Alisen is the older of two siblings, growing up in a community environment, on the road. She sings, she dances, she plays instruments, she wears a top hat and boots and tank tops, and sometimes skirts but other times trousers. She leaves her hat on the corner while she plays and her sister dances, and sometimes she's accompanied by a young man with a steady tenor voice, dark of hair and eyes.
The wagon she stands in front of isn't new, or in perfect repair, but it speaks of comfort and traveling. She's wearing a dark tank top, a skirt that brushes her ankles, and a pair of boots that look like they could do some damage. Beneath her chin is one end of a fiddle, bow dancing over the strings as she taps a booted foot to the music.
In front of her is a younger girl, light-haired and bright-eyed, dancing in bare feet. Her skirt comes to just below her knees, swirling around her as she dances to the music being played. On the ground near them both is a top hat. It once was perfectly black, but time and wear has worn it to more of a dark grey.
The fiddler sings along with the music, her voice clear and bright.
Monday mornin' standin' on the corner,
pardon me if we're getting in your way
We'll tip our hats, be you native here or foreigner,
drop a coin if you're likin' what we play
A young gentleman with dark hair and eyes sits on the back of the wagon, lounging with one knee up and an arm casually draped over it as he watches over the two girls and the hat. He's grinning, tambourine effortlessly keeping the beat against his other thigh.
The girl with the fiddle is our focus, however, and so we take a closer look. Her nails are neatly short and painted dark, the edges of the polish chipped and fading. Her smile is wide and cheerful, though the friendliness in her smile doesn't quite reach her blue eyes. There's a fondness there as she watches the younger girl dance, however, and it softens her face just a little bit.
Her hair is long enough to touch her waist, left loose to fall down her back and over her shoulders, dark and reddish-brown in the sunlight. At a gesture from the youth, she laughs and does a brief but complicated spinning step between verses, her rhythm never faltering on the fiddle, hair sent swirling in a semi-circle around her.
She reminds you a little bit of a fire; wild and bright and warm, but come too close and you might get burned.
The music comes to a finish, and she takes a sweeping bow, fiddle held out to the side, bow hand coming across, one ankle tucked behind the other in homage to a curtsy. The other girl, barely out of childhood, drops a full curtsy and turns her sweetest smile on the small crowd.
As coins and the occasional fluttering paper bill drop into the worn top hat, a cool blue gaze raises to yours knowingly, full mouth curling in an amused smirk as the young woman straightens up and tosses her hair back. Her gaze flickers across the whole crowd, catches bright eyes full of childish glee, and then moves on to meet the dark eyes of the man with the now-stilled tambourine.
Seeing her face soften at the look of pride upon his handsome features, you turn to go. It seems she is happy here, surrounded by love and family. She has no way of knowing that in less than a week's time she will be farther from her home on the road than she has ever been, with only memories and songs to keep even a semblance of warmth in her heart.
In less than a month she will be more alone than she has ever felt in her life.
In less than three months she will have come to terms with her loneliness, and will have friends who care about her more than she can see through her self-imposed solitude.
Within six months she will have stopped thinking about home every day. She will miss them all the same, and somewhere inside her heart she will hold out a hope so secret that even she isn't aware of it. A hope that one day, somehow, she will get to go home again.
But for now, she adapts and lives each day one at a time, living and learning and changing, adapting to a new life here on Improbable Island.
Way, hey, listen to me play
Won't you throw but a shilling,
Or a copper, my way?
Tales of life, love, sorrow and joy
Are the songs that are sung
By the stable boy
Notes and Disclaiming:
All of the songs Alis plays and sings are real songs; none of them belong to me. I will try to keep a comprehensive list of artists as I go along.
Many of the songs that inspire her are by folksy indie artists, or are very old (I dare say even classic) folk ballads and the like.
In particular she is fond of singing things originally written/performed by:
Heather AlexanderAlexander James AdamsS.J. TuckerVixy and Tony aka Escape KeyTricky PixieDar WilliamsDeb Talan aka The WeepiesEddie From Ohio
And various other artists, too!
IF YOU LIKE A SONG BUT DON'T RECOGNIZE IT, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO GOOGLE SEARCH THE LYRICS! LOOK IT UP! LISTEN TO IT! SUPPORT THE ARTISTS! I am not getting any sort of profit, but I do like to advertise and support my local (and not so local) artists.
I'm getting off the soap box now.