Welcome to Gaia! ::

Andarien stopped when he felt Miyuki's hand on his shoulder and turned to see what she was looking at. He watched the musician quietly for a moment. It sounded very nice, what she was playing, and the expression on her face made it seem as if she hadn't a care in the world.

"Do you want to go talk to her?" he asked Miyuki, looking up at her thoughtfully.

He didn't see why they shouldn't; after all, they didn't know where their parents were, and they weren't in a rush. And who knew? Maybe their parents would be in there anyways.

Andarien smiled. "It was pretty music," he agreed. "Come on, then."

He started forward, shrugging out from her hand on his shoulder, and headed towards the woman who was playing the music.

Just then, the woman finished the song she was playing, and for a brief moment, the street seemed eerily quiet - until that din of the crowd filled in the noise, of course. She leaned forward and tucked the instrument away in a fabric-lined wooden case and closed it carefully, then took another case from behind her. This one was square, about two feet each direction, and when she opened it, it was also lined with fabric. In it was a small harp-like instrument, though with twice as many strings as Andarien had ever seen on one. She pulled the instrument into her lap and settled herself once more on her stool. Putting her fingers against the strings, she closed her eyes and began to play a soft melody.

Andarien stopped just a few small steps away from the woman and watched and listened in silence, from time to time glancing up at Miyuki to see if she would ask her question - whatever question she had.

The woman played on, her fingers never stumbling despite the fact that her eyes remained closed. Suddenly, without pausing in her music, she spoke.

"Is there something that I might do for you?" she asked the pair softly, opening her eyes slightly and smiling at them.

The woman chewed her lower lip thoughtfully for a moment as she pondered her answer.

"I'm afraid I can't really answer your second question without answering your first," she replied at last, her fingers coming to a rest on the strings, "and for that, I will have to walk you through the instruments. Have you the time to spare?"

She smiled invitingly at the two of them, poised to put her instrument away if they did indeed have the time to listen to her.

Andarien blinked up at Miyuki. "Do we have an appointment to keep?" he asked in reply.

Honestly, sometimes he didn't understand his sister. If he'd been in a rush, he wouldn't have suggested they come talk to the woman in the first place.

The woman smiled and returned her instrument to its case, and after making sure it was securely fastened she picked up both that case and the other one that was still out there with her.

"Please, come inside," she invited the two as she herself stepped into the shop.

The shop was not a large one - no larger than any of the others they had been in, at least, and possibly a bit smaller than most of them - but it didn't feel very small, because there was nothing in the middle of the room except for a few padded stools on which people could sit. The walls of the room, however, were covered with instruments of every description, most of them carved from wood, though some were made of some kind of metal. There were instruments that looked similar to those that existed in Gaia, and there were some that were different, and there were a few that looked like instruments that had once existed in Gaia but that had been changed as time had passed.

There was a counter near a back door in the shop, but there was no one manning it.

"I'm not certain which of the instruments you saw me play outside," the woman said, setting down the cases she had brought in with her, "but I do play all of the instruments in here. Not all in a day, of course, there are too many for that; but if you were to come by the shop every day, say, for a week or so, you would probably have the chance to hear all of them."

The woman looked around at the instruments and "hmm"ed quietly to herself.

"Well, I'll just show you the ones I played today, then," she decided, "and if they're the right ones, good. If not ... well, you can always let me know and we can skip it, unless you'd like to see it anyways."

Andarien grinned. She sounded a bit like someone else he knew, though he couldn't quite place his finger on who it might be.

The woman led them over to where the stringed instruments were displayed. The first instrument she took down was the one she had been playing when they had first arrived on the street with the others. It was shaped like an elongated figure 8 with five strings that ran along a slightly protruding slat of wood, and had the bird-shaped holes carved into its highly polished surface.

"This is the dulcimer," she told them, holding it slightly lower so that they could see it easily. "It's one of my favourite instruments to play. This, I've been playing for a number of years, since I was a child. My mother taught me."