hand-drums and cymbals and chimes of wood, metal, and glass woven into skirts both dense and transparent. It had — to be honest — been the single part of Low that Seph had ever visited prior living here. He strode past the undulating bodies and smiled, declining, at beckoning hands and eyes, and felt an enormous sense of nostalgia that welled up in him with an unwarranted intensity.

Other things welled up in other places too, but the rami had moved now to constricting him, and he slapped it a couple times, annoyed.

"Quit it already," he muttered, and spat something else out, just for the fun of it, a little obscenity that, back then, he had only been able to get away with when he visited Low. Now that he always could, it hadn't been as much fun. Even now the word struggled a little in his mouth, fitting itself into newer, older spaces, and he felt uncomfortable, more aware of how time had passed and how he had changed within it. There was the missing tooth, for one, and the other tooth that he'd had painted permanently with a small Fuller. He figured it'd be more novel to show off, and he'd get less shit about it ten years later. At least, definitely less shit than if he'd gotten it on his arms or legs, like the other friends going with him.

The west district was the most sprawled of Bazaar — not surprisingly, since half of it was cushions and rugs and lean-tos with uncommon elegance despite their transience. Strange to see the inside of a place as cushy and beautiful as the inside of a box of chocolate while the outside was smeared with whatever. Still, despite the fact that the rami was clearly not amused, he made a point of wandering through the west district, held the rami-bracelet close to those chiming skirts. Who knew? Maybe it'd finally get turned off.