A/N: Hello, and welcome to Ange Masqué, a project I have been planning for quite some time. Before we go any further, I have to tell you this is a VERY AU phic, and the characters might not be exactly what you are expecting. I am drawing some things from Leroux and ALW, but this is very much me trying to write an 'original' interpretation of POTO.


Ange Masqué

Full summary: Erik Laroche was captured by a passionate dream ten years ago – the dream of Don Juan Triumphant… Yet the passion died, and the melodies became little more than whispers in the midnight wind. When he travels to Paris to view the premiere of his new work, Erik doesn't expect the obsession to return to him, and certainly not in the manner it chooses to.

An enigmatic encounter at the Bal Masqué; a beautiful, ghostly voice that whispers to him at dawn and dusk; a secret that the world can never know… The Opera Ghost has been hidden for ten years, and some things are not meant to be brought into the light.

The Ballet Mistress's Foreword

Madame Giry

I have often heard a certain saying in my lifetime, and always believed it implicitly. 'People die, but love is forever'. Yes, I believed it, but never did I think that I would see it played out before me, more beautiful and heart wrenching than any Shakespearean play, or tragic opera. Partly because the events were too unbelievable even for fiction, and partly because I held those two lovers, helpless in their passion and adoration for each other, very close to my heart.

Had I known beforehand the events that would follow Erik's arrival in Paris, would I have urged him not to come? That is a question I have asked myself many times, and, awful though it may seem, I have to admit that the answer is a firm 'no'. How could I have denied the two of them that time, so precious to both of them, in which they loved and were loved, understood and were understood in turn? God knows I made enough wrong choices when it came to Christine, but in this I believe I did the right thing, or at least committed the lesser of two evils.

In those months, I knew with a terrible certainty that what I was seeing could never have a happy ending. In a perfect world, yes, but few know better than I that our world is horribly flawed. What sort of world, what kind of people reject an innocent young girl with the voice of an angel out of aesthetic distaste? Ah, it must be the same world, the same people that heaped torment upon a musical genius who brought into the world so much beauty that we should all have been on our knees before him. Erik had his faults, the same as the rest of us – indeed, I have often wondered if he had more than his fair share of Original Sin, the way he acted sometimes – but his music! Such melodies that could at once make a heart both weep wretchedly and dace with joy!

Erik was… I believe there is no word for it, but the closest I can get is 'friend'. Yet it was much more complex than that. Sometimes, when he was burning with the need to lose himself, yet the music would not come, he would inject that awful drug into his veins, and if I stumbled upon him in such a state, he would look at me as if I were any other stranger on the street. And then, in the same breath, he was my most trusted companion. With Erik, one need not hint if something was confidential. Even as a young man, when I first met him in Lorraine, he was impossibly wise beyond his years, that knowledge accented by the dashing mystery that enshrouded him like the cloaks he wore so often. That had been what drew me to him initially – I, the little ballet rat visiting her relatives and not being able to resist exploring the Lorraine Opera House – but I quickly took him to heart for his quirks, his dry wit, his words, and his music. Lucky, really, for when I asked him once how we had ended up in such a manner as we were in the first place, his only response was that he found me interesting, in an odd little way! For all his knowledge, however, he remained almost entirely ignorant of the one thing that drives many men, especially when the sun sinks from the sky, except for that one occasion that I really did live up to the reputation we opera girls carry! Had he been more aware of that side of him, of the passion he released only when composing, perhaps things would have played out differently. Alas, it was not to be. Instead, he let it out through that opera.

That damned opera! Hardly a day goes by when I do not wish Erik had destroyed it before it had fully formed. He explained to me his reasoning once, and I have to admit his logic was sound, but still… Had it not been for that thrice-cursed music, Christine would have been safe! I would still have a second daughter, whom I cannot deny I did wrong by, but it was in an aging woman's foolishness and, I must say, my naivety to just how mysteriously God could work. So much unhappiness and misfortune heaped on the shoulders of such a fragile creature… I could not bear to expose her to a world that would have misunderstood and mocked her. Little Christine, who had never wanted to do anything but please, twisted every way because of my mistakes.

I truly believed I was doing the right thing by shielding her from everything that could harm her. Little did I know I was also cutting her off from those who would be able to love her. As often as I curse Erik for interfering, I thank him fervently for opening my eyes – all our eyes – and bringing a frightened, untamed angel into the light, even if it was that very light that burned her wings to dust.

A story – especially one such as this – has many threads running through a greater tapestry. We all played a part in those events, no matter how great or small, all saw what was going on, or would have, had our eyes opened earlier, or not blinded so much by the dazzling beauty we were presented with. I could spend a dozen hours or more recounting all I can tell, but that would not be even half the tale. I know little of what exactly occurred between Erik and Christine during those years, nor do I have any knowledge of what drove Erik in those years between our initial meeting in Lorriane and his arrival in Paris, except what he deigned to tell me in the letters we exchanged.

I know little, but others know all. I hope, if you are reading this, you are prepared to receive that knowledge.