Electric vs. Acoustic

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She just kind of stared at it because it was not electric. She had hoped that once everything was done she would have an electric guitar but this was clearly an acoustic which meant that she would have absolutely no help playing it and if she remembered correctly it also meant that she was going to have one hell of a time teaching herself to play it. The thoughts of all of this had set her into a stasis of emotion.

The worse part of it all was that her nodes had buried themselves so deeply that the charges of electricity that jolted from them to keep her in line had seemed to hide away. "This is some ridiculous shit." Her mouth, while not quite nasty of that of her cousin's was getting quite filthy and then and only then did she receive shocks from her nodes. At least they were still working as she sat down with the guitar. She decided to text Mila and let her know that she would not be coming over. "Can't come over. Nodes being stupid, guitar is acoustic."

Damn even her texts were kind of smart and right when she had just told Mila that she would try to be some kind of weird we and work through her emotions. She stared at her phone and then sent another text. "Sorry. My emotions are in a state of stasis I think." While she did not really believe that her emotions could be in a state of inactivity, it was the best way that she could think of to describe it where it made sense to her. "Can you believe I have to learn acoustic guitar?" Fudge that crap with some extra caramel on top. "I wish it was electric because then I could just stick it on top of my nodes and let them do the work. Lol."

She put her phone down and then looked at it, in all of it's pink and acoustic glory. She felt her scales turning and she spoke. "Don't start with me you stupid scales," she said as she felt the nodes in her scalp start to peer up. She did not know which hurt worse them when they buried themselves down or them when they peer up. Either way it was always a pull on her scalp. She sighed as the seen the colorless ribbon appear to "peak" itself from out of her scales. "Oh my god you are such a douche bag piece of ribbon you do know that don't you?" Well at least she could talk to the ribbon without appearing crazy.

"Fine, colorless ribbon and guitar, go." She turned over her shoulder and looked at the ribbon which just wrapped itself around her wrists. "No, no. I told you I am much more of a fan of electric guitars. Get off of me right now." Oh, if her family could see her now, talking to herself like the rest of the crazy lot. She sighed and then just shrugged. "Alright, I give up." The defeat in her voice was more than evident as the ribbon unwrapped itself and then wrapped itself around the guitar and began to drag it, and Ribbon along with it. Ribbon quickly grabbed her phone and dialed Mila. She grunted when it went to voicemail. "Mila, help me. This ribbon is being strange again and I swear.." She paused because she did not even want to say it. "I swear it's like the ribbon and the guitar are working together." Yep, she was definitely starting to sound like she needed to be locked away.

Mila Richards

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She was not disappointed in the text but she was disappointed in the file. It had never added up and she now knew why though she wished that she did not. Granted it was her own fault for being so blind sided by love and not seeing not only how Ribbon, but her mother, and Mila's own mother as well had pulled the wool over her eyes. She read the sentence.

"Lol indeed" she said as she felt tears coming down her face. She just wanted to love this girl and shower her with flowers but not at the cost of her own feelings. Sure she had allowed her feelings to be stomped on and her tail to be sliced off and yet the one person that she should be the most angry at she had just connected with and that hurt like hell. She pushed her hair back and thought about everything.

"She's not afraid of water. She doesn't hate the cold." There it was all in her mother's files as little side notes through out the years. This was betrayal and deceit on a level that she did not understand.

"I would have understood right?" No. "I would have waited for her while she embedded herself in the ground." Nope, she really would not have. "I would have swam around in all of my glory while she got sunburned on the side watching me." Nah, she would not have done that either but it did not matter. "She has been lying to me the entire time." She wiped her tears and got up.

When she was next seen she had brought flowers. Luckily for Ribbon, Mila did not quite feel like poisoning her. "Hey Ribbon you know what for once I thought that I would come to you" she said as she knocked on the door. When she did not receive an answer she made her way around and began to look in the windows when she seen Ribbon who appeared to be talking to herself. Mila politely tapped on the window to get Ribbon's attention. "I brought you some flowers though it seems you are having quite a time with your acoustics."

Because she was a lying b**ch. "You know Ribbon I find it funny how you can weave a scale of lies to feed me but when it comes to making your own guitar strings you seem to lose your nerve every time." She threw those flowers. "You got something to tell me before I take that guitar and smack it right across that head of yours? The answer is no, no you don't because if you open that mouth of yours I will punch you right in it."

Ribbon Harmony

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As soon as those flowers hit her face, she felt the ribbons loosen around her and she seen the guitar pulled out of the general area. "What is your problem?" For once she was completely lost and to think that she had finally agreed to give Mila what she wanted and this was how she was getting treated for it? "I have not wove anything. No one in my family knows how to weave anything and the worse part is I don't even think that you meant it literally."

She took a minute to look around and then spoke. "Look I did not want to tell you that I could not come in a text but I thought that it would make me more thoughtful to tell you in a text than to not tell you." Didn't people normally like text messages as long as it was not bad news? Hell if she knew. "My phone has been acting strange anyway so if it corrected it to something else and it was mean those were not my intentions."

She went to go fix her hair when a colorless ribbon pushed her hands down and wrapped her hair itself. "I wanted to come I just..Mila..we need to destroy that guitar. I am not willing to learn on an acoustic. I like electric better and it's not like I could learn anyway. Listen ever since I got back it's like the ribbon and guitar are one. Strange I know but it would explain why they seemed to perfectly fit together considering the guitar was without strings when I first found it. I think that something happened when Balthier shattered it. You said that he shattered it when you first seen it right?"

Never trust an old man that refused to walk with a cane. "You brought me flowers though, how cute." She still had that sarcasm in her voice. "I mean up until you hit me in the face it was a real nice gesture." They were two overly emotional teapots. Mila with her anger and Ribbon with everything else it seemed but more specifically confusion on how to understand her own. "Now speak with emotion and not your fists, what has you so upset and why are you taking it out on me?"

Mila Richards

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"Oh no you don't get to do that" she said as she fiercely pointed her finger at Ribbon. "You don't get to pretend like you don't know what I am talking about!!!" She had worked semi hard at learning how to control her anger through glasses and honestly the first few nights that she was here were nights that she had spent in jail and she did not want to go back. That made her think about Vivian and how she needed to check on her.

"I broke into my mother's home office and I saw your file. I seen everything about your operation and you have been lying to me the entire time. All this stuff that you say you don't know, or you are afraid of it's all lies." She was not going to cry because she was about two tail whips from hitting her across the face. "I don't know why you think those things but my mother has it very noted, clearly different."

Maybe Ribbon did not know but at the moment Mila found it extremely hard to believe. "All you do is lie to me even after I ask, plead, and beg you not too. It's no wonder that you are so screwed up. Your mother and father did a hell of a job and tell your mother she's finally going to get what she wanted."

She was done with everything and she turned to leave and then she stopped because this was not working through emotions. This was her doing what she was always jumping on Ribbon about. "Bring your guitar and come with me. I have something that you need to see." If there was a chance that she really did not know then maybe it was time that she learned. Mila had to put her own feelings to the side for once. "You should know that I was snooping around my mom's home office this morning. I was simply curious you know after the home videos and everything if there might be more that none of us remembered." She thought using the word remember was better than using the word know for now. "I don't know why I was doing it because I have always trusted my mom but after knowing that Vivian and Micah have been working together behind all of our backs and only choosing to pull us in because Micah feels we are needed, well something is not sitting right with me."

Ribbon Harmony

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"Okay, but we really need to talk about your need to boss me around." This was like the third time but she was going to follow without any question. "You know how your mom is I am sure that her mind was probably just working over time." She did not want to find anything else out and the truth was that as soon as this was over she was trading this acoustic guitar in for an electric one. She hooked it around her waist line and held it to the side.

Her colorless ribbons tried to grab around her wrists but missed and landed on the bridge and the capstan of the guitar and began to string through as she angrily looked at Mila. "Well despite why you were there I'm glad that you did not get caught red handed." The colorless ribbon now turned strings began to turn from a colorless to a deep red. "Oh my god it's happening again. I hate these ribbons."

Her scales however remained unbothered. She moved around Mila and went to go put her hands up when the ribbons placed her hands right where they needed to be and actual, although faint sound began to come from the guitar. She looked down at it and her fingers. "These ribbons are making me do this shit, do you see what I mean? This is exactly why I was cancelling everything."

She did not want to get those looks. "I can't come out not as long as these ribbons thing that they control me and seem to want nothing but this guitar. I mean I have never seen such a lusting session even though they are both, you know not like us. Not classified human I mean." She was so in tune with her own words as her fingers still strummed. "So what you were looking out for me or something like that?" She wiggled her eyebrows up and kept them raised. "That's such a power move."

Mila Richards

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Mila watched and she was so intrigued when the color began to appear. She laughed when Ribbon spoke. "Never met something you couldn't eventually learn to control I thought? Well even the cockiest fall at one point in time or another." She began to walk and spoke. "Since when has that stopped anything? You do remember your mom right?" Mila still kind of wished that Ribbon kind of believed in soul mates and such but she had agreed to help her without pushing and honestly it was the best.

"Such a power move meaning what exactly?" She quickly shrugged it off and spoke. "Red handed and red ribbons out of your scales parading around as strings. Ribbon." It was nothing that neither one of them wanted to talk about but she knew but she was going to. "This has both of our mom's written all over it. I mean I found it and look at how attached it is to you." It was more attached to Ribbon than Mila was and that was saying a lot.

Once they got back to Gigi's home office Mila went in and looked around but that file was gone. She turned to Ribbon with a look of confusion. "It's not here. Ribbon there was a file here and it had so much information in it. What kind of information just ends up out of the blue?" Her purple skin royally flushed and she let out an agitated breath of air more than anything else. "This doesn't make any damn sense unless someone is pulling the strings with all of this." She looked at Ribbon. "String pulling?" She remained calm. "Do you know what a tuning key is?"

Ribbon Harmony

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"Nope never heard of such a thing in my life." As she was listening to Mila she was starting to get worried. It was a feeling that she recognized instantly because it was a feeling in her youth she had, had a lot of time with. It was not as a friendly emotion and she noticed that her scales found themselves turning just a little bit as the ribbons remained in place. She looked around wondering if this was a place where they even needed to be at.

"Mila look," She was trying to word it carefully because she did not want them fussing but she did want Mila and herself both to be aware at the same time of everything around them. "I am willing to listen to whatever you say and take every single thing that you say in but I am a little worried about you." She knew that Mila had a good life but that was years ago and maybe all those years of dumpster diving were finally starting to get to her. "You know what they say one too many dumpster lids on the head will eventually cause side effects."

She almost too easily swished the guitar from her front side to her back in an attempt to keep it out of the way. "Did it say anything else that we could use just as a remembering point?" If you wanted trust then you had to give it and she failed horribly at that but maybe she was never too old to learn. "I.." Therapy it was something she went to because she was told to but not anything that she ever got quite comfortable at. She knew that meant that her feelings were held back even when she spoke but she did not need it; at least that was what she told herself. "No offense to your mom, but even doing therapy with her, she's not the type that I would trust with my darkest secrets never mind my deepest regrets so anything she noted, I don't know if I would say that it would contain any truth."

Mila Richards

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"Right" she said. Maybe Ribbon was right or maybe Ribbon was full of crap either way Mila had not decided where she stood yet. "Well I could see that." Then again she could see Ribbon confiding because what was the harm. She felt the small flush of her purple skin and ignored it for now. "Well the tuning key is how you make sure that guitars stay in tune. The name is simple and states what it does all in one but some can be harder to tune than others."

People experienced in the area had told her but she did not know it personally. She quickly moved and began to look. "I'm just going to look around here while we talk and by the way I have never actually got hit on the head. The side, the butt, but not the head." She was fine and maybe she was close. "I see your movements of the guitar seem to be better that must be something that lights your own mother up with delight."

She still did not trust the object and she knew it was inanimate but even in such a state it seemed almost possessive. She finally took a seat in her mother's chair and cut a little light on as she began to jiggle a few hanging hooks on the drawers. "We need to find a key of some sort. I mean we could risk breaking it but I don't want to do that if we do not have too, she loves this desk."

Ribbon Harmony

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She listened and said nothing afterwards but it did not do anything to stop her worrying. However she was trying not to push if it did not seem like it was warranted. "I'll help you look as I have always heard that two people can cover way more space at once." It would come in handy in an office. "I don't know if this is important or not but she is super smart do you think that there might be any chance we would need a code, or maybe like a set of codes too?"

She could feel her scales loosen up as she began to look around as the colorless ribbon began to dangle and then wrapped itself around her guitar to keep it hooked in place. She looked at the walls and then found a small crack. "That looks like it might be being used as a decoy," she said as she ran her hand along the wall and then bent down to try and look under to see if she could see anything that was loose. As she did, the colorless ribbon double looped itself along the guitar and as the guitar almost hit the ground, the ribbon quickly decorated itself to keep the guitar from touching the ground. She sighed as she stood up.

"Yeah you look for that key and I'm going to attempt and learn how to play a simple note." She slid down beside the guitar and looked the ribbon fabric over. "I can't believe this that comes out of my scales is going to have to be used as my strings." She had never really paid her ribbon much attention because she just liked the thought of it, however with the guitar coming into play she was having to. It was difficult but she was never the type to quit and her parents might have raised a stubborn, spoiled brat but never a quitter.

She grabbed the guitar and sat it in between her legs and pulled her legs up as she examined it. "Let's hope this is not too out of the blue," she said as she watched the colorless ribbon go a nice shade of blue. She was amazed and terrified all at once and though that was familiar territory it was not comfortable to her. Still she liked this a little. "I remember the day my dad died. It was cold and windy and I felt like I do now."

Mila Richards

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She continued to look while she listened. "It's good that you seem to be opening up to talk about it. I mean my father pretty much is alive but we have zero contact and after a while I stopped trying all together. I know it's two completely different circumstances but everyone knows talking helps or so they say." She had finally found something but it was not anything that looked like a key just more files. She took a seat under the desk.

"There is so much paperwork to fiddle through here I think that I am getting a headache just thinking about it." She decided to divide it as she read over it. "I hate to add salt to the opening wound but can we speak about your Uncle?" She did not know if it was a conversation that was ever supposed to come up but Ribbon's uncle and Mila's mother had knocked some bananas and thus Vivian had came. "How awkward was it to find out when you did?" She was glad that it was not her because she was afraid that she would have threw up and tried to forget it. "I mean I got a sister out of the deal but all you got was another death knot on your family tree. That had to be screwed up right?"

Ribbon Harmony