Neither of us own Vesperia, though FrozenInFlight and I own Jade and Nephry respectively.

We really need to stop getting so many ideas...

As they got off the boat, Yuri and the others who had been on Barbos' ship heard strange music. It sounded like it was from an ensemble of some sort, but when they looked around they could only find two girls. Shortly after they adjusted to being on solid ground again, they heard laughter as the music faded and saw the girls nearly bend over and clutching their guts as best they could. The darker-haired girl was holding a large curving piece of shining metal and the lighter-haired holding a straight silver streak of metal. As the group passed, they saw a box by the girls' feet. They had been playing for gald or ...orange gels...?

The party went up the stairs and headed to the inn, as they did so they heard the pair start an upbeat song. It felt cheerful and full of the joy of daily life. (Clocktown, Majora's Mask LoZ)

Yuri turned around shaking his right hand-walls are very unforgiving, you know-and spotted the purple coat of a certain fishy man. Well, he was talkative enough… He headed over to the old man.

Said purple coated old man was leaning on the back of the two benches, an elbow over each. In front of each elbow was a girl. The girls from the dock, in fact, Yuri noticed with a slight shock, hearing the end of an innuendo from the purple coated man.

The darker-haired girl blinked and grinned, "Zelos winked!"

The other girl turned red. "Jade! Why'd you have to make me notice it?"

"Because I noticed it and if you didn't notice it, I had to let you know," Jade pushed reddish glasses further up her nose.

"Wait, wait, wait! Who's this Zelos? I'm no Zelos!" The man frowned playfully at the pair.

"You know I'm oblivious to things like that. And I did notice it, but it didn't quite exactly sink in…." the other girl rubbed the back of her head and muttered, "Especially not here."

Jade made a face at the lighter-haired girl, "Then you should've beaten me to saying 'Zelos winked', Nephry!"

Nephry sighed. "Well, I wanna go down to the docks and play again." She stretched. "It's getting too quiet." She got up and picked up her metal…thing.

"Hey now-!"

And Yuri interrupted the lovely conversation, "Leave the girls alone, mister shady." Both girls seemed shocked to see him, and he noticed a bit worriedly that they seemed to recognize him. Well, they don't seem like the sort to be bounty hunters, or to run to the knights, so Yuri figured he didn't need to worry.

"Come on, Nephry. I think this place is in need of a bit more music!" Jade's dark hazel eyes lit up as she spoke.

Nephry grinned at Jade and waved to the men as her dark blue eyes sparkled slightly, "Alright then~!" She sat on the fence with her back facing the hill.

"No, no, no! Turn around!" Jade stared at the other girl, lifting a large metal thing. "I don't want to have to run down the hill with Beastie because you leaned too far backward and fell down the hill."

Nephry sighed and swung her legs over the fence and sat down again with her back to Jade. "Fine… Fury Sparks?"

Jade grinned. "Yes~!" She paused. "Don't you mean Spark's Scattering? Unless you want to serenade people…"

Nephry turned her head and stuck her tongue out at Jade. "Ready?" She moved the gleaming instrument towards her face.

The other girl stood and proved herself taller than Nephry. "Yeah." She put the black part of the brassy instrument into her mouth after inhaling. She exhaled and produced a surprisingly deep sound out of the bell. "Tune." And then she played something that sounded like a fog horn, deeper than the first noise.

"I can't play that low! Play concert Bb!" Nephry demonstrated with a clear high note.

"I can't play that high without sounding like a dying duck!" Jade flailed her arms. "How about this?" She made a noise between the two extremes using what Yuri guessed was 'Beastie'.

Nephry nodded and they began adjusting the top/left part of their instruments. "Sounds good now~."

"So then…." Jade began to quickly swap between two notes on her Beastie shortly before Nephry began playing her silver instrument. At first it just sounded like the two wind instruments, then guitars and drums added in their sounds from nowhere. As soon as they got to the 'beginning' again Jade took her instrument out of her mouth. "I hate having to walk down the road, that always leads me away from you~. Holding it in I walk away without looking back." Strangely, the music continued playing in the background.

"Feeling this way so unjustified, I feel my heart can escape my pride~. Forever since that day I can't get you out of my mind," Nephry sounded annoyed. Her voice was much higher than Jade's. "It's like I'm."

Jade took over, "Living in a dream, trapped within a loop."

"Circling on eternally," both sang, "going on, to meet when our Fu~ry Sparks!" Jade stopped singing.

"The memories of those days are all gone without a trace~." Nephry quietly sang.

Jade sang with a smirk, "The feelings forever thrown away and locked without A Key!"

Both girls sang, "We were once one but are now two, forever torn apart."

Nephry sang quietly alone again, "Going and going until at last our shadows~"

Jade joined in, "Can finally touch the light."

The girls grinned at each other and continued playing for a bit before Nephry sang. "Righting the wrongs and punishing crimes~. I wonder what happened to those times? The peaceful days when I didn't worry about anything~."

Jade rolled her eyes and sang alone again, " Watching the days pass idly by. Peacefulness driving me insane, Thinking of the days when, Life didn't mean a thing~. As if when"

"Thinking of the past, does me any good." Nephry sang alone again.

"Like it even matters," Jade sounded mocking, and Nephry just shrugged as they sang. "When we meet again, the Fury Sparks Start Up Once More~!"

Jade smirked, "And right now, at this time, no need to ask me why~!"

Nephry smiled slightly, "We need to settle all of our differences right Here And Now!"

Both girls sang, "What was once one is now two , There is no going back."

"Repeating, repeating, All of the words you had to say~!" Jade grinned.

"Brings us back to this day~!" Nephry smiled as they finished together. (Fury Sparks, lyrics by MosesxSandorx247 on youtube. Us singing is "Fury Sparks with Sibling"...)

"Alright!" Nephry held up a hand for a high five. "…And don't lick me!"

Jade retracted her tongue. "Aw, but that's no fun!"

Yuri looked back to the Old Man he'd been talking to.

"As I was sayin', I saw a rough-looking guild group moving to the northwest not too long ago." The Old Man closed an eye. Yuri rubbed his chin. "The Knights can't go an' turn a blind eye to them, can they?" the other man smiled slightly.

"Rough-looking… Was it the Blood Alliance?" Yuri asked. The two girls had sat back on the bench and were arguing. Yuri couldn't tell what they were arguing about as it involved 'Every Planet Every Star' and 'The End of a Thought'. He decided to ignore them.

"Beats me." The purple coated man shrugged.

"By the way, what was your business back there anyway?"

The other man turned away. "Nothin' special. I was looking for an 'apatheia'."

"An 'apatheia'?"

"Supposed to be like a really strong core." He shrugged. "I heard it was there, but I guess I had the wrong information."

"I see… an 'apatheia'…."

"Oh! Yuri!" Captain Karol yelled, "Hey, over here!" Yuri and the old man turned to look in Karol's direction. Estelle and Rita stood next to him.

"Argh! I'll get you old man!" Rita charged toward Yuri and the old man.

"Well, this'll be interesting." Nephry sounded amused.

"Hmm. Maybe I'd best be off, now. See ya, ladies." The old man winked at the two girls and turned around again.

"Yeah, the Amazoness has emerged." Yuri nodded. The purple coated man waved and ran off.

"Wait, dammit! I'm gonna beat you senseless!" Rita yelled, stopping next to Yuri before running after the old man again.

Karol panted, "Yuri, why didn't you stop him?"

"He said he was terribly misunderstood."

"What? What does that mean?" Karol caught his breath.

Rita stalked back over. "…He got away." She glared in the direction the old man had gone. "I'll get him one of these days…"

"You should leave him be." Yuri advised. "Going after guys like him is just a waste of energy." Estelle caught up, panting. "You all right?"

"…Just let me… take a … little break." The pinkette gasped.

"Sure, you can have a little one. But then we've gotta go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Well, we need to follow the Blood Alliance to get back the lower quarter's blastia, but for now, the inn. It's getting late." Yuri explained.

"So, you got a lead on where to go next?" Estelle tilted her head.

"Yeah, I heard that a shady group from a guild was headed to the northwest. It might be them."

Karol frowned. "To the northwest of here…the only city I can think of in that direction would be one that was destroyed in an earthquake."

Estelle frowned slightly. "What could they want to do in a place like that?"

"Hmm, good question." Yuri muttered.

"And yet you still want to go?" Rita demanded.

"I'm just saying we should go and check it out." Yuri shrugged. "Let's go to the inn, now."

"Okay!"

"Wait a minute…." Rita looked at the two girls. "What are you two doing to that formula?"

"What do you mean?" Jade asked, pausing in her playing. It was the same song they heard shortly after they arrived.

"It doesn't look right."

Nephry stopped playing as soon as Jade started again. "What do you mean?"

"I told you, the formula doesn't look right!"

"But we aren't using a formula!" Nephry frowned as Jade blinked. "We're playing a Score…."

"No, you're using a formula." Rita crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "But you're using it to add to your music instead of casting anything…"

Jade shrugged. "Exactly. We're playing a Score."

"We know we're doing magic, but…." Nephry shrugged.

"Isn't that what music is?" Jade grinned, the girls speaking as if one. The music kept playing, even though neither of them were.

Rita scowled at the pair of girls. "You're coming with me!"

"Why?" Nephry asked as Jade shrugged, "Okay."

"You just are!"

"Let us pack up our instruments then…." Nephry mumbled as Rita tried to tug her away. "Jade, can you grab my case? I don't think she's gonna let me get it."

"Sure." Jade let go of her Beastie, but it didn't fall. She grinned and grabbed the shorter girl's case. Yuri noticed a black harness was attached to the huge instrument, a contraption that went over her shoulders and about her ribs. Jade handed Nephry her case, grabbed a sling and slung that onto her back. "After you, my lady." Jade swept a bow and followed with a slight smirk.

Rita glared at her and dragged Nephry down to the inn, asking the girl about 'Scores' and what exactly they thought they were doing with those.

"Oh, right!" Estelle ran up to Jade. "I'm Estelle." She offered a hand and smiled.

Jade waved a hand. "I'm Jade."

Nephry told Rita, "I told you, all we do is remember how it sounded and then focus on that sound! Or when we have a Score, we think about how it should be played. That's it!"

"But you aren't using a formula!"

"Exactly!"

Jade leaned down to throw her arms about Rita's shoulders. "If you feel something when we play, then it's working," She grinned. "That's what music's supposed to do."

Rita spun and tried to hit Jade, who had already backed up. "What are you trying to say?"

"Music makes emotions." Nephry shrugged. "The more expressive it is, the stronger the emotion most of the time."

"Most of the time?" Jade raised an eyebrow at the shorter of the pair. "You sure it's only most of the time, Nephry?"

"I don't think Search a Seal – Tethe'Alla is very expressive, at the beginning, and it still manages to be rather creepy."

"Yeah, at the beginning. You can't judge a song by the first five seconds or half of the song. Take the Eighth Candle, the first half is quiet and the second half is a dance." And they went on to talk about things that made absolutely no sense to Yuri.

Nephry shrugged. "I don't think Faust is very expressive."

Jade rolled her eyes. "Considering how fast Lewis makes you guys play that….."

"Explain!" Rita demanded, grabbing Jade and Nephry's shirts.

"I'll go get us rooms at the inn." Yuri said, taking the offered gald from Jade.

"We already have a room," Nephry called after him.

"But we need to renew it!" Jade reminded Nephry. Yuri kept the inn door open so he could hear what they said.

"Rita Mordio."

"Huh?" Nephry sounded confused.

"That's my name."

"Oh, yes. We know who you are." Nephry sounded like she smiled as Jade just said in a rather odd, stiff tone, "We know who you are."

"Oh right!" Captain Karol jumped in the air, judging by the thunks Yuri heard. "I'm Karol Capel! I'm a member of the Hunting Blades!" Repede barked.

"The dog's Repede." Rita explained. The mismatched group entered the inn with Jade and Nephry.

"Wow, what a strange group of people." A woman muttered to her companion as the rest of the group caught up to Yuri at the desk. "A dog and even a couple of kids…and they don't really look like they're all related, either."

"As the gateway to all of Tolbyccia, Capua Torim sees its fair share of interesting folks." Her male companion shrugged. "A motley crew like theirs isn't too uncommon among all of the guilds that pass through here."

"Yeah, but I could swear that I've seen that young man somewhere before…" The woman frowned.

"You too, ma'am? To tell the truth, he looks familiar to me, too. I wonder where I've seen his face…" The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Yuri turned away from the pair as the desk clerk told him, "Your room is the last one down, on the right. Have a pleasant stay." The clerk gave him a key.

"Sure, thanks." Yuri waved and started to make his way to the room.

"Brunels, you only paid for one more night."

"Kay." Nephry waved a hand absently and walked to the second-to-last room on the right.

Yes, FrozenInFlight is my sister. No, none of the names that we will use in this story will tell you our actual names. Nephry uses a flute, Jade uses a baritone saxophone(Beastie) and an alto sax(Mini me).

Tell us what you think~