Disclaimer: Everyone and everything you recognize belongs to Nintendo. Good thing, too, because if they had been mine, I would have butchered the series ^^;
Characters: Eliwood-centric, although others are present.
Pairings: Very minor hints of Eliwood/Ninian. If you squint really hard.
Warnings: Spoilers if you haven't played the game up to chapter 27E (Cog of Destiny).
For a small abode compared to the castle, the royal villa of Bern was quite beautifully designed and decorated. But Eliwood had to admit that after close to two hours of waiting time, one hardly took note of that anymore. He had hoped that after the failed assassination on Prince Zephiel, Queen Hellene would want to see them as quickly as she could, if only in order to hear them out on her son's wellbeing.
Evidently, he had been mistaken. Being lesser nobles, the Pherae had never really had to confere with the Bern royal family, so the redhead had wanted to ask Hector if the waiting time was customary; however, he had opted not to.
The blue-haired axeman was already past annoyed and had entered the 'angry' moodset ten minutes ago. Considering Hector was about as empathetic as a Morph when he was like that, Eliwood had known better than to bother him with petty questions born from his own boredom.
That said, pretty much everyone in the room was nearing their limits. Lyndis, unlike Eliwood, had not resisted the urge to ask Hector and the two had gotten into one of their by now famous verbal fights. In the end, it had taken sirs Oswin and Kent to break the two up before anyone would have gotten hurt. Both knights now leaned against the wall, keeping very close eyes on their respective pacing liege. Eliwood predicted that sooner or later, those two were going to run into each other and the fighting would start anew.
Lord Pent and Lady Louise were nowhere to be seen- they had left the room in hopes of finding someone who could explain them what kept the queen so long. Even Marcus, who was normally a professional in the most literal sense of the word, had gotten up and slowly paced the room. The only one who seemed to be largely unfazed by the ridiculously long wait was Ninian, who was still sitting in the same chair she had taken place in when they had first entered the room. Her hands were folded in her lap and her gaze directed at them as to avoid having to look at anyone.
Finally, Eliwood reached his breaking point and got up. He had seen something near a corner of the room, near where sir Kent's shoulders finally started to slump, and could no longer resist the temptation- nor stand the silence. The bickering of his friends had been too loud in this large, daunting room with its ominous echo, but it had been better than the silence they had given way to. When he reached the corner, he ran his hand over the polished, treated wood. There were very few particles of dust on it, but even the housekeeping could not hide that it had been a while since it had been used.
Almost ashamed of his own imprudence, he sat down and raised the lid to reveal the piano's keyboard. He just hoped it wasn't out of tune. It seemed old enough to be, although the keyboard was in near-perfect state. From just looking at it, he could tell the instrument had been played intensively in the past and only been abandoned recently. His hand hovered above one of the keys hesitantly. If it was out of tune, he'd make a huge fool out of himself.
But he'd caught the attention of the other people in the room, so he had to. The only way not to look bad now, was for the piano to be tuned properly. Ninian was looking, too.
Eliwood let out an inner sigh of relief when he hit a key and the sound produced was not only adequate for the dimensions of the room, but also clear and pure. He relaxed behind the instrument and tested all the keys by running his hand clear across the keyboard. The smooth wood was familiar under his hands. He couldn't remember how long he had been playing for. He could, however, mentally name all the keys as he touched and heard them.
He was probably somewhere between seven and ten when he first touched the keys of a piano. There was one in one of the many rooms of the castle, and he had spotted it on one of his many quests to find out what Marcus did when he wasn't being a knight. Now, a few years later, big enough to get on the crutch in front of the instrument, he returned and granted himself access to the keyboard. It confused him at first, why there were so many keys while a range only had a few of them.
After trying a few of the keys, he thought he understood how the instrument worked and took a deep breath before trying to reproduce a song he had heard earlier that day. Upon hitting the fourth key, he frowned and shook his head. No, that was the wrong one. In the song, the fourth note was higher. Shutting his eyes and playing purely on hearing, he got further into the song this time before he hit a false note. About half an hour later, he was still at it. Finally he had managed to reproduce the song, but too slowly for his tastes. He had to be able to play it just like the original!
He wasn't aware that he had fallen asleep, but someone had put him in his bed when he woke up. For the next few years, Eliwood practiced almost daily on that very same piano, before trying his hand at composing at the age of fifteen or so.
He had heard servants mumbling amongst themselves about how gifted he was when it came to music, or at least how determined he was to understand and master his instrument of choice. But when Eliwood played, he didn't care about talent, or determination. Once he started playing, all that counted was the sound coming out of the piano.
He hadn't played ever since his father disappeared, but it didn't take long for his hands to start moving across the keyboard in a leisurely rhythm, following a pattern they knew well but was unpredictable to anyone who hadn't heard his first composition. After playing a few measures, his shame evaporated along with his impatience.
He didn't look around or particularly care, but somehow he felt pretty much everyone had turned their heads to look at him. Hector and Lyn had finally stopped pacing, giving him and his music their full attention. Ninian had finally looked up, and Eliwood practically felt her gaze. He couldn't look around at her, sadly, but if he hit a false note now, that would be… unacceptable. He just had to make sure to play it out perfectly.
When he finished the first song, he was fairly sure he'd got it without a single mistake. But that meant nothing- it was the first song he'd written, several years old. After a few seconds of silence, he felt the awkwardness returning and quickly chose another song, written by a more famous composer.
He must have played a total of four songs when Lord Pent and Lady Louise finally returned and put a stop to him with the message that Queen Hellene was ready for them. Seeing Ninian get up, Eliwood hurried to close the lid of the piano and follow her. For some reason, whenever he finishing playing for an audience, his head assumed roughly the same color as his hair. This time was no different, except that maybe it was worse.
On his way to the Sniper and the Sage, Hector passed him and slowed down, grabbing the redheaded pianist by the shoulder.
"I keep telling you you should do something with that."
Author's notes: I've recently developed this mental image of Eliwood being a bit of a musician, or even a musical prodigy/virtuoso. Considering his portrayed personality in-game, I thought the piano would suit him best as an instrument of choice. FYI, I am aware that in our middle ages, the closest equivalent to FE7's setting, there were no pianos. But I don't recall Nintendo ever stating that the settings were identical, so for the sake of not utterly destroying the fic, let's assume they have them… okay? Kthx.