Precious Things
By Mialana
Calista had lived a life of solitude throughout her childhood. Her mother passed during the childbirth of her younger sister, whom had died a year after her due to complications of the heart. After that followed five years of emptiness in her home on the shores of France with her father Le Comte Delauney. Her father, Byron, was at heart an explorer with a soft spot for caves. This at first did nothing to quell the nerves of a ten-year-old Calista, but she slowly adapted to his hobby- a hobby that soon claimed his life after a massive earthquake in 1866, while he was on an expedition searching a cave in De Bello Monte. After the tragic death of her father, she was immediately placed in the care of her Aunt Le Comtesse Emilie Vasser, who lived in Paris.
While living with her Aunt, she learned of the beauty of the city, the people, and of the arts. She took a strong liking to the Opera, so much in fact, that she literally had to beg her dear aunt and uncle to let her attend many of the showings in the city. If Calista had to choose (in which she already had) an opera house that stroked her fancy, she'd have said it was the L' Opèra Populaire. She loved its magnificent gallery, the splendid foyer, the glory and the beauty of the stage. She marveled at the talented men and women who sang and danced upon the stage, time after time she visited. Before long she had been there enough times to beg her uncle to let her have lessons in the arts, other than painting.
"Oncle, please. Please let me have singing and dancing lessons." A thirteen-year-old Calista had begged him.
"No, I will not allow it. You are already a Comtesse, your place is not as an opera singer, nor as any kind of an entertainer, except that as a wife." He said to her. When she questioned him on what he meant, he replied: "You will one day be the wife of an important man. It is your right to please him in every which way. You will need to please him in and out of his bed-"
"Gaston!" Her Aunt Emilie had scolded. "She is only thirteen. She will not need to perform the vile duties of a wife until she is of age. For now though, indulge her. Let her have the lessons she asks for."
"What would you know of her not needing to know that she is to perform the duties required of her now. She is already becoming quite the young lady-"
"She is still a girl, and she will be just a girl until she is ready. She is not ready now. So let her pass her time by allowing her to learn to sing and dance. It will cause no harm." So then Le Comte Vasser did as his wife instructed him to do by hiring extra tutors that were gifted in the arts of singing and dancing.
But that was all a year ago as it is now 1870. Apparently she had excelled well enough to become a chorus girl in Orfeo, an opera about Orpheus, who attempts to rescue his dead lover Eurydice from Hades, the underworld. The demands of this Opera are high- even for the chorus, but for some reason I know that she, as well as my Christine will excel tonight.
Christine… my sweet Angel of Music. Forever will I want her; because she is everything this darkness can never be- Beauty, innocence, life, friend, love, and perfection. This darkness is nothing but hideousness, death, corruption, foe, hatred, and imperfection.
Yet this other, Calista… She is promising, just like Christine. She is an impeccable singer and a rather gifted dancer, yet there is something about her. She can do the same as Christine, only when she does it, she can remove the darkness. When I am without her, the darkness is there to still mock me, but seeing her, she seems to make it go away forever… Christine was never able to do that. She could only brighten the darkness, thought it'd still be lurking about in the shadows… but I don't want shadows anymore.
I want my world to be bright as day. Though I doubt that I may ever have it. For now though, let me enjoy watching both of my beauties tonight, for there will be no Carlotta to destroy this wonderful masterpiece, and dwell on why and whom can banish my despair from my life at another time.
AN: Thank you so much for reading this so far! This is my first Phantom of the Opera fan fiction so I feel very pleased to have written this. For those of you who have read my works on the Harry Potter side of the tracks or the Tamora Pierce tracks, I am almost done with Past Present Future and I will be updating As Fate Will Have It soon this summer!
I thank you again and I hope that you will review!
Mialana