Well, Kharet has no particular problem with people touching him, and doesn't seem in a hurry to take his arm back, either.

He gently leads Traveler over the threshold, and then through a little lobby area.

The music hall itself is a stark contrast to the outside — gentle, indirect lighting, although still bright enough to read by. A tall ceiling covered with various sound-absorbing panels, lights, motorized equipment racks, ductwork, and other miscellaneous gadgets. A push stage at the far end of the hall, lit more brightly than the rest of the room. Rows of comfortable seats arranged around the stage in rings.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is that nobody inside the room is speaking aloud. The only sounds are the rustle of cloth and the fluttering of hands as people chat about the upcoming performance.

"Our reserved space is down there on the left by the aisle," he explains, pointing. "So if you need to get out you can head straight back up to the doors."

That's a good plan, he appreciates it.

Does Kharet think anyone will mind if he converts their seats to crafting material, as long as he puts the structure of them back the way they are before he leaves?

He considers the question.

Normally, of course, it would be terribly rude to mess with the seats. But people really want to get more crafting material and he can't really imagine the management company of the theater being displeased by replacing the seats and auctioning off the crafting material.

"I don't think anyone will mind, but that's because they want to experiment with crafting material more. If you converted the chairs to crafting material and then turned it into baby cribs when you were done they would probably have approximately the same reaction," he replies. "Alternatively, this space here with the striped border is set aside for people who have trouble with the provided chairs and want to use their own, for whatever reason. I made sure we were next to it because I wasn't sure whether you'd want to sit a little further away from the rest of the seats."

...well he doesn't have a crib design with him, he'll have to get one for next time if they'd prefer that. He doesn't think he'll mind sitting close to people, he has his own crafting material with him in case he wants to put up barriers or anything, but he was thinking they might have a better time if he got rid of the armrest in between their seats and he'd have to convert it for that.

"Oh! I wasn't sure whether you would want to keep touching me because I'm still not sure exactly what the boundaries of your territory instinct are, but I would enjoy cuddling during the performance if you removed the armrest," Kharet informs him. "I generally enjoy touch, but I'm also enjoying your company specifically."

Yeah, he in particular likes touch kind of a lot, actually, and as long as he's actively expressing interest in it it's fine to touch him within the bounds of what he's expressing interest in, he was just waiting for them to get settled first. He'll just need a minute to get rid of the armrest - which he does, plucking a circle from his neckpiece to hold the design of it and stowing that in his bag before using the material to fill in the gap between their seat cushions. And then there can be cuddling, within the boundaries of local propriety.

Kharet rests his communication screen on their knees so they can keep chatting as people filter in.

"So I don't know how Crafter music performances work, but we have singing and non-singing performances. This one is a non-singing performance, so you should refrain from singing along — or making any kind of vocalizations, actually. If you want to express excitement or congratulate the performers, shake your hands."

He holds a hand up and shakes it demonstratively.

"I guess in your case you can probably craft at them, too, but they might not be expecting it."

He can't communicate at this distance anyway, and the handshaking is neat, he can do that.

Crafters don't really do sing-along performances; sing-along events are pretty popular but you wouldn't see a group of performers at one like it looks like they're set up for here. He'd be interested in going to a local sing-along performance sometime, probably, singing is nice.

Kharet nods against his shoulder.

"Yeah. I think sing-along performances are usually ... music groups that have really popular, energetic songs, where people who go want to get kind of swept up in the energy, and that makes them feel like singing along. Whereas non-singing performances are more about hearing music done well by someone who has practiced a lot, and therefore everyone wants to be able to hear," he explains. "We definitely also have sing-along events, where there is singing but not a central group of performers. They're just a different kind of thing."

Oh, that kind of sing-along performance does sound like fun. All three do, really.

He would like to pet Kharet's hair, if that sounds nice to him.

Kharet did his best to go into this whole thing without expectations, because Traveler is an alien, but hair-petting is well within the bounds of what he's willing to allow.

"Yes, please," he writes, angling his head a little.

"So, actually, this is probably a good time to ask — I asked you along to this performance because our first conversation was really interesting, and I thought that you might be interested in me. But I wanted to learn more about how well you could handle Helper society before I brought it up, since that seemed like it might be hard for you, and I feel like there would be logistical challenges involved in spending time with someone who couldn't. But now we're cuddling and you're petting my hair — which I am enjoying — and you don't seem to be having a problem with the music hall."

"So: are you potentially interested in having sex and/or romance? With me. Generally, not right now. Or just in being friendly and cuddling?"

Hairpetting and gentle scritches ensue.

He's been hoping the night will progress in a sexual direction, yes. Romance is trickier with as much traveling as he does, but he does like meeting up with the same people again when he returns somewhere.

Kharet squiggles against his side.

"Sounds good to me. We should talk more about what kind of sex we want to have after the performance."

That's a good idea, yeah. Though he's also generally a fan of being on the receiving end of whatever pleasant things his partner wants to do to him.

That ... sort of makes a picture with what he knows about Crafter instincts, but it's not quite clicking into place.

Before he can formulate a question about it, though, the performers step out on stage and he sits up in excitement.

The lead performer, wearing a diaphanous cloud of white silks, steps to the front and begins signing. Her signs are large and exaggerated, for the people in the back of the music hall — which rapidly quiets further as people turn their attention to the stage and the outside doors are closed.

"She's thanking everyone for coming, and explaining that they're going to be performing their most recent idea-based long song-collection. It's a set of songs inspired by the traditional story A Visitor from through the Wood," Kharet translates. "Now she's introducing the members of the group — Diselhat on the percussion, Varemman on the one with pipes, anonymous artist #44123 on the little stringed one, Oresamiþ on the big stringed one, and she's Naŋer."

Varemman's instrument is to an organ as a compact piano is to a harpsichord, approximately. It appears to be fed by a hose that runs backstage. The anonymous artist has a slightly elongated fiddle and a guitar on the ground beside them. Oresamiþ has something a bit like a triangular cello.

The performers bow, and then the music starts and Naŋer begins to dance.

The music is tuned to a well-tempered pentatonic scale, although the notes are subdivided beyond that. The first song is cheerful, peaceful, repetitive — but with a gnawing uncertainty introduced by the low tones of the organette that grows over the course of the song, occasionally pushed back by the bright notes of the cello. Eventually, the uneasy tones of the organette break through and dominate the other instruments, which play softly and urgently. There is a crash of drums and symbols, and Naŋer falls to the floor.

The following songs are a series of duets, sometimes between the fiddle and the cello, sometimes between Oresamiþ and Naŋer's voices, that explore different themes and slowly grow closer until the final song returns to the same cheerful, peaceful, repetitive motif as the first song — but this time with the organette sounding brassy and triumphant, supporting the feeling instead of undermining it.

Throughout the performance, Oresamiþ demonstrates good technical skill with the cello, making use of partial fingerings and vibrato to subtly character the tone of the instrument. The anonymous artist's fiddle acts almost like a voice without words, sometimes taking the lead role of the song, and sometimes fading back as a chorus. The guitar only comes out for one song, near the middle of the set, where it acts as a strange and foreign counterpoint to the wavering cello.

The music is much more complex than Crafter music, and then with dancing on top of that? It doesn't take long at all for him to get lost in the experience. Kharet is welcome to stay cuddled up to him throughout, though the sense that he's open to additional kinds of touch beyond what's already happening quickly fades and doesn't return until the music is over.

This music group is his favorite for a reason. Kharet sort of expected to chat about the instruments and the inspiration while listening, but it looks like Traveler is just as captivated as he is, so the communication screen is quickly forgotten.

When the last notes fade away and the performers bow, he sits up and enthusiastically shakes his hands, along with most of the rest of the audience.

The lights, which had focused on the stage, slowly come back up throughout the room.

Kharet leans back in his chair and fishes around for his stylus.

"Well. Yes. I hope you can see why I like their music."

(It takes him a second to remember the handskaking, but he joins in when he realizes what's happening.)

Yeah, wow. He especially likes the organette, he thinks (and the percussion, of course) but the whole thing was excellent.

"The little-pipes-and-levers-instrument is definitely cool," Kharet agrees. "It lets them have some of the good parts of the sound of a larger music group with more pipe-based instruments while keeping things simple and tight. It doesn't have the range of a big pipes-and-levers instrument, though."

"... I realized that I don't actually know anything about Crafter instruments. I'm going to guess you have a lot more variety, because you can just make them with crafting material?"

He'd bet they have more different instruments - he's met so many people who have their own take on a marimba or horn, you can do a lot of different things with them by tweaking the material properties - but fewer types; stringed instruments are new to him.

"Oh, really? I would not have guessed that. Stringed instruments are pretty common, I think. I would have expected the pipe-instrument to be less familiar, because I'm not sure Crafters do much with compressed air," he comments.

Around them, people begin to stand and stretch and leave. If they're content to wait a few minutes more in the music hall, they won't need to shove through as large a crowd in the aisle.

Yeah, he's not in a hurry to break up the cuddlepile, they can wait until the crowd has cleared.

He wonders if Helpers might just use strings and ropes more than Crafters do in general, or use it in different ways, and that explains the difference; he does use them for some things but he can also just directly craft things together in cases where they might be a good option if he couldn't craft. Or it's also possible that the standard crafted changes to make strings easier to use might interfere with their musical properties so that Crafters had less chance to notice them, he knows friction is important for lots of instruments and he almost always crafts that way down when he's making strings/ropes, especially thinner ones.

Kharet doesn't know much about instrument design, but he does have basic physics knowledge.

"I think that there's two kinds of stringed instruments — drawn and plucked. The ones today were mostly drawn, but the anonymous artist's bigger instrument for that one song was plucked. I don't think messing with the friction of a string would matter for plucked string instruments, but it would definitely mess with drawn string instruments, because the part that you draw across the strings wouldn't make them vibrate the same. I think musicians have a powder or something they put on the strings of drawn string instruments to increase the friction, actually."