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Alcibiades' voice is a hum along with the cicadas. One doesn't notice it when he speaks, his lisp overshadowing it, but his S is always a little thick and soft, rather than perfectly sharp, a typical Athenian trait only a little exacerbated, and now it disappears into the cicadas' song. His voice is the rumble of a stream, of an olive press. He speaks and Socrates doesn't understand a single word, and the summer heat might be to blame, or the heat of the physical proximity to an Alcibiades bare-chested and relaxed with his hair still wet and fragrant. He's moving his knee side to side a little as he speaks, keeping time like the flute keeps time for the oarsmen, and Socrates wonders if Alcibiades isn't good at giving speeches, but incapable of speaking without doing so. He's talking about some plans for the yard, some news from the market, because he hasn't had the chance to talk to Socrates in almost nine days and it's customary now that he must always catch Socrates up if they'd gone a few days apart. But is he still giving a speech? Even though his words are loose and slurred and the sentences not properly structured? And, as with all his speeches, there's the underlying intent. Socrates can't make out the words, and he forgets each sentence as it flies off into the southern midsummer breeze that has picked up, but he recognizes that underlying intent. He feels it between his ribs. The cicadas are a mercy, so that he doesn't have to be distracted by the words, and he can bask in the company. For now. For a little while, before the afternoon fades into evening and the heat stops warming his mind and heart to that consistency that makes it soft and weak.