Sarah didn't know what to make of all this. The prospect of being genuinely immortal...like most teenagers, she had never really given much thought to the idea that she could and would eventually die, but that was a completely different thing to actually having reason to believe that she never would. Even with the knowledge that she probably still could die if she were damaged badly enough, the thought of being able to live forever...well, she didn't know what to make of it. She couldn't even really comprehend it; neither she nor anybody she'd ever known had any real context for it.
At first, she was a little elated. The idea of never having to worry about her own mortality, never growing old and feeble, just being able to replace anything that wore out and keep on going, that was a marvelous prospect. And it was enticing to her own pride in her appearance to think of never getting wrinkled or sagging...
...but at the same time, she wondered if she wouldn't be missing something? After all, her own parents didn't seem to mind having gotten older terribly. Her dad was taking something or other to combat his hair loss, but other than that, they weren't noticeably unhappy or anything. And did she really want to remain exactly the same forever?
But then, it wasn't like things would be completely unchanging. After all, she wasn't the same person she'd been a year ago, despite looking pretty much the same now (or, well, a few days ago, before she'd gone from being a human being to some kind of wind-up doll-robot) as she had at sixteen. She could still change and mature as a person, still learn new things and try new experiences, still live and not just remain static, even if her appearance didn't change.
...but how long would that last? Surely she would run out of new things to experience, eventually, if she lived forever. What would happen then? Would she still be able to enjoy things that were no longer novel, or was it inevitable that she would get bored with anything given long enough? She thought about what Tom had said, about the others of her kind, and shuddered. Once, in middle school, she'd caught little bits and pieces of some weird old movie with Sean Connery in it, where people lived forever and got so terminally bored that they just stopped reacting to all stimuli and sat around comatose. That image popped back out at her now, and she could imagine herself in that state. Was that what this body had looked like, before her soul had inhabited it? Just an empty husk, functionally intact but dead inside?
She suppressed another shudder. It was only a legend, she reminded herself. Tom knew a bit about machines, clearly, and he'd been studying her blueprints (that was a weird thought,) but the stuff about other creatures like herself was all hearsay and folklore. Still...was it that hard to believe? And that wasn't even getting into the idea that she was immortal while everybody around her wasn't. If she remained here, in this body, she could very well outlive everyone she met, everyone she cared about. She could watch Diana the little pre-teen catgirl grow into a woman, grow old, and pass away, then continue on after she was gone...and before that, Tom...
She shuddered again. She didn't like this line of thought; it was too morbid. She looked over at Tom, who had his arms around her. She took comfort in the warmth of his embrace, grateful for the fundamentally human connection, even in her altered form. She wondered idly if he was just trying to comfort her, or if it meant something more to him; she'd been good at reading the boys back home, but that was mostly about recognizing high-school cultural signifiers. Outside of that context, she found it a lot harder to tell.
But it was a very strange thought, whether it was hypothetical or not. Could a man love a...a machine...the way he might love a woman? Sarah still thought of herself as a woman, and nobody seemed to give any serious indication that they felt differently, but it was hard to imagine that the distinction was completely negligible. On the most basic level, she wasn't even a biological organism anymore - surely she couldn't conceive and bear children. No matter what she might look like (and it occurred to her that she hadn't actually had a good look at herself since her arrival in this body,) it was all essentially just decorative, right? Or had her...her designer...given her the ability to...to feel and react in the way that a real woman would? In the way that she had used to?
She didn't know. She didn't feel anything like that now, but was that because she couldn't, or just because this wasn't that kind of situation? She had no idea. She wondered if he did; he'd been studying her design, after all. But she wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea of asking him, even if she was ready for the answer, which she wasn't sure she was. Of course, she supposed that there were human couples who could love each other despite being unable to make love, or at least that was the impression she'd gotten, but that had always seemed like...like making the best of a bad situation. It was probably great for them that they could have a relationship in spite of their difficulties, but it was hard to imagine that they wouldn't be happier if things were more normal for them...wouldn't they?
Sarah leaned into Tom's embrace, feeling her inner workings slow down and settle into a smoother rhythm as they sat staring into the fire. Whatever this might mean to him, to her it was a comfort as she sat there trying to sort out all her thoughts and come to terms with what had happened to her.
Jon had to admit, it was surprising how easy she found it to just let go and let the music come out. He'd always had an interest in it, but when he'd tried to perform for people before, it had always felt stiff and methodical, like he was just using himself as a kind of human machine to reproduce what was written on the page. He'd never quite managed to strike the right balance between being technically competent and actually putting some life into his playing, which was one of the reasons he'd eventually lost interest. Now, though...
It wasn't that she was suddenly a prodigy; she still had to work at the technical side of things, all the more so because she had to use her feet and she was using a completely different playing technique. But there was no stiffness, no dry mechanical rote recital. For all the occasional stutters and wrong notes, it just flowed out of her, and Maggie joined in and their singing meshed together as naturally as breathing.
She'd given a little thought to how she wanted to start things off ahead of time. She didn't really have any idea what kind of music people liked in this world (or, well, on this island, which was all she'd seen of it up until now,) so she'd decided to start things off with some softer, more traditional songs, just to see how they went over. That was mostly what she'd practiced with Maggie, anyway. She'd tried "Scarborough Fair" for an opener (with Maggie on the counterpoint,) on the theory that it might be sorta-kinda setting-appropriate, and that seemed to go over well enough; from there she meandered through a few different '60s-'70s soft pop numbers, trying to judge whether the crowd found them interesting or not. She kind of wanted to hit something a little harder and more uptempo, but it'd be a while yet before she knew whether something like "Minstrel in the Gallery" would fly with these people, even if she were suitably practiced up yet, which she really wasn't.
Jon glanced around the crowd as the evening wore on. She wondered about the fact that it seemed to be almost entirely humans and animal-people; she knew full well from her adventures up to this point that there were other varieties of people in this world; did "mythical" creatures just tend not to live in the cities as much? She didn't know. Maybe it wasn't just the fact that she was a harpy wearing clothes that marked her as something unusual; maybe they were a rare sight around here to begin with. Well, that seemed probable anyway, based on what Maggie had said about their flocking behavior, but it did seem odd to not see, say, any centaurs around. She couldn't remember whether she'd seen one since coming to the city or not.
Though, now that she was thinking of it, she did notice what appeared to be a dragon-man standing in the back by himself. She wondered if he'd only just gotten here. And there was that elf-looking woman, who struck her as familiar for some reason...?
She wondered what they all thought of her. She knew some of them found her "exotic," which was a little disturbing, but...well, it couldn't be helped; not if it was that or go naked. But she wondered if any of them knew - could they tell that the shape she wore wasn't her natural one? Did they suspect she'd been born a human? A man? Did she even want them to know? Would that make it weird and awkward, or would they get offended? Or would it be simpler than trying to fool people into thinking she was a normal girl, and being unable to pull it off because she wasn't? She had no idea...
Jon supposed that was where being a total stranger came in handy. She could say nothing about it and let them draw their own conclusions; she could choose to be whoever it worked for her to be in this world, in this body. If she thought of it like she thought of her "persona" she was performing under, like it was a character she was playing...which, really, was pretty much what it was... But part of her wondered if that was really a good idea - what if she started internalizing it? She thought of that premonition she'd gotten on the farm; was she risking her self by pretending to be something else?
But she didn't get that feeling now, when she thought about this. It was...it was just part of the act, really. A way to get by in this situation, until she could return to her own life and not have to worry about it anymore. That was it. Definitely. ...well, maybe also a bit of a chance to indulge in playing at being a different person, a mysterious foreign bard, but no more than that. Definitely.
As she was busy thinking about this, Jon found herself gliding through the songs almost subconsciously. It was like her brain was able to function on completely separate tracks simultaneously; the part of her mind that was focused on tapping away at the guitar and singing the lyrics was completely disconnected from the part of her brain that was busy thinking about her situation. Maybe that's where Maggie gets it from, she thought. The little harpy-girl could seem like a bit of a hyperactive space-case at times (maybe "bird-brained," though that was a little mean,) but she was clearly a bright kid; maybe it was just that her mind ran off on one tangent while her mouth followed another one entirely. She wondered if she came off that way to anybody.
It was around the time she finished that thought that the musical part of her brain moved on from the song she'd been playing and struck up the first notes of "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor. This was normal enough, considering; but as she was just beginning to sing, she happened to glance back over at the elf lady. She was instantly grateful that she now had this disconnect between the parts of her brain, because she suddenly realized who she'd been reminded of, and it turned her conscious mind into an utter jumbled emotional mess.
Miss Eileen had lived at the end of the street for years, before the Madisons had even moved to Lakeside. She was what Jon supposed you'd call a spinster, somewhere in her late fifties, unmarried with no children, tall and graceful, but visibly weakened by several decades of smoking, though she'd quit by the time Jon knew her.
At the time, money had been tight enough for their family that Jon's mother had had to start working part-time; it wasn't until a few years later that her husband finally got a promotion and she'd been able to start staying home full-time again. During that time, Ms. Eileen had been a lifesaver for the Madisons, as she was quite happy to watch Jon and Zoe during the day while their mother was at work.
Despite her quiet grace and dignified manner, she was a warm, motherly sort of woman, and a bit of a character. Her little house was packed nearly wall-to-wall with books of all kinds; as soon as Jon had learned to read, he spent hours poring through her library, and she was happy to let him dig through the stacks and point him in the direction of more books he might like. While Jon had mostly gotten his taste in music from his mother, who'd raised him on all the local classic-rock stations, it was no exaggeration to say that he owed practically all of his reading habits to Ms. Eileen. He'd been very fond of her; Zoe remembered her rather vaguely but fondly, but to Jon she had been almost like a third grandmother.
She had also been his first real experience with loss, as a kid; when he was nine, her history with tobacco finally caught up with her, years before his paternal grandmother (a sturdy, hale North Dakota farm girl who'd passed only a handful of years before Grandpa Frank had gone missing and left Jon the wishing stone - Jon's maternal grandmother was still living in Arizona, one of those little old Mexican ladies who don't seem to get old in the usual way so much as shrivel up and shrink down and then stick around indefinitely.) And Jon's mother had played this song for him...
"...but I always thought that I'd see you again.
Thought I'd see you one more time again..."
She couldn't stop her eyes from getting misty, but while she'd have been choking up from the emotion in her old life, now it came through in her song. She'd never felt such raw emotion come out of her in this way before. She looked back over at the woman who looked so much like a younger, not-quite-human version of her old friend; she was gazing intently at Jon and smiling in a warm and familiar way. She wondered - could it really be her? Even if she was dead and gone? Or was she just a doppelganger with her own life, like the centauress version of Zoe's friend Athena? What did all of this mean?
She finished the song, then lurched from her seat on the stage. With her subconscious no longer lost in the music, the emotional turmoil of this experience was starting to break through into her outward behavior. "I need a drink," she told the crowd apologetically. Nobody in the audience seemed to be too upset; they'd all been too caught up in the sudden burst of emotion from the exotic new bard.
The bartender gave her a smile as she made her way over. "Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all. I think you'll work out just fine, miss."
He poured her a small mug of red wine, and she sat down at the bar, grabbed it in one talon, and took a long pull off it. Jon had no taste for this kind of stuff (in fact, she'd never even had alcohol - aside from God-awful communion wine - before coming to this world,) but it was dark and heavy and filled her sinuses and warmed her insides and helped to steady her feelings and that was good enough.
While she was nursing her glass of wine and watching the shadows cast from the fireplace in the center of the room, Jon noticed someone approaching her. She looked up from her drink to see the man who had been watching from the back earlier. He was on the taller side (or so it seemed to her, but then, she was still getting used to being quite a bit shorter herself,) with a farm-boy kind of build - lanky but strong. Unlike a lot of the animal-people, he was mostly human, with a few key differences - twisty, dull red horns growing from his forehead and poking through his thatchy golden hair, a large pair of pterosaur-like wings folded against his back, scaley, clawed hands and feet, and a thick lizard tail with small, bony dorsal plates curling around his leg. The scales on his dragon bits were a somewhat brighter red and slightly glossy. He also had no suggestion of facial hair at all; she wondered if maybe that came with being half-reptile, because it was hard to imagine they had razors that good around here.
For all that, it was surprising how unimposing of a figure he cut. It wasn't that he slouched or anything; in fact, for some random taverngoer, he carried himself quite well, with an almost regal bearing. It was more like he was so unassuming and so sheepish about looking as impressive as he actually did that he managed to fade into the background anyway. Jon found herself simultaneously impressed and a little bemused, and wondered what he wanted.
He bowed his head courteously to her, which made Jon feel a little weird. "That was a beautiful performance, Miss," he said to her. She felt herself getting a little flush with embarassment at having someone actually come up to praise her music. His voice was quiet and gentle, but there was a touch of gravel to it.
She managed to put on a pleasant smile despite her still somewhat jumbled emotional state. "Th-thanks," she said. "I'm...glad you enjoyed it."
He nodded. "Your sister already gave us your name, so it's only fair that I give you mine. Enki, at your service." He gave her another brief tip of the head. "Sadly," he continued, "I have to be getting home, or I'd gladly stay for the rest of your performance. I hope I'll find you playing here next time I come this way."
Jon didn't really know what to say, other than "Um, thanks..." He smiled at her, then turned to leave. She turned to watch him go and noticed that, on his other side, there was a scabbard with a rather ornately-decorated sword hilt sticking out of it. After he'd gone, she turned to the bartender. "He, um, has a sword?" she said. It seemed like the kind of thing you wouldn't normally bring into a peaceful (if noisy) public establishment, classic fantasy tropes notwithstanding.
The bartender laughed. "Don't worry too much about him, miss," he said. "He's an odd one, but he's harmless." He lowered his voice. "Between you and me, I hear it's not even sharp. Guess that's why the guards don't give him any trouble about it."
Jon frowned. "Who is he, anyway? He seemed kinda out-of-place here."
The big red-faced man shrugged. "Dunno exactly. He just shows up every few weeks or so to trade for supplies. Think he does carving or something. I hear he lives up in the mountains somewhere, toward the center of the island. Other'n that, it's all gossip. Some folks say he's a notorious pirate hiding from his vengeful shipmates, some folks say that he's a disgraced nobleman from another country...you know how it is. Get enough stories goin' around and it's damn near impossible to tell which one is the real facts of the matter."
Jon nodded thoughtfully. "Huh." She finished off the wine and stood up, feeling a bit fuzzy in the head, but pleasantly so. I didn't realize it would affect me that much, she thought. I guess it's because I'm smaller now...? She looked around for the woman who looked like Ms. Eileen, but she seemed to have gone. She was a little miffed at this Enki for distracting her so that she missed it, but it wasn't really his fault. She sighed; well, back to work. She got back up on-stage and motioned to Maggie, who had divided her time between gloating over the coins that had been left in their tip mug, saying hello to some of the patrons, and rummaging through the props cabinet, and they set back up for another set.
It had taken quite a bit of psyching herself up before Diana could work up the nerve to ask the kids - the other kids - if she could join in, but to her surprise they had agreed immediately, and there was even a bit of argument over whose team would get her. She was a little surprised by this, but she supposed it made sense; cats were quick, light on their feet, and for the tag-out aspect of the game, her tail was a bit smaller of a target than, say, the fox-boy with his big, floofy brush. She felt herself beaming a little, in spite of the funk she'd been in beforehand; it was nice to be wanted, even if the cat part of her mind told her that she was tough and independent.
It wasn't a difficult game to get the hang of; as she'd figured, it was pretty much a variant of dodgeball, though it was a bit more rough-and-tumble than what she remembered playing in gym class all those years ago. Playing with a bunch of animal-people apparently meant a bit more pouncing and tackling than she was used to, but all of them were on the younger and smaller side, so it wasn't like anybody was in danger of getting hurt. And...well, her feline instincts took right to that, to be honest. It felt so natural to her.
Diana was disappointed when her team didn't win, but she managed to keep her emotions somewhat more in check this time. And it helped that they won the next game. Of course, the other team won the game after that, but then Diana's won one...
It was dusk by the time the other kids finally started getting called home; they'd set up their little court in the center of the village, so most of the houses were within shouting distance. Before long, Diana herself noticed Sarah coming down to get her. The clockwork girl smiled as she came down toward the court. "Diana, it's time to come in," she called. "Millicent's getting supper ready, and- ye gods, what happened to you? Are you alright?"
Diana looked down at herself. She'd been too absorbed in the game to pay much attention, but she realized now that she was dusty, slightly scuffed, and her new jumper was already dirty. She felt a little sheepish, but she'd had too much fun playing to let it get to her. "I'm okay," she said. "We were just playin'."
Sarah shrugged. She seemed pretty okay. "Well, I suppose that's what we got the playclothes for," she said, taking the little cat-girl by the hand and leading her back out towards Millicent's burrow. "Did you have fun?"
Diana gave her a lopsided grin. "Uh-huh," she said cheerily. "It was a lot a' fun."
It was quite late in the evening when things at the tavern finally wound down and the bartender gave last call. Jon finished up her last number and put the guitar back in the cabinet, then gently roused Maggie, who had, against all odds, managed to run through her seemingly limitless energy. She carefully threaded her wingtip through the handle of the tip mug and lifted it off the stage, nodded to the bartender before taking a moment to grab it with her teeth,and led her younger charge upstairs to the little attic room that served as their lodgings here.
They'd had supper earlier in the evening, when the roast that had been preparing when they arrived was finally ready. Jon wondered if there was anything she could get to brush her teeth with around here, but it was late and they'd had a very, very long day; she could worry about that in the morning. There was a little trunk at one end of the room; she emptied the last of the contents of her satchel into it (mostly a few small handy items like the comb that fairy had swiped) and then emptied the tip mug into the satchel.
What she'd thought were gold coins in the light of the fire turned out to be only bright new copper, and she initially felt pissed off that people had left them a bunch of pennies, but she realized after a moment's thought that they were probably worth quite a bit more here than back home. She remembered hearing some of the really old folks at family reunions reminisce about what a penny used to get you. Maybe it wasn't so bad; and there were one or two small silver pieces in there as well. There was also what appeared to be a brooch; it was beautifully carved out of cherry wood and had a large piece of amber at the center. Jon flushed slightly; she had a pretty good guess as to who had left that for her.
The bedding in the room consisted of a sort of futon, or possibly a very thick blanket, laid out on the floor, plus a pile of lighter blankets. Maggie, bleary as she was, had already set about arranging these into a nest, and curled up inside of it. Jon yawned, quite exhausted herself, and settled in next to her, only to find the little harpy-girl snuggling up against her for warmth.
It was a bit drafty up here, come to think of it. Jon was about to take the "nest" apart for blankets, but it didn't seem quite right to her; and after all, Maggie had arranged it so nicely. Sighing, she wriggled out of her tunic and spread it over the two of them. It wasn't terribly heavy fabric, but there was a fair amount of it, enough to cover their un-feathered skin quite handily.
Maggie nestled up closer against her; Jon felt a little awkward about this, but decided that it was probably the best way to stay warm up here. Rolling onto her side, she put one wing over her little "sister;" Maggie snuggled up into the curve of her body, nestled against her bare bosom. Within minutes, they were both sound asleep.
Athena stared at Zoe as she dragged herself, bleary-eyed, up to her locker that morning. "Geez, you look like hell," she said. "You okay?"
Zoe gave her a withering glare and a muffled groan. "'zall that weird shit you were up to yesserday," she mumbled. "Hadda nightmare 'n couldn' get back to sleep." She steadied herself against her locker, gave a practically feline full-body yawn and stretch, rubbed her eyes, and looked around, at least marginally more awake.
Athena felt a bit sheepish. She supposed she had been acting a bit crazy yesterday, but it was only because the whole situation was crazy. Even now, in the light of day, she couldn't shake the feeling that something creepy was going on. What she'd felt in that guest room... But she hadn't meant to cost Zoe any sleep. "Um, sorry," she said; then, "...wanna talk about it?"
Zoe sighed as she opened her locker and got everything in order. "I...I dunno. Don't r'member much about it. Weird as hell, that's all. Think there was music involved. But..." She felt a shiver go up her spine, and thought waves of hatred back at it as she searched her psyche for the air of aloof misanthropy she usually wore at school. "But there was this kid in it...I dunno, I just had this feeling like I knew him from somewhere. Like I should know him. I don't, I can't place the face, I can't think why I'd be dreaming about him, but he's the one thing I remember clearly from the dream."
Athena leaned back against her locker and stared at the floor. "I really do think something's up, Zoe," she said. "What I felt yesterday, what you just told me...this is all part of something, I know it."
Zoe slumped into her locker, her shoulders sagging. "I...dunno," she said, not really sure if that was true. "I mean, I don't wanna tell you you're crazy, Teena, but...you get 'spooky premonitions' all the damn time, y'know. And I probably only dreamed that stuff because you were acting so freaky yesterday." But she wasn't at all sure she believed that.
