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 Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:41 pm
"Oh, you teach elementary schoolers?" Yes, Muse, he just got finished saying that. "Sounds wonderful." She paused to look at the ground. "And no, no, you're fine!" She waved her hands in front of her dismissively. If only Muse would just accept people's apologies and move on. "If someone was reading a book close by, I'd probably want to know what they were reading too. A-and if you didn't, we wouldn't be talking right now!" At least that much was true. She had to go through with the fact that introductions were almost always incredibly awkward, but it led to real conversations... or at at least she hoped. So right now, she would fight through it these necessary initiations.
She giggled a little bit at the Peter Pan part. Peter was the name of one of her childhood friends if she remembered correctly, it was so long ago. But it was a pretty common name. She wondered how they were doing. "I don't know how I got my name, unfortunately. My mom's a little... uh... strange. It's surprising how she came up with it, especially taking into account my sisters' names. But... I guess it's unique. You'll probably never meet another Muse!" Another soft chuckle. Claire always complained growing up about other girls who had her name. It seemed pretty annoying to have someone call your name, and have seven other people turn their heads.
Her work? She forgot about work for a second. "Oh, yes. Well... I'm here because of work, but not for work... I-if that make sense? I lived here when I was a kid, though I don't remember much about it." She held her hands close to her chest. "My boss decided I needed a lot of time off, so I came back here, I guess? I-I'm an actress. You might be wondering, how can this flake be an actress, she's barely a person! And you would not be the only one! I'm not sure of why myself." Muse clasped her hands together behind her back after that small outburst. "Sorry. I... have to defend myself a lot." She stated. She received harsh comments from some people after they saw her real personality. "B-but I'm talking too much about myself! Uh... Wh... What brings you to the garden? I-it's nice out, isn't it?" And back they were to small talk. But they were making so much progress!
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Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:13 pm
"Well..." he began thoughtfully, wondering what the odds were that he would know two Muse's in his life, but decided against saying it out loud when she transitioned into talking about her job. "You're an actress?!" he exclaimed, forgetting himself momentarily. Oops, that was loud. Straightening his collar, he tried again. "I mean, my step-dad is an actor, too! He really doesn't seem like it either, he's always so... out of it. But people seem to like him, so I guess... Oh, I mean, I'm not saying I agree with you being flaky, I... I don't know you well enough to say what you're like, so..." Goddess, even more relaxed he was a big mess.
Clearing his throat, Peter tried again. "I'm just out for a walk. Summer vacation always sounds nice, but it's pretty boring when you don't have anything to do... My best friend's out of town," he added, as if that explained everything. At the mere mention of Wilhelm, Peter felt less tense, so he charged ahead with it. "Actually, he and I used to know someone named Muse when we were younger. ...You said you lived here before, right? I wonder if you guys met and just didn't know it. What a coincidence that'd be!" he laughed.
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:15 pm
Muse smiled and the compliment and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Thanks, Peter. You're very kind as well." She bowed slightly, both in thanks and in assurance. What were her chances of getting to chat with someone so polite? It made her happy. Though that was replaced with a second of pure heart-pounding fear when Peter suddenly yelled. She started to fiddle with her fiddle in front of her chest. Talking about being an actress always made her nervous for some reason. "I... I like being one, and I've been told I'm good at it too! It's easier for me to be someone else than for me to be... me. Which surprises a lot of people, for some reason." She shrugged. Acting came easily to her, she supposed. She didn't really have a real idea of who she was anyway, so it was easy to completely detach and become someone else. "Though I don't really like people looking at me... or talking about me. It's embarrassing..." She laughed nervously, almost uncomfortably, and pressed her two pointer fingers together.
"Oh right.. Summer vacation." It seemed like such a long time ago since Muse was in school, though it was really only a few years ago. Time flies when you're constantly stressed, maybe? It was technically summer vacation for her, right now. What did she do when she was still in school? "Aah... I'm sorry about your best friend. Y-you'll just have to settle for me, I guess?" She gave two awkward thumbs ups, but slumped her shoulders after about a second of that. "Sorry. But yeah... that sucks... I know what it's like not having any friends nearby." Like right now! She nodded sympathetically.
Muse's eyebrows furrowed at the mention of another possible Muse. "That would be weird..." She trailed off, wondering if she should mention her childhood experiences. "I don't remember much, so forgive me, but I think I used to have two friends when I lived here, by the names of Peter and Wilhelm..." Wow, she hadn't thought about them for a while. It was opening up a whole shelf of childhood memories for her. Those three were very close. "I was just thinking maybe it was just another Peter, but our stories match... I'm pretty sure your Muse is me, and my Peter is you." It didn't really sink in for another few seconds. "O-or am I just being crazy? I don't know..."
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Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:41 pm
"I don't have to settle! I mean, I'm not settling," he replied hastily, shaking his hands at her as he often did when people around him seemed a little low in spirits. "I think I'm pretty lucky, bumping across someone as nice as you." ...Okay, so he wasn't the most eloquent person, and maybe 'bumping across' wasn't how the phrase was supposed to go, but at least he was sincere!
But whatever thoughts he had before came to a screeching halt as Muse continued. "Peter and Wilhelm? Really?" Peter cried, forgetting himself and allowing his mouth to open wide in surprise. "My best friend's name is Wilhelm! I call him Wil, though. We've been best friend since we were babies." What she was saying hadn't quite clicked in his biologically disadvantaged brain yet. "...Do you really think that's us?" Blissfully ignorant of the logic piecing them together, he went through it on his own at a turtle's pace. "Oh, but... I guess, it is kind of rare to have two Muse's -- and even two Wilhelm's -- in such a small place. Are we the same age? I might not look it, but I'm twenty-five now? I think?" When was his birthday again? "I don't remember a lot, but my mom and aunt always said the three of us were grouped together a lot because we were born around the same time... I wonder...?" But his Muse had disappeared as a toddler, it seemed unlikely that she'd come back. Did she even have any ties here? "That's right, my Muse was a Sonata, I think. I know them pretty well, I guess, my cousins January and Ferdinando are Sonata's, and they're... uh..." Peter trailed off, reluctant to say anything bad about family, however truthful it might be. "I mean, you don't really seem like a Sonata."
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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:35 am
Muse was glad that she 'bumped across' Peter too. She didn't say it, but she was enjoying this enormously more than any other conversation she had had on the island so far. Most of those included her excusing herself out of the situation before anyone could even introduce themselves to her, but still. Peter made her feel okay that she wasn't great at talking, because it seemed like he wasn't either. Which she understood.
She nodded a couple of times quickly until Peter yelled out again. He had a pretty quiet voice, his intermittent outbursts took Muse by surprise. "Y-yeah, we were all friends as babies, I'm pretty sure. My mom didn't tell me much about you guys, but I did know some. My father forced you and Wilhelm to play with me; do you remember that?" She covered her mouth when the thought made her giggle. Kidnapping wasn't a very smart way to get your child friends, but in her case, it was effective. It probably wasn't as fun for them as she remembered it. Nostalgia had a way of making things seem great when they weren't really. But they were children, it was probably fine. "I'm twenty-five too. My birthday's in the early Winter." Muse wasn't sure if that was necessary information, but maybe it would help Peter cement the facts together. She tilted her head as she watched him begin to understand. It was not every day that you meet someone you have barely had a thought about since they were ripped out of your life, over twenty years ago.
She twirled her hair around her finger nervously as he mentioned the Sonatas. "I'm a Sonata. My father is, or was, Gaston Sonata, and my mother, Lulu Sonata. I have twin sisters. One is the mayor, I think? I haven't seen her since I was very little." Her father and sister stopped being a part of her life since her mother took her away. She would like to say she was sad, but that just wasn't the case. It didn't seem like anyone on the island really liked the Sonatas. If they were anything like Claire, well... maybe she could understand. "I don't feel like a Sonata. I'm sure they're.. nice people on the inside... But I'm nothing like them, or rather, what I've heard of them. When people learn that I'm a Sonata, do they assume I'm just like the rest of my family?" Well that took a not so light and happy turn. She may have found the reason why some people were not very comfortable around her. It was a cause for concern to Muse.
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Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 2:34 pm
Finally, his brain began to catch up, and he shoved his glasses back up against his face. "I don't really remember -- I was born in Winter, too!" He felt like he was about to break into a sweat, he was getting excited. Maybe it was fate that had brought him to the garden on this particular day? The more she talked, the more it felt real. "Your twin sister is Lilia?" his mouth fell open. Had he known that the mayor had a twin? His aunt had never mentioned it. "You're my cousin's cousin!" he realized hastily. What did that make them? Probably nothing, but it was still exciting.
...Ah. But the conversation had shifted slightly, and Peter swallowed his excitement. He didn't want to seem insensitive or anything. "Ah, well..." he shifted his weight uncomfortably. He didn't want to offend her, but it was hard to not be truthful. "Maybe... Probably... I don't know..." He probably wasn't helping. "The Sonata's are well-known... They're kind of famous for being, err, eccentric? I wouldn't be surprised if... people made assumptions..." Oh, now he was even starting to feel a little bummed. Quickly, he tried to put a positive spin by reaching out to clasp Muse's hand. "But it doesn't matter! This is good! This is a really good thing!"
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Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:47 am
Muse shuffled. Peter was really excited, and she didn't know what to do. She was happy as well that she had been reunited with one of her friends, who were apparently inseparable from each other when they were young. He was real, he was here. But she didn't really know what they were to do after that. It's not like they were friends now. Sure, they had some connection that a lot of people didn't have on this island, but it didn't change the fact that essentially they were strangers. It felt like it too; no matter how much she wanted to be comfortable with Peter, her body and mind just wanted to treat him like she didn't know him. Because she didn't.
"Y-yeah... Lilia's one of my twin sisters, I'm pretty sure." Muse raised a hand to her chin thoughtfully. She wondered what type of person Lilia was now. She was the mayor, so that must mean she was hard working and knew how to lead people! So why were the Sonatas such an... interesting topic of conversation? "Ah, okay okay, sorry to bring up such a boring thing!" She let out a sigh. Maybe she would make a new reputation for the Sonatas! A change in the eccentricity of the family into something more... respectable! Yeah! Muse got a little bit of a sparkle in the eye. She grabbed on to Peter's hand, which was already in her palm, and raised both her arms in the air, taking Peter's limb with her. "Yeah, it's good!" She wasn't sure how, but it was good. Her arms flopped back down on her sides, but she was still holding his hand. She wasn't really thinking about it. "Thanks for not letting me get down on myself, Peter. We just met for the first time in twenty years but you're already being such a good friend to me." She wiggled her fingers and realized they were still holding Peter's. With an almost silent squeak, she retracted her hand. "S-sorry I trapped you. My hand was probably sweaty." She laughed, and surprisingly, it didn't even have a hint of nervousness.
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Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 3:56 pm
"You don't need to apologize!" Peter replied as Muse let go of his hand. (Frankly, he hadn't noticed. Between Wil and his sister, holding hands was just a normal thing.) "I might be hitting this too strong. You... you should let me know if I get too familiar, okay?" He looked at her as seriously as he could, which honestly was not that serious. The downside to having a naturally soft, ditzy face. "I don't have a lot of friends around here, so I get excited easily. But I don't want to scare you off, so! I'm sorry if it's too much right now. I'll try to remember you're not Wilhelm." At this, he turned pink -- it wasn't a very grown-up thing to do, to admit that he sometimes had a hard time remembering that his best friend was unusually clingy and enthusiastic, and that most people weren't like that.
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Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 1:13 pm
She was still instinctively rubbing her palms over the cloth of her shirt to 'dry them off' even though they weren't in the least bit damp. "It's okay Peter! You're okay... I'm just not... used to it, I guess. Do people do this around here? I mean... get comfortable with each other really fast?" Muse figured this would be important information if she was going to live here. She imagined since everyone knew each other on the island and most were friends, there was probably some more contact than she had had in her past with friends and family. Lulu was very cuddly to Claire early on in her life, but that stopped rather soon. And then Claire found other people to cuddle. But Muse was kind of just... there, as she was in almost every situation she found herself in. "You won't scare me off, I promise. Though I can't say I won't scare you off." She added,
That's right, Muse wasn't Wilhelm. But there was a part of her who wished she was, that someone could be talking about her constantly even if she wasn't there. "How... How is Wilhelm, anyway? You said he was out of town, right? What is he like now?" She tried to recall the conversation they had just a minute or two ago. Most of her brain power was spent focusing on the words that Peter was saying now, and what to say back to those.
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Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:38 pm
Ah, she had asked about Wilhelm. Now this was a topic Peter knew he could enjoy. "What's Wil like now...?" he paused to think about. Maybe he was thinking too hard about it. "He's, uh..." He didn't want to say anything bad about his best friend, but everything he could think of sounded sort of bad! "..." Falling silent for a good long moment, Peter stared down at his feet, unsure of how to progress. There was really no way for him to express Wilhelm's being in words. He'd better go the safe route. "He's a model now!" He said finally with a big, cheerful smile. "That's why he's away so much, work and all that! Oh, but I do have copies of everything he's ever been in, if you want to see...!" His Wilhelm collection was his pride and joy, and he didn't get nearly enough opportunities to show it off.
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