Snippet #2550439

Cormac plucked the ten out of Kodie's grasp with an unabashedly triumphant grin-- made a show of holding it up to the light as if inspecting it for the telltale auguries of counterfeit. Evidently, the bill passed muster, because it was with no shortage of pride that he shoved it into the pocket of his denim shorts, and turned to Kodie to wryly muse, "Yeah, quite something, isn't it? I guess Izzie finally realised the value of the noble windchimes in enhancing the brutal death metal experience."

Perhaps fortuitously, the young drummer did not appear to be on the precipice of launching into yet another exaltation of the proud and dignified windchimes and their irreplaceable capacity in the... uh, 'brutal death metal experience'. Either way, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to inundate his present company with another such tirade, for right around that moment, a familiar face framed by trailing locks of flaxen hair joined the fray.

"Charlotte!" Cormy exclaimed by way of greeting, throwing wide his scrawny little arms and enveloping his friend and former bandmate in a fleeting embrace. He cast a swift glance back toward Kodie-- he'd forgotten that she and Charlotte were evidently... uh, acquainted; 'friends' didn't appear to be quite the proper term, since for all of Charlotte's camaraderie Kodie seemed little inclined to reciprocate. But hey, no need to let that cramp his jive, right? He'd been delighted to find that Charlotte's band was going to be accompanying the tour for a portion of its east coast leg, almost as delighted as he'd been to find that she and her band had begun playing death metal and stopped... well, sucking, to be honest. Look, Cormac didn't really put much stock in power metal, and all the nu metal he'd heard in his time had appealed little to him, so he felt he could hardly be blamed for finding little to like in a band that put both those unsavoury forms of music into a blender and played the grotesque product. And anyway, they were soundin' pretty damn good these days!

"Well, I can speak only for myself here," Cormac declared, chest puffed out in a proud display of... I dunno, speaking only for himself here. "But I for one would be most delighted to accompany you to the nearest establishment of merriment and fine drink. Oh!" He suddenly perked up as a thought occurred to him. "We should also invite the peeps from Legion too! You guys'll like 'em. They're total homies."






Meanwhile, on the total homies side of things...

They continued small talk as Aborticide went about setting up-- Lestari answered Liam's assurances with a resounding I should hope not! You 'n I both knew what I was bringing to the table when you hired me, and it sure as fuck wasn't any of this windchime shit! And then, of course, once Aborticide fired up their set, it was time to hit the mosh pits: Alex wasn't much one for moshing, admittedly (plus, she didn't wanna be that asshole who delves into the mosh pit in their spike-studded leather jacket-- seriously, fuck those people). But Lestari, for her part, rather enjoyed letting herself really absorb the intensity of the music and then dispelling it in an appropriately visceral fashion, which was really just an overly verbose way of saying she liked shoving and smashing into people along with violent music. What? She was a simple woman with simple passions.

Anyway, eventually Aborticide's set drew to a close, and then there were two more bands-- one a typical old school death metal revival band, the type of band where the musicians have clearly not heard a single piece of music more recent than Mortal Throne of Nazarene, the other more in the vein of the usual post-1995 Suffocation worship. And then after that-- it was Legion's time to take the stage, baby. Time to give (at least half) the crowd what they'd really come to this show to hear: some relentless, melodic, hard-hitting, soul-soothin' metal. Or something like that, Lestari mused as she perched herself down behind her drum kit and took to goin' about the usual business of soundcheck. And as Liam and Alex and Chris did the same, Lestari basked in that sensation that inevitably preceded the onset of a show-- that tension, that certain energy, that anticipation amongst the crowd and between the band-- it was something she had reveled in back when she had first begun attending shows, a lanky, bitter fourteen year old, and it was something she reveled in even now as she looked down at the crowd.








It was just half past midnight by the time the show drew to a close-- maybe 'just' was a little misleading, but after all, sometimes these shows could last out to the early hours of the next morning. Cormac preferred it as such, though: it left you a little time to enjoy the night life of wherever you happened to be playing that evening-- to live a little bit without being too exhausted to do anything but go to bed, or indeed to have a drink with an old friend and her bandmates. He dropped a quick line with Kodie about askin' the fine musicians of Legion if they would be interested in joining Psychosis and Sturm for a friendly round of drinks, before subtly making his way over to where Izzie was clearing up the merch table. He called her name, and she set a nearly-empty box of t-shirts down to turn and face him.

"Thanks again for agreeing to the windchime thing," he said by way of greeting as he dug the ten dollar note out of his pocket and held it out to Izzie. She raised an eyebrow, and grunted, "You know, I probably woulda done it anyway even if you hadn't offered the ten bucks, right? They're just fuckin' windchimes, it's not like they drastically altered the course of the song or anything."

Cormac merely shrugged his shoulders, and continued to hold out the ten. "Nevertheless," he replied with dignity. "I offered the fruits of Kodie's bet in recompense, and if I must I shall dog you to the ends of the earth until the tribute is accepted."

"... well, that sounds like kind of a drag, so I reckon I'll just take the ten." Izzie went ahead and took the bill, stuffing it into her pocket before glancing back up at Cormac's oddly victorious expression, and added, "Should I even bother askin' what the hell the point of winning the bet was if you were just gonna give me the money anyway?"

Cormy puffed his chest out. "Only an Irishman's pride, Miss Martinez," he declared. "Only an Irishman's pride."

For a moment she merely looked down at him with the sort of expression one normally dons when faced with a poor abandoned wreck of a mutt, uncertain of whether to regard it with pity or with disgust or with disdain. But in the end, she gave a fleeting bout of raspy laughter, and growled, "Hell, you really are a goddamn idiot, aren't you?" And then, shaking her head ruefully and still chuckling a little under her breath, Izzie stacked the remainder of the boxes one on top of the other, and absconded, leaving Cormy to track down Craig and let him know what the plans for the rest of the night were.