He nods, running his thumb over the strings in little ovals. Even after a few months of having a human body again it's still kind of amazing how sensitive it is, compared to being a bird, how good it feels to play with a stringed instrument and touch the tensions and textures and shapes.

After Portland, in the Summerlands, he'd gone and asked Joker if this was how things went, big disturbing stops spaced out by mild ones. Apparently it is.

"Well, I mean, I shouldn't have told anyone when we got caught. Hah. If I'd thought about it for more than a second I would've not... done that. But all I could think was, 'if I use a language most people don't know, there won't be a panic'." Julien half-smiles at nothing in particular.