connor est le (grandemauvais) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-03-04 22:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | phantom, wolf |
Who: Wolf and Phantom
What: Wolf gets to hear some pretty music.
Where: An abandoned church in the Tales door.
When: After V-Day.
Warnings/Rating: None!
Wolf had never heard of ‘Valentine’.
He had only learned of the holiday when the hotel sent him its directive, someone to give a gift. The name hadn’t rung a single bell, but one of the books in the Beast’s library (in the snowstorm, it was becoming a regular haunt) told him that Valentine was a martyr. Martyrs seemed to him a peculiarly human invention. Glorifying suffering and suffering in the image of a sufferer all seemed entirely pointless to him. At least they’d managed to transform this martyr into a reason to celebrate.
The nature of the holiday defined, he still had been forced to stretch the limits of his knowledge of human beings to come up with a suitable offering for the man who called himself ‘Phantom’. He had heard singing, and music with perhaps a stringed instrument or a recorder as villagers played for each other by the fireside. He had listened, huddled in the cold and the snow, and watched as they were warmed by the strange strains and each other’s company. But he had never played, and he had sung only as wolves did, with a single voice. He had heard church bells, but never an organ, a new type of worship instrument. So complex, this religion, so many layers of spectacle and belief he didn’t know the first thing about.
It wasn’t difficult to find an abandoned house of worship in the towns closest to the forest. Some of them had been cleared by plague, others by famine in the long winter, others by fear of the creature that attacked from the forest. He remembered a tiny town nestled against the edge of the forest, with low walls around the perimeter. They had kept the Wolf out, but not sickness. Those with wealth had fled, and those too poor to flee had stayed and died. He had lingered for a short while and then left for plumper pastures. There had been no sense in wasting time on a place that smelled so of sickness and of death.
Now he was at the town again, desolate and quiet. The bodies had been carted away long ago by grieving relatives (after a suitable time to let the sickness fade) and no one had dared move back to the place.
He had come as a wolf, diving into the snow from the front gate of the castle, changing in the drifts with a scream and blood dripping from his teeth, carrying his clothes on his back, tied with a rope. He was learning. There were practicalities to attend to. He’d been caught unaware when he stumbled badly clad into a snowstorm, but he knew now to take precautions for that inevitable moment when he would be forced back to his vulnerable, gangly human form. It was only the second time he had managed to shift back, and running through the forest gave him a sense of cool, of purpose, of home. Doubts remained. One day soon he would find the village he had seen in his memories, the one with the crying mother and the stoic father. But today was not that day.
When he reached the village, Wolf nudged the front gate open with his nose. The street beyond was quiet. Not even the wind blew here. It was a grave site, now - some of the dead had been buried under the dirt floors of the homes they had died in. He could smell their rot, even through the ice.
The church was at the end of the main street, beside the houses where the wealthy had once lived. They were all of stone, the church and the houses, dominion of those who could afford to keep out the cold. He slipped inside through the wide open door, and padded across the threshold.
He changed again there, and when he was done, slumped against the padlocked inner door, he caught his breath as he looked out the front and down the street to the gate. From here, all seemed almost as it should be. If not for the absence of smoke from the houses and the subtle scent of decomposition, one might almost think this was still a living town, so untouched it was from when its inhabitants had departed the earth. An eerie sight, the works of men without men.
He clothed himself quickly. He’d learned how biting the cold could be to unprotected skin, and wasn’t anxious to repeat the act. Covered in a wool cloak and thick clothes, he yanked at the padlock until the rusted chain broke.
He pushed the door open. Here was the site he had hoped to see. He remembered hearing an unearthly noise as the rich had fled the town in plague time. At the time it had sounded like a great beast, locked in the stone house all the humans flocked to on Sundays. He had words for these things now, he had chuch, and he had organ. But all he had of the music was a few strange, unsettling notes heard from the underbrush. He wanted more. He was hungry to know what metal pipes and delicate keys had in common that let them make sound.
He had left his key with the Phantom. All there was to do now was wait. He traced his fingers over the keys, not pressing down, and tried to memorize them with his eyes. His too long nails and naked fingers were deceptively light, trailing over ivory with almost fearful curiosity. A great beast locked in a stone house, waiting to scream.
Perhaps the Phantom should have declined his Anonymous Cupid’s offer to visit, but the lure of someone who wanted to listen to his music was simply too strong. It overrode logic and good sense. Decades he had spent alone, dreaming of the impossible, of a day when the world would hear his compositions and love them. Not him, no, the dream of being loved was short-lived and died before it had truly lived. But all dreams died eventually, and he had resigned himself to solitude, to playing only for himself, where sound echoed down empty halls carved of stone where water rippled as though it heard. There was Christine, of course; his Christine, whom he thought might understand, might appreciate his music, but she was gone and he missed her terribly. When she would return, he did not know, and he was left with an Opera House missing (in his mind) its star and an intolerable Vicomte who dared pretend to know a thing about music.
And so, regardless of what the man Neil thought, he went. Door after door was tried until the key found its lock, and after a step over the threshold the Phantom emerged, cloaked in black, a hood pulled over his head and his mask securely in place, brilliant white against darkness. There was a chill, but he did not mind. Behind him, the door no longer led to the hotel, but to the interior of a very empty house. He glanced back once, and then he stepped out onto the street, pulling his hood further down. Yet it was quiet, and there did not seem to be anyone here. No one who ventured outdoors, at least. He liked the silence. He liked the lack of people, too. It made him feel safe.
Still, he moved quickly. The sketch of the organ was too grand to be in a home; it was much larger than the one he had painstakingly built himself in the caverns beneath the Opera House. He saw the church, and he decided that was the likeliest place for it to be. He had never been inside a church before. Oh, he had seen them, admired the architecture, but he had never stepped foot past the doors. If there was a God, he was as cruel as the humans He had created, and he knew he would find no mercy within holy walls. But he wanted to play, wanted to see, and so he ventured on.
At the door, he hesitated. The Phantom had only known fear, hatred, and scorn; whoever had invited him here might treat him much the same. He was not afraid of being harmed; no, not that. But what if he played for this stranger, and the stranger laughed? What if he was cruel? Outside approval should not have mattered to him, but deep, deep down, he still craved it. He knew he could turn and leave, and nothing would have changed. He could return to his own door and wait for Christine to return. He could.
Instead, he opened the door and entered the church.
His footsteps were quiet, but when he pushed open the second door, the wood squeaked. The Phantom slipped through the space he’d created and regarded the young man bent over the organ-- and oh, it was marvelous. “Bonjour.”
Wolf's head canted slightly to the side as he regarded the recipient of his stationary gift. His dark cloak concealed much of his body, but it did not hide the strength in his shoulders and the careful hand still poised on the keys. His blonde curls were much too long and an absolute mess, hanging into his eyes, but he hardly noticed. The eyes, though, were worth remarking on, black and still as the glossy swirl of volcanic glass.
He had regarded himself in a glass, once, at the castle, grimacing and scrutnizing. He had only seen himself before briefly, in still scummy pools in the forest before Rose found him. He could not say if he had what humans thought of as a well-formed face. It all seemed the same to him. He could identify, though, that there was something in his look that wasn't quite right. If the vision he had seen was true, perhaps that was what the couple in the clearing had seen when he was still small. Something a tick past human, or a tick less.
His curiosity had all the intensity of childhood with the savage edge of brutal experience. "I think it works," he said, tipping his head back to look up at the massive pipes. "It should," he added. It should, because he wanted it to. He didn't remark on the Phantom's mask. Not yet. He was thinking about it as he looked at the organ. Was it a human punishment, he wondered? Was it a strange custom no one had told him about yet? "What is this?" he asked, pointing to his own face, covering one side briefly with the flat of his hand.
The Phantom longed for beauty, but it was an ideal within his mind, that which he could never attain. He was a monster and so, when he looked upon the stranger, he simply saw a man who had what he did not, regardless of how strange others might think him. Christine was epitome of beauty and so he did not need to find it in anyone else. He appeared normal, though his eyes were certainly a sight to marvel at; he had never seen such eyes before. But there was no fear, only a mild curiosity, the same curiosity he held for whatever world he had found himself in. And, truly, he had come for the organ. His fingers ached to play.
“We will see,” he said, for it would only take a moment to test whether or not it did indeed work. He hoped it did, and he hoped for so little. His strides were swift and sure, but he stopped halfway when the man asked his question and used his own face as demonstration. He stiffened, the side of his mouth that was visible tightening into a line. “It is a mask. You have never seen one?”
The Wolf read expressions rather well. He read the faces and bodies of humans better than their voices, where he could read broadly but sometimes without the subtle underpinnings of meaning that he ought to find there, something he was still working through day to day. In the Phantom's stiffened posture he saw fear and a creature on the defensive, and he paused a moment there, looking. "No," he said. His experience with humans relied mostly on his encounters with them on the fringes of the forest, his observations from behind the trees. He had never seen a mask like the one the Phantom wore, smooth and white and pearlescent like a half shell. He had no idea what it was meant for - was it a decoration? Was it protection?
He considered asking, but the Phantom had obviously disliked the question, and while tact was not the Wolf's strong suit, he very much wanted to hear the instrument played. "It is right," he stated, a question in it. He was almost sure that this massive...thing in the room with them was the instrument that had been requested, but since this was his first hands-on experience with once, he could not know.
Perhaps there was no need for masks here. Perhaps this man had simply never encountered one who did. The Phantom’s mask was necessity, flawless beauty to cover his monstrosity, but there were other masks, ones men and women and children wore in jest. He was different. He had never met another like himself and it would not surprise him to learn that there were none; his view of world was very limited. “I see,” was all he said, remembering just in time to curb his French, though the accent remained.
He was pleased that the man did not press the issue. He didn’t want questions. “Oui, yes. It is right.” Whether it worked or not, the organ was what it was meant to be. Briefly, he wished he could live somewhere aboveground, like this, dark and quiet with space and high ceilings. He moved then, step by step, until he reached the organ and waited, perfectly still, for the man to step back. He was not often in such close proximity to others, but he could manage. So long as he was not touched, at least, he could. Gloved fingers tested the keys, a note here, higher, lower, and while the sound was not perfectly tuned it was, he decided, acceptable.
A breath and then, eyes closed, he began to play.
The Wolf heard the accent, but it did not jar. There were many men in the villages who he had heard with such accents, from kingdoms beyond the one in which he had always lived. He had never been to such places, never traveled far, always staying within the confines of the forest. It was the territory he had been born into, and the place where he ought to have died. But fate had made other plans.
He slid back, and, instead of sitting on one of the mouldering, worm-eaten pews, he sat down on the dusty, dirty floor close to the organ. He settled onto the ice cold stone, wrapping his cloak around himself. He watched as the Phantom sat down at the pews, and he watched, intent, as he put his fingers on the keys.
Then there was an absolute cacophony of staccato sound, and he ducked his head to avoid whatever threat must be so immense to create such a noise. He started up, and stepped back from the organ, teeth bared, hands tangled in his hair against his ears, ready for whatever came next.
But there was only more sound, more blasts of wind from the beast with its metal lungs, and the fluttering fingers of the man with the mask. He thought for a moment that he had been tricked, but no, this was music, like the singing he had heard once, but more, thrumming through his body with its volume and power. He lowered his hands away from his ears, and he listened. It was so loud that it hurt, but that didn't seem to matter. He was transfixed.
The Phantom had never had an audience before. Christine, yes, Christine had listened, he had played for her, but that was different. She had not asked. She had not wanted to hear. This strange man was the first, and a part of him remained wary, half-expecting a trick, but he settled himself down on the floor as though he truly wanted to listen. And, until he began to play, he hadn’t fully believed that the man had never heard the sound of an organ before. He did not need to look at the keys to know what to play and how; he could do so with his eyes closed, and he saw the man duck his head, watched him start back like a frightened animal with teeth bared. The Phantom himself had been feral, once, when he was younger, relying on such tactics as a defense. He watched, but not once did his playing falter, not once did he miss even a single note.
To him, this was beauty in the form of sound. Darkness, like his world, with a life of its own. He glanced over his shoulder once, to ensure his audience had not fled. He had not, and that pleased him. Then he closed his eyes, lost himself in the music, and always, when he finished, it felt like an eternity had passed. He ran his fingers over the keys, a fleeting thing, and opened his eyes. He said nothing, just waited.
The Wolf did nothing but breathe for a short while. He breathed, and he felt the echoes of the music ringing in his ears like church bells, the trails of notes from top to bottom, weaving around each other like shapes in the dark. It hurt, and it felt good, and it made him feel something indistinct that he had no name for. It was a difficult thing to admit, that an invention of humanity could cause such feeling. But it had, and it did. "Is this not a form of sorcery?" he asked. He seemed suspicious that anything could seem so like magic and yet be mundane, scrutinizing the man at the bench. There must be trickery in it, magic, human madness, something that made the air sing so.
There was birdsong in the wild, and there was the music of water and leaves. It was more like thunder, this, crackling and vibrating through the body, shaking down to the bones, harbinging terror and flashes of light. “I do not like sorcery,” he added, before his question could be answered. “But...that.” He paused, and he nodded. Yes, he would accept this witchcraft. It spun something indescribable and arresting around the soul.
Sorcery was, to the Phantom, that which the masses cried out when they could find no other explanation for what they sought to explain. Some might call his tricks, the illusions which he used to cultivate the belief that he truly was a ghost, sorcery, or magic, but in truth it was neither. It was skill, it was years upon years of practice, and it was the knowledge of people and how to use their nature against them. Music, however, was no sorcery, and he tipped his head to the side in puzzlement at the man’s use of the word. Or, upon further reflection, perhaps in a way it was. All that he knew of the world he had taught himself; he was not educated. No one had ever taught him anything. He had a sort of understanding as to how the organ worked, how other instruments worked, and he could build things, certain things, but even he found himself at a loss for words, spoken or otherwise, at how to explain the sound he could produce.
There was no chance to attempt an explanation, however, though he would have failed had he tried. “It is not the sorcery you speak of, je pense,” he said, after the man nodded. “But you like it? Truly?” He did not allow hope or expectation in his voice, but it was there if one looked hard enough, in the eyes behind his mask, as he turned to look upon his audience.
The Wolf was baffled by what he had heard, but perhaps it was not sorcery at all. The wind through a hollow tree made a sound a little like the howling organ - there were some similarities in shapes, and in the way the world worked. "I liked it," he said, without hesitation, his eyes boring through the mask as if they saw what lay beneath. There had been pain in the playing, and pain was plain to see, written on the man's face, slithering out from behind the mask. "Play again," he said, a moment later. His words echoed in the cavernous church, his black eyes widening a fraction. He clasped his hands tightly behind his back, and he waited for music.