A pale-skinned man steps out through the windmill's doorway holding a pear-shaped hurdy-gurdy with both hands, as a cleric might hold an sacred tome, as a warrior might hold a sword above water, or as a mercenary might hold a mysterious, large, and jingling bag. He blinks several out the initial impact of the sunlight and--turning his head sharply away from the instrument--sneezes.

Keg powder. Arco's eyes water slightly. He skirts a few yards around the Mill's girth until the din inside becomes only a faint hint of song. With his back to the sturdy walls, the man smoothes out his coat, withdraws a small dagger, and sits down with the hurdy-gurdy, staring into the musical instrument's depths. Then a pause.

A very long one. Arco's shadow moves several degrees in restlessness.

Finally, he laughs, with the sort of laugh someone might laugh if they're in front of a mirror and ho-ho-ho'ing in different pitches to see what sounds the most natural and more importantly, more attractive. It is an uncertain laugh, refined by Goronic humor and the pensive sniggles of cut-throat gangsters.

Then the Vagabond gets to work. First, he very carefully slides the fine edge of his knife under the top of the box and slices around it. Reaching in, he cuts through a couple of strings and removes a small jangling organism. What happens next is too complicated to describe. The hands, with their hint of grey in the sun's rays, move deftly in and out of the hurdy-gurdy's cavity, displacing and replacing parts and strings and shavings of wood. Small piles of miscellaneous materials form around him, Sawdust forms a sheet on his pants. The dagger's hilt darkens from use.

Then Arco withdraws a bundle of wood from behind him. From a smaller, cylindrical branch, he carves several curious-looking wooden rectangular prisms. From a larger piece, a new wheel is fitted for the hurdy-gurdy's crank. Shavings flick and drop.

Time passes. The sun grows weary of watching the mechanical diligence of the small being below. The moon takes the night shift, and from its white light, Arco continues to work, his hands almost glowing red from fatigue and finer callouses than they are used to in the mines of the mountains. From its light the finishing touches are applied. The man outside the Windmill strings his creation, setting the wheel and fibers to painstakingly precise contact.

Arco turns the instrument on his side and rests it between his knees. His right hand reaches for the crank as his left fingers steal over the top of the instrument and find their way to the dark, wooden keys. And then they move.

Frankly, the music is terrible. But the player seems not to care. For a few minutes the wheel spins, rubbing against the strings, droning with the melody keys operated by the left hand. And gradually, the song slows, and dies away. Instrument sleeping on his lap, Arco begins to snore.

OOC: Here's an encyclopedia entry for the type of Hurdy Gurdy that Arco has fashioned (from the "pre-programmed" kind). The pictures should help. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy

Pende was imply minding his own business, milling about looking for hammers and such things, when he is assalted by a cacophony.

Pende: ararh, such a ohrrible sound. It must be some sort of monster!

Pende walkstoward the strange sounds, but notices the music dying away. In place of the music. He insteads finds a meat monster snoring, holding that strange instrament that the man inside the windmill was using earlier. Perahsp this guy should buy a new hurdy gurdy," Pende thinks.

The music isn't appealing. It is worse than that. As Pende said, it's horrible. The instrument it is coming from must be broken. If that thing is an instrument, someone must be playing it. Of course, Arco, that unique fellow.

Music (if the tangle of sounds Darilan is hearing is music) has a certain power. It has some control on the mind. It also sound good to different people, based on their personality.

Arco is someone he admires and wants to understand. He fears for him as well, upon recently hearing that Arco joined Blind's Gang. He doesn't want to see a nice fellow transformed by greed. Darilan stands still, and listens to the music. He wants to see what Arco is like on the inside, how his mind works. So far, all he can tell is that his mind is like a broken hurdy gurdy, but he will keep trying; he will keep listening.

Time passes,
The moon leaves the stage, chased off by an impatient sun.

people move....
His back still to the wall, Arco stirs.

Like a river's flow, it never ends...
Looking down at himself, he starts to get to dry the morning dew off of himself, only--

A childish mind will turn to noble ambition...
--to, with a look of surprise, notice that the instrument in his lap also seems to be damp.

Young love will become deep affection...
The vagabond stares intently at the hurdy-gurdy for a moment, as if expecting it to start playing itself at any moment, and you begin to think that his expression is more one of... satisfaction, than surprise.

The clear water's surface reflects growth...
There is no movement from instrument or owner, until Arco finally lifts the hurdy-gurdy by the neck and hefts it head-high, staring at the slightly glazed surface.

Straightening up, he sheathes his dagger. The man's gaze drifts to a drier, shadier area not too far away. As he reaches the canopy of the tree, he withdraws a crumpled sheet of parchment and a plain-looking writing device. This time there is no hesitation. Almost before sitting down, Arco writes in his own clumsy scrawl:

~Sonata of Restoration~

After that, there are no words. Quill exuding lines of numbers, dashes, dots, and small oval shapes, the page is gradually transformed from a blank to space to...

Arco sets the hurdy-gurdy on his lap and turns the crank quietly, fingering the keys absentmindedly. The lack of skill is unmistakable, but amid the steady pipe-like drone the keener-eared might sense out a melody.

The Sheikah continues to scribble along, adding to the jumble of figures until he reaches the bottom of the page. Again, he picks up the stringed instrument and fiddles with it a little. There is the faintest hint of an undercurrent carrying a tune along. At least, Arco hears it. By that point the second page of the composition seems to have written itself, a smorgasbord of straight lines, curved marks, and inky circles.

A few words in Goronic end the scribing. Arco stands up, tucks the hurdy-gurdy under his arm, and stares at--admires--both sides of the sheet.

Sonata of Restoration? Hmm... I have a flute, yet not the talent to use it as of now.
(Aside) The tune I was sort of making up outside the Windmill was the Dirge of Drought, the opposite of the Song of Storms in every way. If it were in a game, it would summon a dry wind that would lower the level of water and make plants shrivel, especially Magic Beans.

Noticing that the Hylian seems to have read the title of the song from the back, Arco looks up from the parchment. On a whim, he looks for the flute around Arthur's person and smiles slightly.

"Flute--from the boy in the Forest?" asks Arco. "Good flutes there," he adds.

OOC: Neat ^^. This is a song of your own invention, then?