The flute is my favorite instrument, too.
Who: Elphaba Thropp and Lúthien Tinúviel What: Elphie gets caught in her secret passion Where: Gym changing rooms When: Monday evening Rating: PG Status: Complete!
Elphaba had worked out hard. She’d run nearly ten miles, rowed for a bit and done half an hour on the ellipticals. For some reason, she felt like she had a lot of energy to burn off today - maybe her friendly/antagonistic texting with her sister had worked her up more than she thought. She was alone in the changing room, had locked her stuff in the locker again after pulling out her shampoo and shower gel, wrapping her large towel around her chest and draping the smaller one over her arm. She opened the cubicle and hung the towels on the locked door before moving into the shower and placing her products in the corner shelf. Setting the water to a nice and warm temperature, she started to wash. In the only place she currently felt comfortable within herself, she let her voice free and reverberate off the shower room tiles. It was a song she had learned long ago from her mother; West Side Story’s Somewhere.
Lúthien had been exploring her new city for several days now, hoping to have an idea of it's flavor and personality before the flu running rampant started to shut things down. She had a feeling it would get worse, before it got better, but the singer was ever an optimist. She walked into the gym, determined to understand what drove people to such places. Most of her working out was done at home.
She entered the changing rooms and started to strip. About half-way through, she heard singing. A smile crossed her lips, and she approached the shower, tilting her head to listen. Before long, she joined in on the song.
Elphaba didn’t hear the second voice at first, she was making more than enough noise on her own, but the moment she did hear it, she clamped her mouth shut and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh God,” she cringed then called out an apology to the other person. “I’m really sorry! I thought I was alone in here!”
"I just walked in," Lúthien replied, her laugh still carrying the song, as she leaned against the locked door. Her accent marked her as a foreigner. It was vaguely French, with Italian influences. "You have a beautiful voice, don't be afraid to hide it."
“Oh no, I really don’t,” Elphaba denied as she pushed her wet hair back from her eyes and turned off the water. “My...uh, my father hates it when I sing,” she told the woman on the other side of the door, wrapping the big towel around her body. Despite being separated by a door and knowing she couldn’t be seen, it always felt weird to talk to someone when naked to Elphaba. “He always says it’s like foxes fighting in a back-alleyway,” Elphie bit her lip as she contemplated her next move. “You should hear my sister though, she’s good, he loves listening to her sing,” Elphie explained, slowly putting her hand on the lock and pushing it open. She peeked through the gap she opened up and quietly admitted, “I’m not even supposed to sing in the shower.”
"Your father is a fool. I'm familiar with that. Foolish fathers." She chuckled, folding her arms under her chest and tilting her head as she listened to the woman speak. When the door was pushed open a crack, she glanced through her dark hair and into Elphie's eyes. "You should not let such a sound stay hidden. You sing with joy, with emotion. That's the only way to sing. With emotion."
“That’s really kind,” Elphaba replied shyly, still not really believing what the other woman had said. She wasn’t used to compliments, had never really received one apart from teachers to tell her that her work was good. “I...um...I’m sorry,” Elphaba shakily reached out a hand to shake the other woman’s hand, still a little taken aback by the other woman’s kind words. “I’m Elphaba Thropp.”
"Lúthien Tinúviel," she replied, taking Elphie's hand and squeezing it lightly. Her grey eyes were as kind as her words. "Please don't look down on yourself so. You've got a lovely voice. You only lack training and practice to turn it into something unique. Although if you ask me, there's something to be said for singing for song's sake."
Elphaba smiled at Lúthien, nodding with a smile. “I uh...I do love to sing,” she admitted quietly, feeling like she was admitting something she was ashamed of. “Father wasn’t the most...encouraging...at least with me,” Elphaba cast her gaze down, her conflicted feelings of resentment yet love for her father had always been difficult to deal with. Especially when it came to her singing. She felt like she had been stifled from a young age, her father quashing her dreams of being a performer because it wasn’t considered a ‘good enough’ profession in his eyes and she would never amount to anything if she took that path. “Your voice is wonderful though,” Elphaba tried to redirect the subject away from her and her many issues. “You must have had training.”
"Your father sounds a little bit like mine, only mine tends to be...protective. He chased off my boyfriend." A scowl crossed Lúthien's features. She didn't know what made her more upset, that her father had done that or that Beren had actually left. It passed, and a smile returned to her face. "Yes, I have. It can be too rigid at times, though. I just want to sing free."
“I’m sorry, he sounds...overbearing,” Elphie felt sorry for Lúthien’s story, it sounded like they both had similar upbringings so she could sympathise. “My father is an...odd combination of caring and aloof,” Elphaba mused, leaning against the door jam. “He cares about how everything looks, how it will reflect on the family, being a singer never fit into his ‘perfect vision’,” she explained. “My sister was always the prodigal daughter, could do no wrong, but for some reason he never extended me the same...courtesy,” she sighed. “Otherwise, I would have loved to have lessons. In any kind of instrument really,” Elphaba admitted with a small smile. “The flute always intrigued me,” she laughed lightly, having never admitted that to anyone else before.
Nodding her head in understanding, the singer moved out of the way so Elphie could come out if she chose. She didn't seem to care all that much about modesty, considering she was still half-undressed. "Have you ever played a flute before?"
“Uh, no, actually,” Elphie turned to grab her products from the shower and ensuring that her towel was secured, using her hair clip to fasten it in place. “Father was pretty strict with my free-time growing up,” she told Lúthien as she left the cubicle and headed for her locker. “If my nose wasn’t in a book, I was doing it wrong,” she chuckled bitterly. “What about you? Do you play anything?”
Lúthien laughed. "Me? I can play the piano, but that's about it. My real instrument is my voice." She had her arms down at her side, and walked over to the locker she'd claimed so she could actually finish changing. "And my feet. I love to dance. But you should get a flute. What's the harm in trying? You can't know if you'll fail or succeed if you don't try. The flute is my favorite instrument, too. If you learned to play, I could dance for you."
“Oh, I couldn’t...” Elphaba trailed off as she opened her locker and pulled out her hairbrush. Why couldn’t she? What was stopping her? She didn’t live under her father’s roof anymore, he couldn’t dictate her hobbies now...could he? “You know what? Screw it,” she shut the locker door with conviction and turned to face her new friend with a smile, willing herself to believe it herself. “I’m gonna do it! I am going to buy myself a flute!” she marched over to the bench and fished her Blackberry out from under her clothes (where she had convinced herself it would be safe despite having a locker three feet away. She sat as she turned on her network connection and loaded the eBay app she had installed on there months ago but never used. Putting in a search for ‘flute’, she clicked on the first reasonably priced Buy-It-Now one and showed it to Lúthien. “Look, I bought one!” she exclaimed a little over-zealously, then looked at it herself, smile fading. “Oh God...I bought one...” What had she done? Father was going to be so mad.
I could dance for you? The singer mentally scolded herself for how that sounded. She'd have to watch her choice of words. It had already gotten her in trouble a few times. She smiled as Elphie seemed to come to a decision. As far as she was concerned, any decision that led someone down a path to happiness was a good one. "Congratulations!"
She walked over, now wearing a pair of blue sparkly sweats with a matching tank top, and sat down next to Elphie. She gently put her arm around the woman. "You bought one. Now you just need lessons. Does your father have access to any of your accounts?"
“Uh...no...” Elphaba replied, distractedly as she gazed at her phone in shock. She’d never done anything so impulsive before. She looked up at the woman sat next to her, still in a haze; she really was quite beautiful and bore quite a similarity to her sister.
"Then what do you have to worry about? You can handle your own expenditures, and what you do in your free time is no business of his. Trust me, I learned a long time ago what was on a need to know basis with my father, and what wasn't. I love the man, but you need to have your own freedom." She gave Elphie a clever little wink.
“But I...I...” she shook her head slowly, not believing she was even entertaining the thought of disobeying her father’s will. She stared down at her phone, taking a deep swallow of the bile rising in her throat then set her jaw and gave a firm nod to her new friend. “Ok...we’re doing this Elphie,” she told herself, voice wavering just a bit.
Lúthien squeezed Elphie's shoulders. "Doing something for your own joy is not bad, especially when it's as innocent as making music. No one was ever hurt by the song of a flute, I can assure you. I've always wanted to dance to live flute music."
“Could you teach me?” Elphie asked suddenly. “Not the flute,” she covered her mistake quickly. “But...to sing?”
"I would be delighted!" The singer turned to face her, both hands on her shoulders and her face lit up. "Your voice is beautiful, it only needs refinement."
“Thank you,” Elizabeth replied quietly, a gentle smile appearing on her face. She was still unsure of where this new philosophy would take her, but she was in a new town, a new job with new people. Maybe she could make it work.