Nocturn Core (Abridged)

I was at some kind of performance. I understood that the members of my IPRO team had all selected songs to describe themselves. They were performing them on stage in front of the rest of the team. Amar and I walked down to the front of the auditorium to find a couple of free seats. Autumn showed up and sat down next to me. For some reason, a number of people brought props from the Sword of Truth series or dedicated their songs to Richard Rahl. I wasn’t sure why this kept happening, but it was amusing. I clapped when I saw each of them refer to the series. Two people trying to walk past each other in the aisle got stuck, and I suggested folding their props in half so they could squeeze by, but neither of them did it.

A dog of some kind put its head in Autumn’s lap. When I tried to pet it, its eyes turned red. It snarled viciously at me. She explained that it had a poor first impression of me… I tried to ignore it, but now that I had angered it, the dog started lashing out at me. It ended up pushing me to the ground, and I barely kept it from tearing my face apart. I was puzzled when the animal suddenly gave up and trotted away. While the performances continued, I feared that Limia would ask me to sing something… I had missed the day when we picked our songs, so I hadn’t rehearsed anything. If I had to, I could always sing Happy Birthday to the audience. The list of music I knew by heart was pitifully short and consisted mostly of children’s songs.