Thema watched as the boy tossed his belongings to the ground and made it apparent that he was going to stay a while. Before she could ask the boy's name, the boy rattled off a question.
"That's pretty interesting, I gotta admit. Can you play it well?"Thema opened her mouth to speak, but again, she was interrupted by many questions more.
"Oh, can you sing, too? Written any songs yet? Can I take a look at some you've written down? I mean, if you've written some down."The boy had been asking questions faster that Thema could even think of an answer. After a short period of silence, Thema answered each of the questions.
"I can play it, though, I'm no virtuoso at anything, not by any means." She said.
"And I can also sing, though, I'm no grand singer. And to what songs I wrote, I don't quite have my song notes with me. I guess I could play something, if you really want to hear it."Tivo gave a curt nod in response to each answer that Thema delivered, a simple grin plastered on his face signifying his content with the way this particular conversation was going. He was quite pleased that the bard was willing to share some of her own songs, and he gladly accepted her offer.
"That sounds pretty nice, yeah. Go ahead! It's been a long time since I've heard from a genuinely amateur musician," he honestly opined, eyes gazing up at the woman with a tinge of eagerness behind his expression.
Thema nodded after she heard what the boy had said. She sat on the ground in front of the man, pulling her lute off of her waist. She held the lute rather carefully as she hummed a quick tune while turning the pegs that held the strings tight to the wooden frame. Occasionally, she would pluck a string, giving either a note that sounded pleasant or a note that sounded rather dull.
This went on for a rather short while, but once each string gave a pleasurable noise, she began strumming a simple, melancholic tune. She hummed along with the notes in order to get a feel of a song. Not before long, she began to sing a morose song.
Time may cheat, but I know why
Cause what I need, I can't buy
But life goes on, and so do I.
I'm trying to fly...
And I don't even know why
I still feel like a rat in a maze.
Even though I stared at the sky
I should have found a method to fly...
The song sounded sorrowful and incomplete, however, it was sang quite well. Though, the song did feel quite empty, as if it was missing something.
"Well, that's what I have so far. What do you think?
Thema asked quickly, dismissing her own thoughts about the song. She had felt as though her song was empty. It sounded nice, that's for sure, but it didn't feel right. It wasn't what she herself had thought. It was just something that someone would sing from time to time.
Lowering his stature further by leaning forwards some, Tivo listened intently to the song. While Thema strummed the sequence of strings on her lute and sung, he closed his eyes and nodded his head until she had finally finished. He had to admit to himself that she was quite decent -- not that he had any doubts about her ability, really.
After letting out a content sigh, he opened his eyes once more.
"That was nice. I don't really understand the words all that well, but, uhm . . . Good job!" Tivo's expression quickly acquired a grin.
"The only thing I didn't like about it was just how short it was!" he added. Tivo was about to delve into a more in-depth conversation with Thema when a streaking, minuscule object ran past the peripheral of his vision, which immediately prompted him to divert his attention away from Thema and towards the particular area above him. However, after finding nothing in his short perusal of the sky which invoked great interest, he turned back towards Thema. He simply dismissed it as being an incredibly fast, white bird of some sort.
"Sorry," he began.
"Just thought I saw something weird. Anyway, like I said before, your songs are sort of short in length. Then again, I'm no musician, so I don't know too much. No need to take my advice. You've got talent, though!"Tivo suddenly became aware of how far forward he was leaning towards Thema and decided to readjust his posture by tilting back a bit, resting the palms of his hands onto his knees. Didn't want to invade her personal space or anything. Common courtesy.
"So . . . Those lyrics. What do they mean? Is it a story of some sort? Does it have a message?" Thema was taken aback by his question. Did her words have a meaning? She never had thought too hard about it. She knew it wasn't a story, but what was it? It was certainly something she wrote, but for what reason?
"I don't know," Thema said as she rose from her seat,
"and I think that's what I'm trying to figure out." Thema looked towards the sky. Occasionally, a dull white streak ran across the sky, but was nigh impossible to see due to the day's light. It didn't look very nice, however, it was still a neat event to witness.
"Anyways, I think it's time for me to get going." Thema said, returning her lute upon her hip. She then turned away from the boy and wandered forwards, with no real destination in mind.
