| Play It Again |
| Summary: | Two more people sign the Guitar, and a band is ordered to form. |
| Date: | 26 Apr 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | None |
| Players: |
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| Ready Room - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| With the hatches at the rear of the room, the walkways on both sides slope down towards the dais at the front of the room. The stadium seating forms a partial semi-circle around the speaking podium and provides enough seats for all three hundred members of the Air Wing. The walls are adorned with the patches of each squadron aboard and their mottos stenciled in white lettering above each one. Behind the podium is a set of large LCD screens that can display any matter of material from reconnaissance to maps to gun camera footage. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #424 |
Utilizing some of his precious recreational time, Ensign Burke enters the Ready Room with a fistful of markers and a beat-up guitar slung across his back by a flimsy strap. He takes a look this way and that, searching for familiar (or, at least, particular faces) as he pauses for a moment to scratch the top of his head.
Evandreus is sitting in the back, far to one side of the hall, against the wall, the seat arms to either side of him folded up so that he can sit with his legs folded, a notebook open and settled in the angle where calf meets calf. There are some figures from the combat run against Areion on his lap, but halfway down the hither page he's stopped underlining key points with his pencil stub and he's started sort of doodling in the margins, his mind wandering, his features still and cast in a certain serenity of being, his eyes either cast down to the page such that his lashes thoroughly shade his eyes— or shut entirely.
“Bunny, suh?” Burke pipes up, his gazing about the room resulting in his eyes alighting upon the Raptor driver. He’s quiet, his tone that searching one of someone who is not quite certain if the person they’re addressing is awake or not. Nevertheless, he sets off towards the back of the room with the pace and careful footing of a teenager creeping through a haunted house in a horror movie.
Evandreus's lashes rise along with his brows as he looks up from his 'work' to the sound of someone calling him 'suh.' Now, the Bunny never really liked anyone sirring at him, but there's something about the accent that makes the syllable, usually so profoundly uncongenial to him, elicit in him a smile that could only be described as charmed. "Breakout. 'Sup, guy?" he answers him, his own Leontinian accent brisk but dense, fronting the hell out of his vowels. "Come to play me a song, eh? Haven't had a fellow come to seranade in a long time now," he goes on with a jovial smirk stealing any semblance of deadpan out of the jesting.
“Ah can, if y’all’d like,” Burke says, settling down in a chair a row ahead of Bunny and not bothering to turn it around so he can sit on it like a normal person, “But Ah don’t know many songs Ah ain’t come up with myself.” The jesting seems lost on him, Breakout being the very poster child for naiveté much of the time.
Evandreus settles his pencil stub down into the crevice of his notebook and closes it up, turning it sideways on his lap to serve as a sort of demi-table he can rest his hands on, leaning back in his own seat. "Sure, hey, that's cool, guy. You write your own music? With lyrics and everything?" he wonders. "I'd love to hear something."
“Ah ain’t come up with much in th’ way a’lyrics,” Burke admits, as though a little ashamed by that, “But th’ music part Ah can do jus’ fine.” That said, he immediately jumps to his feet and clambers into the same row of chairs as Bunny so he is sitting alongside him. Once there, he slings the guitar around into his lap and fetches a pick from between the strings. It appears the pick itself has been crafted from detritus found on the deck, as it is certainly not the type one would buy in the store, “Ah ain’t named this’un, but Decoy said it rocked.”
The word ‘rocked’ rolls awkwardly off Burke’s tongue, like he’s not used to saying it and probably wouldn’t in regular conversation. Nevertheless, he plucks a few strings to get a feel for whether the instrument is tuned or not and then proceeds to strum out a tune. It’s fast-paced, the sort of thing one would hear from country musicians who are crossing over into ol’ fashioned rock n’ roll. He hums along with it but, true to his word, there are no lyrics. It only last thirty seconds or so before he stops, looking sidelong at the Raptor pilot as though awaiting a final grade.
Evandreus draws his arms up overhead and crosses them as if to use his neighbored forearms as a pillow. He doesn't start to clap time or dance about or even so much as bop, preferring instead to keep his peace— is he drifting off? No. He juat has that look in his eye, relaxed and lazy, that might better suit a less frisky sort of country music. "I can't believe you wrote that," is the final judgement. "I mean. I believe that you DID. But wow, man. That's… that's some crazy talent, there. You and mom ought to play together sometime."
Burke practically beams at Bunny’s appraisal, aglow with delight that the little tune he’s been tinkering with is good. He pats the guitar, almost like it was alive and willingly chose to contribute to the quality of the song. New as he is, Breakout has not quite got the hang of the myriad of nicknames and relationships that form the spider’s web of the Cerberus Air Wing, “Y’all got a momma that plays somethin’ aboard?”
Into the Ready Room strides the CAG, proceeding directly toward the flight board. Though the presence of Burke and Evandreus makes her pause. Curious. "Ensign. Lieutenant."
Evandreus is sitting up in the back row of the briefing hall, next to the wall, with the seat arms up and his legs crosses, back slouched and a notebook settled on his lap, a pencil marking his page. "Yah, Captain Maggie Quinn. Well, by adoption. But it's just as well, that. I couldn't rock the ginger look if I tried," he relates with a cheeky grin before he lifts a hand to wave to the Cid Space. "Hey, Cid. Have you heard this guy play, now?"
“Ah was gonna say, y’all don’t look much alike,” Burke strums the guitar a few more times, waving a hand excitedly in the air when Cidra appears. The vigour of the wave is that of someone trying desperately to be noticed amidst a crowd, despite their being no crowd to get lost in. All the same, when Evandreus mentions his playing to the CAG humility takes over and the Ensign casts his eyes downward and turns a shade of red.
Cidra continues on course to the flight board, giving a short and satisfied little nod before making some alterations to the listing. Whatever conversation about Evan's family she's walked in on, it's not commented upon or asked about. "Playing?" She asks it while continuing to scribble on the board. "How do you mean, Bunny?"
"Playing… on the guitar," Evan replies. "He's really good, yah?" he offers up, just a little bit more wary to say so. "Mom plays on the fiddle. I used to play pretty well on the accordion, but I'm hellish out of practice, I couldn't keep up with either one of you," he goes on to mention, flipping open his notebook again to the marked page.
Burke glances up as Bunny talks about his guitar-playing, still a bit red about the face but apparently not so much that he’s going to deny it or refuse to play. He drums on the face of the guitar with the flat of his hand a few times, trying out another, slower riff this time that is just as complex as the first. He hums along with this one as well; apparently unable to avoid that when it comes to playing. His eyes close, in some sort of zone that does not allow for talking or even facial expressions at the same time.
Cidra's brows arch, just a touch, when Evan speaks of 'Mom.' Mildly. Though the bit about the guitar just gets a nod. "Ah. Yes, I do recall the Ensign playing a bit on it back in the berths. It is a musical place, come to it. As Lieutenant Doe did say, Captain Quinn plays the fiddle. And Lieutenant Ellinon does play the guitar as well."
Evandreus's familial nomenclature /has/ shifted somewhat since the arrival of his little sister. From the slightly more ambiguous 'mum' or 'mumsie' to 'mom' in generally and 'mommy' if he and Short Kal are playing together. "Oh, that's right," he recalls, after a moment, of Spiral. "Haven't heard a lot pf playing in berths for a while. But, y'know." The war. And stuff.
“Maybe Ah’ll ask an’ see if they all wanna start a band or somesuch,” Burke ponders this for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders a little, “Though Ah reckon Cap’n Quinn is powerful busy with that young’un a’her’s.” He turns to Bunny, smiling broadly, “Y’all should take up that ol’ ‘ccordion, ‘gain. Then we’d just need someone t’ play drums” He looks down towards Cidra at that, still beaming, “Y’all know how t’ play a drum, Boz?”
"I am…not a drummer," Cidra says. "Perhaps Decoy might wish to. He seems to have picked up a little bit of everything in his travels. Or Drips. I do not know if he is musical, per se, but it strikes me as she sort of thing for which he might show enthusiasm. If you do manage to get it all together, however, I would very much like to listen."
That young'un a'hers makes Bunny's expression, on the one hand, grow slightly more sedate, but on the other hand beam even brighter with a sort of genial contentedness that twists at his insides. "Short Kal's a handful, but I'm sure mom will want her to be exposed to music young. I can babysit and sit in on it with you guys. Short Kal can be our crooner." With the intermittent wailing and all.
“An’ Ah weren’t a guitarist til’ a picked this ol’ thing up an’ decided to play,” Burke points out to Cidra, still grinning with mischief but letting it go for the time being. To Bunny, he nods his head, “Ah like that idea. Oh! ‘Fore Ah forget, y’all need t’ sign my guitar.” He unslings it from his shoulders, holding it out in front of them to make the writing all over it clear to see.
"Sign, Ensign?" The CAG is curious. Cidra leaves off her work at the flight board to go and examine Burke's guitar.
Evandreus scoots once, twice, unfurling his lanky legs and leaning toward with his binder balanced on his knee, narrowing his eyes toward the text and then letting a smile spread slow over his features. "Aww. That's so sweet, guy. Sure, I'd be honored, yo."
“Yeah, sign,” Burke answers, gesturing for Cidra to come closer so she can get a closer look, “See, Cap’n Bootstrap wrote on it here.” He points at the sketch. “An’ Cap’n Poppy down here.” He points at the neat little missive near the bottom of the soundboard. “An’ Decoy just along over here.” He points that out, “Ah was hopin’ t’ get ever’one t’ sign it.” He hands it over to Bunny along with a marker.
Evandreus takes the instrument almost tenderly onto his lap, resting the body of the instrument on his binder as he orients it and re-orients it, reading all the signatures so far before deciding on a spot and a short, sweet snippet of scripture, three words, one atop the other, formed into a little wavy wedge of cute bubble letters, centered under the word break between 'kills' and 'cylons:' 'omnia vincit amor,' with a little illegible scrawl of a signature close by.
Evandreus regards the work with a satisfied eye once finished, and caps the pen, lifting both to hand over to Cid. "It's a really nice idea," he agrees warm-heartedly.
"Then come on up here and sign it," Burke says with a broad smile, unable to keep from reading over Bunny's shoulder as the Raptor pilot adds his own little something to the instrument. Nodding in approval, he then goes on to ask, "What's that mean?"
Cidra takes the guitar, steadying it on a table so she can sign properly. She takes a moment to consider it then writes, 'We remain the Fighting 14th. Always.' in flowing, cursive script. Beneath it, she signs 'Toast.'
"Love stands victorious over all things," Evan recites, from what must have been a translation of scripture he'd read when small. Either that or he's just poetically minded. "So this machine knows it can do more than kill to conquer, eh?" Eyes squint with a tired but warm smile.
"Ah like that," Burke says, taking the guitar back once they've both signed it and ooking at it with a broad smile, "Y'all're the best."
"We live in the age of Ares, Bunny," Cidra says, with a certain amount of sad gravity. "But I pray we shall see another come to pass. Mister Burke…gather your band, if you can. You owe me a song."
Burke does a little open-mouthed gazing of his own at Bunny as scripture is recited, as though such a thing immediately translates to ‘wise beyond reproach’. He blinks a couple of times, looking back towards the CAG, “Yessuh, Boz. Ah’ll write somethin’ special jus’ for y’all.”
"I look forward to it. Gentlemen, clear eyes and steady hands." And off Cidra goes.