27- Prayers to the Willow

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life." - Proverbs 13:12

And so they were laid upon the floor of the music department, just as we left them. The disciples had put aside the burdens of veneration, but they would soon return- return through the light that accompanied her arrival, green with renewed faith.

It began halfway through a chuckle. The woman felt something push into her thigh as she rolled over to her side to face Sammy-

And abruptly, the pressure she felt and the man before her clicked into a single concept. She realized something; she realized how as he had gifted her his wisdom and protection, she could gift him something of her own.

A beautiful, terrifying idea came to be.

She sat straight up and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her eyes were wide- too wide for Sammy's comfort. As he saw Francine's shoulders rise in heavy breath, he sat up too, carrying a frown laced with concern.

This was so sudden. Just a second ago they had been laughing, filled with ease, and now every muscle in her seemed taunt. As he studied her, the movements of her hands were noticed- sharp and abrupt presses and slides over the surface in her hands, like she conducted an orchestra waiting in the small box. It…

It was…moving with each touch.

Without thought, Sammy's upper body leaned towards the woman and her glass book. The tension in her body was released only through each and every lithe, practiced swipe of her fingers. He watched words come and go underneath their tips; shapes and pictures danced in and out of sight as the slightest of gestures seemed to push them off the edge of the screen, but they turned invisible as they tumbled off its edge.

The assurance she had provided before their... "adventure" with Alice was a band-aid over a pothole dug three feet deep. The absolute bafflement and unbearable confusion from when she saw her in the ink trench bathed in illumination had rightfully returned. How ironic was it that as he showed her the miraculous - the impossible- so had she to him.

And so despite the promise that she controlled…this…wizardry, he was helpless to his fear. He knew not what this power was…whose it was. Not Bendy nor the realm of the studio had shown magic quite like this; that unsureness left him speechless.

Her fingers stopped moving, and in his peripheral her torso had shifted. His gaze finally broke as she was revealed to be overcome with excitement; as her mouth broadened, it also began to curl, the top row of her teeth tugging back her bottom lip until it was released to mutter a voice that seemed as awed as he.

Her look fell up and down over him, one last view before she changed his life once again.

"What's your favorite song?"

…Oh.

The frown remained where it was, but his entire demeanor was stilled- frozen as puzzlement seemed to stack upon itself.

But to top it off?

Sammy pursed his lips once he finally understood that the words in her question actually had a meaning. A meaning…to him. For once, he had an answer ready to grasp. Forgetting to wonder why she'd ask this at all, he remembered that a certain bit of him was calling out through his inky abyss of a mind. He was reluctant- it was a remnant of himself he didn't know existed till this moment- but he permitted its release to her eager embrace. He hoped it was good to trust. Only one way to find out.

"Willow…Weep For Me," he hardly uttered, words on his tongue like a wisp of wind. He felt the chill of nostalgia on his lips, somehow colder than the emptiness that usually occupied him.

And almost as if she felt the wind of vulnerability blow through her too, she mellowed like a candle on the sill of an open window one rainy afternoon. Her eyelids dropped in a slow, knowing blink, and small dimples appeared at her cheeks. No, she'd never really comprehend what he felt. But this was probably as close as she could to, and it softened her through and through just as quickly as she had been sparked alight.

But almost just as soon, her countenance shifted.

"I'm afraid I…don't know that one."

As was his way, Sammy's response was a thought unfiltered by words, only expressible through action. Her head turned to follow as he lifted himself off the floorboards and stepped over her legs; it tilted as he trudged to the corner, near that recording booth with a tape next to it. Finally, it rose with her body as she joined him by his side.

His fingers parted from each other as they strived to find their proper place on the piano's keys. It took a long time, but one of the things the woman's uncoated form had reminded him was that he used to have five fingers on each hand instead of four. As instinct came with memory, the impulses he felt were like phantom pains- telling him to place his fingers where they could not possibly be all at once.

Or at least they couldn't now that two were missing.

The arch in his back as she watched over his shoulder seemed to bend tighter at this, a tangible show of his lament and frustration- a reminder of why he prayed day after day that this all would end one way or another.

"You okay?"

Francine was leaned over, slanted to gaze at the player in anticipation. His cracked head turned to her, and he was silent. Suddenly, he forcefully hung it back over his misshapen hands, his fires refueled as he recalled the desire that set his passion ablaze in the first place.

Spite and determination had been the driving force of talent in the life of Sammy Lawrence the music director, and they had morphed to birth the faith that kept Bendy's loyal prophet from sinking into total despair. He had taught himself to play every instrument a few fingers short; translating a song on the rim of his consciousness was nothing compared to the damnation it'd be to fall prey to the waiting jaws of idleness and hopelessness. No, he would not- could not- be complacent to his curse.

And so he finally touched the keys and filled the quiet with the noise of his heart.

It was…surprising. A surprising sound- not at all what Francine expected. For some reason, her understanding of older tunes skipped straight from the classical period to the folk songs of the 60s. As such, she didn't know exactly what era of time Sammy was pulled from, but it was now clear to even she that he was still there.

They were both taken aback with the recognition that his soul was being inserted into each press of the keys. They could see it in how gently his arms swayed in perfect marriage with the melody, flowing so naturally despite only just recovering a love long lost. With her dawning amazement, they could witness it wander from a mouth trembling from the exposure he allowed.

His singing voice was…it was…

Unexpected.

His cool tone held a tint of sweetness; the airiness of his voice was displayed as the perfect medium for the sad whimsy of the lyrics. As each word fell in tandem with each note of the piano, he weaved a poem. Despite being sharp and plucky like a playground rhyme, it was undoubtedly a song about suffering. It fit Sammy very well; it begged for sympathy from the largest, looming figure in one's life- the being that towered and draped its shadow over those seeking refuge at its feet.

It was a song that knew no one else would listen as he wept.

And yet there was…solace. Even as the chirpiness of it superficially seemed to bite with sarcasm, it was certainly a psalm true to his misery. As the last note rang, its tremor drifting further away from them to scatter throughout the walls, the anxiety in his fingers did not leave him…but they did seem to find some peace, a scrap of hope to cling to and reassure that he was still a being of some competence. His chest compressed, and he released a sigh seeped in relief and weariness. He did it. Once again, he proved to himself that there was indeed a human buried somewhere inside him, and that Bendy must have sympathy for the anguish of disciples.

In just a few minutes, he gave Francine a gist of how someone could give their all to a behemoth that didn't seem to pay immortals much mind.

Even as he had made his heart bare, Sammy kept his skull suspended over the scratched piano. He didn't know what to say or do next; he was simply left behind with his hollow victory. And so the woman decided it was the least she could do to help him step back to reality.

"Sammy, that was…" She looked him over once again, observing the state he was left in after demonstrating a pure, utter mastery he humbly uncovered. "That was incredible."

There was no understatement in this. Her musical comprehension was crude- a sketch compared to his finalized painting of melodious ideation. How telling it was that even through decades of isolation, Sammy retained a might that could enrapture Francine, someone only recently removed from an existence saturated with music almost every waking minute, as was the way for all those not swallowed by the ink all those years ago. Maybe it only made sense though. He was, after all, a maestro at his core.

It was enough for her to forget what her intentions were, what brought them to this point.

…Just for a moment.

The atmosphere of the room would soon teeter into to one of complete enchantment, a charm that seemed to war against the drear pulsed from the ink machine.

"I have to show you something," she had said.

And then everything changed.

She stood behind his back as he sat in front of the speckled keys, rounding her arm beside his neck to place the phone a small distance from his face. It no longer required her touch to swish pictures in and out of reality. The visage of an orchestra now swayed before him- and actual band, filtered by the yellow of aging film and flickering spots of black alongside cracks in the audio.

His jaw dropped and he began to peer so close to the tiny movie screen that a glow splashed over his mask.

Francine smiled as the rectangle portal carried Sammy back home, his favorite song calling back to him through a passage ages away, trapped in another universe.

And then this became the day she fully explained to Sammy what her phone was as best as she could- its blessing of connectivity, its union of parts of time and space that could never exist all at once but somehow, still did…much like she and him. With a small, guiding grin, she let him hold and experiment with the screen, granting him her alchemy; they were consumed with his reaction to modernity, her gentle bestowment of the nearly unlimited. Somehow, she was able to avoid the topic of reuniting with her family. Thankfully he did not think to ask why she hadn't used it for such communication, but…the fantastical nature of his amazement and curiosity was still tinged with her remorse.

Yes, it could bring them the world, but that was still only so much. It was a magnificent, treacherous moment for them both to see shades of the outside world stain but not remove the scourge of the studio and fill them with something beyond their reach.

And yet, it was all worth it to play song after song from Sammy's past- to see how his fingertips reverently patted at the images of men rising the bells of their horn to the sky, feeling the vibration of sounds from his history emerge through the speaker.

Although neither of them would ever fully understand the other, they both managed to trek past the fogs of grief so they may find a friend.

Maybe this was Bendy's answer to his eternities of prayer, and maybe it was bringing him closer and closer to the person he was intended to be.