So… A little background on this one. I'm part of the writing club at my college, and at this week's meeting, we picked prompts out of a hat for a ten-minute writing exercise. My prompt was 'A jazz musician playing to a smoky, empty club'. Because this was supposed to be a spontaneous exercise, I wrote the first thing that came to my mind. Originally, this was about one of my characters who was a pianist, but no matter how hard I tried, it turned into Austria's voice. So, when I got back from the meeting, I changed the name of the character from 'Ludwika' to 'Roderich', and added a couple lines to make it seem more…Austria, XD.

Since I wrote this in ten minutes, this is a drabble, and it is the shortest piece I have ever written.

Dust

The setting might have been different, but the feeling was all the same. Okay, so maybe it wasn't, since you were playing jazz instead of your usual classical, Gershwin instead of Chopin, but that didn't bother you too much. As long as you were at a piano, your beloved instrument, you were happy.

You could almost hear the cheers in your mind, people chanting 'encore' in different languages, and the smell of drinks and cigars. For a moment, you slip back into recollections of when you performed for your beloved Elizaveta, and you sigh. She was the one who encouraged you to play for audiences, despite the fact that Nations were supposed to keep a low profile. Originally, you resented the idea, but your desire to bring joy to people through music outweighed the unwritten laws of Nationhood. Before long, your name was plastered all over posters advertising your concerts in clubs and ballrooms around the world. Roderich Edelstein. You smiled, finally liking the name that gave you so much grief for so many years thanks to the incessant mocking of an obnoxious Prussian. You open your eyes, ready to face your adoring audience.

But there was none. All that was left in the old club was you, the piano—which had grown decrepit with age—and the faint scent of cigars. Everything was gone, recycled back into the Earth.

"Oh," you say, your voice echoing throughout the empty space. "That's right." About a century had passed since you last played here. You hit a key on the piano, and realize that it had been out of tune this whole time. And just like the chairs and tables in front of you, the smile on your face crumbles into dust.

"Whoever said music was transient was wrong." You laugh to yourself, not noticing the tears until they hit your hand. "Humanity is."

I tried a very different style for this one, since, for this exercise, we were supposed to write in a way we usually didn't. I never write in the present tense (ex: 'she says' instead of 'she said'), nor in the second person, so I decided to try both.

This can be set in any time period you want it to be, though I tried to imply that it was in the future.

I don't really think Austria would make a public name for him as a musician, but I thought it worked, for this story.

I know Chopin was a Polish composer, but in canon, Austria likes to play his music, so I figured, why not. (Plus, Chopin is just awesome, XD.) I chose Gershwin at random because he was the only jazz pianist I could think of at writing club.

...I just realized I seem to have this theme of 'the transience of humanity' this month. First, I wrote that fic with Iceland and the death of his human friend, and now this? XD That was completely unintentional...

I hope this wasn't too awful!