Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction using characters and elements from the Star Wars universe, created and trademarked by George Lucas and currently owned by Disney. I do not claim ownership over any Star Wars characters or elements from the Star Wars Universe. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and is not claiming to be any part of the Star Wars canon. Thank you to Disney for letting me play with the characters and not suing me for writing them into a new situation.
NOCTURNE IN THE KEY OF B SOLO
by MALOREIY
~ Chapter 2 ~
Despite playing for several hours before bed, he still couldn't sleep. The unrest that burned in his breast caused a constant tossing and turning.
He gave up trying sometime after midnight and got up for a drink.
Not alcohol, never alcohol—it dulled his senses and slowed his fingers.
No, Ben poured himself a gingery pepper concoction that was meant to boost his immune system so that, hopefully, he didn't get sick before his big performance.
He downed a full glass, wincing as the ginger burned his throat on the way down.
As he set the empty glass on the countertop, he stared at the cookie jar that sat there. Usually he ignored it. It hadn't held cookies in years, ever since Ben had given up sugar, but it wasn't empty.
Abruptly, he reached for it, the heavy porcelain scraping as it slid across his counter.
After removing the lid, he tipped it over.
Several pieces of paper came tumbling out. Some, like the butterfly one from earlier, were crumpled into little balls. Others were folded neatly in half with a single fold. All of them were on that same kind of fancy stationery he'd noted before, the kind a grandmother would buy to send correspondence to her friends. Or so he imagined, as he didn't have a grandmother to compare to.
The handwriting, however, made him think the writer was much younger. The letters were bubbly and round, with imperfect circles dotting each of the i's.
Carelessly, he unfolded (and uncrumpled) them all, smoothing them out and putting them in order.
Since the date was conveniently at the top of each one, it wasn't hard for him to see that the oldest note was about three months old.
For three months, he'd been receiving notes in his door and ignoring them.
He had no clue who was sending them, but assumed they must live close by, probably one of the neighbors on either side of him. Definitely on the same floor.
But since he didn't know any of his neighbors—in fact he studiously avoided them all—they could be from anyone.
The first one had fallen from his door frame one day when he'd arrived home. He figured it for junkmail or a sales pitch for a local business.
He almost didn't bother reading it.
'Dear Neighbor,' it began, 'I just want to tell you that your music is lovely. Would you consider a humble request? I'd love it if you could play Fur Elise by Beethoven.'
He didn't save that one. That one had actually been ripped up in a fury and burned up in the fire of his disdain.
Every two-bit hack wanted to play Für Elise. Every 10-year-old girl with a year of piano lessons was obsessed with it. Every middle-aged mother who's 'not old, just classy' had it for a ringtone.
Far be it from him to criticize Beethoven, but he had no patience for tasteless peasants who only liked something because everyone else did.
He never even entertained the idea of playing it for the mysterious neighbor and moved on without giving them a second thought.
It wasn't long before he received a new note, carefully penned.
'Dear Neighbor, would you perhaps consider playing Moonlight Sonata instead? I do think it's equally as lovely as Fur Elise.'
Beethoven again. And though Ben was quite fond of the fiery third movement, no doubt the neighbor was completely unaware more than one movement even existed and was referring to the melancholic first movement.
Ben had been in a rage, briefly considering knocking on every door until he'd found the author who was pestering him with inane requests.
Instead, he'd crumpled the paper and shoved it in the nearest empty container just to get it out of his sight.
The messages came regularly after that. At first they were just requests.
Canon in D. (One of the most boring songs anyone could ever play, and not typically requested of a pianist unless it was for a wedding, and did he sound like he was a wedding performer?)
Pathetique. (Beethoven again, and another sonata with more than one movement, as if the writer of the message was entirely unaware of what a sonata was.)
Clair de Lune. (At least this was referring to a specific movement, but he refused to give them credit for that.)
But then they started including observations.
'Dear Neighbor,' one of them read, 'whatever you played last night left me speechless. It was so vivacious, full of such energy and excitement. It reminded me of a colt just realizing that it can run, racing the wind. Thank you so much for the lovely experience.'
As it always did, it ended with a request.
But Ben hadn't crumpled that one. He'd thought of the piece he'd been working on the night before, and he'd almost smiled thinking of a colt just learning its legs. Then he'd stuck it in the jar with the others.
Sometimes the notes came while he practiced, when he was so caught up in his music that he never heard a sound from the door.
One time there had been two slips of white paper waiting for him.
The first one had said, 'I think that is my favorite one so far. It was like a thunderstorm, wild and free and beautiful and dangerous and overwhelming.'
The second one had been a request for Billy Joel's 'Piano Man' and a quick postscript that said, 'I forgot to ask this.' The irritation from that second one had completely supplanted the vaguely positive vibes he'd gotten from the first one.
Once they'd asked for a Beatles song, and though he liked the song, he'd simply rolled his eyes and put the note with the others. It was a bit of a waste to ask a concert pianist to play 'Yesterday,' not that the neighbor knew he was a concert pianist. He didn't exactly have it advertised on his door.
Anyway, he never played the requests. Not a single one.
It was clear from their notes and from their taste in music that they were a romantic. Every piece they liked was sappy and filled with gentle emotions of varying degrees. The choices were so unlike Ben that it physically pained him to think of playing so much sentimental drivel.
He found such music frustratingly slow and soft and … for lack of a better term, easy-to-digest. Often annoyingly trite, actually.
He liked music that was strong and layered, filled with intensity and challenge.
Every piece he perfected was a battle. He fought with himself, he fought with the piano, he fought with the incorporeal ghost of the master who wrote it, until he could claim victory.
It was why he preferred the heavy and ominous gravitas of Palpatine's so-called Red Phase. The sly wit, the deceptive grace of the French composer Grievous, known as 'Le Général.' Even the frustration and the helpless rage of the unpublished works of his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, who had died before anyone recognized his genius.
Ben Solo recognized that music was a language, and he only spoke it one way.
And that was the problem.
It was the reason why his Uncle Luke refused to teach him further. It was why Snoke wouldn't allow his sonata in the program.
Sighing, he looked out over the requests that were spread out before him. What was it about these compositions that appealed to so many people?
He tried to visualize them as word pictures, the way his unnamed neighbor did.
He knew each of the pieces, of course, as he'd learned them all during his musical education. (Even Piano Man, because how could you not?)
So he closed his eyes and played them over in his mind, trying to visualize them as pictures—trying to feel what others felt when they were listening.
This one was bunnies hopping in a field of dandelions.
This one was fluffy clouds in a clear, blue sky.
This one was a big pile of puppies. No, babies. No, puppies and babies.
Ben's eyes popped open. He was terrible at this. He couldn't seem to help the sneer that came to his face. The things that other people thought were moving and beautiful were not necessarily things that he appreciated.
He decided to try to approach it another way.
What did he think was beautiful and moving? What was the image of that feeling? What would that music sound like?
He shifted through the slips of the paper, pulling out a couple of them.
The one about the colt that had put a brief smile on his face.
The one about the thunderstorm.
One that compared the piece to a feeling of regret and sorrow.
And here was one that compared another piece to 'the first rays of morning sun coming up over the mountains and landing on a dewy, grassy plain.'
On second thought, he put that one aside.
Closing his eyes, he tried again. He pictured a colt, young and strong, running in a thunderstorm. The air was thick with electricity and danger, but it was exciting and it was freeing. The colt rejoiced in his speed, feeling pangs of sorrow and regret as he left everything miles behind, but reveling in the feeling of being alive that crackled under his hooves as the lightning crackled in the sky.
The picture lingered in his mind. Something stirred inside of him and he tried to reach out towards it, wondering if it was the elusive thing missing from his compositions.
Then he opened his eyes…and the feeling was gone.
The frustration rose up fast and sharp, but he ruthlessly tamped it back down.
It had almost worked. He just needed to find a way to tap into that something inside of him that was real and emotional and powerful.
Slowly, he put all the slips of paper back into the jar. It was probably important to clear his mind of someone else's words and thoughts so he could concentrate on his own.
Since sitting at the piano seemed like a good idea, he wandered over to the concert grand piano that took up the entire center of his living room.
He left the lights off. There was enough of a glow from the moonlight to keep him from falling over, and he didn't need lights to play.
The dark night was comforting to him. The coolness of it was inviting. It didn't judge and it hid a multitude of flaws. In the darkness, he felt like he could exist as he was, without the shame and the struggle of being Ben Solo or Kylo Ren.
There was a twinge of pain in his heart at the thought, as sometimes happened during these late night sessions. This time, unlike the other times, he didn't repress it. He let it wash over him.
Was this where his inspiration would come from?
He usually didn't allow himself to miss his family. He didn't need their attitudes and their judgment and their lack of faith in him. He didn't need their patronizing words and their mocking jokes, or their disappointed, tearful faces.
But sometimes he missed having a family. He never had any brothers or sisters, nor even any cousins. Just his parents and his uncle, and none of them were in his life anymore.
Snoke wasn't remotely family-like. And Hux and Phasma—well, sometimes he wasn't even sure if they were actually friends or just people who were in the habit of spending time in the same location a couple of times a week.
There were very few people in his life at all.
He sighed to himself.
It wasn't like he wanted puppies and babies. Certainly not a whole pile of them anyway, though he might not be averse to one or the other.
He just wanted someone to care about him. Someone who saw him with all of his flaws and still respected him, still wanted him in their lives. Someone who could see him, know him, trust him, love him…
An image came into his mind suddenly.
A bright night, like tonight.
A warm bed, piled high with covers.
And moonlight. Moonlight that filtered softly through the window to land on the cheek of a woman.
In his mind's eye, the woman's hand rested familiarly on his chest while she quietly slumbered.
The words 'I would give you the galaxy' echoed through him.
The image was so vivid, the words so clear, the feeling so strong—that he was shocked into playing.
His fingers were moving before he'd even thought about it.
It was the themes from his movement—the broken final one—but it was different. It was deep and layered, moving and delicate. It was full of longing and fear. It was this sharpness in his gut, in his chest, this feeling like there was a huge piece of his life that he hadn't even begun living yet…and terror that he would never find it.
Perhaps it was the witching hour—the downfall of many mortals before him—but he played like a man possessed. He felt ripped open, vulnerable, and for the first time in his life, he let himself stay open, like a doorway, trying to let the creative frenzy flow through him.
It was the most emotional thing he'd ever written.
It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever written.
Breathing hard, he brought the music to a stop and then frantically scrambled to turn on the piano lamp. With trembling hands, he hastily scribbled out everything he'd just done.
The specific dynamic details could wait until morning. But he couldn't afford to lose the little delicate trills, the dramatic driving marches up and down the keys, the huge, overwhelming, sweeping scope of it. Because if he couldn't get it down on paper right then, he wasn't sure he could recreate it in the glaring light of day.
When he finally finished, exhausted, he stared at all the papers scattered all over the piano. He couldn't believe what had just happened.
As he looked at their fluttering edges and at his ink-stained fingers, he marveled at the new feeling of pride and wonder that rose within him.
'Save this feeling,' he told himself, even as he stumbled off to bed. 'Save it for the next one.'
A/N: Thanks everyone, for giving this story a chance! I know it's outside of my usual writing, in that it's not for the Dramione fandom or part of a Harry Potter fandom competition or fest. But you'll find that you can still recognize my usual brand of fluff and angst. I really appreciate your thoughts and reviews, and am so glad you are enjoying this story so far.
S&R: CONSTRUCTIVE REVIEWS WELCOME (CRW), meaning all reviews are welcome, including constructive criticism, should you feel like leaving some