as much as they can. Part of finding our potential. Which means that Thirteen encourages us to teach what we know." She added a spoonful of sugar to her tea, stirring it as daintily as she could. "What sort of trade did you practice in your home world? I'm sure that whatever it is, it'll provide some possibilities here."
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He balked grimly, feline ears flattened, his eyes dulled. He popped a plain nibble of bread into his mouth and chewed slowly, his tongue dry.
"I was of the police," he admitted at last after swallowing. Past tense. Was. Lying did not come naturally to him, no matter how much he wished to avoid the subject. "Are you a school-girl? Do you study or work?"
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There was little Ariadne loved more than introducing her new friends to her other new friends. And despite many differences of opinion she had with the Jedi, she was terribly fond of all of them.
Perhaps they could speak to Javert in a language she didn't know. Law and order were not exactly areas of expertise for her.
"And I'm both a student and teacher," she added, remembering his question. "I teach at the school called Kuma Lisa. Music lessons three days a week. And individual flying lessons for the Star Children who find themselves with wings."
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There it was again: Doubt. Doubt in his own suitability to guard society, doubt in his place in the world. It pained him, to see this girl's eyes light up, to hear the good faith in her tone. If only she knew how much he ailed, how little he knew about the laws of Folkmore and thus, how unsuited he was to take on the mantle of a policeman so soon after his resignation! (But then, what was he suited for? He did not know where to start.) He quickly dropped his stare down to his coffee as he sipped.
--Just as the shark returned, nudging his glass police badge into his palm. He bared his teeth in a rictus of a grin, hollow and dead, and shooed the shark back on its way.
"We shall see about your Knights," he said noncommittally, squeezing the badge tightly in his palm. His grip trembled. "But school is no place for me. That, I am certain of -- not music, not flying, and not as a professor. No offense meant to you, of course, Mademoiselle."
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She knew better than to proselytize, though.
No one would take her seriously, anyway.
Again, she couldn't help but wonder what Thirteen had been thinking when she made Ariadne a Legend. She was no hero. She was nothing.
"What's that?" she asked quietly, looking at the bit of glass. "A gift from our host?"
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The outburst was strange, rife with ingratitude. Javert must work to swallow back his thoughts; mechanically, he turned the glass in his palm without dropping his eyes to look at it.
"It is my identification card," he followed up tersely after a grounding breath or two. He flashed it to her (she ought to be able to read a bit of it; Inspector of Police of the First Class, JAVERT, Aged Fifty-Two, along with a police emblem and motto she of a country and city she may not recognize) and then made a move to drop it into his deepest coat pocket. "I left it behind."
With good reason, if one were to ask him.
He raised his head and his cup.
"Let's talk more about your music, rather," he pivoted abruptly, wanting desperately to shift the subject away from his existence. "Do you teach it written, or by ear? With which instrument?"
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But what a frustratingly terse man.
A fact that only made her more determined, of course.
"All of the instruments," she replied. "At least, the ones the ones that I've spent a little time with, back home." She started to tick them off on her fingers. "Lute, fiddle, ocarina, flute, guitar, whistle, drums, piano, mandolin, horn, cello, harp, ukulele, lyre, biwa, marimba, organ, bells, and bandoneon."
Although the list was exceptionally long, Ariadne was matter-of-fact about it all. Not so much as a trace of bragging or pride. Simply what she knew. "So far, no one's brought in anything I haven't seen before. I also offer singing lessons. The most popular choice so far has been drumming. It's especially useful for the fighters among us. A sense of rhythm and balance. Being able to time movement to the beat. It's like throwing a punch while listening to the pulse in your chest."
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Javert did have musical talent in him; he simply felt himself unsuited to formal schooling about it. His flavor of music was far more rustic, far less refined. His was the music of the jailhouse, the music of a rickety guitar or a ukulele cradled across the breast of a colorfully-garmented Romani wanderer. The music of the bawdy taverns, the tums of which he could hum and murmur to this day, though he was a frequent observer and rarely a participant of the merriment.
With patience and perseverance, Ariadne would come to learn this about her dreary new acquaintance. Another time!
He met her matter-of-factness with a curl of his brow. He has calmed considerably with the shift in conversation, though the weariness and heaviness about his eyes lingers, the badge burning a hole in his pocket.
"Drumming is popular because it lulls the novices into simplicity. It is limiting, potentially, for the lot," he remarked slowly. "You beat a drum, they think, and that is all there is! A thought, if I may, Mademoiselle. You might tell them to take on two disciplines for practical application. Marry the beat with a tune, follow the rhythm with foot and fist. Do you work with dancers, or strictly fighters?"
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CW: mild suicidal ideation at the end
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We can just about wrap this thread up and move on to the main game, I think!