About a week had passed since Chéri had come to town. In that time, he had managed to gather enough money to buy himself some second-hand clothes, an anonymous brown three-piece suit, that tamed his gleaming beauty and made him less noticeable in town, get a place to stay and a client, although not at the Diamond Pony, that provided him with enough money to start again. Where and how were still in question.

Meanwhile, he was starting to get used to Whitby. He was a village boy and still felt like a village boy in many ways, to it was more of a reverting experience for him than anything else. There were, of course, a few things he missed, like theatre. Chéri wasn’t a melancholic type, but he had spent the last ten years of his life concentrating most of his energy towards dance and performance, he inevitably missed it, even just in a superficial form.
And that was when he heard it: not too distant, there was the sound of a guitar singing sweet notes he remembered from a former life. Like a sailor hearing a siren, Chéri sped up in the direction of the song.

Seated all too comfortably on the ground with his long legs splayed out before him, Jewel leaned back against the dampened wall of a building. People passed him by on their way down the crowded street, tripping now and then over his boots. Every time they did, his head lowered just so, and he played his best attempt at being asleep.

Didn't do much good when he was holding a guitar. Did even less when his fingers didn't freeze in their playing, but the choice to believe his weak attempt was up to them.

Most people didn't care to exert much more than the effort it took to send a glare. He didn't look rich enough to rob, dressed like he was in old work clothes, and he didn't look defenseless enough to kick without earning a kick in return.

Jewel watched the crowd pass by lazily. Played the makings of a song he'd heard on one of the ships he'd taken to get here, or at least the remnants of the melody he'd parsed from their singing. Something European, he guessed, and didn't bother to figure out if it'd been anything more specific than that. It all sounded the same to him anyway.

Young men who sat on the ground and looked like they owned nothing more than the clothes on their back were generally ignored by the world, especially in big places or if they were not local.

But this wasn’t a big place and Chéri was no local. Everything was foreign to him, including the other young man sitting nearby and Chéri would have probably put him in the “other” box as well, had he not carried with his guitar something that was closer to him than anything else in Whitby.

Chéri walked long, light strides towards jewel, making no sound whatsoever, rendering themselves virtually weightless as he approached the musician. And when he was close enough to be absolutely sure that yes, the song was that song, Chéri stopped, a meter away from Jewel, open his mouth and with a sweet yet strong voice he sang, going up and down, like the waves.
“On a reste/ six ans sur mer - Sans pouvoir border la terre. - On a reste/ six ans sur mer - Sans pouvoir border la terre.” His voice threatened breaking every time he reached the “e” in “reste”, but transitioned stronger to the next word with a strength it did not seem to have and the “Rs” were harder and less French.

The song was in French, in this case, but Chéri sang like a Basque: loud and beautifully.

Well now, what was all this?

Jewel lifted his head enough to see beyond the brim of his hat. He hadn't expected some young thing to waltz over and start singing the damned song. The added vocals didn't even help him figure out what language it was supposed to be -- he just knew it wasn't English.

Was this guy trying to set up and make some coin off of his hard efforts? He sounded fine enough -- not that Jewel knew much about what was good -- but my, how curious, strolling right over and singing like that.

"What's all that mean?" he piped up, without considering that the singer might not have spoken anything but the language he was singing.

Chéri had been on the streets for a long time, so they knew what rivalry looked liked on another person’s face. And their first response was always, first and foremost, to put ont that big, heart-warming smile of theirs and just let the other person bask into it. Nothing threatening in their appearance, just a welcoming expression that declared they thought nothing of it.

Chéri got closer to Jewel, walking lightly and gracefully as they generally did. Their delicate appearance could go two ways, but Jewel didn’t look annoyed enough to them to suggests they should get ready to defend themselves.

Chéri did not know what Jewel had asked, so they guessed -wrongly- he wanted to know about title “Six ans sur Mer” was their response “Six ans at sea” they half translated. They didn’t know the world for “year”.