(1.08.35) Something to share (Rushil)

Siba's therapy was a mixed blessing for her. On the one hand, much of her old muscle had atrophied, meaning that the old swimming and conditioning routines she used to be able to do with ease now left her a mess of tired, aching muscle. On the other hand, she'd had time for hobbies, and her skills as a seamstress and as a musician were better than they'd ever been. She also had a fine starter set of depraved feely vids, courtesy of her sisters from the Suriyanaa unit.

As it was, her time in the sickbed with the ekonting had allowed her to gain more confidence with the instrument. She wasn't just learning old songs, she was able to make a few of her own. She'd even figured out how to do the drop thumbing technique like her Uncle Amir had shown her. The ekonting was traditionally a man's instrument in her unit, played for wives and daughters. Indeed, most of the songs Uncle Amir taught her were tender admonishments to young wives, not to work to hard or forget the unit in their endeavors. This was doubly hilarious for her unit sisters, who knew that all tenderness Siba felt wasn't for a young wife, but hopeful little husband of her own.

Siba didn't care though. The rhythmic nature and gentle twanging of her instrument was something that she got lost in, trying to coax every note from those three strings. There was something freeing about it. As the day wore on in the Mixed District, Siba just found herself playing it more and more, seeing where the boundaries were on her newly developed skill.

The continuous noises of Rushil’s favored mixed district were nothing new to the Jagat-Natha. But there was a sound that wasn’t very common, a sound he had only heard on the Datastream. The simple strumming amused him, the small tapping invigorated him, and the gentle hum delighted him. As he continued to stroll along the street, he could practically see the notes rising up out of the crowd a few hundred feet in front of him.

The music seemed to draw him in from out of the crowd. He ended up going from being surrounded by other Ralasi to standing alone in front of what Rushil could only discern as a Svatantra. Rushil was mesmerized by her bone structure; she could have easily been mistaken for a man if not for her chest. But that was the least of Rushil’s worried (Oddly out of character for him), he cared more about the music.

A bright future for this woman flashed before his eyes. She was going to be a star.