simplestgift | Seven Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN] Hat Day.

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Seven Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN] Hat Day.

[Citizens of Luceti may see Archie Kennedy wandering around with a new hat today. It looks a little like something a magician would pull a rabbit out of, but he seems to be enjoying it. He'll be around town today--the library and grocery store during the day, and Good Spirits in the evening. In the afternoon, he'll sit at the fountain to pen a few words.]

I believe morale might improve if we had some sort of goodbye ceremony for those who were returned home. Not a funeral, mind you, just an occasion to remember them, celebrate their return, and hope to join them soon. Perhaps once a month or so, for everyone who left during the month. It's the little things that help one cope, sometimes.

Also, who left a note under my door? I'm afraid I can't read it, or indeed tell if it was even meant for me. I live in Building One, in the first flat on the first floor.

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Sophie's the main reason I need to get home. I mean, I miss all of them. A lot. But I kind of promised her that I would never just leave her without letting her know first. Her mom did that... and I couldn't see her go through that again.

[a pause] Except we didn't exactly get warning before waking up here.

And I've heard no one back home will even know you're gone.

I've heard the same.

...I wonder how they know, for sure.

Some people remember. Mr. Giles did.

Mr. Giles?

Someone who was here and gone before we ever came. He's back now.

And it was just like he'd left it? Everything?

As I understood it.

...that's reassuring, at least.

[as the song comes to an end she reaches out to stop the tape, ejecting it before the next can begin. There will be plenty of time to finish while she work on the mural, but first... Archie's musical education must continue.]

[Pulling out the first cassette, she reaches for the next]

[Archie watches as she performs this delicate task.]

[it's tempting to put in something that'll shock him, but for all that she's rather curious as to what he'd think of modern music, she was careful in her choices.

She gives him a smile as she closes the cassette dock with a click]

I know this might not be what you're used to... I blame the words.

[if he hated it, she'd switch to something else quick enough...but she couldn't resist. And, as she presses play, Kansas begins to pour from the speakers, a steady drum beat pounding along with the lyrics]

...What in Hell?

[she laughs, reaching over to press fingers against his arm] Just listen. For just a minute.

[And so he does. He has trouble understanding the words for a bit, but the bits he catches make his face go unusually neutral.]

[she lets it play for a minute, then hits the stop button, the silence sounding unnaturally loud while she fastforwards to the next point.]

[there's a pause at just how still his face has gone. She'd thought of him, with the lyrics...but with what he'd been through, perhaps this wasn't the best of choices. So her finger hovers over the play button]

They aren't all so loud, but this one... it's more than a little sad.

[there's an unspoken question in her voice. Should she? Did he still want to hear?]

[He turns his head and eyes down, taking a breath as if bracing himself for the next song. He'll listen if that's what she wants.]

No.

[her finger moves, hitting the eject button, the cassette popping free. Her eyes don't move from him, though, worried]

Archie...

[He turns to her, suddenly breaking out of his trance-like thoughts.] What's the matter, Jilly?

I was about to ask you the same thing.

[He hesitates. He's not used to discussing his feelings every time he gets a little melancholy--maybe because everyone he was around back home would have simply understood why the song hit close to home. Talk of the black of the sea at night, of family he would never see again...]

I...I'm a sailor, Jilly.

I know.

[its' why she'd picked the song in the first place...the way she'd picked the fiddle music from their discussions and the way the third tape, settled off to the side, was opera. Because she'd wanted him to enjoy it, at least a little. But maybe it was the way his melancholy was such a contrast to the face he usually presented to everyone. She didn't want to add to it]

You asked me to paint a ship on your wall, remember. [it's light, almost teasing, but her eyes are still worried]

And sometimes I'm melancholy looking at it. Doesn't mean I don't want it there.

[she nods. It makes sense, but she's still careful.] Still, you asked for that. I don't want this- [she gestures at the tape player] to be too much.

[The tiniest smile.] It merely caught me unawares. I've had quite a bit of "too much" before and it wasn't anything like this. I'll be fine, Jilly.

[it's only a small smile back, but it's there all the same]

Promise?

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