AN: Sorry it took so long, my life's been crazy! Anyway, guess what? I'M DRESSING UP AS FEM!ERIK FOR HALLOWEEN, YAAAAAAY!
Seriously, though, I'm sorry I kept you in suspense so long, I didn't mean for it to drag out as much as it did, and that it totally my fault, I'm very sorry, I'll try not to let it happen again, but will not make any promises, as I am on crew for my school's upcoming play, and yesterday was the first rehearsal that crew was at, so I'm going to have those every day from Monday to Thursday from now until the show ends, and that's going to be a while, so again, can't make any promises, but I'll do my best.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and see, what'd I tell you, Kat, no way was I going to kill her off! XD
I DISCLAIM!
For several long moments, they just stared each other down, Erik with his fists balled at his sides and his entire body tense, the visible half of his face red and contorted with rage, his nostrils flared and eyes burning with anger, Miette down on her knees at the shore of the lake, hair falling over her shoulders, hands shoved into the water and gripping the sketches tightly, parts of both her sleeves and skirt getting wet, eyes wide as she stared at him unflinchingly, lips pressed into a thin, hard line, shoulders visibly rising and falling with each breath.
"I have worked," Erik said, his voice threateningly low, "on my sketches of her for two. Years. You insolent girl. How dare you come in here and destroy my most precious work? How dare you?! Do you have any idea what those sketches mean to me, what they even represent?!"
"Who is she?" Miette demanded.
"That is none of your business," Erik said harshly. In just a few long strides, he was standing over her. He glared at her for a moment, then bent down and snatched the drawings from her grasp before turning and moving back the way he'd come. He cleared a spot on the table where the disassembled iPod sat, laying the papers out and flattening them gently, so as not to tear anything in their fragile, waterlogged state, then examining them all closely. After a few moments, he covered his face with his hands and let out a moan. "I shall never be able to recover them now!" he cried. "They're ruined! See what you've done, you've ruined them! Are you quite pleased with yourself, Miette Comtois?! Are you?!"
Miette had slowly and quietly crept up behind him, and now, as she stood just behind him, she defiantly replied, "I am." And then, as he straightened up and turned to face her, she snatched the mask off his face. One hand flew to cover the now-exposed half of his face, his visible eye burning with fury at her, but Miette wasn't done yet. In a moment of rash decision, she made another bold move by grabbing his wrist with both hands and pulling as hard as she could. He resisted, of course, but Miette was determined and stubborn, and in the end, she won out in the struggle and successfully pulled the hand away from his face, then quickly grabbed hold of his other wrist so he couldn't replace it with that hand.
She gazed at him steadily and unflinchingly. He stared back, his own gaze stone cold.
"That's right," he said, "look upon me. Look upon the Devil's Child and know the meaning of true ugliness and fear!" He yanked his wrists from her grasp, then grabbed her own wrists so that their positions were, in a way, reversed. He pulled her closer to himself. "Are you getting a good, long look, mademoiselle? I hope so, because this face shall be the last you ever see! The rules clearly state that once you see me without my mask, you are to be my prisoner for all time! So get used to the idea of an eternity of this before your eyes, Miette Comtois!"
"It doesn't scare me," she said, her tone as defiant as ever. "It's just a birth defect, that's all. Nothing to be afraid of. There are worse deformities you could have ended up with, believe me. You're lucky compared to some."
"Foolish girl!" he shouted. "Do you not understand the danger you are in? I am a murderer, what about that is so difficult for you to grasp?! Perhaps if you knew what I had done in Persia! Of what I built there and then duplicated here, in this very opera house!"
"Then tell me! If you're so keen for me to know, just tell me!"
"A torture chamber, m'amselle! A room with mirrored walls that becomes unbearably hot, so that without food or drink, he who finds himself trapped within has only one way to escape, and that is by hanging himself with the lasso in the corner from the iron tree that stands there! Do you not understand that you are being held captive by a monster?!"
"A murderer you may be, messieur, but you are not a monster! You are no 'devil's child,' you are merely a tortured soul! I know the look of a heartbroken man, messieur, I live with one! Whatever it is that may have happened to make you lose her, you must move on, for if you don't, you shall only be torturing yourself further! I should know, I have also lost loved ones!"
"You. Know. Nothing! You know nothing of me, of her, of anything! You were not here two years ago when the chandelier fell and she was taken from me! You were not here on the night she sang that aria so beautifully, or when they performed my opera! You were not here! Nor were you there when Luciana fell from that roof, or when I broke that mirror as a child! You are nothing, you hear me?! Nothing! Nothing but a simple madwoman with insane theories about the future and a strange music device! That is all you are, you understand?!"
"You want to see my scar?!" Miette cried tearfully, and Erik stopped short suddenly.
"What?" he said in disbelief.
"My scar!" she repeated. "I've got a big ugly scar on my leg that I'm ashamed of, it's why I never wear anything that leaves my legs exposed, no matter what I'm doing or how hot it is! I've had it since I was ten, I got it in a car wreck that I was the only survivor of, it killed both my parents and my aunt, I just got lucky! It's this big, huge, ugly red thing on my leg, do you want to see it or not?!" Without waiting for a response, she pulled free and lifted her skirt up, rolling down one of her stockings, then thrusting the leg out at him, using the table for support to keep her balance. "Look!" she cried. "Look at it!"
Sure enough, just as she'd said, there was a portion of her leg where the skin was red and mottled, and there was an angry pink line running through part of it where the skin was sort of puckered inwards and white around the edges. "My leg was crushed under part of the wreckage," she said, "and the line is from where some glass cut into me. Like I said before, I was the only survivor. You're not the only one who's suffered, Erik Lenoir. Just remember that. You're not the only one who's suffered. Plenty of people suffer every day, and maybe you would know that if you actually went out into the world!"
"I have had enough of the world to last me many lifetimes, mademoiselle. I need no more of it, nor it of me."
"You are nothing but a coward, do you know that?! You hide behind this stupid mask and won't go out in the world simply because you're different! Well, news flash, Monsieur Lenoir! So is everybody else! You think there's such a thing as normal?! You're wrong! There is no such thing! It's nothing but a myth! And even if it was real, it would be completely overrated! And you're out of your bloody mind for thinking otherwise!"
Erik's nostrils flared, and he raised a hand as if preparing to strike her, but Miette turned and darted off in the other direction. He followed, and they ended up on opposite sides of a table, both of them repeatedly feinting back and forth, trying to trick the other into going somewhere else, but they were both too clever for it to work on either end. The result was that they were doing an odd dance of sorts when they were interrupted suddenly by a cream-and-dark-brown blur jumping up onto the table between them, startling Miette and making her gasp in surprise as she stumbled back a step or two before catching herself against the wall, then turning to see what had happened. She blinked and tilted her head slightly at what she saw.
Erik was smiling sadly, his eyes glistening with unshed tears as he gently stroked the Siamese cat that stood on the table affectionately rubbing up against him. Miette approached slowly, and Erik's dark eyes darted upwards to look at her as a frown replaced the smile. "What?" he snapped. "Are you going to do to Ayesha what you've done to my drawings?"
"Ayesha," Miette repeated. "That's such a pretty name. And...she?" When Erik gave a nod, she continued. "She's such a beautiful cat. Where—"
"I found her on the streets one night. It was in 1871, durring the Commune, when meat was scarce and people routinely butchered cats and horses. She was only a kitten at the time, and I knew that if I left her there, she would surely be scooped up by someone else and eaten. I couldn't let that happen, so I picked her up and brought her back here. What? What are you smiling like that for?"
"You see?" Miette said. "You do have a heart. You are more than just a madman or a killer. You are human. I would have done exactly the same thing. I have a cat, you know. Her name is Bijou. I've had her ever since just before my parents died. She sleeps on my bed at night. She was abandoned as a kitten and I rescued her, just like you rescued Ayesha. You are human, Erik Lenoir. There is compassion in you yet."
She sighed as her smile faded. "I'm sorry for ruining your pictures," she said quietly. "I didn't know that they—"
"No," Erik said. "I'm sorry. I...I should have realized you were serious in your threats. As much as music means to me, I shouldn't have tested you. That was hypocritical of me. I would have retaliated, as well. Your music is precious to you, just as mine is to me, and I see that now. I will...attempt...to fix your...ah...device. I cannot make any promises, as I don't fully understand how it works and am not sure I'll be entirely successful, but...I can at least promise to try."
"I...I know some art tricks. I might be able to save the drawings. I just have one question for you."
"And what might that be?"
"Am I really your prisoner?"
"Yes. At least for the time being."
"How long do you mean by that?"
"That depends on a few things."
"Such as what exactly?"
"Namely your behavior from this point on."
There was a pause, during which Miette's face was thoughtful.
"I'm considered an oddity, too," she said finally, her voice quiet. Erik chuckled humorlessly as he scratched between Ayesha's ears. "I find that difficult to believe," he said quietly. Miette lifted her head, her chin set. "And why is that?" she asked. He smiled sadly and shook his head.
"Look at you," he said. "You're what, eighteen?"
"Nineteen," she corrected.
"You're the same age that she was. You're just like her. You're young and beautiful with a lovely singing voice and your whole life ahead of you. You have potential, talent, your fa—" He faltered and paused for a moment. "...Your pretty red hair," he said finally. "The world is at your feet, Miette. Embrace it while you still can. Behave yourself so I can let you go, and once that happens, go home, find a boy, get married, have children, die old, do all the things a girl like you should do with herself. Like she did."
"Who is she?"
"I cannot tell you."
"I'll make a deal with you. I will tell you anything you want to know at any time you want to know it, and in return, all I ask is that you tell me about her."
"That is a deal I'm afraid I—"
"Can't make? Or won't?"
There was a long pause. Miette went over to where the mask had landed when she'd tossed it aside and picked it up, dusting it off before going to where Erik stood and holding it out to him. He reached out and took it from her, an exhausted, worn-out look in his dark eyes as he replaced it.
"It's late," he said after another moment or so, "you should rest. You may take the swan bed."
"What about you, though? Where will you sleep?"
"I'll be fine. I don't sleep much, you see."
"...Oh. Alright then. If...If you say so."
Miette turned and began heading towards where the swan bed was situated. Erik turned his back on her and seated himself at the table, where he began examining the parts of the iPod to try and put things back together again. As Miette stripped out of her dress and down to her undergarments, she hummed softly to herself, and as she settled down beneath the covers, watching Erik's silhouette at the table, the humming turned into quiet singing.
"Et je trouve ça un peu drôle et je trouve ça un peu triste que ces rêves dans lesquels je meurs sont les meilleurs que j'ai jamais eu; et je trouve qu'il est difficile de vous dire et je trouve qu'il est difficile de prendre que lorsque les gens tournent en rond c'est un très, très...monde fou, monde fou..."
The song Miette sang at the end there is the chorus of "Mad World," the only version of which I'm familiar with is Adam Lambert's. For those who don't know, it goes:
"And I find it kinda funny and I find it kinda sad that these dreams in which I'm dyin' are the best I ever had; and I find it hard to tell you and I find it hard to take that when people run in circles it's a very, very...mad world, mad world"
It's kind of a sad song, to tell the truth. Like kinda-sorta-not-all-the-way-but-technically. It's hard to explain, you just have to listen to it and/or look up the lyrics to understand what I mean by that. Anyway, yeah. Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long, but in the meantime, Mabinogi, here I come!