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[prince_of_nymphs]

He wasn't terribly musical, if he was honest. He could sing, and he'd written lyrics for Will in the past, but when it came to instruments, he knew little. His piano was poor, his attempts at drumming when he was younger had been a failure, but he could play a bit on the guitar. It was a skill he was attempting to improve as he sat beneath a tree in the park, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he strummed to himself.

Dark sunglasses hid his eyes, and Keats lay nearby, keeping watch as much as he was keeping Fin company. A few stray chords settled into a familiar song, and Fin hummed a bit before removing the cigarette from his lips and starting to sing.

"The door slammed loud and rose up a cloud of dust on us. Footsteps follow, down through the hollow sound, torn up... And you will go to Mykonos, with a vision of a gentle coast, and a sun to maybe dissipate. Shadows of the mess you made..."

He fumbled a bit, swearing under his breath as he strummed a bit more, jumping ahead in the song.

"I remember how they took you down, as the winter turned the meadow brown. You go, wherever you go today..."

He made it through the rest of the verse before fumbling again and starting over, pausing to stub out his cigarette and give it a proper try this time.

Comments

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Oh?" Fin echoed, wondering what that meant to her.

[wispofathing]

Under other circumstances, Curnen wouldn't have thought to make a connection. Will was, after all, a common name.

But. Combine that name with people who'd dare the other side and who'd severely fucked up with their partners not that long ago, and well, fairies, and she felt confident in saying, "Might've met your Will. That's all."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Tall, dark and handsome? Likes to remind people he's a prince?" Fin asked blandly. "Usually busks at the park or near the Eye..."

[wispofathing]

"He didn't do that second one," Curnen said easily enough, even as she felt her throat going dry. She could hear the inevitable conversation now.

Hey Bliss, that guy I met from the homelands was the queen's son.

Out. Get the fuck out now.

Maaaaybe she wouldn't tell Bliss. At least not yet.

"But he told me about how he'd really fucked up with somebody he loved."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Bit of an understatement. Fucked up is miles below what he did," Fin assured her.

[wispofathing]

"I figure," she said, soft and sympathetic. "Takes a lot to make a royal act like his dick just got cut off. 'Specially in our world."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Yes, well, he forgot that hurting me hurts him as well," Fin replied quietly. "Perhaps he'll remember that next time he tries to use me as a bargaining chip."

[wispofathing]

Willy had told her as much, and this didn't surprise Curnen. What did surprise her was just how much of herself she saw in both of them, and it made her uncomfortable enough to want to flee while at the same time she couldn't look away. She couldn't run away. It was too lonely. "I'm sorry he couldn't be bothered to do better by you."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Hopefully he really is too, huh?" Fin sighed.

[wispofathing]

"He's definitely sorrier'n some I seen," Curnen murmured. Even when she'd gotten her revenge on Rockhouse, there had been nothing in his eyes for her but poison. Not a second's wasted regret or doubt.

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin hummed, then started to strum again.

"I'm living with him again. ...Kind of. My friends all think I'm mad," he admitted.

[wispofathing]

Such was the last most of Curnen's friends had thought of her. That or she was an inbred retard. "Are you?"

[prince_of_nymphs]

"No," Fin said simply. "I'm just surviving."

[wispofathing]

Curnen nodded, perhaps more vigorously than she had to. "Surviving is hard. Harder than they think."

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin looked at her for a moment. ...Or, well, gazed in her general direction anyway.

"You say that as though you know exactly what I mean," he noted softly.

[wispofathing]

"Curse," she said just as softly. She had already told Willy, she didn't see the harm in telling Fin, too. "I survived." Though the faint tremor in her voice said for her, barely.

[prince_of_nymphs]

It was that tremor that stopped him from pushing to hear more. Instead nodding his understanding, and offering a hand. Something solid for her to touch, if she wanted.

He wasn't sure why, but it felt right.

[wispofathing]

Curnen hesitated a moment before she accepted, but she warned him quietly, "Don't freak out." Most people had the visual warning before they touched her, but there was an instinctual flinch that tended to happen when just by feel there was a thumb and then one, two, three, four, five fingers.

[prince_of_nymphs]

Fin raised a brow at the warning, but it only took a beat to work out why. Touching someone made his magic focus, but he didn't need to see to notice the extra finger.

He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, then nodded in understanding. He imagined she got more poor reasons than kind ones to such a thing.

"Touching people helps me see," he explained, holding her hand still. "Though I'd be a liar if I claimed that's why I offered my hand. My magic was nudging me to do it. I think it was being nosy."

Actually, he thought it was trying to be kind, but given he couldn't explain why he felt that, nosy seemed like an easier explanation.

[wispofathing]

Curnen nodded again, like that made all the sense in the world, the seeing and sympathy. "Magic'll do that. It ain't something separate exactly, but sometimes it just follows instincts you didn't know you had."

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Or like it has instincts of it's own," Fin replied. "Sometimes it feels like a separate part of me."

[wispofathing]

That made her smile. Curnen had seen a number of people come home to Cloud County, some of them realizing who and what they were and some of them not so much. "Yeah, that's normal for people starting at a place of, 'Yep, I was pretty sure none of this shit was real a relatively insignificant fraction of my life ago.'"

[prince_of_nymphs]

"Oh, well, I knew about it before I realized I was one," Fin admitted. "Will came first, the magic came later."

[wispofathing]

Up went one of Curnen's eyebrows. "Uh huh. But how long ago was that?"

[prince_of_nymphs]

"I don't know, two years? Three? I forget, honestly. I'm dreadful with dates, but- I know it doesn't seem so long, but it's long enough. ...And I think part of me always suspected there was something strange about myself. About my family."