Let's Dance!

[ziggyplayedguitar]

[Continued from here]

The celebration was supposed to be short, sweet and just a greeting. However, with Ziggy and his friends and the family friends all being incredibly social things continued on. He and Mick and pulled out the equipment from the spare room. It was turning into a party by the time it was late afternoon.

As it attracted more people Tom ordered food to be delivered from the plaza, because they would need it, though the Anthean food was still there for the more adventurous. Jack also started a small bonfire in the portable fire pit in yard as it was getting toward evening and would cool to something colder than most humans might find comfortable. It would be good for there to be a place to warm up if the dancing or whatever else went on wasn't enough. Tommy had also finally come from where ever he had spent his time earlier in the day with his wife who, unlike Aletayria, hadn't adopted any human features at all. They were both simply observing from the edges since Etainia had not seen other species, and very few humans. This was a startling situation.

Cords run out front, Mick and Ziggy both with guitars, they were ready to jam with Soundwave. It was sure to attract other people since they were more or less starting a concert on the front lawn of the tiny house not too distant from the edge of the plaza.


[OOC: This is open to anyone who is at the celebration or wishes to amble by. Party style thread... feel free to tag about and mingle.]

Comments

[itmeanstruth]

Minoru was as surprised as she was, and stood up quickly. “Oh! Sorry!”

The potion hadn’t slowed his reaction time at all - but that part of Minoru was always relaxed. Any telepathic or empathic communication, though, he’d see how that fared now that he realized who had bumped into him.

He didn’t know exactly who, but he recognized the eyes. They matched Aletayria’s. And the words she spoke, he couldn’t understand them, but he knew they were Anthean. It sounded like what he’d heard from Ziggy and his family before.

“...You’re... Anthean?” He blinked a couple of times. “Aletayria’s family?”

[iamjustvisiting]

She is not loud like Ziggy but she's incredibly nervous in this situation. That may come across the empathy rather clearly.

Her eyes are almost lemon colored and not quite as pale but the rest of her features do have the elfin and elongated appearance.

She pauses when he speaks, blinking but not showing any other expression. "Yes."

Now that they are talking she is projecting her feelings. For her there is no familiarity with the human standards. The only one she has encountered is Tom and he is open to the mental sides of communication. The first thing that comes across is the distinct feeling she is still in the learning phases of English and struggling to bring together words.

"Thomas' wife." She looks very closely at him. She's feeling out his connections, touching around the edges of his presence. The name comes in Anthean but it has human sounds to it despite the higher register. "Etainia."

[itmeanstruth]

Minoru blinked. Newton's wife. He could feel her mind brushing against his, the way Ziggy and even Aletayria have done before, but it felt different. It felt weird.

"Minoru." he nodded, pointing at himself. "Ziggy's... friend? boyfriend? One of them?"

As soon as that slipped out, Minoru realized that it wasn't her that felt weird. It was him. It was the way he was processing everything around him... detached. Almost like... well, it was like Isamu, really. Which was incredibly weird! But he was strangely okay with it. (Or not, but he was okay with not being okay with it too, if that was even possible.)

"I'm sorry. I feel weird. I took something so I could watch the show and not get intoxicated."

He was even starting to sound like Isamu too.

[iamjustvisiting]

"Love?" She asks while feeling the quiet and calm emotions. The quiet is normal to her, like Newton who she loves.

A long moment of quiet passes between them as she thinks about what Minoru has told her. Antheans don't have a concept of intoxicated chemically but emotionally they do.

"You are new to Anthean company?" Etainia had spoken to Aletayria at length about Tom while preparing to reunite with a changed Thomas who was more human.

[itmeanstruth]

In another couple of hours, he’d feel completely different to Etania. And to himself again. But in the meantime, he answered that question far more easily than he ever had before.

“Yeah. Love.” He replied with a soft smile.

He bought the potion months ago, but hadn’t tried it until just now, in part because he was worried about what would happen to those feelings. Ziggy had said his presence could be addicting. Take that away, he worried, were there true feelings underneath? Yes. He knew that now, without a doubt.

“I’m new enough that Ziggy’s voice is really really overwhelming when he performs. It’s getting easier when I’m just with him, just him and me. But on stage, with the crowd, what he takes in and reflects back, I’m a mess.” He admitted. “I feel... too much.”

[iamjustvisiting]

"His heart is big." She tells Minoru. "His heart is made to heal."

She knew a lot about the prophecies that her husband had seen about the boy. She comes to sit beside him on the ground. Though he is human and she is uncertain his place in an interaction like Tom makes her more trusting.

"Antheans don't sing with their voice but..." She struggles from a moment with her words, something not in her expression but mood. "...our spirits. My Thomas is a person who writes artistic stories." She was looking for the word poet but didn't have the English for it. "His voice is the same. Emotion is communication and you feel more because your heart wants his spirit to speak to you. You are connected."

[itmeanstruth]

“His heart is big.” Minoru agreed with a gentle smile. It was, all things considered, his favorite part of Ziggy. He didn’t know Newton was a writer. He’d have to ask to read something some time.

Minoru paused that line of thinking abruptly - this potion really did make him think more like Isamu...

“Usually, it’s a wonderful thing to hear him in here, or for you, in here, I guess.” Minoru tapped his chest, and then further back where an Anthean heart was. “But when I went to his concert... his love, the love of the crowd, Ziggy’s like a mirror and magnifying glass all in one. I was... wasted. Drunk? Drugged?”

He tried to find a word for it that made sense to her.

“I was really really out of it. I said things I didn’t mean. I hurt people I cared about. I hurt Ziggy... and I was sick all night long and into the next morning. I want to listen to him when he plays his concerts. I want to be there. But I’m... scared that will happen again...”

It was why he bought the potion to take the edge off, he explained, showing her the bottle. It was why he probably felt strange to her - something he apologized for again.

[iamjustvisiting]

"You are both still children." Etainia didn't know that Minoru was a human adult. To her he looked Ziggy's age which was a teenager, not yet an adult.

"Our emotions are like the sun. When it first rises for you to see then you look away and it burns. The light is too much, but with time you can look at the light and see it's brilliance instead of fearing its brightness."

She looks at the bottle, peering intently at it because it looks strange. The energy radiating off of it is unusual.

"You are human. Your expectations of normal are alien or we are alien and the expectations will never meet our reality." As someone deeply spiritual she wasn't sure how she felt about blocking out another person's presence. Something about it felt inherent wrong but she wouldn't judge a human for choosing silence.

[itmeanstruth]

Even without the cultural error, Minoru wouldn’t have questioned it. To an Anthean, all humans were young by comparison.

He honestly wasn’t too sure what to make of dampening the presence via magic potion either. He’d apologized for it twice now, even though he wasn’t being criticized. He was calm, albeit mildly embarrassed.

“What do you do until then?” He asked softly.

He tried to explain that while he usually found the Anthean presence warm and inviting, a concert felt more like being an ant under a magnifying glass on a sunny day. It’s hard to appreciate its brilliance when you’re on fire.

[iamjustvisiting]

"We go to watch the sun everyday."

She listened to his explanation of the experience with the concerts. "I am not familiar with humans but working on mental and emotional speech could help."

[itmeanstruth]

Minoru could relate to that. The more he was around Ziggy, the easier that would become. They’d communicated on a deeper, Anthean level a couple of times - but only briefly, before it became too overwhelming for the human who was like a sponge to that kind of thing. If only...

“You mean learn to give it back, and not just take it in?”

Was it possible to give an ant a mirror, so to speak? If Minoru could feel Anthean empathy so deeply, could he also project it back, the way Ziggy did? Probably not, but maybe there was a human equivalent?

[iamjustvisiting]

She is silent for a time, unmoving and thinking.

"We learn our mates. We learn thier minds and emotions. Someday they become almost the same. Thomas is always inside my emotions and I am always inside his."

She explained before going silent again as she realized humans weren't mentally Anthean. There would be more.

"When he is inside then you can manage. Now, he is outside and other and that is stressful. It is not harmony to keep a spirit you want outside your heart."

This was deep into Anthean spirituality and she might have to explain foundational things that her species doesn't think about because they are natural and instinctual.

[itmeanstruth]

“Oh! We’re... we’re not mates. Not like that...” he blushed, and his expression fell. The potion made it easier to reveal that Ziggy’s would-be mate essentially passed away not too long ago. He could never replace that part of Ziggy’s heart, but he did wish that he could continue to help ease the pain.

He was calm about it, but the emotions were still there for Etainia to glimpse. He cared, deeply.

“Right after it happened, he was inconsolable. I came straight from work. Didn’t even think about getting the potion but Mister Newton did give me a pair of ear plugs for the noise.” He spoke respectfully of her husband, and of Tom as well, who was doing his best to try and calm his grieving son. “I thought for sure it’d be just as overwhelming as the concert, but I just... just held him. Telling him to breathe in and out. For hours... until he fell asleep in my arms...”

Was that what Etainia was talking about? Why was that experience fundamentally different from the concert?

[iamjustvisiting]

She's confused for a moment, blinking quickly. "I thought he had more than one mate?"

Maybe she had read the humans and the hybrid wrong? It was a possibility. Etainia didn't have much experience with humans and could have been mistaken.

"The grief of an Anthean can go on for a substantial amount of time." She agrees and looks away. She still grieved for her children but now, at least, she could grieve with their father. She tried to turn away from her own emotions to focus on the human's experience.

"You were present in the moment with him. When he grieved you had no fear and wanted to feel with him." It wasn't exactly what she had meant earlier but it was a concept that would be helpful for the human in the long run. "Your hearts and spirits were there together. You didn't reject what he was feeling."

[itmeanstruth]

“He does. Well... I don’t know? I mean, there’s different types of love and aren’t mates, well, bound and connected completely? Um... in every way? He and I, I mean... that’s never going to be us. Not like that...”

He blushed softly. Even the potion could not prevent that.

Minoru cared deeply about Ziggy. Etainia could surely feel that. He would be his rock in the maelstrom, his light at the end of a tunnel, his partner in crime and his welcoming embrace. But Minoru being who he was, well...

“There’s... um... always going to be a point where I reject what he’s feeling.”

He paused for a moment, looking at the bottle that was still in his hand. He was speaking more to it now, and to himself, than to her.

“There’s always going to be a point where I reject what he’s feeling and this potion... it isn’t changing that. It can’t change that. Nothing’s ever going to change that, and Ziggy’s okay with that... so what am I afraid of?”

[iamjustvisiting]

"Yes, there are as many types of love as there are living things." Antheans understood that interactions between individuals were all personal and varied. To Etainia it was part of the beauty of the world. "Antheans bond to their mates."

She was in agreement and then that blush. She stared at Minoru and then covered her mouth in surprise. A truly human looking gesture after all the expressionless discussion. "oh... You think mates means you are mating? I do not know the human word for mates that are bonded."

A wave of excited agreement comes off the woman beside him. "I think that is what makes for a good mate. We are all different and there will be something we reject about the other. When we accept that as part of existing in the space and heart with another then there can be the kind of love needed to endure a long life."

[itmeanstruth]

Had Minoru not been so lost in thought, he might have noticed the very human expression coming from the most alien of Antheans he’d met so far. Or a grasping for the word ‘marriage.’ Probably for the best that he missed that one too, potion or no potion.

“But if we focus on the things we do accept, there’s no need to try to change what we reject. We find the place we fit in their heart and snuggle in... it’s safe there...”

[iamjustvisiting]

"Yes." She pauses for a moment and looks around like she's looking for someone. She is, Thomas, though she doesn't immediately see him and her eyes come back to Minoru. "Provided the willingness to accept is not dangerous."

[itmeanstruth]

“If loving Ziggy is dangerous, I guess I accept the danger.” He replied softly after a few moments of quiet thought.

He always did have a sideways view on judging risk.

The effects of the potion had reached their height and were just starting to fade. Minoru’s foot twitched absent-mindedly, the first honest need he’d had for movement in the last couple of hours.

[iamjustvisiting]

"I did not mean Ziggy, necessarily." Etainia looks down and sadness wells up in her presence.

"Thomas...." She starts and then stops and lingers in quiet for awhile. "The human Thomas accepted into his life beat him because he accepted her as she was."

She can feel the energy coming into the human and wonders if it is because he shares the quality with Ziggy, where sitting in stillness too long was not possible.

[itmeanstruth]

Minoru was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t know that... I’m sorry that happened.”

Not all humans were like that, but that seemed like such a selfish statement in context with the sadness Etainia was projecting. He’d heard bits and pieces from Ziggy too, about some of the trauma he’d endured at the hands of fans and former bandmates alike.

Truth be told, Minoru had been afraid of hurting him too. The potion was meant to fix that as well. And yet, with it, he just calmly accepted a far more important truth.

“I may not always say or do the right thing, but I’ll always do everything I can to heal, not hurt. And that’s for everyone. Not just Ziggy.”

That was true to his very core.

[iamjustvisiting]

"I thought Earth would be kind to him." She finally says a bit exasperated or disappointed, it is hard to tell with the lack of facial expressions.

Her mood lightens though when he speaks more. "Those traits will bring the hybrid stability. He will need it if he's going to succeed in the tasks ahead of him still."

She knew Ziggy would exist before now because Thomas had seen it though he didn't know how it would happen. He knew someone would come.

[itmeanstruth]

Earth was terribly unkind to Newton, which went without saying. Earth wasn't always very kind to Ziggy either. Neither were the Antheans, honestly. It made Minoru's heart hurt to think about the scattered bits of Ziggy's past that the Anthean had shared with him.

Still, he survived. And maybe, with the people who loved him by his side, he could do more than that. He could thrive. And stop an extinction event from happening.

"He's going to save the world, isn't he." Minoru looked back to the stage with a flicker of hope.

[iamjustvisiting]

"More than the world." She follows his gaze to the stage letting the child's emotions sink in. "Thomas saw that he would come before he left Anthea. He will save your planet, both of our people, hope, peace, love. If he fails it will doom us all."

She spoke with the flat, emotionless certainty that Antheans had when something was seen. Though she knew, like Newton, Ziggy might fail due to humans. "They told me your people have already tried to kill him."

[itmeanstruth]

There was a certainty to her voice, a sense of gravity that both sat on Minoru's shoulders and passed right through him all at the same time.

"I know he was attacked, at least a couple of times. He... hasn't spoke about it much." Minoru didn't dwell on that very often, so honestly, he didn't ask. But the past came back, sometimes. "But it's left scars. Some you can see, and others you can't..."

He turned back to Etainia. "What can we do to help him?"