|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon May 05, 2025 4:15 pm
Mason gave a polite bow and a wave as he finished his performance - Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a la fiddle. Lindsey Sterling had made it look so easy - he was pretty sure that he'd done okay, but it had sounded much better in his head, and in the Youtube video he'd watched - and played along with - religiously.
Ah, well. Nobody threw bottles at him or booed him off the stage, so it could've been worse. He was happy for any opportunity to get to play; this was a rare night where Madeline was busy elsewhere, and he was left on his own. Usually they shared the stage, either singing together at karaoke or him backing her vocals up with the fiddle - he never minded it, but sometimes it was nice to have the spotlight all to himself.
It would've been better if he knew he'd knocked it out of the park, but...well, practice was practice! He knew it didn't sound bad by a long shot - he'd just flubbed the plucking part, because plucking was hard. At least it was recognizable as, like, music, which some of the performances that night had not been, in Mason's personal (judgemental) opinion.
Mason stepped off the little stage in the corner of the cafe and began packing up his fiddle, mind already drifting homeward. Any minute now Madeline would be getting home and wondering where he was, but somehow his feet weren't hurrying him along the way they usually did. As he zipped up his instrument bag, he glanced around the room; there was a lull in performances, and Mason smiled to himself as the chatter and clinking glasses washed over him.
Sometimes, it was just nice to get out of the house for a little while.
Surely Madeline wouldn't begrudge him a few extra minutes, right? A little reward for semi-successfully performing in front of a crowd that mostly didn't seem that interested? Maybe one of those fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies that always smelled so good...
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2025 3:58 pm
Taalia liked watching the sponsored busking events that places around the city would hold. She'd dragged her old Yamaha to a few of those, back in the day. Maybe she'd do that again just for the fun of things, some day. But right now, a violinist had caught her eye--young enough to be in high school. He wasn't half bad, if she said so herself. Needed some focused training to take that extra leap, but take that extra leap he certainly would if given half the chance. Her fingers played along the corners of the business card held between them, feeling and pressing into the sharpness of the points. "Hey, question for you." She leaned against the wall just on the other side of the boy's table. Her alto voice was easy to lose in the general murmur of conversation in the cafe, so Taalia pitched it louder, half an octave higher. "If you're not needing to rush off, anyway." If he was, she'd just toss him the card and let him go. But she'd had an idea occur to her and wanted to see how it would play out. Maybe she'd be able to offer him that half a chance. She knew Ahmaud's schedule was open.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2025 6:57 pm
"Hey!" Mason said automatically, turning to look at whoever it was that had spoken to him. His usual post-performance attention came from kids his age or, slightly alarmingly, younger, with a fierce sparkle in their eye that told him that if he had posters made, they'd definitely buy them and hang them all over their walls. But this was not that type of person. She was older than him, for starters - like, an actual grownup. Strikingly pretty, too, but there was absolutely no way that she was coming over to give him that kind of attention, which left him wondering exactly why she was coming over. "Answer for you," he said with a bright smile. "I don't need to be anywhere." Not yet, anyway - meeting new people was a solid 60% why he did events like this in the first place, and if Mads got mad about it, then, well...he'd deal with that later. Problem for future Mason. "What's up?" Mason asked as he scooted them away from the performance area, so the next person could step up whenever they were ready to.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2025 5:38 pm
His smile pulled an answering one from her. Taalia had always been weak to that sort of thing. Made her a sucker for babies at the supermarket, too. Shuffling out of the way with him, she flicked the business card up between her fingers again, this time offering it to him. The words and logo for "Change of Heart" glinted in scarlet on the front due to the high gloss card stock, her name and the words "lead vocalist/pianist" underneath in black on the white background. "Taalia Rashnaf. Are you a fan of metal, by chance? Melodic, not death." If he wasn't a fan of metal, he wasn't going to get much enjoyment out of what she wanted to offer him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2025 8:55 pm
"Metal?" Mason echoed curiously, plucking the card from her hands to study it curiously. "I--I guess I haven't really made up my mind about it yet," Mason decided after a moment or two. "But...I could feel good about it," he added with a smile, "depending on why you're asking, Miss Rashnaf." He glanced from the card back to her again - not who he would pin as an anything in a metal band, but that just made it even cooler. "You're the lead in--Change of Heart, huh? That's awesome. Is that like your full time job? Are you like, a secret rockstar?" Mason grinned again. "Or am I the idiot who doesn't recognize a non-secret rockstar when she comes up and hands him a card with her name on it?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
