The question rattled around in Ken's brain as the two of them walked down the hall towards their lockers. What did she see in him? He felt a bit honored that Haru had shared her secret with him; as far as he knew, he was the only person besides the counselor and that strange ancient girl that she'd told about the nature of her third eye. It was interesting to think about what the world must look like to her, seeing glimpses of things in some kind of half-metaphorical way, but glimpses that represented real things. If she could glimpse hidden mysteries...
"H-Haru?" he asked. "What...what do you see when you look at me?" He didn't even really mean to say it, the words just kind of slipped out. He cringed a little bit, not really sure if that was an appropriate question; was it too prying? Wouldn't she already have shared, if she thought he ought to know...?
Haru looked at the fox-boy curiously, then smiled. "I see you," she said.
"...oh." Did...did that mean there wasn't anything of note about him? "Uh...you mean, nothing like...?" He felt a bit embarassed for asking now, and it came through in his voice more than he meant it to. Of course she'd have told him...but if there wasn't anything remarkable about him, then she must have had enough tact not to say so...and if he hadn't asked, he wouldn't have had to know...
"Well, yeah..." she said, as they arrived at their lockers. She could hear his tone, it wasn't difficult to figure out what he was thinking. "But...it's not like that," she added hastily. "I see you, just you, 'cause you don't have anything really hidden about you. It's nice..."
He wasn't expecting that for a response. "R-really?"
She nodded as she took her flute case out. "I like it when I don't have to rely on...on my sight to understand something. I told you...it kind of scares me. It...sometimes it makes me feel like...like a small fish in a very big ocean, I think." She smiled, blushing a little bit. "But you...I can know you just by getting to know you. I like that."
All of a sudden Ken felt a lot better about the idea. "Huh," he murmured. "Uh, thanks..." He couldn't help but smile a little. He still thought it would be nice to be something cool, something with powers or some kind of other-nature, but...maybe being ordinary wasn't so bad, if that's how it was...
They walked on towards the library. Haru still couldn't stop noticing the way the hem of her dress brushed gently against her shins. Her mother hadn't talked her into trying nylons yet, but she was wearing longer stockings than usual, going almost up to her knees. She still wasn't sure how she felt about all this...was she giving in? After all, she never used to be this way! But she'd never used to have friends, either; she was broadening out in other areas, maybe this was just part of the same? But this was something with...with obvious "girly" associations...undeniable, really. But she did enjoy it...was that so bad? She wasn't really sure anymore...
Mr. Perkins the turtle-man stalked away from the still-forming protest feeling upset and confused. The angel had insulted him, and the devil had offered comfort? How could that be? Shouldn't it have been the other way around? An angel of the Lord should be the church's ally, yet she'd had only scorn for him...but the devil-woman, the creature that Father Robert had become...had tried to give counsel...
He didn't know what to think. He didn't want to be tempted away from the truth by some devil's words, yet...he found himself wondering. If she was right, if he was helping to make this town a worse place...perhaps the angel had been sent to deliver a rebuke. Perhaps...perhaps he should be listening? But if that wasn't true...he had to stick to what he knew to be true, didn't he? Demons, the servants of the Enemy, were not to be trusted...but...were those really demons? Lucifer was an angel of light, not some red-skinned imp...this was all so confusing...
He shuffled towards the little shopping plaza not too far away. He'd set his phone recharging, then he could call and spread the word about...well, about the angel...he should do that, right? Of course he should...he looked around. There was that harpy-woman in the one shop, still working the counter...he thanked God that he had been allowed to keep his hands. And coming out of the little specialty grocery there was...was...
It was the hair that got his attention first. The crimson hair, the way it ran gently down her back but sculpted itself like seafoam at the crest...he knew it. And the face...the antennae sprouting from the forehead were unfamiliar, but the face itself...
Suddenly his brain took in the whole sight at once, and he was stricken with half a dozen different emotions all at the same time. In a daze, he began to walk toward her, slowly at first and then faster. She saw him as he approached and looked afraid, but a flash of recognition crossed her face, and she stared at him, lip trembling.
"D-Dora!?" he gasped. "You...you're alive! Oh my God, Dora, why didn't you call? Where were you?"
His wife stared at him, trying to form a response. He looked her up and down, taking in the fleshy antennae atop her head, and the massive orange slug foot that formed her body below the waist. It was strange and he couldn't figure out how he felt about it, but then he himself was...was...
"Oh my God, Nate," she gasped, "I-I..." She nearly dropped the groceries, but he caught them and set them down, just in time for her to collapse into his arms. She wept, and he found himself crying as well. "I've been living with Ms. Nagra from my scrapbooking class," she said. "I...I'm sorry, Nate, I...I thought you wouldn't want me, b-because I'm a...a...a mons..."
He held her tightly and shushed her. He wanted so desperately to say that it wasn't true, that he'd never feel that way, but...was it true? How would he have reacted, if she'd come home like this, in that short week between her change and his? He wasn't even sure how he felt about her now; right now, he was just glad she was alive...
Haru tried to shake off her confusion as they arrived at the library and made their way back to the practice rooms. Their bandmates were already there, in the process of getting set up. She noticed Zara eyeing her curiously; it seemed like she was looking at...her clothes? Was that it? Given the way the angel-girl dressed most of the time, she wasn't sure why she'd find it unusual...huh.
They got to practicing pretty quickly, once the greetings were all given. Haru tried to build on what she'd tried on Friday, trying to build her own accompaniment to what the rest of the band was doing with her flute. It was interesting trying to keep it up in real time; when it was a song or even a basic progression that she was familiar with, it wasn't too hard, but things got more challenging when they moved into unfamiliar territory...still, she was finding that the challenge was part of the fun. And the nice thing about being (generally) one of the backing instruments was that it was less noticeable when she slipped up. Still, she kept finding her mind wandering back to her questions...
"You okay, Haru?" Naomi asked, when they'd done a few songs. "You kind of seemed off in another world there...I mean, you did okay, you just looked kinda spaced-out..."
Haru smiled. Off in another world? Not hardly, not in the context of her new understanding. She was a bit distracted, though. "Uh, I'm okay," she said. "Just had some stuff on my mind, is all."
The drummer shrugged; Haru found it interesting to watch how someone with four arms did that. "Well, if you're getting distracted on flute, you could always take a turn on vocals."
"Hey, yeah!" Zach said. "We still haven't gotten you to sing yet, have we?"
Haru felt herself seize up a bit. "Um, well, I...I don't really, uh..." She stared a bit nervously at the lion-guy; he wasn't aggressive, but he was a bit physically intimidating, and when he latched onto an idea and got that gleam in his eye...she edged over towards Ken's keyboard setup.
"Yeah," Zara mused. "C'mon, Haru, it'll be fun. We've hardly heard your voice much to begin with."
The three-eyed girl blinked, then frowned slightly. She felt so nervous...but why? If she had seen holes torn in reality, if she'd gazed millenia into the past...why was she so nervous now? Then again, that had scared her too, and worse, but still...still...in a way, it was kind of freeing. This feeling of being lost in a much larger world frightened her, but in a way...in a way it was kind of freeing. In that context, anything here in this ordinary existence seemed down-to-earth and comforting, even the stuff she found scary normally...this group of friends was an anchor point for her, much like Ken...
"Uh...um...what do I...what do you want me to sing...?" she asked, stepping to the front of the room, her voice wavering a bit. Naomi smiled. "Anything at all. You can even make something up, if you want."
Haru took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. She could do this...she looked at the rest of the group, waiting on her...at Ken, leaning back, arms propped against the piano bench, in his casual way, looking a little bit excited...but what was she supposed to do? She didn't know what to sing, she hadn't even really wanted to do this...every time she tried to think of something, her brain cut off before she could even get the rhythm of it into her mind. So nervous...why couldn't she just...just...let go...
Almost unbidden, words began to pour out of her mouth. At first it was pure liquid babble, but as it continued she began to settle into a rhythm, the words becoming a little less fluid and more emphasized. Naomi started to gently build upon the pattern Haru had established, and the oriental girl in turn began to set notes to her words. How was she doing this? It was just coming out...
Ken started to follow along as soon as he got a feel for the melody, putting some chords in the background and trying for a counter-melody. It took him a couple tries, but he got something pretty good worked out. Finally the other two joined in as Haru stopped momentarily to take a breath. They continued on through another iteration of what had become a verse structure, as she felt something building up inside. She drew herself up, breathing in; the others clattered to a short stop, figuring she was setting up a change.
She exploded into a shouty, clipped alternate melody, and the rest of the band joined back in once they'd picked up on it. Then she set the flute to her lips and gave a solo that had been brewing in her mind since she'd started, then she was dissolving into glossolalia, not even real words...and then, somehow, she worked her way back to that first melody. She finished it out as the band began to wind it down around her; by the end, she was almost whispering. Then it was over.
Haru stood there staring into space for a moment, while she got her bearings. "Wh-what the heck was that!?" she yelped, once her senses had come back to her.
Zara stared at her. "We thought you knew."
Haru shook her head. Zach shrugged. "Well," he said, "if that was improvised, it was pretty decent considering. Not a clue what any of it meant, but it sounded vaguely coherent; very Yes. I was right about your voice, too; high and clear. Very fun, we're going to have to do that again sometime."
"B-but...I don't even know it!" she protested. He grinned, producing a pocket tape recorder. Haru was a little surprised, she didn't think she'd even seen a tape recorder in...well, since she was very young. "That's why I taped it," he said. "Here, let's see..." He pressed the play button, and Haru heard herself...or at least her voice, babbling words which she only half-recalled speaking...
It was surreal for her to listen to herself singing things that had just fallen out of her speech center and landed on her tongue. Save for the occasional baffling made-up word and the sequences of random syllables it was all fairly coherent, grammatically, and it almost seemed like meaningful English, but it stopped just short of actually making any sense; inviting the listener to consider the meaning even though there didn't seem to be one.
She stared, gape-mouthed, as the recording finished. "D-did that come out of me?" she asked.
Her bandmates nodded. "It was pretty interesting," Ken said. "Though it took a bit to figure out how to come in."
Haru sat down in one of the spare chairs, a little stunned by the whole thing. It was weird; she'd kind of worried that she might really be going crazy when her mouth just started producing words without help from her conscious mind, but she supposed she wasn't the first person to improvise lyrics or anything. And...honestly, it was kind of a rush. Listening back over the recording she could here plenty of places where she'd faltered, where her singing wasn't really up to snuff, but still...looking back on it, she felt she'd enjoyed it.
