act27side

What do you mean, you're going to help us?

Uh, who are you...? And why?

Hold on... You look familiar...

Hah, you finally figured out, huh? You watched the Obsidian Festival broadcasts, right? Remember the lady at the closing ceremonies with Mayor Herman?

Who? No, no, no. I'm saying you look a lot like a woman I once met...

It was a long time ago, and we worked at the obsidian mines together.

There was a scholar from Victoria. She was pregnant, but she went to the mines every day, for environmental surveys or whatever.

She didn't know that much about mining, but she was real kind to us...

Oh, now I remember. Her name was... Bora... No, Barbara.

The creature, with the miner's lamp on its back, trots along in short spurts as it gazes toward Old Siesta's beach.

There, Byrd is sitting on the sand, plucking away at her strings spontaneously.

Do you come here often?

Hmm, you can still see Old Siesta here...

Well, music is pleasing to the ear, and the sound of the waves, carried on the wind, is good accompaniment for the guitar.

I didn't expect you to ask me that, though... So you're actually willing to talk.

Huh? Isn't this what one would normally do...?

Yeah... I guess it is. maybe I'm just a bit too narrow-minded.

If everything can talk to everything else, then music might be the best language there is. Even if you don't speak the same tongue, music can help you convey your truest thoughts—Not bad. This feels like a new inspiration.

Byrd starts strumming a slow, relaxed song. The waves rise and fall along to her rhythm.

You two are the first to hear this piece.

'You two?' Oh... Are you including this fowlbeast here? Maybe the grass?

Hm? No.

Don't we have another listener here?

Byrd points at the steps next to them which, logically, should be empty.

Weren't you talking to it the whole time?

Miss Byrd... You can see it?

The creature with a miner's lamp on its back stands on the beach and gazes blankly at the silhouette of Old Siesta in the distance. It hesitantly tries to step into the seawater, but after a few plods, it walks back onto land.

Its takes its hoofsteps rhythmically, as though it is trying to match the music's beat, though it also looks like it isn't and is just trying to maintain its own rhythm.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump...

Yeah, I've been able to see it since the day I came to Siesta.

Just the one?

Are there others?

Too bad... This is the only one I can see.

Byrd looks at the lamp on the creature's back and the hard hat and goggles on its head.

I wrote the miners of Old Siesta a song. Maybe it just happens to like things that have to do with ores?

I'll play the song again, just for it.

Byrd starts strumming again, while Adele brushes her dress's hem and sits down next to Byrd.

Come to think of it, even though there hasn't been a single song of mine that could represent my whole life, perhaps there's one or two that could give comfort to somebody out there...

...even if my audience is just a lone... Little Black Sheep?

But that's not so bad!

It stayed behind to listen to you play your guitar.

You said you could see more of them. Where are they?

They... They disappeared all of a sudden. I don't know where they went.

Do they eat road signs like this one?

I don't think so...

Hm, I have an idea.

Do you think this one eats road signs because... it's a stray sheep?