[ Beth walks around to the chair and the instrument beside it. Shiny wood and an intricately carved soundhole, like a flower blooming under the strings, the head bent back. And it's definitely not a guitar: the neck's too wide, the body's reminiscent of an egg sliced in half. ]

Holy crap. [ That's under her breath. To Bastien, she says-- ] It's, uh, a lot of strings. But it's beautiful.

[ And he said she could see how it compares, so that probably means she can touch it, right? She looks up at him questioningly, a hand stretching out to pick it up by its broad neck, before actually taking hold of it and trying to figure out how to hold it. Her best guess is basically like a guitar--under her right arm, balanced against her thigh--and once it's safely tucked in against her side, she strums the strings experimentally. All of them first, then each set of two, getting a sense of the sound.

It feels about a million times more delicate than an actual guitar, partly because it belongs to someone else and partly because it's so much lighter than what she's used to. Everything about it is finely made. ]

It's...kinda close. [ The notes for each open string are just slightly off, but she's not about to retune it to what she's used to hearing. ] Like a twelve-string guitar. But a different shape. And this fingerboard's huge.