Was Gibts? (Walther)

[Jade Coswell]

Ahh. The lake. One of the places Jade came to where there were plants she wasn't as good at manipulating. She'd actually never bothered trying to manipulate something like lilypads or moss.. She'd never had a need and so never practiced with them. She wasn't even sure if she could control them, actually. Probably not. Apparently plant manipulators were usually limited to certain types of plants.. and if that was the case, Jade was quite glad she'd been blessed with the type she knew she could control. Anyway, now wasn't the time of year to try. The lake was still partially frozen and there was still snow on the ground. The only plant life that had thrived in the past month had been harvested and was packed carefully in the backpack Jade was wearing. She had tomatoes, she had beets, she had green grapes.. She also had about three ounces of medicine on her, but that wasn't for sale. --Okay, maybe some of it was if Jade already knew you.. but there wasn't anybody around she knew.

Anyway, today was less about selling her produce that it was about simply getting out and sightseeing.. Despite not being very useable, the lake was pretty this time of the year and Jade tried to make a point of enjoying nature, even if it wasn't all completely natural nature. So here she was, calmly walking along a sidewalk.. A full-length dark brown hemp trenchcoat contrasting quite obviously against her neon green hair. Not many people were out. She couldn't blame them. It was pretty cold.. she'd just gotten used to it. Plus, her coat really was quite warm.

As she walked and stared out at the lake, to the nearby woods, and back to the sidewalk to follow the footsteps that lead onto the path, then back off, she took in a deep breath of the clean, fresh air and grinned.. then started humming. The humming went from almost silent to around a speaking volume.. and over the course of a few short minutes, Jade was singing at near full voice.. A song whose words she knew, but whose meaning she didn't. The song was in German, and she only knew it by it's melody and the way the words played along it. She was likely doing a horrible job of pronouncing them, but if one was only listening for the sounds, it aught to sound beautiful and professional.

On the off chance that someone was around who did speak German, they would hear what might have been a lullabye or an old folk song.. sung in a drawn-out slow tempo.. about how the moon kissed the clouds and the trees and how the stars shined through the fog and glistened with the wind... Or.. Something to that nature. Jade didn't speak much German, she really just liked the way this particular song sounded. When she'd first heard it, it had been played with what she believed was a violin. Much faster and higher pitch than Jade was singing it now. No, what would go perfectly with it now was perhaps a cello.. maybe even something as deep as a bass.. Long, slow notes that she could articulate over top of. Yeah, that'd be nice.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Today started out so rough for him. He really didn't like some of the students at Hammel. Not one bit. It was bad enough that he slept in far too much, then he was being relentlessly picked on, bullied. It was terrible. So many shoves, so many taunts and insults. All from that one very very horrid gestalt pair. There was another girl that messed with him, but that was so much rarer, and usually involving pranks more than actual physical bullying.

So there he was, walking the town, messy hair, clothing roughed up and a bit messy, as well. His shirt was mostly unbuttoned, the collar sticking up at one side. He'd bother to fix it once he was somewhere alone. But right now wasn't that time. He pulled his toque down over his red ears, letting the little fuzzy ball on the top flap a little bit in even the least stiff breeze the wind could summon. He was wondering just where he could go on a day like this. Where would be a place where he could just unwind for a little while?

He heard about many places in town, and he had some experience walking them. His first experience was the ice cream shop and diner. The one that played the antiquated American music, like Elvis Presley. But, he just wasn't feeling that upbeat for it. That place was something Walther felt he had to be in the mood for. Not only that, he was presently penniless. While he liked to keep a few dollars in his pocket, today, they belonged to somebody else.

Perhaps the lake. That would be new for him. He was used to the pond, where he'd met a new friend. But a /lake/ sounded even better. A swimming ground. Well, not right now. He got lucky to find a day where the pond wasn't entirely frozen over. Just imagining the lake dissuaded him enough. If he found a bare bit of water, then there'd be the little thing known as hypothermia to quickly boot him out. Walther followed plenty of signs, now that he could read some more English than when he first came here. Oddly enough, the lake was only visible through the single path in there, a clearing in the trees.

Walther approached, making sure not to snag himself in any sticker bushes or roots. And then, he'd heard it. His own language! A song he was very well familiar with. He threw caution to the wind to get a bit of a closer look. The lady singing it was very pretty, and had a nice accompanying voice. Her backpack had what appeared to be some plants sticking out of it, as if they were overgrown, and that was the planter pot.

Little did he know it, Walther had the same tastes as this woman. And he could hardly resist himself. He really needed to stop doing this, only because of the possibility that it scared people. But some slow 'Bum' noise joined her, along with the much quieter bowstrings of a violin, to accompany the lower pitch of the song. And only a little bit further in, some quiet flute, as well, was decided to be a good addition to the little performance. He only hoped that she would keep on singing.

[Jade Coswell]

Hah. Walther was gonna have to try way harder to freak Jade out. There had been times in her life when she'd been on enough drugs that she literally had her own soundtrack that just followed her around. This time, though, it was a literal soundtrack... and while she didn't bother looking around to find where it was coming from, it was obvious enough that it was playing along with her singing... So as she continued calmly walking, she brought up her hands twitching them to and fro like a conductor.. In the pause between verses, she casually called out to wherever the music was coming from, "Tone down the flute, give me a clarinette, and if you want to keep the violin, back it up with a viola."

She then, without missing a beat, went right back into singing.. Only at full voice, conducting this invisible group of instruments as she went.. This was a strange king of thrilling. Jade had, on occasion, had to play as a street performer.. singing, usually along with a guitarist of some sort.. but the only time she'd ever sung in full voice was alone or with Raining Stars. Now here she was.. not entirely alone.. but accompanying several instruments coming from somewhere.. at full voice.. in a secluded park.. and loving it. The scene was beautiful, the song was pleasant, the instruments seemed to very nearly obey her command.. This was nice. However it was happening, she hoped to do it more often.

After the song, though, Jade turned around, giving a small bow to whoever was behind her. Someone had to be there, right? That, or she was having an acid trip despite not having dropped acid in over a year. Either way, she was likely to see someone... When she opened her eyes and looked up, she found something she didn't entirely expect. A young boy. One that looked like he'd had better days. She tilted her head slightly, then smiled over at him.. "The music.. was that you? Wonderful. Was gibts mein kleiner meta Freund? I haven't sang at full voice in a long time, and I have you to thank for it. You like tomatoes? Grapes? Got a weed card? I can hook you up.."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

He watched this woman, as she sang. She seemed to be enjoying the performance enough. Walther was truly glad for it. And when she offered criticism, he changed the sound accordingly, as fluidly as he could. And indeed, this woman's wisdom showed through. It sounded great! He was almost ready to sing along with her. But, he simply stayed silent. At least, throughout the performance. He always wondered if he, as a person, would annoy adults like her. He was fine with just sticking to the sidelines, listening to her.

It'd truly been a long time since he heard anything like this. It was something his mother would sing to him when he was an unruly toddler. Tired, fussing... He remembered that song would always calm him down. And that was only a woman's voice that did that. Now that he could produce all of the music on his own, Walther really wished he could just feel that feeling again. The feeling of home, the feeling of safety. He didn't feel that in a long time, and Jade brought him closer than ever before. When she turned to address him, he hid, but only a little bit. It wasn't enough to protect him from being seen.

For some reason, Walther expected her to just fly off of the handle. Never, in a million years, did he expect to hear German beyond the cutesy 'Sprechen sie Deutsch' and 'Nein' that he heard all the time. A sentence! A full sentence, with no breaks, or oddities besides slight inflections from accent! It made him gasp, his mouth represented an O until he felt like speaking back to her. Did she know he was German because he was a meta, too? Lucky guess? Mood from the song?

"Hallo, verpassen. He endeavored to be formal and polite to adults, even if it wasn't really necessary. "Ja, die Musik wurde von mir gemacht." mimicking her, he switched back to the English tongue. He needed more practice in it, even if he was /dying/ to have a conversation in German again. "I do like vegetables... But why would I want weeds..? I thought weeds was-- were bad."

[Jade Coswell]

Oof. Little dude actually spoke fluent German. And seemed so excited to be speaking it.. It was a shame that Jade hardly knew enough to know what he'd said.. Obviously 'hello'.. and 'verpassen' was.. miss? or.. girl? something of that nature. Combined with the hello it was defintely his greeting, either way. 'Ja' was yes.. and 'die musik' was obvious enough.. so was 'gemacht'.. made. So the natural assumption was 'Hello, miss. Yes, I made the music.' And after the look of concentration at figuring out what the boy had said, Jade smiled at his misunderstanding.

"No, not that kind of weed, mein Freund. Marihuana.. It is legal here to use as medicine and I grow the very best." She slowly walked over to him and held out a hand to shake as a proper introduction. "People call me Jade. What should I call you?" She slipped her backpack around to sit in front of her and dug through it.. There were tomatoes still on the vine (likely what Walther had thought was a flowerpot) and grapes and beets.. the grapes were in a tupperware bowl, and she eased this out and popped it open, tossing one of the bright green little morsels up into the air and catching it in her mouth. "You are welcome to some if you are hungry. I've never met a meta who could make music like that before. Very unique.. Very cool."

She also couldn't quite overlook how young the boy seemed. "You attend Hammel, yes? ..So young. More than twenty years ago I was recruited there as well. I was twelve. I was bullied and picked on quite a lot. Mostly because even then, this is how I kept my hair." She grinned.. Obviously she didn't feel bad about it, looking back. "Do you have any friends there? I only had one.. but one was enough."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Walther didn't really pick up that she wasn't exactly fluent. But, he was still containing himself. His excitement to converse again. This was good enough. This would -- unfortunately -- do. He took another look at her backpack. The rough-hewn looking fabric did seem to really bulge at whatever she had inside. Maybe she had the entire plants growing in it. That wasn't too impossible. It's not like plants died with motion.

When she mentioned Marijuana, he did, again, seem quite confused. He'd never heard that word. What was it? It must have been something bad for kids his age if she had to reaffirm the legality of the substance. When she introduced herself, he looked at her eyes, then her hair. Lips curling in to a smile, he couldn't help but chuckle. What a coincidence. Unless she shaped herself around her name, of course. "I'm Walther... Walther Ebersbacher. And if you maybe could not tell, I am from the town of Stuttgart in Germany." With a smile, he helped himself to a grape from her backpack.

"I am only twelve years old... I don't really feel like I belong. It was only a month ago when the recruiter came to my auntie's door. I have found a few of friends, a lot of them are older, but I met one my age, too. He's really nice to me. Some girls pick on me... Melody and these two twins." He wrinkled his nose, scowling briefly. "As long as you are happy with your friend, it doesn't matter how many you have."