<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ffffff">Faden drew in a soft deep breath as Pixie hugged him. She had a aura of vibrant sweetness to her, like an unstoppable force of consistent creativity. He looked to the guitarist with a nod and a smile followed by a short, low timbered chuckle. There was something special about him, something so alive about him that made other things in the frame pale just a little. He looked on, maybe for a fraction longer than one would expect, before he returned a comment. <br/>
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"Is it really faking it, if it's instinct?" </span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">Faden wasn't sure why those were the specific words that he felt compelled to speak, but no other comment would have been quite right.   <br/>
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<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ffffff">As the band funneled their tinkerings into time and rhythm, he turned back to Pixie and chose to stand close to her as they sang. He loved the song, had sung it a thousand times, and he delivered the mood of it as he delivered the lines. Some parts he sang along with her, his rich warm baritone making for an easy accompaniment to her clear casual rendering. Some parts he sang solo, turning the phrases to fit snugly into the rhythm.</span></span><br/><br/><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ffffff">It wasn't until he'd come to Black Rock City that he'd felt the kind of energy he had felt back home. So many people. So many gathered for enjoyment, and art. The reciprocation of gift for gift and no exchange of coin for anything. This was how the world should be, he had thought to himself, and his gift to Pixie for the song they sang together, was to give her a little bit of the energy that coursed through him. He knew little about himself or his meaning in the world, but he did know that he was somehow connected and could direct the energies of the minerals that made up the earth and stars. 'We are made of star stuff', Carl Sagan had said decades ago, and Faden felt the truth of it to his very core.<br/>
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<i>"I think I had met my match, He was singing, And undoing, And undoing the laces." </i><br/>
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And Faden took the third verse alone, singing, eyes closed in a sensual reverie, feeling the lyrics alive in the air around him. He felt the force of the fierce determination emanating from Vas nearby and channeled it through himself to savor. </span></span>