"Shame," Roseate sighs wistfully, "I should like to ask a snake questions about their life." He wasn't keen on getting close, but... think of the story it would make! He was insatiable on his hunt for the next great verse.

Oh, but he had been bursting at the seams to hear her ask such a question! Roseate grins broadly. "Of course! What would you like to hear?" He fires back. He knew sad verses, he knew happy ones, epic battles and the stories of little shiny bugs. Wherever he went, Roseate had been sure to pick up the melodies from whoever he could. He knew many crowd-pleasers.

Arachnae wished Rawkshi could speak too, so she could ask him what she had wondered all these years. Did he have a name before she gave him one? Why did he stay with her? What he actually a boy? So many things she didn't know, things she just had to assume.

She wondered what to hear a song about, and with a grin, she though of something. "Ah! Can you sing a tale of fireflies? They are one of my favorite creatures, since I normally am only out during the night." Speaking of, she could already feel the exhaustion from the sun on her. She was starting to feel much too heavy.

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Fireflies, she said. Roseate slowly nodded, eyes cast to the sky (though he couldn't see it through the stesm) as he considered the perfect song. "Of course." he confirms, "I have a ballad I learnt from a jungle traveller, years ago. He liked fireflies too. Funny fellow. Never saw him again." Roseate rarely forgot a face.

He stood up on the slick stone and shuffled his forepaws together, humming the first few notes to get himself on-tune before fixing red eyes back on Arachnae confidently.

"I saw them, I saw them," he sang, his voice capturing a different quality than it could when speaking; it was low and rich. "The fireflies tonight;"

"They flashed to each other," he had a lot of obvious practice and power in his voice, projecting it into the steam-thick air. "Their signals of light,"

The tune was whimsical, light but he couldn't help but feel nostalgic. "And, knowing their cipher,"

"I read them 'aright."

He finished and let the last note hang for a couple heartbeats, watching his audience's reaction.

– credit "The Fireflies", Horace Dumont Herr

She grinned, sharp ears pricked as far forward as they could be to listen to his hymn, and she was astounded. Patting her paws against the damp rock, she clapped in a way, a jolly grin on her maw. "Oh that was wonderful! I almost wish I had flowers to give you for such a performance." The rose purred with a slight chuckle.

She shook her head a bit, almost as in disbelief. "You are very talented. I honestly envy a voice like that. My friend is a bard too, she has a very pretty voice- but I think lyrics are her weak point." She almost laughed aloud thinking of Nonoyo, forging music as cogs and gears grinded together in her brain. She was great.

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This feeling alone is why he had practiced years of his life away for such a skill. The last note faded into the humid steam and a grin broke out on his russet-masked face as Arachnae's praise replaced it.

Ros preens, bobbing his head appreciatively. "Thank you," he rumbles, "Wouldn't be the first time i've heard that." But he was relieved she didn't seem to have any means of acting on that currently. He'd never understood the custom.

Roseate was always happy to talk about himself, and he listens to Arachnae's musings. "I was a poet first." he shares happily, "Passion was the rest. I sung myself hoarse many a day until even the birds were sick of my voice."

Arachnae laughed at the mention of birds becoming sick of him, shaking her head in mock disbelief. "With a voice like that? Impossible." But birds were temperamental and she had been attacked by songbirds by simply walking around. So who knew. Birds were assholes- especially the one who was merely a corpse now. "What brings you to pursue song and poetry?" She asked the peach male. At this point, she was beginning to feel very relaxed around him- she liked they were of similar size and that he didn't tower over her. His markings and color made her feel not so odd. And he was funny. She simply liked him.

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"When you've been croaking the same verses for days on end trying to get the right rhyme, most people aren't so favourable to it." he cackles with a grinning flash of pearly whites. Now it was easier though, and he didn't need to harass the wildlife for quite so long.

The question she follows up with makes Ros shrug. "Why do hunters hunt? Why do warriors fight? They're good at it. And it feels good to be good at things." He wasn't afraid of failure per say, just disinterested in making himself look a fool in areas outside his skill. Which happened to be everything outside survival and singing. He was lazy, and being charismatic and daring tended to be a lot easier than stubborn and powerful.

Perhaps she had been hoping for some inspiration, some reason for what made him tick. But Roseate was merely a habitual mooch. There was nothing he wouldn't sell or tell for an easy way out of most situations.

The rose was amused by his answers, but nothing short of satisfied. She was a try hard, did her best to succeed and more than enough to please those around her, enough to where it simply irritated them instead. Roseate seemed to live much simpler, a life she envied, wished she could do. But to be idle made her anxious, so sadly she failed at that. So while they had some things in common, they were quite different I'm others. Perhaps that would make a good friendship in the long run. "I understand that. I am a cleric as my main part of life, I speak to spirits and do what is needed to please deities of both my father and mother's side. And even Maua. I suppose that is my music." She chuckled.

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Roseate could sense their differences too; she didn't seem so agreeing with his stance. But Roseate had lived long enough to know it was improbable and a waste of energy to convince people to change their ways. Did that make him a pessimist? Yes, but it also was far more interesting to know why people thought differently. That was what kept him in a trade. Otherwise he would just be a lyrical historian which... sounded boring. Without the theatre of it all, without the conflict... what was the point?

Oof, religion though. He's not about to touch that with a ten foot pole. Even if he's curious. "Sounds like you got a lot on your shoulders." He says instead. "You ever get tired of trying to please so many people?"

With a quiet huff, she shrugged a bit, a sheepish smile in her maw. "Ah, yes. It's exhausting, not being my own personal simply living for the lives of others. I do my best to do my own thing, but I'm a people pleaser- and old habits die hard. I suppose no matter what you do, no matter hard hard you try to succeed, there is failure one way or another." She said, chuckling weirdly.

Slowly, she stood, stretching her stiff limbs. "Sadly enough, I guess I should get going. The sun is blistering my skin a bit." The rose stated, "I really enjoyed talking to you, @Roseate. Maybe we will see each other again soon." She purred, and slipped last him to make her way back down the rocky slope and towards her temporary home.

--Exit

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