(no subject)

[electro_kinetic]

There's a girl lounging upside-down on a chair in Milliways, wedge-booted feet hanging over the back of the chair with her head resting on the extended footrest, with a few beaded braids adorning her loose mass of hair and a clear plastic ball full of colorful but equally plastic track in her hands. She's working a tiny steel ball bearing through it, aiming to finish the puzzle this time.

In her ears there are headphones playing a mix of an awful lot of classical music, mixed with more things closer to her style. At the moment there's vibrating, thumping dubstep coming out of it. She spent a couple days decompressing in her room after being let out of the cells, before she even tried venturing to the bar proper again, but it's an experiment in progress.

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Hannibal Lecter approaches, smiling down at her upside-down face and miming taking out the headphones.

[electro_kinetic]

Nori just stares at him for a minute, and sets the ball on her stomach to take out the headphones; solid dubstep thrums out the bass heavy and warping around the airy strings of Vivaldi.

"Hi," she says, looking up through the bangs of her hair, still not moving from the odd position on the chair.

[cook_the_rude]

"It's good to see you free again, Noriko," Hannibal says. "That sounds like an interesting mixture of music."

[electro_kinetic]

"It's called a remix," she says. "This one is Polar, I believe. Vivaldi's Spring."

[cook_the_rude]

"Some modern musicians do amazing things with the classics," Hannibal says, agreeably. "Like slowing down Bach pieces to ten times their length."

[electro_kinetic]

"And sometimes it sounds cool that way. I wouldn't do it to Mendelssohn, though. His is too pretty to fuck with much."

She leaves the ball where it is, since she's essentially lost the game anyway, and looks up at Hannibal. "How have you been?"

[cook_the_rude]

"My life is very much on edge at the moment," Hannibal says. "Some things have become untenable. I doubt I'll be able to ask you over to Baltimore again."

[electro_kinetic]

"I've got a Baltimore of my very own, don't worry about it," she says. "I doubt they'd like me much more in yours than they did in mine."

The thing a lot of people don't realize is that within the confines of the continental United States, at least that part east of the Mississippi River, Noriko is very well-traveled. Being homeless and more or less aimless as well does that, especially when one can get places without transportation by other people. It's part of why she likes to run so much. "I meant to ask you something a long time ago," Nori murmurs. "Those gloves you gave me for Christmas. They fit perfectly, but only when I don't have my gauntlets on. How did you know those measurements?"

[cook_the_rude]

"I looked at your hands," Hannibal says. "It's not hard to guess the size."

[electro_kinetic]

"Under metal gloves?" she asks. "It's not that I think you managed to take them off me--I think I'd have noticed--especially since you don't know how they work, but...you just guessing that well is hard for me to buy."

[cook_the_rude]

"What do you think I did?" Hannibal asks.

[herr_bookman]

After a while, a wait rat appears with a note for her, written in blue-black ink in neat script.

Miss Ashida,
I wanted to thank you for protecting me in Dr. Lecter's presence and giving me an out. I hope your headache dissipated.

-A.

[electro_kinetic]

When she gets the note, Noriko sets the puzzle ball down to read it, and her expression flattens out. She lifts a hand to make the rat stay, and digs a pen out of her back pocket to flip the note over and write a reply.

It's short almost to the point of terse, but informative at least. In a way. It says a good deal about her, though.

Nothing to protect you from. He's not a monster.

[herr_bookman]

The note back to her is still neat, still flowing, but there's a slant to the script that implies he wrote it more quickly.

Miss Ashida,
We can and probably will argue over this all day long. Something I'm not interested in doing with you at the moment. Just take my gratitude for what it is and be careful.

-A.

[electro_kinetic]

This note, however, she doesn't respond to. She just balls it up and tosses it into the fireplace before she thinks too long about it.

She's not taking anything from the kid.

[mindofathief]

In a nearby couch, a homely man wearing red pants and an untucked blouse reads a newspaper. His eyes sometimes drift towards Noriko, trying to identify the music she's listening to. It's something extremely loud at the moment, but he can't make out any sort of melody.

Eventually his curiosity drives his focus away from what he was reading. Duster would like to ask her, but she looks awfully busy with the thing she has in her hands. Some sort of game, he supposes.

By now, he's dropped the newspaper onto his lap and is staring at Noriko in deep thought.

[electro_kinetic]

It takes a minute to pick up on any melody, because the way the music is structured means only she can hear it through the heavy, warping bass. But it's Tchaikovsky at the moment--the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, actually--and the chiming melody is almost swallowed by the electronic additions.

Until the moments when the bass drops and then, all at once, the little fairy manages to out-shout the giant. She likes that.

She is less fond of being stared at, and eventually she gets tired enough of the creeping feeling to look over at Duster, eyebrows raised as she shifts the plastic gently to pop out a earbud without dropping the game ball. "Yes?"

[mindofathief]

Duster feels like he might have heard this melody before, leaning closer to better hear it without thinking.

The moment he hears the girl's voice he breaks out of his trance, flinching and looking around him as if he were expecting someone to come after him.

"Sorry! So sorry! I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He sneaks a look at Noriko, who still looks annoyed at him. "I was just curious about the music you were listening to, and I for-forgot my manners."

Good job Duster, he tells himself, you made the wrong impression on this person.

[electro_kinetic]

She just blinks.

"You're fine, calm down," she says. "It's Tchaikovsky, the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy," she says. "Dubstep remix from Morlaer."

[mindofathief]

He hopes that Noriko isn't secretly still upset over that invasion of privacy.

"Tchaikovsky? Never heard of that name. And what's dubstep?"

More unfamiliar words, but at least these were about music, which he's always eager to learn more about.

[electro_kinetic]

"Tchaisovsky's a classical composer, did a lot of ballet scores. This one's from the Nutcracker, which is a pretty common Christmas thing," she says. "Dubstep is a style, it involves a lot of heavy electronic bass."

[mindofathief]

Duster takes note of those definitions.

"Is he popular where you're from? Since he got a remix, and all."

[electro_kinetic]

"Where I'm from? Not really. Not in a couple decades, anyway," she shrugs. "I just like classical, because it doesn't give me a horrendous headache."

[mindofathief]

"But aren't the dubstep noises loud enough to hurt? " Duster asks. "Rock concerts are loud enough, but I could hear the beats even when you were wearing your earphones."

[electro_kinetic]

"Nah," she chuckles. "I like loud music."