"Erik!"
He lifted his head sharply from where it rested on his arm, looking around in confusion. No one had entered his part of the tent. Slowly, groggily, he lifted his body into a sitting positon, waiting for anything to jump at him from the shadows. Maybe it had been a part of a dream that had jolted him awake… but it hadn't seemed to be.
"Erik?" the voice repeated, and he spun to see that again no one was behind him. He tried to peer down onto the floor, where perhaps someone was hiding behind his cage… but there was no sign of anyone. Slowly, he focused his gaze on the canvas of the tent only an arms' reach away from him.
"M-Mademoiselle Bella?" he asked uneasily, finally realizing who must be referring to him by actual name.
He couldn't understand the words that followed, but they sounded quite relieved to hear his response.
"What do you want?" he asked after a moment of silence, knowing full well that she couldn't understand him. He didn't want to be awake, because the hunger pains had been hard enough to fall asleep to the first time. He'd been given the cold coffee and porridge as apparently promised at the end of the day… but the 'kinder' young man had not been the one to bring it to him. That boy had given it on to one of his usual captors… and Erik had watched what they did to it before passing it on to him. It would have been too degrading to take such fouled nourishment, and he was nowhere near starving enough to not care about what they'd done to it.
Arabella responded after a tense silence, clearly trying to figure out how they would converse with such an obvious language barrier between them. Then, abruptly, there was movement at the bottom of the canvas, and she crawled through the same way she'd left on her last visit. Erik watched her curiously, taking in the hair that she'd chosen to braid for the evening, and the deep crimson dress that looked more like a costume than actual gypsy garb. It looked more like something he'd once seen in a book that took place in India, and other such exotic tropical places.
She looked, essentially, like a harem girl.
She smiled genuinely, taking him completely off guard. Still, her visit was intruiging enough that he leaned closer and grasped the bars separating them.
"What is it?" he asked when he realized she'd brought nothing new to give him.
Arabella spoke again, and then planted herself on the ground behind his cage, clearing her throat. A moment later, she launched into a seemingly endless speech, her voice rising and falling into a pattern that he recognized all too well once he became accustomed to her voice.
She was telling him stories.
What on God's green Earth would possess the young woman to come in and recite stories to him? He didn't know, but he found himself amazed at her company… almost comforted by it. She began moving her hands and arms through the air, her face fascinating him as she began to paint pictures that – in spite of her different language – he could almost see. She was a brilliant storyteller, using her arms to dance just as she would have used her legs out in the open air of day. Although there was very little dirt to speak of anywhere within the tent, she still tried to make shapes in the grass and earth by his cage to continue illustrating her tales. Erik found himself enthralled; more than anyone had ever been by his voice.
Eventually, he began to breathe out some of the often repeated words, trying to take a guess at their meaning when her bodily illustrations weren't clearer. The first few times he did this, Arabella paused in her narratives and glanced up at him curiously. After the sixth time, when he waved at her encouragingly to continue, she gave him such a brilliant smile that it nearly staggered him… and he knew that she had finally caught on.
He was learning!
Arabella found herself nearly euphoric at the idea of Erik actually trying to learn her language by listening to her tell paramitsha – or gypsy fairy tales. She'd suspected he might catch on to a few words or phrases, yes… but not that he'd learn. But it seemed he was nodding after a while, repeating one word over and over again in her language, and intermittently speaking his native tongue until he seemed to decide on an equivalent word or phrase. It was staggering how many words she (supposed) heard him translate for himself before she'd finished her sixth and final memorized fairy tale. She'd drawn each of them out, hoping to help him connect her words to their meanings, using her hands the best she could to illustrate a point even though her attempts were feeble at best.
By the time she stood up to leave, grasping the bars directly over his hands as she looked him in the eyes to say farewell… she was certain he knew at least twenty gypsy words by heart.
"Good-night, Erik." She said in a quiet voice. It seemed like she'd done very little to help him, but with her mind dancing around Sarima and her all-but-announced engagement to the 'prince' of the gypsies… and how the thought connected with her own self-pity… she hadn't been able to think of much else to do. Telling stories had served more as a distraction to her than as a lesson for Erik. She was only fortunate he'd turned it into learning game.
Erik stared at her for a long moment, his eyes giving tiny little jerks back and forth as he clearly sought for the correct meaning to her words.
"Bon nuit, Mademoiselle." He replied finally with the ghost of a smile on his twisted mouth.
She turned and knelt to crawl back under the canvas, but the tiniest brushing of something at her back made her spin back around in surprise.
"Mademoiselle-"
Erik had reached through the bars and touched her back, trying to snag at her shirt. Arabella cringed slightly against the tent, wondering exactly what his intention had been. But he didn't look at all threatening… or even all that innocent. He simply looked perturbed by his own actions, staring at his hand as he pulled it back in through the bars.
"Y-yes, Erik?" she managed to whisper.
Erik stood the best he could in the cage and looked around them, as if expecting to see someone hiding in the surrounding empty spaces. Then, turning back to her, he placed his finger to his misshapen lips to indicate a secret or silence. When Arabella nodded, he returned the gesture with finality and closed his eyes.
She waited a long, tense moment, and had nearly decided he was going to do nothing at all when his lips parted and sound escaped.
Oh… my … God…
If she'd thought even his crying and strained voice had been intriguing and beautiful… it couldn't hold so much as a candle to when he made an actual attempt at music. It felt like his song – whatever it was – was reaching out and pouring light into every inch of her… her mind… her body… her heart. The melody seemed like a lullaby, or a sung prayer… and she couldn't decide its' exact purpose. Whatever it was… she felt lighter… like she was turning into a feather that floated on sound alone. Her eyes went enormous as she stared at the poor and twisted figure of the beaten boy before her, wanting to reach out and touch him… to offer the same comfort that was now taking her over like warm cocoa on a freezing winters' night.
When he finished, Arabella couldn't even find her voice to utter his name. They merely stared at each other for endless minutes until her pulse returned to normal, and the darkness of the night settled around her like a cloak once more. Trembling from the pure emotion of his song, Arabella nodded shakily to him, placed her own finger to her lips in a promise of secrecy, and then crawled reluctantly back outside.
He didn't know why he'd done it. As a matter of fact, Erik wanted to bang his own head against the bars of his cage and punish himself for his stupidity. Why in God's name had he ever sung to that girl? He knew damn well that his horrible face wasn't the only thing that could earn a living in a place like this… It wasn't ego that made him know his voice would be used as a monetary tool… but simple confidence and knowledge. He'd eavesdropped on more than one conversation in which his mother had whispered about the beauty and power of his voice with a priest who couldn't decide if he was a twisted angel or a frighteningly alluring demon.
Why had he done it?
Whatever impulse had led him to share one of his many secrets, he knew it was much too late to take it back, or pretend it hadn't happened. He'd seen the glazed rapture in her eyes as she listened to his song… the one he'd created to lure his mother in to that damnable statue…
Now… he'd lured her in, and then released his spell on her…
But what did that mean for the two of them now? Would she tell his captors, either to exploit him or to try and change their approach to using him? Would she keep it a secret, or tell only people she herself trusted? Would she come back and want to hear it again?
He wondered at that, thinking over the possibilities. He knew he had the power to manipulate people with his voice. If she came back, and he sang to her again, could he make her rlease him – or at least help him more than she already had?
Was it even fair to attempt it, considering her already remarkable kindness?
Sighing, Erik settled back down to the floor of his age and closed his eyes.
Could he even consider doing such a thing to a friend?
His eyes snapped open in shock at that word.
Friend?
He knew what the term was supposed to mean… he'd heard it and read it hundreds of times. He even had a vague idea about how friendship worked… his mother had had a few friends during his lifetime, after all. Well… all right… she'd had one real friend… but the other two had acted – at least to some degree – with similar behaviors. But he'd never considered those people to be his own friends. Was is possible?...
Erik closed his eyes once again, this time daring to smile just the slightest bit.
He was still young… Hope was still a very innate part of who he was.
Yes… a friend…
Until he had reason to think otherwise.
Arabella had returned to her father's tent, and was amazed that even though he'd been awake and ready to torment her even more that she felt slightly shielded by the remnants of the cocoon Erik's music had created around her. Everything that happened to her before her father fell asleep seemed so … far away… so trivial and unimportant. Later, still deep in her awe of the experience his young voice had been, she lay staring up at the ceiling, only distantly feeling the new bruises that would hide within her clothing the following day.
Erik had made an exchange for her stories… He'd given her a very special secret… an extremely private part of him… and it had been like a golden steel chord of light had tied them together. She didn't know how… and his voice seemed so completely unimportant in the scheme of who the boy was – particularly in the camp.
It had been a gift… one somehow more precious than anything ever handed to her before… more important than any she would ever receive in her future… What it was seemed so trivial… but what it meant… somehow making a friendship and connection to a male… It created a tenuous giddiness in her as she lay there thinking about it. Yes… Erik was locked away in a cage. He couldn't reach out to harm her as long as that lock stayed firmly in place…
…But the music had promised, somehow, that she would never have to fear such a thing even if they stood face-to-face without such barriers. It was ridiculous to feel … safe… just having been crooned to like a colicky babe… But it had made her feel safe. So safe, in fact, that it continued to affect her even during that nights' tortures. Yes, she'd been frightened and felt the pain of her fathers' betrayal… but it had been so distant… so incredibly unimportant.
Arabella's eyes drifted shut sometime between midnight and dawn, and slept without nightmares… or dreams of any kind, for that matter… until her father's bellows for breakfast startled her awake and reminded her that just because one night had numbed her, she was far from safe or dead.
But it had existed… and it had been a priceless gift. It allowed Arabella to begin her day with the warmth of that gift in the center of her soul… anxious for that night to rush towards her.
If Erik could grant her such a precious gift… she would give him everything possible to return it in kind.
Bon nuit: Good night