She was seated in front of the piano, pushing hesitantly on the keys. She'd never actually touched the instrument before. Elan had promised he would teach her how to play, but he had been absent since his latest near-encounter with death and the events that followed. She resolved to ask him when he came back. Surely he would come back eventually, wouldn't he?
She tried to match all the notes to the keys, playing them all one by one until she was satisfied she knew which was which. She began to play slowly, remembering the song as she moved her fingers across the board.
"How long have you been practicing that?" Elan asked from behind her.
She didn't jump – she was getting quite used to him appearing at random – but she felt relieved that he was here, at long last. "I've never even touched it before. I just wanted to try it, that's all." She got up, turning to face him. "You've been gone a long time." It had been almost two weeks; he hadn't been gone that long in months. And of course, he had to stay away just after they'd been intimate for the first time. She'd been afraid she'd scared him off, laughable as that may sound.
"I've been busy." It was clear from his tone that he was not going to expand on the matter. "If that was truly your first attempt, you must have been a pianist in another life, pet."
She blushed faintly, turning back to the instrument. "What is that song, anyway?"
"Odyssey of the Fireflies," he answered.
"Did you write it?"
"No, not me." He grimaced. "Nessosin."
"Oh. Well, it's beautiful. Not that I know anything about music," she added hastily. "Did you know him well? Before, I mean." There was no need to specify before what. He had rarely mentioned Asmodean except to tell her of his motivations for joining the Shadow.
He was silent for so long that she assumed he would ignore the question. Then he spoke again. "We were… lovers. For a while. A very short while," he muttered.
For a moment she was too stunned to speak. She had been quite sure he liked women – for obvious reasons. Maybe he liked both? Was that a thing? She had no idea. She had received enough mocking comments on her ignorance regarding most matters to know better than to ask, however. She wasn't sure what to say, so she decided to return to the initial subject. "Was it a popular song during the Age of Legends?"
"Not at all. It was never released to the public. He created many songs that never made it outside of his studio," he told her.
"Studio?" she wondered aloud.
"A room designed to record music in. Nessosin had several of those, in fact." He sat down in front of the piano. "I believe I said I would teach you. I have some time now, if you wish." She sat down eagerly on the narrow seat beside him, smiling. "This one is called The March of Death."
She looked up from her book as he appeared near the fire. She was glad he was coming back more regularly. She walked up to him and hugged him tightly. She felt him tense, as if he'd forgotten she was perfectly allowed to do that now. Although she'd never done it before, admittedly. "What are you doing?" he asked uneasily. He just stood there stiffly, seemingly afraid to move, obviously not knowing how to respond. It made her chuckle.
"It's called a hug," she answered wryly.
"I know what it's called, pet, but why are you doing it?"
"You've been gone a long time," she purred.
"It's only been three days," he told her indignantly.
She let go of him. "I know. But I've missed you," she said, standing on tip-toe to kiss him.
"Is it really worth the bother?" he asked with a dramatic sigh.
She grinned at him. "It is to me. Come on," she added firmly, taking his arm and leading him to the bedroom. She had to initiate action, because if she left it to him, it would never happen. It wasn't that it bothered him, not exactly. He simply didn't care one way or another, not until it had started in earnest, anyway.
As they lay in bed some time later, she decided to inquire about what had been troubling her for a while now. "Do you prefer men?" she asked him hesitantly. "I mean, you did have an affair with Nessosin."
He didn't look at her when he answered. "That was not uncommon in the Age of Legends. Men sleeping with men, or women with women. People were very open-minded about these things. Nessosin… I'm not sure how it happened. It was a spur of the moment sort of thing," he said matter-of-factly. "I have no… preference, as you call it."
"Oh. Did you have other lovers, then? Were you ever married? It wasn't mentioned in any of your biographies."
He snickered. "Married? No, never that. I had a few lovers. Very few, compared with the average man of these days. Or woman," he said casually. "My interests lay elsewhere."
She was well aware of that. He was very quick to turn any topic into a lecture on philosophy or, if she was particularly unlucky, on theology. She was always careful to ask very specific questions to limit his opportunities to do so because, often as not, he left her far behind with his complicated theories. She felt that now was a good time to change the subject. "What do you know about the Ages that came before the Age of Legends?" That actually had a good chance to turn theological, so she hastened to clarify her question. "I mean, what happened just before the Age of Legends? It must have been a dull era, if the next Age was called something so glorious."
"It wasn't called that in our days, pet. Ages are named by historians, centuries or millennia later. But to answer your question, not much was known of the Ages that came before. Specialists discovered evidence of life dating as far back as billions of years ago. We found many skeletons buried deep underground, humans and creatures of all sorts. We know the world undergoes periods of glaciation, and that, at some point, there was an event called a nuclear winter, but that it must be differentiated from a glaciation. We know the term because we found relics that mentioned it. Apparently, some of our ancestors destroyed the world, or most of it, with unidentified weapons of such power that the whole world had to go in hibernation for a very long time. It is believed that the human race, or what was left of it, went underground for the duration of the event. It is all speculation, however. We have little evidence to back the theory. As I have explained before, the Wheel turns, bringing the same pattern over and over again. Humanity builds itself a world, then destroys it. They destroyed their world with weapons, bringing their own end upon themselves. We destroyed ours with madness, which we brought upon ourselves. Nature reasserts itself while humanity gathers its leftovers, and it all starts anew. It has been thus since the beginning of time and it will ever be so, until time itself is destroyed, when the Great Lord of the Dark wins the ultimate battle, the only one that matters." There was no escaping the gloomy lecture now, not unless she managed to divert him. He complained half-heartedly for a moment, but she managed eventually.