xp_logs | Monday afternoon: Terry and Pietro in the music room

Terry very nearly has a conniption fit when she finds Pietro taking advantage of a powers stunt in the music room. Fortunately, he manages to win her over by dint of sheer personal charm . . . well, okay, more like because she's a sucker for music, but pretend it's charm. They then bond over larcenous uncles and Terry ends up fleshing out Pietro's musical education.

On any normal day, someone walking by the music room while it was occupied would be treated to slightly muffled, but still beautiful music from any one of the number of musically-gifted residents of the school.

This was not a normal day, and the sounds wafting from the music room were anything but tuneful. In fact, they sounded rather like someone had kidnapped a guitar and was now torturing it for information he wasn't sure it possessed but was nevertheless determined to find out.

Terry would admit that since her unfortunate brush with sickness she'd been rather more touchy about sounds, though she prided herself on mostly keeping a secret. Noise pollution wasn't the problem for other people that it was for her and she got more information as a trade off so she really shouldn't be complaining.

However, there was a difference between merely bad music--Forge's "taste" for example--and the agonizing sounds leaking into the hallway. Guitars weren't cheap. Someone needed a lecture on the proper treatment of instruments. She feared for the guitar, being under that kind of stress. She half expected it to commit noble suicide before she got there. Sadly, it did nothing of the sort and the sounds continued even as she pushed open the door and stalked in to find out who was messing around.

The culprit turned out to be Pietro, hunched over his victim with a frown of fierce concentration on his face, his fingers blurring almost invisibly over the strings. If he noticed Terry's entrance he didn't show it, and the sounds coming from the guitar were if anything worse at close range.

"What are you doing to that thing? Stop it!" Terry exclaimed horrified and darted across the music room to him, "Merciful Mother of God, that's no way to treat an instrument!"

"Quiet," Pietro replied curtly. "I'm trying to . . . aah." Between one moment and the next, the tortured notes smoothed out; Pietro's fingers moved gracefully over the strings, picking out a sprightly dancing tune. He raised his head, smirking slightly. "What I was doing was learning. This being a school and all."

Terry no longer felt like she needed to put her hands over her ears but her stormy expression didn't clear in the slightest. "Oh, aye. And you thought that you should just destroy one of our practice guitars while you were at it? You're putting stress on it that it's not used to."

"If I've damaged it, and--" Pietro cocked his head. "It certainly doesn't sound like I have, I'm perfectly willing to pay for repairs." He nudged a stack of paper packets sitting next to his foot. "I came prepared with extra strings, and I was taking care to play as gently as I could at that speed; this was a planned experiment, not a whim, and certainly not an attempt to destroy the guitar, thank you very much for the benefit of the doubt." His brow furrowed for a moment, and the music slowed, segueing into a passionate lament. Pietro smiled faintly. "My uncle wrote this one. Or at least he claimed he did, but he and honesty are barely nodding acquaintances."

Terry snorted, "As though you could hear the difference." But she did seem a bit calmer as he continued playing. "I've never heard that one." Going to the harp across the room she sat down on the bench and watched him play.

Pietro chuckled. "There was always music in the caravan, somewhere. Travelling or resting. I may not have learned to play--much to my uncle's despair, I might add--" His accent thickened. "'Nimble fingers are your birthright as a Gypsy and my namesake! For music and thievery, and you honor only one!' Heh. But I certainly learned to listen." He raised an eyebrow at Terry. "You might also notice that I'm playing by ear, from memory, hm?"

"So you are," Terry replied, somewhat amused. "I do the same often enough though more with this than the guitar." She rested her hand on the curve of her harp then pulled it forward and placed her hands on the strings and began to play a fair approximation of the tune Pietro had just been picking out. "Of course, I've been learning since I was just a wee colleen."

"It shows," Pietro said, tolerably impressed. "Subjectively speaking, you're picking that tune up faster than I did." He cocked his head. "Sounds interesting, on a harp. That's one instrument I haven't heard very often."

"I'm used to doing this. I've played harp since I was old enough to sit at one," Terry said simply, she transitioned to a spritely Irish song, long familiar and requiring very little concentration. "Alison liked to throw new tunes at me just so and my harp teacher still does."

Pietro stopped playing to listen. "One of my favorite things as a child was when my uncle and his friends used to sit around the fire at night and swap songs." He smiled faintly. "I suppose they likely still do, but it feels like a lifetime ago."

Terry nodded and stilled the strings, "I know what you mean. I played for my uncle for years. Still did even after he went to jail." She shrugged then inclined her head at him, "Do you build up calluses at super speed too?"

Pietro waggled his fingers. "I don't callus. My skin's designed to withstand air friction at supersonic speeds; guitar strings don't begin to compare." He smiled. "So we both have uncles with a personal interpretation of the law, eh?"

"All the time then? That's lucky," Terry frowned thoughtfully. "Aye, Tom Cassidy raised me from a baby until I was 10. There's those as would say he's not a good man but..." she shrugged, because she wasn't sure if she was one of them, "I had a childhood that no one could criticise for want of love or care."

Pietro nodded. "That's the important thing, I think. Uncle Django is a pickpocket, a grifter, a thoroughly irresponsible old rogue. But he did well by me, he and my mother and the rest of the caravan. I outgrew the place, but there are days I miss it."

"Aye," Terry said softly, her hands in her lap again, fingers linked loosely, "I know what you mean. Sure and it's no way to live your whole life and...and my uncle deserves exactly as he got. But at the same time, it's home and I miss it sometimes." She shook off the encroaching melancholy and smiled suddenly, "Not as though I don't keep my hand in a bit anyway."

"It's amazing how quickly the old skills come back when you have to steal to eat," Pietro replied wryly. "I'll be just as happy to get out of practice again. This, though . . ." He strummed the guitar thoughtfully. "This I think I might try for a little while longer. It's nice." He raised an eyebrow at Terry. "When I'm not being shouted at, at least."

Terry laughed, "Sure and you'll know when I start shouting at you, Mr. Maximoff. Tis not to be mistaken for any other tone." Terry hopped off her stool and went to rummage through the filing cabinets. "Are you up for something a bit more challenging then?"

"It's just Pietro. And yes, I think so, as long as you play it first." He made a face. "I don't yet count sheet music among my skills."

Terry tsked at him and didn't bother to tell him that he was unlikely to get her to call him Pietro. "Learning to read music isn't a step you can skip whatever plucky teen films would have you believe." She dragged a music stand over to him and retrieved Patience from her place against the wall. "You learn fast," she added impishly. "Sure it'll be no trouble at all."

"Thousands of years of oral tradition argue otherwise," Pietro pointed out. "But you're right, I learn very fast. Let's see what you have here."