milliways_bar | (no subject)

He sits and he listens.

It's been quite a time since he's heard music of the like. Candle had been the one who played the music. Trism dealt with Dragons, he... well, it was up in the air what he did exactly, but music wasn't his. Candle had played the music.

Thus he listens and smiles just a little.

When Charlie notices he has an audience--which isn't for a few minutes, he'd a bit absorbed in the creative process--he smiles and nods. "Hi."

He doesn't know quite what to say. He's... awkward at the best of times, hostile, usually, at the worst. At the moment, however, he's as relaxed as he's been for some time and enjoying a meal and so he nods in response.

"Do you perform? Usually?"

He knows nothing much about music at all.

"When I can, even if it's just to the lake and the trees. Attention whore, that's me." He holds out a hand. "Charlie."

He stares at the hand for a moment for giving his own, shaking firmly before nodding to Charlie.

"Liir..." and only a small pause before, "Thropp."

"Nice to meet you, Liir. Do you play a'tall?"

He shakes his head with a small, rueful smile.

"No, I'll not shame an instrument with my attempts. I just like to listen on occasion."

"Got any requests?" He grins as he adjusts the guitar on his knee.

"Requests?"

He's never heard many songs. Most of the songs he's heard are hymns to the Unnamed God and he certainly doesn't want to hear any of those. There was always E for Elphaba... but there's no chance in all of Oz he wants to hear that.

"A song you want to hear, like. Or even a type of song, as chances are slim you and I are from the same world, let alone the same reality."

That gets a sour look.

"I know what a request is."

I just don't know any songs to request. Or even much of music besides the drivel some might call a drinking song.

"For all I know you're from a world without music," Charlie says, unperturbed. "I'm sure one exists somewhere, more's the pity."

"We have it," he says, a little testy, "I've heard some. Just not much."

Charlie looks at him a moment, then leans close and lightly flicks his forehead. "Chill."

Liir, in response, blinks.

"What was that for?"

"An attempt to make you relax? I don't know you well enough to offer a backrub."

"Well, I should think not."

He's never been scandelized before. Whether that has to do with the fact that few people had proposed scandelous things to him or whether this was just the first time it had happened here (never mind that it was a man proposing such a thing; he'd... well, that was the last of his troubles.)

Charlie shrugs and starts strumming the guitar strings. "As you like."

"Do you usually offer..."

And he looks as if he's eaten a lemon. The boys in the Home Guard had, on occasion, gone for massages in some of the areas mostly populated by Quadlings and they'd come back with tales to tell a plenty. The idea that someone would just offer such...

"Backrubs?" He shrugs again. "Musician's hands." He flexes his fingers. "They're strong, and I like giving 'em. Makes people feel better, yeah?"

For once, Charlie means it entirely innocently.

No, really.

"You don't look like a Quadling," he observes quietly.

Charlie raises an eyebrow. "Sounds like a small furry land mammal. And while I am small . . . and somewhat furry . . ."

"They're a sort of people," he says, somewhat irritated. "Whatever else anyone might say."

"A sort of people. Indeed. That narrows it down to a fine point."

"Certainly," and his voice is certainly at a fine point, as is his gaze.