![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingSummary: Jade brings Davesprite to LOFAF on a quest to recreate her eclectic bass. Naturally they get derailed by tangents. (625 words)
Note: Three things! 1) This ficlet was inspired by the 7/5/15![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
15_minute_ficlets word #230. 2) It is also a response to the Cotton Candy Bingo prompt: music. 3) It's part of my Tales from the Yellow Yard series, set a week or two after Short Story Long. It's early enough in that journey that it works in both the Game Over and Retcon timelines, so you can imagine it whichever way you please.
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
---------------------------------------------
An Elephant with Laryngitis
---------------------------------------------
"I know for a fact you didn't have awesome spacey powers until a few weeks ago, so how in the name of Nicolas Cage's questionable taste in movie scripts did you play that thing unfolded?" Davesprite asks when Jade shows him the manual for her late, lamented eclectic base. The instrument itself is a sad casualty of the scratch that overwrote their entire universe and timeline, but the instructions somehow survived the insanity of the past three weeks. The diagrams might even be detailed enough to use as alchemical blueprints for a replacement.
"In my dreams! I could have as many hands as I wanted, back when I had a normal dreamself," Jade says. "Which technically meant my dreambot was the one playing back on Earth. I remember Grandpa used to grumble about building a finger mechanism delicate enough to keep the strings from getting snapped or crushed. He tried to talk me into the flute instead, but I never practiced enough to get past the 'elephant with laryngitis' phase."
"Pics or it didn't happen," Davesprite says promptly. "Uh. And by pics I mean audio files."
Jade wrinkles her nose at him. "Why would I bother recording anti-music? But you know, I think I might still have an actual flute around here somewhere..." She bites her lip and looks around her bedroom, trying to remember where she put the items she's recovered from the chaos of her entry and various imp depredations.
"Aha!"
She dashes over to a trunk she alchemized one week into their inter-session journey and pulls a flute case from its depths. "Remember, you asked for this," she warns Davesprite as she twists the sections of metal together and checks that the keys and levers all still work.
Then she starts to play.
Davesprite lasts nearly a full minute -- which is forty seconds longer than her prediction! -- before he slams his hands over his ears and gives in to the pained wince tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Okay, okay, point taken! Although personally I'd say that's less 'elephant with laryngitis' and more 'demon-possessed teakettle.' You gotta be precise with your metaphors these days, can't afford to get taken too literally and have people infecting poor defenseless pachyderms to test the accuracy of your allegations."
Jade drops the flute onto her bed and laughs. "What elephants? Do you see any elephants around here? Because I certainly don't!"
"We could probably alchemize one if we set our minds to it," Davesprite says speculatively. "Your gramps was old as fuck and liked shooting things. I bet he has some tusks lying around as a trophy from pre-endangered species hunting restriction days. Take that as point zero, run some basic trial and error combinations, and play around with punch codes based on those results. Voila, one Dumbo for all your metaphor testing needs."
"Yes, but where would we put it? I don't want to disrupt the ecology of our lands before we know what makes them work in the first place, and elephants would be a huge disruption! But we can't keep them on the ship. That would be cruel, and also who wants to deal with piles of elephant shit every day?"
"Why you always gotta bring logic into my nefarious plans," Davesprite grumbles, but he drifts across the room to float at Jade's side. The feathers of his slowly healing wing brush lightly against her shoulder.
Jade smiles and kisses him on the nose. "I logic because I love!" she says as he glows even brighter orange than before. "Now come on, I want to alchemize a new bass so we can make real music together again. We'll figure the elephants out some other day."
Davesprite slips his hand into hers as she enlarges them off the planet.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 7/5/1515_minute_ficlets word #230: music
---------------------------------------------
Yes, I did that thing with the prompt words on purpose. :D
Also, yes, this prompt was on my first Cotton Candy Bingo card as well. Coincidences happen! The fact that I filled both prompts with female Homestuck characters attempting to alchemize stringed instruments is less coincidental, but hey, if it ain't broke... *shrug*
Note: Three things! 1) This ficlet was inspired by the 7/5/15
15_minute_ficlets word #230. 2) It is also a response to the Cotton Candy Bingo prompt: music. 3) It's part of my Tales from the Yellow Yard series, set a week or two after Short Story Long. It's early enough in that journey that it works in both the Game Over and Retcon timelines, so you can imagine it whichever way you please.[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
---------------------------------------------
An Elephant with Laryngitis
---------------------------------------------
"I know for a fact you didn't have awesome spacey powers until a few weeks ago, so how in the name of Nicolas Cage's questionable taste in movie scripts did you play that thing unfolded?" Davesprite asks when Jade shows him the manual for her late, lamented eclectic base. The instrument itself is a sad casualty of the scratch that overwrote their entire universe and timeline, but the instructions somehow survived the insanity of the past three weeks. The diagrams might even be detailed enough to use as alchemical blueprints for a replacement.
"In my dreams! I could have as many hands as I wanted, back when I had a normal dreamself," Jade says. "Which technically meant my dreambot was the one playing back on Earth. I remember Grandpa used to grumble about building a finger mechanism delicate enough to keep the strings from getting snapped or crushed. He tried to talk me into the flute instead, but I never practiced enough to get past the 'elephant with laryngitis' phase."
"Pics or it didn't happen," Davesprite says promptly. "Uh. And by pics I mean audio files."
Jade wrinkles her nose at him. "Why would I bother recording anti-music? But you know, I think I might still have an actual flute around here somewhere..." She bites her lip and looks around her bedroom, trying to remember where she put the items she's recovered from the chaos of her entry and various imp depredations.
"Aha!"
She dashes over to a trunk she alchemized one week into their inter-session journey and pulls a flute case from its depths. "Remember, you asked for this," she warns Davesprite as she twists the sections of metal together and checks that the keys and levers all still work.
Then she starts to play.
Davesprite lasts nearly a full minute -- which is forty seconds longer than her prediction! -- before he slams his hands over his ears and gives in to the pained wince tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Okay, okay, point taken! Although personally I'd say that's less 'elephant with laryngitis' and more 'demon-possessed teakettle.' You gotta be precise with your metaphors these days, can't afford to get taken too literally and have people infecting poor defenseless pachyderms to test the accuracy of your allegations."
Jade drops the flute onto her bed and laughs. "What elephants? Do you see any elephants around here? Because I certainly don't!"
"We could probably alchemize one if we set our minds to it," Davesprite says speculatively. "Your gramps was old as fuck and liked shooting things. I bet he has some tusks lying around as a trophy from pre-endangered species hunting restriction days. Take that as point zero, run some basic trial and error combinations, and play around with punch codes based on those results. Voila, one Dumbo for all your metaphor testing needs."
"Yes, but where would we put it? I don't want to disrupt the ecology of our lands before we know what makes them work in the first place, and elephants would be a huge disruption! But we can't keep them on the ship. That would be cruel, and also who wants to deal with piles of elephant shit every day?"
"Why you always gotta bring logic into my nefarious plans," Davesprite grumbles, but he drifts across the room to float at Jade's side. The feathers of his slowly healing wing brush lightly against her shoulder.
Jade smiles and kisses him on the nose. "I logic because I love!" she says as he glows even brighter orange than before. "Now come on, I want to alchemize a new bass so we can make real music together again. We'll figure the elephants out some other day."
Davesprite slips his hand into hers as she enlarges them off the planet.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 7/5/15
15_minute_ficlets word #230: music---------------------------------------------
Yes, I did that thing with the prompt words on purpose. :D
Also, yes, this prompt was on my first Cotton Candy Bingo card as well. Coincidences happen! The fact that I filled both prompts with female Homestuck characters attempting to alchemize stringed instruments is less coincidental, but hey, if it ain't broke... *shrug*
