He didn't remember when it had gotten like this.

He really hadn't been expecting it, to meet someone as he sat on his stoop in frustration day after slowly painful day. The damn guitar was defeating him, but he was determined; if only to show up that stupid Dane. "Couldn't play a song to save your life!" Daniel had mocked, idly strumming a few chords on his bass. "You need to have talent to play an instrument."

Well, he wasn't having any of that.

Skuli's hands were blistered from practice, from the rough strings against his fingers, but still he forged onwards. He earned himself a sunburn from the long hours on his front porch, and he earned himself a reputation as a horrid guitarist amongst the neighbours. The Icelander had never been one to care much for reputation, though, at least not amongst strangers - and so still he persevered.

It had been the last day of summer - or had it been the first? Not that it particularly mattered - When he first strolled past. Skuli was instantly suspicious of him, this too-happy too-calm... thing. It went against everything he knew. Maybe he was jealous, sure - jealous of this stranger's self-confidence. Walking around town looking like a patchwork doll - had he no shame?

Clearly not, because the first words out his mouth as he approached the silver-haired teen were "You've got the right idea, but your hands are all wrong."

"They are not," Skuli had snapped back, although it was mostly a response of defiance and he immediately regretted it. This wasn't Nor - he had no reason to push him away like that.

"Uhm..." An awkward pause; and the man's eyebrows rose in quiet thought - and then he reached for the teen's hands and, finding no resistance, he carefully repositioned them, adjusting a finger there or an angle there.

And then he left, like some sort of ghost. He didn't expect to see him again, but it wasn't a week later when the man went past again. He was almost unrecognizable; this time he had on a hat and what looked like a shirt that was no less than three hundred years old. One could never be sure; maybe it had been purchased and then never worn, gathering dust in the back of some closet somewhere.

"No, no, like this!" And he would smile and reach across, correcting the teenager's hands with gentle, feather-light touches. Skuli would harrumph and protest but never once did he remove them. It went on like this through the summer, the icy-haired teen practicing on the front stoop and the ghost-man showing up whenever it seemed like he was about to smash the instrument against the nearest pedestrian.

And so went the summer of the guitar. It wasn't until years later, at a concert, that Skuli finally realized who had taught him to play all those years ago; and then he was shocked, so shocked, in fact, that he couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. To Skuli, the man would remain a mystery, the simple homeless-looking man that taught him with all the calm and patience of a lesser god.