#and I’m a genius for inverting the colors on the blue stars to make them match half the text

[are-we-really-doing-this]

[elisabettabiondi]

                                    THE MANY FACADES OF ELISABETTA BIONDI

I’M LIKE A CHAMELEON: I FIT IN EVERYWHERE, BUT NO ONE, NOT EVEN I, KNOWS WHERE I TRULY BELONG.

Below the Keep Reading is more details into her aliases. 

Can she survive the city: 

Lisabetta could survive the end of the world  but her personas/identities would be carnage in the war for survival. The identities she crafted would be what would not survive the city or the end of the world. She uses them like lipstick, a different shade for every occasion and easily discarded when they have served their purpose.

Diving Deep: 

Has different apartments around the world.

Studied theatre at university as one of her personas

The classes she learned the most from was: Intro to Acting / Learning a Dialectic / Stage Makeup / Stage Presence / Voice Training / Movement Training /  Stanislavski: Physical Action

Elisabetta’s Song: Remain Nameless by Florence + the Machine & Miss Nothing by the Pretty Reckless

Names/Identities: More insight into Elisabetta’s Identities

Dyes her hair or wears a wig. When she is solely embodying one identity for a long period of time she will dye her hair, perm it, cut it and do whatever else is necessary to keep the facade intact. Depending on who she is, what she is doing and the amount of time she spends as them, she will wear a wig, add extensions, fake a lob/bob, cut her hair, get a spray tan, avoid the sun to turn her complexion porcelain, perm/straighten her hair, add a piercing (whether fake or permanent that closes up as soon as she is with the job), airbrush on tattoos and other birthmarks (freckles, port wine stains, etc), scars, burns and anything else that is physical to change her appearance.

She is known for adding inserts in her shoes, cutting a quarter to a ½ inch off of one heel of her shoe to make it look like she has one shorter leg or a limp, add blocks to her shoes to aid in being heavy footed and has worn casts. She once went so far as dislocating her shoulder in order to keep an identity intact.

Has different scents for every persona.

For all of her identities, Lisabetta makes sure to cover up and conceal all scars that are her own or create scars, birth marks, port wine stains, etc. She has more make up and prosthetics than any theatre company or makeup artist on a film set. 

Árelía Sigurðardóttir

Icelandic.

Features: Light blue eyes, like that of the sky when the clouds are so thin the blue peeks through and it looks as if the white & blue have merged together. Tall. Light/Almost white blonde hair (example image).

Accent: Icelandic.

Known for: Her confidence, her walk (long strides, perfect posture, confident steps and eyes always forward). Thigh high boots, fur coats,  

Occupation: International Flight Attendant.

Changes Nastasia makes to become this identity: Nose. Using makeup, Nastasia alters the appearance of her nose by making it appear slimmer than it actually it is. Colored contacts. Wig or dyed hair, insoles in her shoes to add even more height to the heels that she wears. 

Scent: The smell of fresh sea sprays, or wet air after a thunderstorm (Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden)

Song: Run the World by Beyoncé

Avery Turner

English 

Features: one blue eye and one brown/blue, dark, short, asymmetrical haircut

Accent: Essaxon 

Known for: Dark designer sunglasses, manicured nails with deep purple almost black polish, one blue eye and one brown/blue, hiring her own team of con-artists, never taking her sunglasses off until a job is in motion, minimalistic, monochromatic clothing (black, white & grey ), scar on her wrist, the feeling that she is always watching you

Occupation: Thief  

Important Info: If Nastasia ever takes on a job for hire that requires working with a team, this is the persona that she uses. She also uses it meet with those above her face to face. 

Scent: Coriander,  mandiran orange, jasmine, Bulgarian rose, cloves, clover. amber (Coco eau de parfum)

Song: She’s a Genius by Jet

Deirdre (pronounced: deerdra) Kennedy

Irish

Features: Green eyes, red curly hair, freckles covering her skin like that of stars in the sky.

Known for: Deep Green, almost black Turtlenecks pulled up high to her chin. Curls billowing in the wind all around her when the ribbon in her hair comes loose. She prefers a ribbon to a hair tie because the ribbon does not squash nor try to tame her curls. Short bitten nails. Irish accent.

Occupation:  Book store employee

Changes Nastasia makes to become this identity: Freckles drawn on, colored contacts, curly red wig / dyed hair.

Scent: The smell of well worn books and fresh ground coffee

Song: Fairytale by Harry Gregson-Williams

 Sarah Smith

American - Midwest

Features: Brown eyes, brown hair, large nose

Known for: Being unremarkable. A wallflower. Glasses that do nothing for her features. Hunched shoulders, quiet voice, long skirts, dull/muted sweaters, mary jane shoes, someone easily looked over in high school and university. Not normal enough to blend in with the crowd, not book smart enough to be labeled a brainiac, not weird enough or inverted to be picked on and teased. She is like a penny, unwanted, more often than not, useless and always the first thing to fall out of your pocket and to be forgotten.

Occupation:

Changes Nastasia makes to become this identity: Hunches her shoulders, wears a wig, wears no makeup, makes sure she never gets enough sleep to look rested. Brown contacts. Prosthetic nose slightly larger than her own (a nose not too large to drawn attention but big enough to make her facial proportions not perfect/not ideal). Midwestern accent.

Scent: Free samples handed out in the mail/mall

Song: Thunder by Boys Like Girls

Belle

French

Known for: Long locks as dark as night. Sun kissed skin. No tan lines. Deep red lips as soft as silk. Manicured nails in every shade of dark red. Lace and sheer undergarments. Thigh high stockings with lace detail on top. Loboutin heels. Expensive bags. Expensive jewelry. Rich men on her arm. Warm skin. Black silk ties tied around men’s wrists.

Occupation: Escort

Changes: Black wig / dyes her hair black. A small beauty mark placed on the left side of her face just above the outer corner of her upper lip. Spray  tanned to give her that nice sun kissed glow.

Scent: Cedarwood, sandalwood and vetiver – raw and simple. Freshly sanded floors and sawdust. (FÉMINITÉ DU BOIS by Shiseido)

Song: Side to Side by Ariana Grande

Magnolia Breeland

American - Texas

Known for: Perfectly curled blonde hair and manicured nails. Pearls around her neck, white gloves, porcelain skin, Kentucky Derby Hats, dresses in pastel colors or print, southern charm, ice tea, bubbly personality. Laughing behind a gloved hand. Peach lips. Fresh picked flowers. Sitting on swings attached to trees. Prom Queen. Cheerleader (from middle school to college). A drop of a fresh fruit’s juice trailing down the corner of her mouth that needs to be wiped away, usually by the individuals she has charmed over. Lips tasting like strawberries and peaches, they are her favorite after all.

Occupation: Nanny

Changes: Very curled hair, headbands or hair clips placed perfectly in her hair, wig/dyed hair, wardrobe overhaul (this is one of the personas where she would never wear their entire in her actual life. Pastels, ruffles and full skirts are not for her.) Hazel contacts. ( If Betty from Riverdale & Lemon Breeland from Hart of Dixie had a child it would be Magnolia).

Scent: Soft, powdery … sweet, musky and creamy. (Miss Dior by Dior)

Song: Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles

[paopuofhearts]

@s-eosteris

Pavel leaned back against the wall, fidgeting restlessly.

The vibrant ruins of mass destruction surrounded him, a wasteland of plastic pieces scattered about the tartan blanket thrown over the couch. Neon greens, gaudy yellows, popping reds and brilliant blues, strewn in a carelessly thrown maze with him plopped center stage amidst it all.

He had finished their basic cubes - the 3x3x3, the 4x4x4, all the way up to the 10x10x10 - had tossed about the triamese, the siamese, the skewbs. He had solved the spherical curviminx, the deltoidal icositetrahedronix, the gigaminx and the icosidodecaminx with their star patterns splayed across the sides. He had completed the pyramid based puzzles - the basic pyraminx, the nesting cubes, the gear changers, the skewb extreme, the skewb diamond.

Even the strange hexaflexagon types, the inverted stars that imploded beneath his nimble fingers, the uniquely cut shapes that seemed to defy the dimensions of reality - even those had fallen to the wayside of his genius. Orange helichops, the standard ball in a cube that clacked and clicked, the u-void, the starpad of distinct pink like a blazing sunset, the mirror blocks that reflected his chagrin, the ghost cubes of plain black and white shades, the square-1 simulator’s in deepening shades of sky blue and teal, the mastermorphix covering an entire rainbow, the white fishercube with stickers fading atop it’s faces - none could stand between him and the throes of boredom.

After hours upon hours of enduring the pain of weary ennui that chipped away at the hardened mettle of his mind, he at last came to the spinning dial cube - a twisting snake of various shades, translucent, gleaming in the withering rays of sunlight crawling through the window. He flicked his wrist, curling his hands around it, watching dully as it swiveled in his palm like an anxious animal.

“Mitya,” he whined, rolling the ball on the floor with a sudden clatter. “It has been hours! How much more do you have left?”

Scotty didn’t waver, didn’t even blink as the ball nudged up against his creation - only continued to type away, dashing his fingers against the keyboard of his laptop as if his very life depended on it. Several wires and cables and cords protruded from the sides, all hooked up to a single beast lying dead in the middle of the room. It was a heavy jumble of steel plating and circuit boards, of dead sensors and cutting plastic. It was difficult to peer through the assemblage to see the microchips within, despite its barren skeleton - the only discernible thing was a set of four rubber wheels and a giant maw, full of rods and ends for fixing things in hard to reach places.

“Just a bit more, laddie.”

Pavel huffed, smacking his head loudly back against the wall.

“You said that when I brought you lunch.”

There was no response.

Annoyed, Pavel slid onto his stomach, shoving the toys aside with a sudden clatter as he faced Scotty. The man remained hunched in his chair beside the couch, engrossed in the programming flashing on the bright screen before him. Pouting, Pavel scooted forward, leaning over to see what exactly the coding was.

“What are you doing, exactly?” he asked curiously, trying at least for a bit of conversation.

“Just some minor bugs,” Scotty answered quickly, quieting without detail. A few more beats of silence followed.

“Why are there so many bugs?” Surely if Scotty had been the one to create this newfangled piece, it would have been a simple thing to solve, like the rubix cubes.

“It’s Watkins’.”

“Oh? Which one is he?”

“Assistant technician.”

Silence descended yet again, and Pavel frowned. It was their day off together, and yet instead of spending quality time enjoying each other’s presence, work came between them. Usually Pavel was not so selfish with their spare time; work was work, after all, and they were both dedicated to doing their jobs and doing them well. But today - well.

Today he was fidgety. Today was a day for adventure, for excitement. Today he had too much energy and no place to direct it. Today was not a day for work and rubix cubes - no, today was a day for Scotty to pay attention to him.

Pavel stretched, rolling over as his shirt pulled up, letting the last flickers of golden light slip across his pale skin. He whimpered, hoping to entice Scotty to at least glance at him - a simple look, just a scrap of attention. Surely posing, languid and open, would spur something in the engineer.

But no - not even a tick.

“Mityaaa,” Pavel whined, reaching out for him and flailing his hands about pathetically. “Take a break?”

“Can’t,” Scotty replied. “Just a bit longer.”

With a groan, Pavel flopped his legs off the couch, gracefully pulling himself to stand. Mumbling and grumbling under his breath, he began to collect the rubix pieces, gathering them into his shirt. Once they had formed a deep pool within the pocket he had created, lifting the end upward, he began to place them back upon the bookshelves - decorating their textbooks and journals, their articles and research, positioning each as spectacular bursts of color with the otherwise plain and haphazard collections.

“Dinner?” Scotty hummed noncommittally, and Pavel rolled his eyes in annoyance. Not even a simple yes or no. Unfortunate.

Despite his pent up squirming, Pavel refused to cook. He needed something else. Anything else. A run, perhaps.

“I am going out,” he said, padding to the door and shoving his feet into his sneakers. “I will be back later.”

“Stay safe.”

At least he got that.

—

By the time he returned, the sun had settled far below the horizon, stars peaking out of the velvet folds of sky. Clouds had begun drifting in, hazy things swirling about the moon, masking it from sight. With a heafty sigh, Pavel turned the doorknob, pushing into their home.

Scotty had at least moved on from coding, it seemed - yet now, he fiddled with the machinery itself, poking and jabbing at it with a screwdriver.

Wonderful.

“How much longer?” he demanded, not even bothering with simple greetings.

“Not too much longer - just gotta get this here wire to - oh!” Scotty grimaced, freezing in place. “Well. There goes the wire.”

Pavel groaned, tossing his shoes against the wall and storming into the kitchen. The day had been squandered, and he was still twitchy with energy that he hadn’t been able to burn off during his run. It would be a long night - and not the kind of night he wanted to end their time off on.

“I am making piroshki then.” He began to scavenge through the refrigerator, tearing out shredded cabbage and hashbrowns and ground beef, foods they had stocked up on for ease due to time constraints that kept them from being able to truly, properly pre-make their meals. Americanized food, just as Americanized as they were, their friends would tease.

He flicked on the oven.

Piroshki, by these standards, was not necessarily piroshki after all, just mere dumplings - but it close enough that he could pretend, if he tried to imagine hard enough. He grabbed the small package of dumpling dough in paper thin slices, tugging it open with a harsh crackle. Setting his things on the kitchen table, he began to work, filling the rounds with bits of fresh cabbage and thawed hashbrowns and stringed beef, folding them over and pressing the edges tight.

Minutes passed as he arranged them in a spiral pattern upon a plate, stacking them higher and higher into a column. Nearly an hour into his intensive concentration, his tower was finished, ready to be baked. Pavel carefully carried the plate to the oven, arranging them onto a pan to bake evenly.

A pair of firm hands came to rest at his waist, dipping forward as strong arms wrapped around him. A soft kiss was pressed to his neck, a gentle nosing gliding along his hairline.

“I’m sorry it took me so long, Pasha.” Scotty hooked his chin upon the young man’s shoulder, peering down at the plate of food. “Looks delicious.”

“Is just a snack,” Pavel said, nonchalant as he leaned back into the engineer’s embrace. “But something, yes?”

“Something delicious, yes.” A trail of kisses wound from the dip of his ear to the cradle of his neck, at the edge of his shirt and his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you all day.”

“Work is work,” Pavel admitted, scooting around so there was enough room to open the oven and place the pan of piroshki inside.

“I shouldn’t neglect you though.” Scotty ran his hands up Pavel’s back, slowly dragging them back down his arms. “You seem jittery.”

“I went on a run.”

“Mmm, but perhaps not enough?” His hands wandered, flirting with the belt loops of his pants. “It’s not too late - we could still have a bit of fun?”

The corners of Pavel’s lips rose, a smile gracing his face. He spun around, slinking his arms around Scotty’s neck.

“That sounds like a lovely way to end the day.” He nuzzled upwards, placing a soft kiss to Scotty’s cheek. “Let’s go.”

[remember-wim-faros]

Episode 1 - Are You Listening?

[voice echoing] When a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it,

it makes a sound!

[birds chirping] Ladies and gentlemen. We have found the music! It had been lost, as so many things are lost. Missing, disappeared, misplaced, vanished. Every day, what falls into obscurity without anybody noticing? Without anybody paying attention. What is locked in the attic?

I mean, let’s talk about some things that have been found in an attic, or spaces like attics. Did you know that Van Gogh’s “Sunset at Montmajour”, that beautiful painting, was found in an attic? Or that the original handwritten manuscript of “Huckleberry Finn” was found in an attic? The “Venus de Milo” was, well no it’s no-not an attic but, buried in a farmer’s field, unearthed by a peasant who came across some stubborn soil.

Did you know that the only copy of the pilot of “I Love Lucy” lay under the bed of Pepino the clown for 30 years, until it was swept out by his widow when she finally cleaned up around the place and taught to herself, this is pretty funny.

All these masterpieces just a broom sweep away from history’s dustbins.

And today, today! Recovered from a neglected attic of a suburban townhouse, one cassette tape destined to be sold in a garage sale, containing what is likely to be the first recorded concert of Wim Faros.

So.. who is listening? Hello? I’m Deirdre Gardner, and I welcome you to my new show. “It Makes a Sound”. [thumping, windchimes] It’s the first and only show in the nation dedicated to Wim Faros, native son of our Rosemary Hills. Where together, we’ll be part of a musical legacy. We will prepare to receive the genius that is Wim Faros. And to return him, like a prodigal son, to this deprived land. I will be the one to provide you up to the minute news and information about the artist, as I discover it. The name – Wim Faros. The subject – genius. And its location? Where us extraordinariness, I ask myself, don’t you? Don’t you ask yourself that? Extra..ordinariness, where I it today? Where are the truly exceptional ones who, out of our sheer proximity to them allow us to glimpse the intersection of our little lives, with the profound? Who walks among us? Is there anyone? Who walks among -us-, all the little uses? [chuckles] Uses… eh, eh, rolling lint off our pants. Uses, squeezing avocados in the grocery store and never picking the ripe one. Uses um, driving up and down the side streets to work because highway frightens uses. Uses um, drinking chamomile, attempting inverted yoga poses, popping melatonin and crossing our fingers as we slink into bed for the night. Where can we look here, in this vast wearied landscape of Rosemary Hills? Where our weathered old water tower reminds us in fading letters of past town mottos. Such as “golf capital”. Or “Rosemary Hills is alive with the whirr of commerce.” Or “Let’s tee in the hills.” But where now, the best boast we can master is “easy access to the highway”.

Well. Here, amidst the now abandoned golf course and its neglected grass, amidst the shuttered strip malls and these potholed streets, the extraordinary has tread. And the footprints, they linger. If you know how to look for them. And I think I do.

My fellow people of Rosemary Hills, citizens of the world, what have you forgotten? What treasures have we hidden under cobwebs and dust? What beauty awaits us on the other side of that drywall, as we wrestle fitfully in our sleep? What life lingers on these old fairways? What wonders just passed us by, as we bowed our head towards.. uh, a brightened 3-inch screen? Our necks hurt, our brains are zapped from too much screentime, our souls ache, and suddenly decades have past us by. Like poof. What are we missing?

Do we remember what used to be held in the delicate folds of our heart? Do we remember how things used to sound? Smell. Feel. Taste. I want to.

It’s time to unpack the attic! Today, we have a mind-boggling discovery. A confirmed to be authentic tape containing what is known to be Wim Faros’ debut public musical appearance here in Rosemary Hills, in the year 1992. And so we are not going to rush this moment, like we rush everything. We’re gonna slow down, we’re gonna savor. We are going to consider the tremendous significance of this relic. In order to fully appreciate it.

And thus, it is my privilege on this day of days to hold in my hands this freshly discovered tape. It’s an ordinary-looking cassette tape. But.. it’s possible some of you have never held a cassette tape. I will explain. Because, though it contains the stuff of wonder, to the human eye it is just a 3,5 by 2-inch clear plastic rectangle with two holes in the middle. And these holes, they have six little black teeth. Non-threatening teeth, so that you could feasibly uh, insert a pencil or a pinky finger, should sometime go [wry] [0:10:09]. Like if the delicate tape needs your manual assistance.

Now that tape is a very thing, translucent gray strip, of course containing some magnet um, magnetic properties. So and it’s spooled around the left hole, and as the tape plays in the cassette tape player, the tape will run along the bottom edge of the rectangle across a tiny magnetic strip. And the magnets pull the music out, with magnetic force, until it is fully spooled around the right hole, which means the tape is finished and you have heard the music. And that’s how a cassette tape works.  

I’m Deirdre Gardner. This is “It Makes a Sound”. I am describing a cassette tape.  Perhaps the most important cassette tape there ever was.

No won this particular model, we have a yellow sticker that covers the smooth section of the cassette. Nad written on that cover in purple felt tip pen, in bubble letters, is “Wim Fa”, but a waterspot has obscured the “ros”, leaving a purply pink splotch. It’s very pretty, like a watercolor. And underneath, with that same pen and font: “1992”. Crudely drawn stars in uh, multiple colors of pen, speckle the entire sticker. I mean… it’s great. it’s really incredible that one small object can capture so much of an entire era, even just aesthetically. We all seek the soundtrack of our lives, don’t we? And we wish to be privy to the voices of our generation. Yet it its a profound rarity that an artist like Wim Faros crosses into your limited sphere of existence. It’s like an alien prophet touching down on a ordinary Tuesday afternoon in a chain store called The Last Topper. Suddenly making the universe crack open to reveal infinite shards of meaning barely comprehensible to you. Standing there in cargo shorts, holding a casserole dish. Yes, yes. it’s hard to determine the full effect on Wim Faros’s music on this simple town of Rosemay Hills in the early-to-mid 90’s. it’s difficult to quantify the extent of – sacred devotion he inspired in his earliest fanbase.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? That was a time without social media and its um, incessant public proclamations to hashtag, trending desires of the moment. Yesterday’s youth had to be more – intuitively united in our common affections. Had to keep the faith that even in a friendless existence, for instance as an example, living in an inherited furnished townhouse on the edge of Rosemary Hills’ gated golf course community, there were kindred souls somewhere underneath that same blue sky, wishing and waiting for a connection, just like you. Though perhaps at times to love in solitude, from afar, in the most generic of settings, was lonely and painful. That melancholy was trumped by a feeling of purpose. The purpose that comes from knowing that if someone out there could so perfectly capture the nuanced secrets of your soul, there must be greatness and solace in this universe indeed. isn’t that why we listen to the music? Isn’t that why we listen to the music?

We must ready ourselves to listen to the music. But I will say, even without the ease and benefit of cached fan pages or blogs serving as testimony to the early Wim Faros effect, the artist did manage to be a catalyst of cultural awakening in the town zeigeist. If a town can have a zeitgeist, can – sure. And there is archival evidence of the first reactions to Faros’s artistry. In fact… I happen to be in possession of documents from a Rosemary Hills resident who encountered Wim Faros in his earliest musical phase. Now, some of these pages are enclosed within a purple velveteen diary that I now have in front of me. The writing appears to be by the0 hand of a 12-year-old, I would estimate. And the paper is white ruled. And I seem to have come across a lengty series of haiku. Perhaps I sould share just a few of thes with you, for the sake of research. it’s a segment.. [rummages around] We’ll call it – the poetry of a little us.

[bangs a cong] You have changed my life by allowing me to see even thought you don’t see me.

[cong] I am hard to see in a golf community with many sand traps.

[cong]

You have a blind spot for almost nothing. But one in the size of me.

[cong]

I am the catcher you are a rare butterfly that I cannot grasp.

[cong]

Butterflies upclose freak me out. But you fly free, beautiful and free.

[cong]

I catch butterflies, yes, but I am afraid too. A contradiction.

[cong]

Faithfully you come to the window of my dreams singing: la la la.

[cong]

What is this music? Like, I never heard music before you played it.

[cong]

Now, those are just a few haikus and there are lots more, [chuckles] written here in Rosemary Hills circa 1991-1992. Likely dedicated to one Wim Faros.

[pause] If you’re just tuning in, hello. Welcome. I’m Deirdre Gardner, and this is the first episode of my show, “It Makes a Sound”. A discovery has been made in the attic. it’s Wim Faro’s first live album. It’s the real deal, it’s not a hoax, and it’s so rare that he only known copy exists, recorded from some distance, on a cassette tape. There is nowhere else in the entire universe where you will be able to hear a 16-year-old Wim Faros shaping what comes to be known as the sound – of an epoch. E-P-O-C-H. Stay with me and you will hear it here first, folks, because I have the tape and you’re gonna get exclusive access.

So we’re discussing Wim Faros’ formative teenage years as a musician, right here in Rosemary Hills. We’ve just begun working towards a fuller understanding of the human behind the mu-

[static] [hoarse voice] Who’s there? Who?

Deirdre: Oh, Jesus..

[static] I know, I know.. I know you! I knew!

Deirdre: Are you asleep?

[static, snoring]

Deirdre: Are you? Who’s that? (It’s something). OK. OK.

OK. Everything is good. I’m back. And i’m excited to introduce a new oral history segment of the show, based on town legend and lore around Wim Faros. It’s called – a portrait of the artist as a young man.

[music box plays] A light in the window of the second floor. The only window on the second floor, means Wim Faros is in his bedroom. And almost always when he is in his bedroom, he is drawing on the wall. What was on that wall? Everything was on that wall. The winds of change blew on that wall. The.. unfettered scrawl of technicolor wonders. The rainbow, a paltry container for the variety of colors applied to that wall. New color names would have to be invented. The ongoing overlapping shifting images and symbols, muraled, frescoed, appliqued, on that wall. All these ideas spewing forth from the eclectic multitudes of a single creative mind. In a blue and tan flannel shirt, his right arm braced against the drywall in an L-shape above his head. The bottom of his sleeve ripped and hanging down, he looks like he’s whispering secrets in a confessional. But he is drawing. There’s a lava lamp somewhere, out of view of the window, and it casts blobby spots that climb up and down the room, catching Wim’s distorted shadow when he’s out of view of the window frame. His left hand moves delicately or scribbles furiously. He is left-handed, as statistics prove that most geniuses are. If you’ve been watching, over the course of several months, you would have seen – his fantastic mural take shape.

In the center, a five-foot tall octopus, with the uncannily rendered face of Diane Sawyer. Her arms spread open, Christ-like, with magnolia blossoms and spiders dripping from her fingers. A flock of owls flying over a forest of pine trees. Each face of the moon, paired with a pizza pie of different toppings. Eight personalized pan pizzas, for eight different moons. A ninja army battling a family of squirrels throwing sharp acorns. Pages falling from a Gutenberg Bible into the gaping mouth of a Native American chief. Snoop Dogg. Scully riding a Mulder centaur as Ross Perot hoverboards over their heads! He was getting political.

As the seasons pass, the wall incrementally becomes and intricate map of his fertal, fertal inner life. Repetitions of hummingbirds and starfish, cans of beans, nunchucks. Later, peacocks. A dragon breathing fire, melting the iceberg just before it sinks the Titanic, which passes into clear skies. Dracula playing video games in front of a television set, flickering with an image of outrage from the Rodney King riots. And toaster strudels flying out of toasters into the rings of Saturn! Kurt Cobain offering an origami swan to a sobbing River Phoenix. And hundreds of other elegantly drawn details, too small to make out from a distance, that create a constellation of.. enlightened connectivity across the peeling beige wall.

And almost every night, after all the lights in the windows of the bungalow go dark, if you cared enough to pay attention, you would see the single beam of a flashlight splice a path behind the house, pointed towards a lopsided shed some 40 yards away. And if you were standing right up against the fence that separates Rosemary Hills’ gated golf course community from the unincorporated land that stretched out behind the scattered houses on Chamelia Road… you would hear a soulful strum of guitar, and a crescend of drums. Because in that decaying shed, surrounded by the loneliest darkness that is suburban darkness, is where young Wim Faros made the music. It was that music that pulsed through this town, permeated the air, pumped through the water.

Did everyone hearken to the call? No. If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it wall, does it make a sound? Well. I’m here to tell you: trees have fallen. Trees are falling. And you may listen, but do you hear?

People of Rosemary Hills, it is time to hear. It is time to hearken. Hearken. I believe in your ears. Wim Faros sang for you. You didn’t know, but he will sing for you again. He has been lost in the attic, but now he is found. And maybe, [sighs] I don’t know. Maybe… maybe you’ve been lost in the attic too. There was greatness in our midst, transcendence, eccentricity, nuance. I’m Deirdre Gardner, and I believe that when a tree falls in a forest, it makes a sound. And i’m inviting you to try, to truly hear, and to remember. So stay tuned for my next episode when that music, lost but now found, will be born again straight into your ears. When you hear the first track from Wim Faros’ debut concert. The first track, perhaps, of the rest of your life.

This has been the inaugural episode of the first and only show in the nation dedicated to the music and legacy of Wim Faros. Thank you for listening. If you have any information about Wim Faros that you think should be shared with our listeners, or if you own a working cassette tape player, do not hesitate to contact me. Um, I, I guess for now you shoud just ca- um email me at ddg at.. no let’s not do that um, i’ll create, I’ll create a new, yes you can contact me at wimfaros@aol… Actually no. please contact itmakesasound@aol.com. Thank you. I’m Deirdre Gardner. Til next time.

 [windchime]

“It Makes a Sound” is created and written by Jacquelyn Landgraf. Co-directed by Jacquelyn Landgraf and Anya Saffir. Sound design and engineering by me, Vincent Cacchione. Original music Nate Weida. With Jacquelyn Landgraf as Deirdre Gardner and featuring Annie Golden as the voice from downstairs. It Makes a Sound is a Night Vale Presents production. For more information on this show and other Night Vale podcasts, go to nightvalepresents.com. We hope you’ll rate and review “It Makes a Sound” on Apple Podcasts, and that you’ll tell your friends and all sorts of other humans to listen to the show, to hearken to the trees. And remember Wim Faros.

[arukou-arukou]

Winteriron soulmate wing fic AU where your soulmate has inverted wings to you and your first words to each-other are written on the inside of your wings? Like if Tony has primary gold and trim red, Bucky's would be primarily red with gold? (they don't have to be those colors that's just my example)

I’m not sure how this is going to turn out because, to be perfectly honest, I really struggle with soulmate AUs. It’s not an idea that resonates easily with me, but I kind of wanted to try as a personal challenge to myself. I’m also twisting some of this a bit in terms of what indicates a match. This is gonna have a lot of gratuitous talk about my thoughts on destiny and I am so sorry and you should just not read it.

Tony never did have the patience for philosophy. Well, not philosophy for philosophy’s sake anyway. As it applied to science? As it applied to morality? Important shit. People needed to think about the implications of what they did not only as it related to the present, but also as it related to those who would follow, those whose lives would be dictated by present-day choices. He liked that kind of thinking. It was where his brain functioned best.

But all the, all the fluff? Waste of time. He remembered the first time he told Steve he’d never put much stock in amorphous concepts like “soul” and “destiny” and the shock on Steve’s face.

“But, but you’ve…what about the patterning?”

“Genetics.”

“You stock it all up to strands of DNA?”

“Damn right. Genetic markers telling us who’s the best mate. Complementary T-cell matches, missing immunities, genetic innovations. It’s all right there in our DNA. Why wouldn’t it be written on our wings. Damn good way to show off what you’ve got without having to do much more than a cursory glance.”

“Then what about same-sex matches? There’s no procreation in that.”

“Having babies isn’t the only reason to be with someone, Steve. There’s more to life than good genetic diversity and having a healthy clutch.”

“Well, yeah, but,” Steve paused, flustered. He looked down, clearly troubled, and toyed with a flight feather. “What about Peggy?” he asked softly, glancing up with quietly hurt eyes.

Oh. Oh fuck. Tony rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. He’d forgotten about that. “You really loved her, huh?”

“So much.”

“And, and you were perfect matches?”

“Yeah. Right down to this little feather with the weird black patch,” Steve said, stretching out a wing and showing off a tiny contour feather very near his ribs. The bizarre splash of ink black was vivid against Steve’s white and brown feathers. “She had the same spot. Said even the best soldiers had a black mark or two in their records.” Steve touched the patch of black and Tony had the distinct impression that he’d somehow walked in on something he shouldn’t see.

“But Peggy got married after you went down. You know that, right? She had a clutch and she lived a happy life.” Almost the moment he said it, Tony regretted it, because Steve looked positively heartbroken.

“I know. I know she did.”

Tony wasn’t sure how to mitigate the damage he’d done. He didn’t mean to make Cap feel bad, but he also couldn’t buy into it all. He was pretty sure the universe didn’t have the time or inclination to be planning out every single romantic match of every single avian on Earth. So instead he prevaricated. “Maybe it’s a matter of, you know, faith? Belief? God? You know I don’t really…um…”

“It’s ok, Tony. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

Steve looked like he’d been kicked in the face and then watched a puppy also get kicked in the face. “Did you know Taoists believe the body has ten souls?” Tony blurted, waving his hands. “Seven for after death and three from your former, uh, mates. And a lot of religions think the soul is just part of god. That it has nothing to do with the individual avian. So really, no one has a clue anyway.”

He worried that he’d gone too far in the other direction, but Steve laughed a little, a sad hiccup, and sniffled. “I guess that’s true. I suppose no one really does know.”

Tony shrugged and hastily walked away. No one should unleash him for emotional support ever. Ever.

He was drunk the next time he ended up talking about that sort of thing with anyone, and it was just his luck it ended up being Supersoldier Lite. It was worse because he’d been deliberately avoiding Barnes ever since he first moved into the tower. There was too much there to unpack: dossiers that gave hints but no actual facts, haunted eyes and mutual PTSD from opposite sides of a gun sight, hauntingly familiar feather patterns. Tony tried damn hard not to think about that last one.

But he’d decided to let himself have a night with a really nice bottle of Scotch and to do that he had to be in the living quarters. It wasn’t weird or worrying if you were drinking where other people could see you, that’s what he told himself. And at some point he’d looked up and found Bucky helping himself to a glass. And who was Tony to say no to someone who needed a little bit of liquid comfort?

For a while it had just been comfortable silence, and from his warm lassitude, Tony was aware of the fall of Bucky’s hair, the flutter of feathers on his one flesh wing. He groomed absently for a while, neatening and tucking down beneath contour feathers, brushing out dust, spreading oils down the shafts. Then he started talking, and Tony started talking back and soon enough they were having a conversation. It was easier being around Bucky this way, when the stakes didn’t feel so damn high, when Tony wasn’t so damn afraid of everything.

And Barnes was a nice guy. Wicked sense of humor. Tony laughed, and laughed again, caught himself tangled in Bucky’s wry, raw edge. Tony noted, in a distant kind of way, that Barnes was attractive when he smiled, when he wasn’t practicing zombie Blue Steel. And somehow, before he could catch himself, they tumbled into the topic of feather matches.

“I had a theory,” he said, slumping happily back in the couch and staring at the domed ceiling of the living area. “You know? About mathematical probabilities and how hatchlings develop in the womb and…and melanin.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky murmured. He was hunched forward, elbows on knees, his tumbler dangling loosely in one hand. Tony didn’t think he could easily get drunk, but he also didn’t think that he was impossible to knock out like Cap was. But then, Bucky looked like a panther even when he was wandering around half-awake in the morning, so maybe the easy, loose slope of his shoulders was 100% natural.

“See, the colors in our feathers, it’s all, it’s all light, right? Trick of the light. Refraction. Nifty shift of the barbs and…and…the watchamacallits. So conceivably, mothers could, like, collect genetic information via scent while they’re just walking around pregnant. Chance encounter means feathers just happen to develop matching refractive patterns. And then years later, boom. Matching wings.”

“What about brown, genius?”

“What about it?”

“Brown’s from melanin. Not light.”

“Oh. Well…well if you think about it, all color’s from light.”

Bucky glanced over, swirling his tumbler lazily back and forth. “You still remember your patterns?”

“No,” Tony lied. The stumps of his wings twitched on his back and his muscles pulled taught and painful for just a second before relaxing back down into the warmth of a good buzz.

“Uh huh,” Bucky said again. He didn’t call Tony out on the lie, and for that, Tony was grateful.

“What about you?” Tony lazily turned his head so he could just see the slope of Bucky’s shoulders, the sharp line of vibranium alloy and solar foils that made up his prosthetic wing.

“Flashes. A set of bars here, a black tip there. Doesn’t even seem like me anymore. Feels like it belonged to someone else.”

“Bet you were a looker. Big osprey wings like that. Like a…uh…” Tony trailed off and then hastily looked away. Bucky didn’t call him on that either. Instead, he just topped off Tony’s glass and then absconded with the rest of the Scotch.

Tony didn’t blame him.

Tony tried not to think about it. He reminded himself that when he and Pepper had been going strongest, he’d been convinced their patterns matched. Maybe it was love that made things work together and not the other way around. He reminded himself that feather dye existed, that young rebels purposefully plucked parts of their wings to change patterns, bleached themselves white and then resoaked themselves in every color of the rainbow. He reminded himself that matches across different wing shapes were clearly genetic lottery and had nothing to do with cosmic design or destiny.

But when he looked at that little white star on Bucky’s right wing, that little freak confluence of contour feathers, he couldn’t help but remember that his left wing had once had a mirror image of them.

It didn’t matter. It wasn’t fate. And any romantic feelings Tony might be feeling were from proximity, from a compatibility of personality, from an instinctual desire for companionship and a warm body next to him in his nest. His fucking wings had nothing to do with it.

Besides which, Barnes was clearly not looking for romance. Hell, most nights Tony was pretty sure all he wanted in life was a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Tony should know. He found him wandering the halls at three in the morning looking haunted and gaunt often enough.

They didn’t really have a spoken agreement or anything. But if Tony found Bucky wandering the halls hollow-eyed and unshaven, he pulled him down to the workshop or took him to the kitchen and forced him to drink warm milk. It was nice to feel needed. And Bucky returned the favor in his own gruff way. He quietly snuck away bottles when Tony had a few too many. He made biting remarks that left Tony laughing, unable to stew any longer in the images in his head, on the pain of his back muscles. All of the Avengers were fucked up and they all tried to help each other as best they could, but for the first time, Tony felt like he had someone who he was working in concert with, someone on the same wavelength. They were both of them broken, and it was nice to have someone else around who knew how that felt.

So no romance. Just support. That was more than enough.

And Tony got by on thinking that way right up until the night he found Bucky down in the workshop, a fully rendered hologram of Tony at twenty-nine right in the middle of the room, wings spread wide.

Bucky at least had the wherewithal to look embarrassed as he waved his hand and banished the hologram. Tony stood in the doorway, jaws and fists clenched, outrage and mortification warring like acid in his belly. “I just wanted to…” Bucky gestured weakly and then dropped his hand. “I wanted to see. To know.”

“You had no right.”

Bucky didn’t even deny it.

“I will not have my life dictated by some freak genetic coincidence. If I want someone, I want it to be because…because they’re kind to me. Because they make me want to be a better person. Because I want to take care of them. Fate’s got nothing to do with it.”

“You’re beautiful,” Bucky said softly.

“Don’t you mean ‘were’?” Tony spun on his heel and tried to leave, but Bucky was just as fast as Steve when he wanted to be, and silent like Death.

“No. No I mean ‘are.’ When you…when you’re like this. When you’re talking about what you believe in. You’re beautiful.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t you know?” Bucky stepped into him, toes bracketing his heels, arms around his belly, chest to his back, chin on his shoulder. He felt so completely surrounded. It was almost like having his wings cloaking him again.

“You’re just doing this because you saw my wings,” Tony snapped, but he didn’t try to pull away. It felt so nice to be warm.

“No. I...I kind of wish I hadn’t looked. I wish I’d just asked you. I like you, Tony, and your wings have got nothing to do with it.”

“They have everything to do with it.”

“Well, if you’re talking about how...how their loss made you who you are today, then yeah. They do have everything to do with it. I wouldn’t have met you if you hadn’t become Iron Man. But your wings, they don’t define you. Just like my wings don’t define me. They’re a part. Not the whole.”

Tony felt wound like a trap spring, liable to snap at any moment. Whether he’d hurt himself or Bucky or just collapse, he couldn’t say.

“Can we try? Please? I’d like to try.”

“This isn’t fate,” Tony said.

“No. This is just you and me. Us?”

Bucky was so warm, it was almost unbearable. It felt a little like giving up, but in the best way possible. “I like the sound of us.”