abraxaslogs | Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

Mat always makes the trip to Nocwich when it's open. For one, he gets real-world time with Jesper. For two, he only comes here once a month. The folks here - and from other factions - haven't heard him play and see him perform every week. It's good busking. And while the baths at Castle Thorne are wonderful and luxurious, there's a certain charm to the open air spring bathing in Nocwich.

Nothing feels better after an afternoon of performing than a proper soak.

He's never been bothered by the communal nature of bathing here. When one grows up without any privacy, that sort of thing simply doesn't matter. And how many folks in Emunds Field had their own private bath? Only a small handful. Communal bathing was just normal. It was easy. Just be polite and look at people's faces. He drops his bag with his juggling clubs and his hand drum to the side, and his theorbo case aside them. He's gotten well used to lugging things about in the last year. He'll never bulk up with muscles like Rand or Perrin, he'll always be a lean thing, but what he has are getting nicely defined. He can't complain about that, even if he loathes carrying all his equipment about in the summer.

As he takes off his boots and tunic and scans the springs, he notices Bay and grins. Nice lass, in his experience. Before he undresses any further he approaches the edge in her line of sight and waves hello, knowing not to bother calling out to her until she's looking directly at him.

As the summer has hit its peak of heat, he's clean-shaven for a change.

She spots the movement, and smiles. It's nice when people show her the tiniest decency. She definitely isn't smiling because of the lack of shirt. No, nothing to do with that.

She shoves that side of herself down, it's not really the time or place. She barely knows him, but he does look nice. And she has a boyfriend... sorta. That's another part of her she needs to talk through with someone. At a later date.

Besides, he probably isn't going to walk over and join her so she can just relax. That's the point of hot springs, to relax. She'd close her eyes right now, except she does kind of want to be aware of her surroundings provided she's alone. Maybe next time bring a friend so she can close her eyes and they can keep an eye out for her so she can relax a bit better.

Unfortunately, part of relaxing for Mat involves socializing. That's half of communal baths, chatting while you soak. Particularly in varied company, it's a good way for folks to feel comfortable.

So when he finishes undressing and slips into the water with a relieved sigh, he does approach Bay. Why not? He likes her, and he imagines she may be feeling a bit out of her element here. Even he had, his first few trips to Nocwich. It's damned different than Thorne and the castle. She might like a bit of familiar company.

"Mind if I join you? I always feel like a rude dunce, just sitting somewhere else and ignoring someone I know."

The only saving grace when it comes to drifting attention is Bay's attention has to stay to his face just because it'll be very awkward to miss what he says while she's lookign at him. She wonders if this, in turn, is part of why she's not reacting the way she thinks she should to this.

"It's an open hot spring." Bay offers, not entirely sure what the etiquette is for this. Kell made this very awkward, Bay helped make it worse. "It might help me figure out what I'm feeling, or not feeling, and why I'm not feeling it."

This isn't Bay being awkward she just rambles sometimes.

"It is at that, but it doesn't mean you want my company. Or any company. But I am happy to provide."

He settles himself in, grinning, and closes his eyes briefly in satisfaction. The hot water on his aching shoulders is bliss. Sometimes he wishes he played a regular little lute, and not something near as tall as himself. But it stands out, and the theorbo suits him.

"Also happy to lend an ear, I've been told I'm not half bad at it. My advice might be shit, though, so take that as fair warning."

Mat seems perfectly at ease, and he is. There's nothing awkward here, least as far as he can tell.

"I have memories of being freaked out, by being naked around people. At school, changing for some classes, but it was only girls. But I'm not now, I'm bad at talking to people but I've always been bad at that."

"I don't think anyone can give me informed advice on what's bothering me." Any advice offered to her would be, at best, a shot in the dark. So there wasn't any advice Bay could be given she'd just believe. So really it would be on her to listen to the bad advice. Her words flow with an energy to them, all her confusion and uncertainty, with a little fear bubbling up and over the surface as she moves through her thoughts. Spelling them out as best she can, "My body is entirely comfortable with being looked at. I'm guessing it has to do with signing. I'm sure I wasn't signing topless with boys that often at home. But I can't be shy and talk with my hands at the same time. It's the best I've figured out for what's going on."

There's a lot of that which sounds like Bay doesn't know for sure, anything, of what she said. It's all phrased like she's trying to deduce her life which is a weird way to phrase things. And she hasn't really moved to cover up since Mat arrived. Her eyes have stayed, mostly, on his face because she has to. That doesn't mean she hasn't stolen a few glances while she was talking because she has needs and does not know how well that other her handled them.

No, Mat certainly has no advice here. He can only nod and hum thoughtfully, having no experience with that sort of thing. He's always been comfortable in his skin. Hard not to be, when you grow up on top of everyone else all the time. It's just a part of poverty where he comes from.

Though he can understand not being comfortable stripping down in front of the opposite sex. Particularly in that bloom between childhood and true adulthood.

"Well....I suppose context matters for that sort of thing. I'd wager you have a good deal more on your mind here and now. And most of us are used to being starkers 'round each other, so none of us make any fuss over it. I'm sure you have a very lovely body, but just because we're in the bath together doesn't mean I'm invited to leer."

It's manners. Yes, yes, everyone takes a quick assessment, it's hard not to. But there's a difference between a glance here and there and leering. He's a flirt, he isn't a creep.

"Bodies really aren't that big a deal anyway. We've all got one. I do sort of know what you mean, though. I'm a bard, I perform for people. I've gotten used to being looked at. Didn't used to like it all that much, but now..." He shrugs. It's like she'd said. Hard to be shy when you need to be seen.

"I don't mean naked, either, I mean in general."

"Bodies are a huge deal." The words fall out well before she can stop to explain herself. Just a flat rejection of what he's trying to say. Because he doesn't get it. Of course, that's because she hasn't explained it.

"It's..." she pauses to try and put the words together for this. She's explained it before, it should be easier with each explanation. It isn't, it's weird. It's very weird. "This isn't exactly my body. It's almost my body, I look at her and see myself. But it lived a life very different from me. She has scars in different places than I do. My world has a phrase 'to know something like the back of your hand' and I don't know my own hand that well."

She holds up her right palm, flat above the water for Mat to see the complete lack of any scar. "Four months ago I cut open my palm on a beer bottle. But she didn't. So I keep expecting some lingering soreness and a scar that aren't there."

There's more of that fear and unease in her voice than before as she rolls through why she's a mess. Eventually, having run through most of it, she slumps back against the edge to relax. That small explosion she's been quashing in her chest done with.

"And honestly, given in my old life people stared at me because I was the center of a lot of gossip about my parents." Now that she's bowled through the knot in her mind, her words are fairly content, a little edge to them but not antagonistic, "I think I'd enjoy if someone is just looking at how great my curves are, so long as it isn't weider than... everything else about me."

"I don't think you're weird."

Alright, maybe her circumstances are, but...that happens. Mat has his own set of strange circumstances.

"I've been possessed by dark magic forces twice, kidnapped by cultists and half turned into a mushroom man, and I shoot dark mist out of my body when I get scared. It takes a hell of a lot to be 'weird' around here." Bay just fits in with all the rest of them, really. A mad collection of strange experiences.

"Sounds to me like you just need to get to know yourself. Whoever's body that was, it's yours now. So it's you. But what do I know? Closest I've come to your shoes is I don't remember much of the first possession, and things I do remember...aren't my memories."

Which is not the same, besides being able to commiserate on fucked up memories. And because he's Mat, he can't help but add...

"Either way, I am always more than happy to appreciate your curves!"

"I think that my tolerance for weird is much lower than yours," Bay's tolerance for weird was higher than most, in her world. But basically nothing compared to here even if her circumstances were this. "Assuming I got that right and you said mushroom man."

"We both love art, and the same artists. But she learned to love cooking, and she was never forced to play sports." She's trying to work out what she does know about her other life. The girl she could have been, had fate not decided she should be Bay Kennish. "She loves reading, which wasn't really my thing. And she never felt out of place in her life, like her whole world was wrong."

She still had all her memories, of the whispers around her growing up. They started when she was about six. As people noticed the night and day of her features to her parents. Her coloring was wrong to be Kathryn Kennish's daughter. And she lacked any of the athletics one would expect of a child of John Kennish. When her brother could play any sport he tried. "Of course the big one, she lost her hearing when she was three."

Bay gave Mat a lopsided grin, "If you want to look, I really don't mind. And I technically don't have a boyfriend to get jealous over it." Because this girl didn't have a boyfriend. Which hurt in the moment, all the memories of their relationship amounting to nothing in this girl's reality. Now it just felt weird. And opened another thought, "I don't actually know what sort of romances she had."

"I did indeed say mushroom man. Very big on mushrooms, that cult. Won't eat'em now."

Which is a pity, but he can't stomach them since the pit. Mat knows he's not the only one.

"Well, way I see it, our mind and our memories are us. If all my thoughts got magically transported into some other body, I'd still be me. So you're still you." He tends to take a simple logic to most things. But it makes sense to him. If her thoughts and memories are hers, that's all that really matters. A body is just the temporary house for the soul anyhow.

And now he has permission. Mat's own grin widens, and he raises his eyebrows since he can't rely on tone of voice. Luckily he's quite expressive.

"To be quite honest, I would like to look...but perhaps in a more private and comfortable spot than the public springs?"

He can't help himself, she's given him a clear indication that she's open to flirting at the very least. Perhaps she's open to more. No harm in putting it out there.

There's a tense little smile, "My first visit to the Horizon was kind of terrifying. Because I wasn't me for those three minutes. And I remember all of her feelings, without the lens of my memories clouding them. So I know I'm me."

"But I'm also not me. My favorite food is different, because I grew up eating different things and this body remembers those flavors better. It feels like someone rearranged all the furniture in my home by a few inches, only it's my body." It's almost as hard to explain as how the switch felt. Not what it was. What happened was easy, everyone could follow that. They couldn't follow the simultaneous ideas that your whole life is a lie, but it is your life, and how knowing that but not knowing how to express it leaves a mark.

As he shifts to a more open pushing of boundaries another schism appears in how she reacts. She wants to tell him he's crossed a line, that her offer wasn't meant to be an invite quite to that degree. But there's a flutter to her heart and a flush to her skin that definitely isn't against the idea offered. "I have no idea when the last time she was with anyone. But I've only ever done things in relationships with way more time together than we've accrued. Okay?"

That wasn't a no, but it definitely was a not now.

"Light, that would be odd, wouldn't it?" Mat can't imagine. But he sees how that could throw someone off. Some intrinsic little thing being so different all of a sudden. Still, she seems to be handling it alright. Least as far as he can tell. Not that that means anything, he knows he hides his own trauma well.

Then he nods, grin not faltering.

"Understood. I'm what they call a 'free spirit' and I know my ways are not for everyone. If you ever feel like a bit of casual fun, you know where to find me. If not, I take no offense." What offense is there to take? Plenty of people don't want to sleep with him, and he doesn't want to sleep with plenty of people in turn. And she has reasons for preferring not to slip off with some fellow she's only spoken to a scant handful of times.

And she certainly doesn't seem averse to friendship.

"But you do still need to come see me juggle one of these days! I'd demonstrate for you right now, but naked juggling is just ridiculous. You'd be laughing for all the wrong reasons."

"If it helps, your offer did turn me on a little." Weird thing to just- admit to. But at this point normal felt so worthless to be not worth bringing up. "I don't know if that's me or her. I'm thinking her."

"Just-" She was naked with a guy who she just invited to respectfully ogle her. One she just told the exact reasoning for why her thoughts are so fragmented and distracted. Why was talking so difficult. ...Other than the fact that the other Bay was more comfortable talking in sign, and not out loud. Obviously. "If you want to hang out, with me naked, I don't mind. It'll help me explore how she- I- feel about it. But regardless of if she was going through a very slutty high school phase, I've slept with two people. And both of them were deeply in love with me."

She's never just- had sex for sex. When Tank made a move she shut him down, for whatever reason. Meanwhile Emmett and Ty both loved her, to degrees she didn't quite have words for. She knows that the other girl didn't sleep with Emmett, but did she sleep with Ty? It was a rabbit hole of doubts she didn't really need right now.

"I will come to watch you juggle, eventually. And I'm not nearly coordinated enough to laugh at anyone. Even if you were naked." Bay was never one for athletics, and that meant she regularly flinched away from objects being tossed into the air. Which made her bad at every sport her father made her take as a kid.

"It always feels nice to be wanted!"

Even when one wasn't in the mood. It just feels nice. It doesn't seem that odd to Mat.

"No need to explain yourself to me. I promise I'm not judging you for not being interested in casual sex with a handsome acquaintance. But I can certainly be your naked friend." It is an intriguing proposition. While there's nothing inherently sexual about a naked body, there is an undercurrent of something sexual here. And if it's helpful for her...well, who is he to deny?

"And trust me, you would laugh. It's impossible not to laugh at a fellow with his hands over his head, clubs flying about his face, and his business flapping every which way."

She'd never be able to see him naked without giggling.

"I need you to know where my boundaries are, that's all." Explaining why she wasn't interested in casual sex was mostly a side-effect of being clear on where she is right now. It helped ground her thoughts as she tried to consolidate the little fragments of the other life she almost lived.

She gave him a dubious look over the laughing. Not that the sight isn't hilarious, but she hasn't laughed since waking up on Christmas Eve. Daphne did laugh, but only really among her Deaf friends. She did around Bay but took a lot of time for her to get comfortable with it. And the video mom watched Bay smiled, but didn't laugh. "I'll take your word for it."

As a show of good faith, and because she was already in the springs for longer than Mat, Bay lifted herself out and onto the ledge. Keeping her feet in for a little while longer because there was a lot of walking living in the castle, but cooling off in the air and entirely on display trying to gauge how much she was okay with this.

"Boundaries well established." Mat doesn't like folks tramping on his, so he tries not to tramp on theirs. Particularly when it comes to intimate things. He knows he's a bit of a prick, but he's not that sort of prick. He's better than that.

Though since he has been clearly invited to at least observe, he does. He doesn't linger in his looks, but there's clear appreciation as he lets his eyes sweep over her form as she lifts out of the water. It's not creepy when you've been given permission.

And it is a terribly nice view.

"Very lovely. I'd return the favor, but I'm afraid I need the soak. Theodora - my theorbo - is a bitch to carry about all day."

"We're having a conversation, I can only really steal glances. I can't enjoy as freely as you can." It would be rude if she missed what he said checking out his abs. Or anything else.

Bay smiles, the tiniest hint of mischief to it. She's being honest but in the way that plays into the bit anyway, "I prefer a pretty face anyway."

Now that she has attempted to flirt. She can turn her attention to the thing he said that didn't strictly pass through. Lipreading is filling in gaps based on best guess in a lot of ways, it's why Bay didn't try proper location names without reading them first, "What is a- yeah, I didn't get that word at all."

"I can always just shut up!" It's said with another wink, to ensure the playful tone comes across.

"But you are in luck, I have quite the pretty face." Mat's not exactly humble about his looks. It's one of the few things he has going for him, he's good looking. Why be humble about it?

Oh, right, not many people know the word 'theorbo', even if they can hear it said. He certainly hadn't ever heard it before with Master Jaskier introduced him to it.

"My instrument," he clarifies. And then breaks the word up into three. "The. Oar." Accompanied by mimicking paddling with an oar. "Bow." Mimicking holding and drawing a bow.

"It's like a very very long lute."

She rolled her eyes at the offer, just not talking and looking at each other. Still, her smile says she appreciated the gesture. Maybe some other time they can just do their own thing, naked, and occasionally enjoy the view.

"The Orbow," said with a bit too much pause in the middle, and hitting the end of the word like it has a W. Of course, there's an easier choice than charades, It has limits and it makes suggestions that don't really congrew with the way he said it the first time. "If I haven't gotten it just message me the spelling?"

And she's just hoping its spelled phonetically because if it has random silent letters she might scream.

"Very close!" Honestly, close enough to get on with, as far as Mat's concerned.

But he does take her advice and traces out the letters on the surface of the water as though he were writing. It's such a clever way of communicating, really.

"That's her there in that very tall case." He nods with his head in the direction of his things. "I have a few other instruments, but she's my main lady. And hardly anyone's ever seen one before, they're not popular. I had to go all over to find her!"

Which he can understand. Not too many musicians want to wrestle with an instrument that's the same size as them.

"Theorbo," okay, that's reasonable enough to remember. Bay is sure she will never understand the male need to gender their musical instruments. Her brother did the same thing when he owned a dozen Guitars and Basses. Just kind of felt weird but she'll not focus on that in the moment.

"Shame I can't hear that, not without an amp powerful enough it'd hurt anyone else in front of it." Every time she listened to music with Emmett or Daphne, when she could hear, it was too loud even through her earplugs. And since being here she's had to recreate her brother's sound equipment to really properly listen to music while she paints.

It was something else, however, to feel the music vibrating all the bones in your body.

"So are all your talents some kind of performance art? Is that just what you find the best way to express yourself? Other than asking new friends if they want to have sex?" There's- okay there is a little judgement but to be fair this is very new to her. It's weird and she's still not quite processed all of the 'hi you seem cool we could have sex if you like' in their conversation. She does keep it mostly playful as she asks, because she is genuinely more interested in the rest of the topics.

"Not all of them! I'm also a very skilled hunter. Long bow. And I whittle. Carve things."

Those are the talents Mat will admit to at this point. Pickpocketing and cheating at gambling are tidbits for closer friendships. But he is talented at them, and he thinks maybe Bay wouldn't be horribly shocked to know he is sometimes something of a petty criminal.

It's not like he's done either in ages.

"I grew up in a very small village in the middle of nowhere. Not much to do, really, if you don't have a herd of sheep to look after or a crop to tend. Never had a chance to learn the performing arts properly till I came here. Sometimes a bard would come through and stay a few days, but that was only every few years."

So his life was very much the antithesis of her own, with her lavish Kansas City mansion and perpetual city life. Learning a skill without all the tools just being on hand made whatever he did slightly more interesting, although she can't say she's impressed as she's not seen him perform yet.

"I've never tried whittling, but I've never really had that level of patience or vision." Whittling, and any other kind of chipping and carving, required knowing what you wanted and working your way into it. And she was better at turning a blank canvas into anything her heart desired.

She'll let the topic of hunting alone, not really a conversation she's interested in having as while this is clearly food hunting. She's still got that other image in her mind and she just- will ignore it.

Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

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