Julian

his fingers dance across the keys, filling the room with sound to mix with beautiful voice and bright guitar. this is his haven, on the bench at the piano. his home, his studio.

he only rarely ventures out from behind his piano. he does sing, and very well, but his fellows at the sunset are so much better, he thinks. i sound alright, he continues, but nothing compared to them. i'm only here to bolster them.

and so he stays behind the keys, where he feels safe. he's better than them at the piano, anyway.

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julian's nephew, pepper, lives with him. he hasn't really told the kid why just yet, he's too young. sometimes he thinks the kid already knows. he's a bit odd, julian thinks, but then, he doesn't know a lot of kids. do kids usually make friends with monsters?

there's a thing out in the woods, something pepper calls his "tall friend." something with a lot of eyes and a lot of teeth, something that when julian saw it, chilled him to his core. but pepper says it's nice. and it didn't hurt him. it brought pepper out of the forest when he got lost.

eventually, julian gave in, and agreed to take pepper to leave a thank-you gift for it. "he likes apples," pepper had said, "and music! he loves music!"

so pepper helped julian make an apple pie, and helped him pack up his keyboard, and out they went. the creature did like apples, it turned out. and music.

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the creature- atlas- was kind. scary, of course, and very strange, but he was gentle with pepper, and very polite. he thanked julian for the pie, and he was fascinated by julian's songs. it was bizarre- julian was so afraid, and for what. for this monster to be so sweet. maybe they should go back another time? he surely wouldn't mind talking to atlas a bit more....