Delilah Elric (black_delilah) wrote in best_deadly_sin, @ 2011-02-04 11:26:00 |
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Current music: | Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You - Stevie Nicks |
Entry tags: | black_delilah, dark_priest, father_lucifer, filia_ul_copt, haganenomore, hand_of_sorrow |
In your darkest hours, did you ever hear me sing?
(This is an open post if anyone feels the need to comment; and worry not, posts like this won't be a regular thing, and all but one song featured are just portions and snips, rather than the whole thing. A link to another post is at the end if you want to see the full lyrics without having to go hunt them down.)
The time had arrived. It was her big opening night, and Delilah felt barely up to the task. She had slept little, and what sleep she did achieve had been poor, after Envy's late night visit and Leah's arrival. Ignoring her teacher's protests, she made some last-minute revisions to the two sets of five song she was going to do. Not very many considering, but Cecilia made Greed agree to start her off easy as to not over-tire her voice by demanding too much too soon.
Delilah's stomach was twisted up in horrible knots as eight o'clock ticked ever closer, and she was dizzy from flight adrenaline as she somehow made her feet carry her out to the stage. It was a blur of faces and eyes watching her, dimmed and obscured by the brilliant lights pouring down on her, blinding her. The music was already starting, and she wanted to turn tail and run and call the whole thing off. But it was too late. So Delilah closed her eyes and tried to imagine everyone gone, tried to imagine the one person she rather doubted would be in the audience even if she didn't think he had returned to his own world.
"She sits among the pieces of broken glass and photographs," Delilah began, focusing on what all she had been taught to do while singing. "Reluctantly releases the last of what was her past. It struck without a warning, or did she just ignore the signs of those dark clouds forming behind her silver lines?"
She'd picked that song for a reason, and it was entirely too easy to, as Cecilia would put it, sing from the heart. "Someday days just roll on by without a gray cloud in the sky. She keeps telling herself 'I will make it on my own.' And her friends, they've all gone back to their lives, thinking she will be all right as she races through the night to make it home. The door, it slammed like thunder, and the tears, they fell like rain, and the warnings from her family whirl like a hurricane. She's drowning in emotion, and she cannot reach the shore. She's alive, but can she survive the storm?"
The next song was easier, as she imagined Envy standing there as he had stood before her in her apartment the night before. "The water is rising, the water is wide, and you're always standing on the other side. And then comes the moment I wait in the dawn with hours to lie here alone.
"And you seem so surprised that I'm feeling this way, how am I so lonely today? If you ever loved me the way I loved you, you would be lonely too. So here's to the lovers for old times' sake, who don't hold each other to the promise they break, and smile through the window and wave on the street, 'cause that's all you want now from me. Should I say something to put you at ease, or should I get down on my knees? If you ever loved me the way I loved you, you would be lonely too."
A little voice argued along with her throughout the song, trying to point out how unfair her choice was. But she didn't care. Seeing someone who was just still enough William that she could see the face he used to be all too easily, but far too much of someone else now to be William again... it wasn't fair.
"You can run, you can hide, love will still come to find you. You can turn it away, keep romancing your pain. You're the best at self defense, I say you've mastered the art. But baby, mine was a harmless heart."
She had selected the next song for her own sake, but as it began to unfold, hot tears stung her eyes as for just a moment, Delilah could almost picture his perspective in it all.
"There was someone in his past that he hasn't gotten over yet, each day's like the last, he just misses what he can't forget. It's just an empty space where something used to be, now he guards the gate but he's lost the key. So no one enters but no one leaves. There's a keeper for every flame."
She drew a deep breath to steady herself, to steady her voice, and discreetly wiped at a tear she could feel tickling her cheek. Eyes wide to dry them, she directed her gaze up to the ceiling, and could not help but smile, a small wistful twist to her lips, as she began the last song of the first set.
"Last night I had a crazy dream. A wish was granted just for me, it could be for anything. I didn''t ask for money, or a mansion in Malibu. I simply wished for one more day with you."
She'd loved that song since she first heard it, since she first rehearsed it, and it had lost none of the truth it held for her.
"One more day, one more time, one more sunset, maybe I'd be satisfied. But then again, I know what it would do; leave me wishing still for one more day-- leave me wishin' still for one more day-- leave me wishin' still for one more day... with you."
The sound of applause over the final notes startled her; not only had she not expected it, but a part of her had forgotten that everyone else was there. She flashed a smile, a stilted one, awkward and shy and embarrassed, and forced herself not to run off the stage.
She had a ten minute break, and suddenly it seemed like hardly enough as she entered her dressing room and downed two glasses of ice water before hurriedly changing from the knee-length, feminine blue dress and into a floor-length black gown that draped over her frame and rested on the edges of her shoulders. She combed out her hair, styling it back into place again before applying a dusting of hair spray, and hurried back to the stage.
The music had a faster tempo, a different sound and feel than the previous set, which was entirely in a genre called country. The second set, it was generally something called contemporary, although the first song was more of a soft rock, and the final was a well-known number decades older than anything else she would do that night.
The first song took her more practice, and it was not a last minute addition. But she liked what it said, and she and her teacher both felt it would fit for her on the stage, provided she could get the hang of it.
"You say I have everything, well, I'm living on dreams and chains. But, I sing for the things money can't buy. You say you don't believe, well, could you just look at me? Look deep into my eyes, my love. Well, have you ever been in love? Have you touched the soul of someone? Did the fear inside you make you turn and run? I'll take off my cape for you, I'll take down my hair for you, anything you want me to do, my love. Well, I'll sit home and wait for you, oh, darling, there's nothing that I'd rather do. Anything you want me to do, my love."
Her next song was not her favorite by that artist, although she did like it well enough. But her favorite was still out of her range of rehearsal, and she wasn't ready to perform it. But as the opening strains segued in with the end of the first song, hot tears pricked at her eyes again as suddenly, the words forming from her lips sounded less like her, and more like him. But it was the second verse that had connected with her, the first she barely noticed until now.
"Don't say goodbye, love. I've waited such a long, long time. If you could see the evil days I've fallen upon, have mercy, love. Don't say goodbye, love. I've fallen away from the sun. I'm calling, and there's no one below or above. Don't leave me, love."
Maybe, just maybe, the next time he came back, to check up on Leah, she could somehow find the words to convince him to stay for once and for all.
"I've lost the heavens, I don't remember how or when, but I do not think to gaze again. Help me stand alone, love. My God, it's lonely here. I cannot feel, my heart is gone, I'm all alone, I touch no one. Help me, love, I'm fading. Have mercy, love. I only ask a kindness. I've fallen into darkness, and I cannot find the sun. Have mercy, love. Remember for a moment. Remember me in roses. Remember me to God."
She struggled over the words as her voice threatened to thicken as the song echoed so many of her own thoughts, the unrelenting loneliness and numbness. But while Cecilia taught her to sing from the heart, to make the audience feel the song, she did teach her to not get so wrapped up in the song that she lost her own voice. As the notes grew quiet and flowed onto the next number, she steadied herself.
Stop thinking of how empty everything has been. The next song was easier, turning her inner gaze to the future as she tried to think of what she could say that might make the difference between him going and staying.
"When you forget your name, the pleasure can't disguise your pain, and you don't feel the same. I won't forget the love you made. What a lovely day to shape your dream, and you don't even have to sleep. You can make it what you want to be. You can fly away, you can change your name, have a happy face, it could be so real. All I can do is love you to pieces, give you a shoulder to cry when you need it. When the day is long, and the night is coming down on you, all I can do, it's all that I can do."
All music faded save for Cecilia's expert playing on the piano for the next song. It was gentle and warm, if bittersweet.
"If I could know within my heart that you were lonely too, I would be happy just to hold the hands I love upon this winter night with you. The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim. The shades of night are lifting. The morning light steals across my windowpane, where webs of snow are drifting. If I could only have you near to breathe a sigh or two, I would be happy just to hold the hands I love and to be once again with you."
The final song was one of the first that Cecilia made her learn with the intention of performing it someday, one of her own personal favorites. It had intimidated Delilah, listening to the original performer's beautiful voice on record, but the fact that her teacher felt she hadn't butchered her favorite song gave Delilah a bit more confidence with it.
"There's a saying old, says that love is blind, still we're often told 'seek, and ye shall find'. So I'm going to seek a certain man I've had in mind."
With nine songs flawlessly behind her, Delilah finally found the nerve to put her focus on all the faces and eyes staring up at her beyond the glare of the lights.
"Looking everywhere, haven't found him yet. He's the big affair I cannot forget, only man I ever think of with regret. I'd like to add his initial to my monogram. Tell me, where's the shepherd for this lost lamb? There's a somebody I'm longing to see. I hope that he turns out to be someone who'll watch over me.
"I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood. I know I could always be good to one who'll watch over me. Although he may not be the man some girls think of as handsome, to my heart, he carries the key. Won't you tell him please, to put on some speed, follow my lead, oh, how I need someone to watch over me."
This time, the applause didn't startle her, and after an uncertain glance toward Cecilia, who gestured sternly, prompting her, she gave the audience a slight curtsy before fleeing the stage, feeling flushed and shaky from the performance-fueled adrenaline.