FLOWING FORWARDS
PEERING BACKWARDS
COMMERCIAL DISTRICT
PROVINIA - ORD PROVIDENCE
Ceri Fraissi |
Lily Decoria
| Open
“Cool!” Toby didn’t listen to the classical stuff as much, but some bands worked the classics into their stuff, and others were at least inspired by it. So he dabbled sometimes, but that she danced was even cooler and more interesting because one of his sisters danced through a few styles. The strength, control, balance, and coordination needed? Mad respect.
Toby felt he might trip on himself if he tried.
Toby had just turned back to watch the band, and had his own fist in the air, with a holler:
“YEAAAAA–” that transitioned into a mangled yelp as he was accosted by the collar, stumbling backward, and his head turned sharply to look at the dark-haired girl…
gosh, her excitement made her look prettier, an errant realisation that, when it hit him in the sharp adrenaline of the moment, pulled a laugh out of him that was more surprised than anything else as he acquiesced and fell into line.
“Alright, alright!” Toby said in a voice infected by that laugh, throwing up his hands in surrender as he wobbled into place between them, and she pounced her question on him.
“Toby!” he hollered back, only hesitating for half a moment - his family had long served in the starfighter corps of the Alliance and its predecessors, among other roles; he was proud of where he came from, yet also wary of being recognised on that basis alone… but what was the likelihood that she’d know anything about that at all?
“Toby Perris!” he finished with another yell, putting getting to know two pretty girls over his own misgivings,
“You?!” he asked back with a holler before turning his head briefly back to the band again, between any answers they would give. Toby would always try to look when spoken to, if he could: that'd been how he was raised. As the Veils song came to an end, and the next act came on, the white-haired girl asked another question; he didn’t slot in his own answer, but instead looked at Ceri too. How would she answer?
Toby knew the answer, or
an answer; music could be a little subjective, and he’d been chastised before for not allowing others the opportunity to speak up. In primary school. More than once. It’d taken a while to learn to rein in that impulse, but he still felt it. Like
the knowledge itched at his brain.
The first and last time he’d admitted that itching feeling, as a kid, Kelly - his second-eldest brother - had told him that bugs had crawled into his ears while he was sleeping. Toby just had to know if that was even possible. And that knowledge, that morbid curiosity had a cost: it unsettled him for days. It still gave him the heebie-jeebies, and he watched horror holos!