Author's Notes:

I like the Dazzlings.

Nash was lying on his back, staring at the sky. Or, rather, the clouds in the sky.

He had his reasons for doing this.

Walking back from having returned some videotapes to a friend of his he’d diverted from his usual route and taken a scenic one with more greenery. There’d been bushes, grass, trees - all things Nash was known to be fond of.

And there had been a cat and in a very stereotypical turn of events the cat had been stuck in a tree.

That the cat had been stuck was obvious, given the very clear and vocal level of distress in evidence. Nash knew (from personal experience) that this was a bald-faced lie. The cat was fine and would get down on its own once it was tired of causing a fuss. Cats had been known to get stuck in bridges for weeks only to stroll back home as though nothing had happened.

Cats had a unique sense of fun.

That said though, he still couldn’t abide the poor thing’s plaintive cries, and so was unable to stop himself from heading on over and clambering on up. Even knowing he was being taken for a mug with every branch he hoisted himself up by didn’t stop him, though when the cat - seeing his approach - stopped meowing and immediately scampered back down and ran off that did rather take the wind out of Nash’s sails.

“Figures,” he’d said, between branches, above the ground.

A clumsy climb down had followed, after which Nash had felt he was entitled to a sit down. And, since the day was a pleasant one, a sit had turned into a recline, then into a full-on lie down.

Thus lying on his back and looking at the sky, something he had been doing for some time now, not having anything else to do, and something which he would have quite happily kept on doing for some time yet had, without warning, a head blocked his view.

“Whatcha doin’?” Said the head, which was cocked.

Nash squinted, holding up a hand. He saw quickly that the head was owned by a girl who looked genuinely puzzled and who also had blue hair. In this blue hair were other stripes of another, different blue, he noticed.

He’d been operating under the impression that blue on blue was something to be avoided. Here though it actually seemed quite nice. Perhaps he’d been misinformed.

Nash had not expected this intrusion - or any intrusion, really, he’d thought he’d been quite tucked out of the way - but didn’t mind it.

“Looking at clouds,” he said. The blue-haired girl’s head cocked the other way and she blinked.

“Why?” She asked.

Nash shrugged, or at least shrugged as best he could while lying down.

“Dunno,” he said. He genuinely didn’t.

This lead to a break in the conversation while the girl considered this answer, one hand remaining behind her back - where both had been previously - while the other came around so she could tap a finger to her chin. As Nash himself knew this helped to stimulate thought.

“Seems boring,” she said, eventually, not sounding entirely sure about her conclusion.

“It’s okay,” Nash admitted. “Most of them aren’t much, but a couple a kinda interesting. That one there looks like a cow, I reckon.”

He raised an arm and pointed. The girl turned and craned her neck, looking up, having to check and recheck where Nash was pointing a couple of times. Not that it helped, apparently.

“I can’t see it,” she said.

Unsurprising, really.

“You kind of have to see it from my angle,” said Nash, apologetically.

“Oh. Okay!” The girl said as though that explained everything. She then immediately got down and flipped onto her back beside Nash, schooching in close so could get the best position like his position that wasn’t actually his position.

“Point again!” She nigh-on commanded and Nash, ever-obliging, obliged.

“There. See?” He asked, arm up and finger out.

The girl squinted, tongue poking out just a little, following close the line of his arm down to finger, thence up to the sky and the much-vaunted ‘cow cloud’. Her concentration was palpable. She then gasped, her arm raising to point at as well.

“I see it! That’s totally a cow!” She exclaimed.

“I know, right?”

Her finger traced out a few key features.

“There’s the horns and the feets and - totally a cow!”

She seemed delighted, and in turn Nash was delighted that she seemed so delighted. Everyone won, everyone was delighted. She took a few moments longer to admire the sight before rolling onto her side the better to face Nash who rolled onto his side, feeling it the polite thing to do.

“Hi. I’m Sonata,” the girl said.

“Hello Sonata, I’m Nash,” said Nash.

Sonata, frowning ever-so-slighty, peered at his face intently for a moment as though attempting to work something out.

“You talk funny, Nash, where’re you from?” She then asked.

Again Nash shrugged.

“Lots of different places,” he said.

Sonata accepted this. It was a good answer in her book.

“That’s cool,” she said, rolling onto her back again. “Ooh! That one’s a cow too! Oh wait, that’s the same one. Ooh! The one next to it is a car though? Are those wheels?”

She didn’t sound sure, so Nash rushed to assist, peering upward and doing his best to spot which one next to the first one she was actually referring to. Nothing like a car really leapt out though.

“Which one?” He asked and Sonata, tutting in annoyance, took hold of his wrist and pulled his hand around so it pointed the right way.

“That one!” She said.

Nash saw which one she meant, but did not see what she had been talking about. Still no cars. She meant well though, and her enthusiasm was electric - practically jumping the very limited distance between the two of them and making his hair stand on end, practically - so Nash had no desire to dampen it.

“Oh right. Hmm. Maybe a car, maybe, or maybe more a bird? Wings there, look - see?”

This was Nash gently nudging her in what he felt was perhaps a more accurate direction.

“Huh? Where - oh yeah! Yeah! You’re good at this!” She said, giving him a bump and a poke in the side, getting a giggle from Nash and a return poke.

“Well I’ve been doing it all morning. You’ll get it,” Nash said. He had a feeling in his waters that Sonata had the makings of an excellent cloud-shape-spoterer. Just something about her.

“Yeah shh shh shh I need to concentrate…” She said, putting on a serious face and glaring upward, eyes fixed.

And so Nash went quiet to allow Sonata some room to get into the swing of things. The tongue came poking out the corner of the mouth again as she variously squinted, closed one eye and then the other, held up her hands in various configurations and generally went through all sorts of, shall we say, unorthodox techniques, many of which hadn’t ever occurred to Nash for this sort of thing.

Agreeably for good reason, but still. It showed enthusiasm, not to mention inventiveness. He could not fault her for it.

“Why are you out here anyway?” Nash asked, eventually.

He at least had an excuse, but then again perhaps Sonata had an even better excuse. He couldn’t help but be curious.

“Oh, I got lost,” she said, as though this was something that happened so often it was barely worth mentioning anymore.

“Lost?”

She looked set to launch into an explanation as to how exactly this might have happened only to, at the last moment, have second thoughts and stop herself short, chewing on her lip and looking all at once rather nervous - quite the shift.

“It’s long, you probably don’t want to hear it. They tell me I talk too much,” she said, plainly deflated.

Nash did not know who she was talking about. He also disagreed.

“Nah nah, you go for it, let it all out,” he said with a wave of his hand.

Sonata sat bolt upright the better to look at Nash and work out whether he was pulling her leg or not. It would not be the first time she would have been mislead by such a statement only to be caught out with a well-timed ‘Not!’. The other two were good at those.

“Really?” She asked, cautious.

“I’m all ears.”

She held on a second longer, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but then her enthusiasm overtook her.

Sonata took in a breath, and as it turned out she needed one:

“Well, like, Adagio has a job now so we have, you know, money but then there’s also this guy she likes or does but pretends she doesn’t like Aria said or something and so she’s not around a whole lot so it’s just me and Aria at home and Adagio told us to get groceries - ‘Stop sitting around all day while I’m slaving away at work! Pull your weight! Grr! Stop staring into space, Sonata! How did you break another window!’ - so we went out to get groceries and Aria was talking about something and she was getting all angry and loud and people started crossing the road to get away and that just made her angrier and loudrier and I kind of just zoned out and when I looked up I was here and I saw you on the ground and I thought you’d fallen over so I went to go check if you were, like, dead or something.”

This was a lot to digest all at once and Nash had no idea who the people she was talking about were, but he didn’t mind. He still got where she was coming from once he’d had the time to comprehend what she’d just unloaded.

“I get where you’re coming from,” he said, demonstrating this.

Sonata - who had been wincing and bracing herself to be told to put up and stop whining - tentatively opened one eye, just to check whether Nash was rolling his eyes or any of those other things Aria or Adagio sometimes did. He was not. He looked like he’d meant it.

“You do?” She asked. Nash nodded.

“Yeah. Life can just be real busy sometimes,” he said.

How this was relevant was unclear, but from the look on Sonata’s face it was the most profound thing she’d ever heard in her life. That she’d been expecting to be shot down helped, sure, but still. She turned away, mouthing the words again to herself.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, confidence blooming. “Yeah! Life can just be real busy sometimes! That’s super-smart! You read that somewhere?”

Now she was just being grossly flattering, even if she wasn’t meaning to be.

“Just something I cooked up,” Nash said, tapping a finger to his temple. Sonata’s look of utter amazement grew more incandescent.

“You thought that up? How?”

Laying it on a little thick but she was just so bloody earnest that it was hard to notice or, if you did, harder still to care. Certainly, Nash didn’t.

“It’s a kind of magic,” he said, lightly, and Sonata very nearly burst on the spot, leaning over him again and coming all-but nose-to-nose.

“You’re magic too?!”

She said this with such force and glee that Nash was actually taken aback. He couldn’t quite tell if she thought he’d meant it literally or if she just really, really hoped he’d meant it literally. Either way he was sad to disappoint her.

“Uh, no, sorry. It’s just a thing,” he said.

Her face fell, albeit only briefly.

“Oh...well that’s okay. I still think you’re cool,” she said, pulling back to sitting, resting back on her palms and turning hers skyward once more.

“Thanks, Sonata, you’re pretty cool yourself,” Nash said.

Though whatever she herself might have said in response to this was cut short by an unexpected third party:

“There you are!” Came the yell.

Both Sonata and Nash looked, and found there standing some few feet away a very angry looking girl indeed. Nash hadn’t the foggiest idea who she was. Sonata though clearly did, as she immediately scrambled to her feet.

“Oh, hey Aria I was just-”

“How do you get lost on a street? Did you miss the day straight lines were explained?” This new girl - Aria, apparently - said, cutting across and stopping Sonata’s line dead in its tracks.

Nash found this a little on the harsh side, and the wounded look the comment drew from Sonata was pretty painful to see, too. No need for that!

“Hey, look, don’t want to intrude on your dynamic here but maybe calm down a little with that?” He said, frowning.

That he said this while still on the ground did kind of undercut his delivery, but he meant well.

“No, it’s okay. I did miss that day,” Sonata said, voice small.

This did raise some question, but now wasn’t the time.

Aria still hadn’t even looked down at Nash, not even after having wandered up to stand practically on top of him. She did point at him though, like he was something that had spilled.

“What’s that anyway. Did you get one too?” Aria asked.

“...hey,” Nash said, feeling slightly in a delayed way. This, unsurprisingly, Aria ignored.

“No, that’s Nash. He’s nice. We were-” Sonata started explaining, wringing her hands, but again she did not get a chance to finish. Aria held up her own hand and stopped Sonata midway through.

“I don’t care. Come on. Miss Leadership gave us this list and if we don’t get everything on it exactly like she wrote it down we’ll get another lecture on how she’s out there every day working hard making eyes at loverboy or whatever and I don’t think there’s enough vomit in the world,” she said.

“Can I push the trolley?” Sonata asked, hopeful, pressing one finger against the other and digging a toe into the ground.

Aria had a look about which suggested that she had been going to make Sonata push the trolley anyway whether she would have liked to or not, and also which suggested that Aria regarded pushing the trolley as something best avoided. She thought about it a second, plastered on a smile that apparently only convinced Sonata and said:

“Sure. Whatever. As long as you’re quiet.”

“Yay!” Sonata cheered, literally jumping for joy. This earned her a sharp look so she, sheepish now, said instead: “_Yay.”

That seemed to settle that, and without further ado or a single solitary sign that she’d so much as acknowledged Nash, Aria turned on her heel and walked right back the way she’d come. Sonata immediately went to follow, but paused long enough at least to wave goodbye.

“_{Bye Nash,}” she said, quietly.

“_{Bye Sonata,}” he said, also waving, also quietly, thinking it best not to get her in trouble by proxy. Aria seemed touchy.

Sonata then scampered off to catch up with Aira, who was waiting in the most impatient manner possible, the tapping of her foot looking so forceful that Nash felt sure it was making the leaves of the previously cat-infested (perhaps too strong a word) tree rustle. Sonata caught up, the two of them went, and that was that.

Nash, only a little bewildered by the way his day had gone, watched the spot where Sonata had been last before disappearing from view, blinked, looked around, blinked again, and then sighed. More happily than wistfully, though.

“That was nice. Kind of a dip at the end, but overall nice. Lovely girl,” he said, settling his hands behind his head and once again staring up at the sky. Still full of clouds. Still a lot of daylight left.

A moment later Nash snapped his fingers and pointed

“Now that’s a car. Ah Sonata, you had it! You just didn’t time it right. Foresight, that’s what you’ve got, girl. Rare gift, rare gift indeed. Way ahead of us all...”

Lovely girl indeed.