Welcome to Gaia! ::

Claune wasn't certain why Nicholas had chosen this morning, of all mornings, to emerge from the subterranean shelter of his laboratory for supplies. The sky was the monotonous iron-gray of an unsettled sea (the Plague's mind recoiled from the comparison) and a raw wind blew occasionally across the streets—just barely above freezing, which meant that in addition to being miserably cold it carried with it an unpleasant dampness that stole inside Nicholas's wool coat, where Claune was huddled within the collar.

But as they approached an intersection he heard a sound that warmed him: the fine, merry song of a lute, which was further distinguished from the music of other players they had passed by the subtle scent of a Plague upon the breeze. Claune was not as skilled as some at determining the differences in odor between one Plague and another, but he could at least tell that this one didn't belong to a stunted. The musician sitting atop the wall was a Grimm.

He waited until Nicholas had been distracted by a market stall to emerge from his collar and nimbly climb down the back of his coat. Navigating a street with its clumsy footfalls and groaning wagon-wheels was always a frightful task, but Claune was swift in finding a raised stone gutter which he climbed onto and ran along like a sidewalk, the bells on the ends of his hat clutched in one hand to keep them from jingling. When he neared the Grimm he vanished into a pile of straw that had accumulated in the dirty corner between the building and the wall.

For a moment, nothing happened. Claune listened. And then, when he had listened long enough to get a feel for the melody's rhythm, he emitted a loud, discordant, and very instrument-like twang which coincided exactly with Terrowin's next chord. A woman walking down the street paused and looked about in consternation. Twang, said Claune again, and she clutched her groceries and hurried on her way with doubtful glances over her shoulder.

A patch of the straw gave a furtive wiggle. "A request?" Claune answered, in a high, odd voice that wasn't immediately identifiable as male or female. "Hmmm. Aha! Do you know The Merry Milkmaid?" Which was a notoriously obscene song about an adulterous husband's liaison with the titular servant, rendered in loving detail for the entertainment of lower class taverns, and certainly not something that might earn Terrowin very many tips in public.

The patch of straw wiggled again and began traveling toward Tiffan like a mole moving through the dirt. When it reached the end of the pile, it paused. Then Claune popped out of it headfirst and landed upon the ground next to Tiffan with his bottom in the air, as if someone had booted him out by kicking him on the rump. His bells gave a faint, anticlimactic jingle. He stirred feebly. One of his hands moved; he reached across the space between himself and Tiffan, but his fingers fell short and his arm dramatically collapsed back on the ground. "Oh!" exclaimed, his voice now quite faint.

Claune mumbled a faint and incoherent reply to Terrowin's question. He remained still nearly to the point of lifelessness as Tiffan grew closer… closer… closer… and then abruptly sprang upright and delivered her the start of an elegant, jingling bow. He froze halfway through the gesture; his blue eyes narrowed, and a queer expression stole across his features. He reached up, lifted his hat, and pulled a piece of straw out from under it. He looked at Tiffan in astonishment as if to say "where did that come from?", then tossed it carelessly over his shoulder and restarted the bow anew. Halfway through, he froze again. With a great theatrical show of consternation, he reached around and began pulling an even longer piece of straw from the seat of his pants. His eyes widened. He kept pulling. Eventually he managed to free it with an immense shudder, as though it had been wedged somewhere compromising—he dropped it as swiftly as a a hot iron and pushed it aside with his foot. Finally, he completed his bow.

"I believe so," he said to Tiffan when he was finished, "though I do not recommend going in there. My name is Claune—which rhymes with brawn—of which, as you can see, I have none. Who are you?" Next he looked back at Terrowin. "Oh, my." He tapped one slender finger against his mouth. "The Captain's Lament?" This being a depressingly dirgelike sea shanty, and equally unsuited to the musician's needs.