Grateful for her explanation, and after only a little bit of feedback from the microphone, Galen Forrester was beginning to get into it. He didn’t know the song and to his surprise it was about a house or a ship perhaps, rather than men fighting monsters - although in this case the role of the male singer did seem to be to keep certain inner monstrosities at bay. Regardless, he had a nice, steady singing voice and he sort of improvised his way around marrying the words on the screen to the beat and the instrumentals, aided by Lydia glancing at him when it was his turn to sing. This karaoke thing was kinda fun.<br/><br/>The smile with which Nalia came back to have a drink was nice too, made Axle feel almost... welcomed. All he did was clean up a spill, but if she was so happy about that then maybe her life as a bartender here was pretty solitary. He lifted his glass as well, with a subtle smile on his hardened face. “Or as the Russians say, za zda-ró-vye. Or something like that.” He toasted her glass, careful not to spill, and let the liquid slide down his throat. The moth-guy even left and Lydia and Galen were putting on a show for ‘em. Things were actually looking pretty good. “Kid’s having fun up there,” he chuckled with a nod towards Galen.<br/><br/>Though there wasn’t a position of the sun or moon in the sky to tell the time, there was a general sense of an evening atmosphere progressing. Axle couldn’t sing, so he was happy to let the others take the stage for a few songs. He even encouraged Nalia to take her turn up there with a song of her choosing, while Lydia and Galen cheered her on, and he did, too. In exchange, he promised to help her clean up the bar when the night was drawing to a close after a few hours.<br/><br/>“That was fun,” Galen told Lydia with a grin. By now they had moved to the doorway leading to the bar. “Shame we didn’t have this where I come from. If only I could send a message back, I’m sure the magineers could fix up some kind of magical device to do a similar thing. Would probably be really popular at inns.” Having forced his hood down by now, when it usually sprung right back up because of the stiff material it was made of, he laughed as he looked at Lydia, before trailing off.<br/><br/>“Anyway, milady,” he said jokingly as he bowed to kiss her hand. “Thank you for sharing a few songs with me and showing me your beautiful voice in all its glory. I suppose it’s time for me to head to bed.”<br/>He figured that’s probably also where Poe disappeared to when he left the bar.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, Axle kept to his word, helping move the tables and chairs after inspecting and wiping them down with Nalia so that could he could help her sweep the floor afterwards. Not so steady as he was when the night started, mind you. Not only Nalia’s presence, but also a few bottles of liquor could make him stumble. When he went to put the brooms away with her, he laughed softly. “I wouldn’t trust myself to be able to count the stock anymore, so that’ll have to be for another time.”<br/>He liked to look at Nalia more the longer he spent with her. Slowly, the flashbacks to memories had begun to lessen, making him less anxious to look. And of course, she was pretty too. His excuse, of course, for getting so friendly - if you could call cleaning a room with someone that - was that he was drunk.<br/>“You were good on stage,” he told her then. “If we weren’t<i>here, </i>you probably could have made it big. Or maybe you still can make it big here, what the fuck do I know, right,” he shrugged with a chuckle.