Chapter 5 Pianos and Bandits.
I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't. This always happens when I had a recital or had to play in front of any audience. I spent the whole night think about the song I should play or how should I even present myself. Scenarios ran through my head like excited meerkats.
"There is nothing to worry about dear. I know you'll do the best you can."
Again, her voice appeared in my head again.
"My little Mozart! That's what you 'll always be to me"
Why? Every time I even look at a piano I hear her again. I tried to shut her out, to think of something else less depressing. It wouldn't work. Just the fact that I had to play a piano made me remember her. I got up and grabbed the Gemini brothers, and briskly went out the room. I continued my brisk walk down the stairs, then out into the grounds. I breathed in the cold outside air. It felt like mid fall. I looked up at the two moons in the sky and tried to push her out of my mind, to focus on what I was going to play. It wasn't working. Instead of pushing her out, my mind decided to play all of the memories of her I have like a movie reel. I tried to relax myself but it wasn't happening. She was the only one that could calm me down when I had a recital the next day. The only one. I felt tears roll down my face and I angrily whipped them off. I gave small roar of saddened frustration, put on my gauntlets and activated them.
When they are active, I fell as though I have a lot more energy to pull from. I decided to see how long this extra energy would last for. I sprinted towards the gates of the school forgetting that I have to get passed it to advance. I didn't care though. My mind was set on tiring myself out so that I would sleep.
"Jump" the Gemini brothers said. I followed their instruction and when the gate was in sight I jumped. I flew over the gate, jumping higher than I could ever do without the gauntlets boost. I didn't clear it though and I smashed through the top part of the gate. This caused me to loose control over my fall and I ended up spiraling in the air and landing heavily on the ground. It shook as I landed. I knew that what ever magic the gauntlets gave me deadened the fall as a fall from that height felt as if I had just decided to fall back on the ground. After getting up and brushing myself off, I jumped into a full head on sprint down the road.
"Thank you for your silence" I told the brothers. They didn't respond which I was thankful for. They could be annoying at time but they knew when they were needed to be silent. I continued sprinting at full speed straight down the road, not caring how far from the school I got. The night air surrounding me was making me more aware of my body and its heat but everything else around me was ignored. I ignored the plains I passed and the bugs and the animals. My goal was to tire myself out. It felt as though I ran for a couples of hours before I began to slow down. Eventually I felt my body get heavy and I took it as a sign to stop. Sadly, running didn't solve my problem as I instead of tiring myself out, I became invigorated and my head began to fill of pictures of her. I felt the sadness well up inside me, and I tried to quell it but it didn't work. Eventually I turned to the unlucky tree that was next to my and began to turn my sadness into violence and began smashing the tree with my fists. Every blow I dealt to the tree dented it final blow took the tree down. Normally I would have been ecstatic about the fact that I took down a tree by beating it with my fist but my mind really wasn't processing it. I looked up at the two moon. They were trying to hide from the sun by running towards the west horizon. I turned to see the sun starting to bring the orange light to sky and took it as a sign to turn back.
I didn't run as fast as I did on the way back. I didn't want to. The sun was high up in the sky when I arrived. This time instead of jumping over it, I opted to open the gate as I remembered now that they never actually locked it. Apparently the talent show had started and so I could be considered late. The stage was set up, there where festive floating candles and tables with all sorts of goodies and treats. The lad on the stage now was small kid and was playing a silent comedy bit with his cat familiar. It was pretty good. I figured that I had better find Warde before he started having a tantrum or worse and began to looked through the crowds. I only occasionally looked back at the stage to see what was going on; one time I looked there was a girl magically created targets for her beholder familiar to shoot down in sparks and flames, another time a guy was re-enacting a knights tale and he was play fight with his dragon. There was someone else there too, a girl who I guessed was playing the role of the damsel in distress. She seemed familiar but I could never get a good at her because I was moving around to much. Eventually I found Warde who to my surprise wasn't fuming or beginning his tantrum, instead he looked a bit worried and confused. He was leaning against something large and under a blanket which I could assume was my instrument for today.
"Hey. What's going on?" I asked bringing his attention to me. He looked up and gave a relieved sigh and got off the box. He pulled of the cover and revealed a beautiful white grand piano. It gleamed in the light and sparkled as if it were made of pure ivory, the highlights of certain areas were golden and each key had flourish markings on them. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Warde looked at me asking "So do you know what your going to play for your show?"
"No, not really, But I am pretty sure I can think of something" I said examining the piano. He gave a groan and I chuckled. I turned to him and he looked up back to me, his face still carried a worried look. He opened his mouth as if to asked a question but then closed it as if for the better. I concluded that he knew about me running off in the night and was worried for me a bit, he was scared if I had broken. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile, "Hey, don't worry ok? I am fine. Nothing wrong no more." He smiled, looking less worried and began to walk off, calling behind him, "OK well, I'll be in the crowd avoiding your embarrassing plunge."
"That or trying to get a nice seat next to Princess Louise" I teased.
"Shut up" he called back. I gave a smile and looked at the line that was already ahead of me. I had some time to kill before my turn was up. I decided to spend it in a way that would at least benefit me in some way. I shadow played the piano. This was an old technique that my grandfather taught me before he died. He was a very accomplished musician and he believed that you should always stretch before you play any instrument be it a trumpet, or flute or even cymbals. He taught me how to 'shadow play' as a way to get my hands back into the rhythm of playing a piano. It was good thing to because as I hadn't touched a piano in what maybe 9 or 10 years. My hands were responded slower than I wanted them to; My head would be at the five or six stanza of a song and my hands will still be playing on the second. It took most of the line for my hands and mind to be back in sink which was quite a while.
"And now for our next and final contestant, Warde's Familiar, The Jackal." They called from the stage. I sighed and activated my gauntlets, grabbing the piano and hauling it over my shoulder one handed. As I walked onto the stage with my piano on my shoulder people began to whisper and murmurs broke out like wildfire. I placed the piano in the middle of the stage gently as not to ruin such a piece of beauty. I took off the gauntlets and placed them within my pockets. I stretched my finger one last time before I went into my warm up song. The warm up song I choose was 'Piano Man' by Billy Joel. The reason I chose this was because I really enjoyed playing it and it does have a good progression of chords and tempo which help in the warm up aspect. As I began to play, I spoke the lyrics to the song. Not entirely singing but not just saying the words without the long pauses and stretched out words. I could play the song by heart as it was one of my favorite to play on the piano when bored. The song rang through the stage and through the audience who I could assume was taken a back by the actual aptitude I showed for the piano. I had almost forgotten the feeling of playing a piano. Almost.
Once the song had finished, people began to get up and clap but I held up my hand, effectively silencing them. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, focusing all my emotion and shaping them into a song. My hands began to move in sync with my mind and music came out from the piano.
The song at first was light heart-ed. Its was happy, exuberant, light, childish, amusing, charming and all of those other emotions wrapped up in the song. I was think of all the good memories of her when she was still here, the song mimicked what I was feeling then and in turn gave it to the audience who I couldn't see due to my eyes being closed. Then slowly but surely, my good memories began to run out. The less happy and light my memories became the more it reflected in the song. The song went from being happy and childish to sad and emotionally unstable. The song's pace speed up and I slammed down harder on the keys to that the audience could hear them and feel the emotion I was experience. More and more did the song not only speed up and slow down but becoming progressively dark. Eventually the dark and ominous parts of the song started to become more violent. The song stopped its slow sad pacing and started to become more anger driven and rage fueled. The song almost became scary as my memories began to turn to him, and then to parts of me getting my but handed to me by older kids. After the rag had subsided within me, it was replaced with nothing. The feeling of emptiness had replaced the rage within and so the piece I was playing also mimicked it, resounding a song of emptiness. The emptiness had been created by the lack of other intense emotions, by the equivalence of small pleasures and small discomforts that culminating into a nothing that I was playing. This was something that I believe was either scaring or depressing the audience and it was actually scaring me even though these were emotion that emanated from my life. I decided that the end of the song was near as there were no more emotions to call upon. I played another five stanzas and then ended the song on a note that didn't entirely mean the end for it. It was the kinda ending that made you feel there was more to come but I didn't let them have it.
The audience was stunned and silent. I felt like they were expecting more but to show them that I meant for it to end I got up and bowed. Some one began to clap, then more and more followed suit. Eventually everyone was clapping and cheering and whistling. I finally opened my eyes to see a blurry images. I had been crying. Again. Under my breath I muttered a rueful "God dammit." I put the gauntlets on and picked up the piano and bowed one final time before I walked off the stage.
As soon as I placed the piano down. I made for a secluded area of the grounds and took some deep breaths. Every time. In my frustration for being sad I punched the wall next to me. I had forgotten that I had my gauntlets on and with them on I smashed through the wall, leaving a large crack and a hole where my arm was stuck. I stood there for a bit, letting the tears that had already formed there, attempting to stop other ones forming. I stood for quite a while before moving. I was mentally berating myself for my crying.
"Why can't you stop crying like everyone else?" I asked myself. I heard footsteps running towards me, I turned my head to see Warde running towards me with glee written on his face. He bounded towards me and started geek-ing out, "OH MY GOD! That was amazing! You could play like that and never told anyone!? You have to play again man, I think they might want an encore."
"I really don't want too. I am really not in the mood-"
"You played magic man! How did you learn how to play like that? My god, you must be some piano genius!"
"Look I'm really not in the mood for this could you-"
"I got it! We can get an audience with the princess and you can play for her! It would be great to play for her. We could get in her good books and-"
"I said NO" I yelled at least removing my hand from the wall which brought more chunks of rock down. I turned to him and yelled again, "NO. NOT AGAIN!" I stopped to see the damage I had caused. He looked scared at my sudden outburst, stepping back a step in fear. I sighed, I'm just like him eh?. I squatted down a bit to reach his level and to see eye to him and began, "Look Warde. I am sorry about that but I really don't the best experience with piano OK? They bring up some... Painful memories. Some I would like to forget. I really don't like playing the piano because of those things so I tend to avoid them OK? One day I will tell you why but not now. Not when the scar is hurting." He looked at me, still a little bit of fear in his eyes but nodded slowly. I smiled, patted the kids head and got up whipping my face a bit more.
"Why don't we go back to the show. I think they are about to call the winner out. You think I'll win?" I said starting to walk over to the large crowd.
"I don't see why you shouldn't." He replied, regaining his smug composure. We arrived back at the crowded audience just as the princess walked up to the stage and began her after show nominees and the winner. She began, "This years talent show was definitely interesting and varied. There were many fun and talented familiars and there summoners. However this was a competition, meaning that there must be a winner for this contest. Our panel of judges which included yours truly, we have decided the winner and the four nominees. And here they are!" she un-raveled a scroll that she was carrying and began to read it out loud, "Our nominees are, Jonathan Theresgade and his cat; Jeremiah with their silent comedy act. Emilia and her frost imp; Flameo and there fire and ice art rendition. Bonaparte and his dragon; Smaug assisted by the lovely Iris Kalliope and their little knight's tale. And finally Warde and his familiar; Jackal and his wonderfully diverse piano concert." SHe paused for dramatic effect, "And the winner is; Theresgade and Jeremiah."
Applause began as the wining pair went up to the stage and got there ribbons. I applauded along with the crowd for the sake of being polite since i didn't actually see their performance, only glimpsed it. Truth be told I was actually very glad that I didn't win. Winning meant that I had to be on stage again, all to many time when I went back on stage I was asked for another performance. I did not want to that again. So I gladly applauded for a kid who I believe was a decent comedian. I saw that Warde was pouting and I laughed a bit at his face asking, "What's with the sour face?"
"Your performance was way batter than his." he pouted, "Why did they choose him over you?"
"Because honey be always sweeter then vinegar." I said matter-a-factually. As the two got their ribbons, princess Louise both gave them a kiss on check. I turned to see Warde's face growing from a pout to a rage fill to grimace. It was something so strange that I couldn't help bursting into loud laughter. I patted him on the head still laughing. The princess continued once the two winners had exited the stage, "Now that the hard part is out of the way. I thank all the contestants for participating in the contest and now I ask all of you to join me in the festivities that the staff and I have prepare for you all. Come now and let us have some fun." Everyone cheered at this and the cooks and servants brought out food as other people that looked merchants and circus hand began to set up small stands and little games that you would see in small street fairs. Everyone got up from their seats and began to enjoy themselves at the festivities.
The party went on for quite a while. It only started dying at around midnight which is when I saw Iris on a chair looking exhausted. I felt bad about not being able to see her in her performance because of my little morning jog and I felt as though I should apologize.
"Hey Iris!"
"Mr Jacs!" she said, jumping up out of her seat. I stepped back a bit from the suddenness of her reaction and motioned for her to sit back down, "Wow, wow, wow, slow down. No need for you to get up on my account. Please sit back down." She looked at me for a bit, as if contemplating to listen but she fell back down on the chair. She let a huge sigh as she fell back down on the chair as I pulled one up next to hers.
"I'm sorry about that. I'm just so tired. I have been going from table to table serving everyone that sites down."
"Can't you take a break?"
"I don't know if I can. What if someone else requires serving?"
"Then some other maid will."
"That's true" she said as if realizing her mistake. A silence followed as I pondered what to say next as she was probably considering falling asleep in her bed. To pass off the silence I took a sip of the drink that I had taken from a table. I immediately recoiled from this as the drink I had taken was had the taste of a mixture between sweaty gym socks and some expired alcohol. While I placed the glass on a table away from me and took a breath before saying, "Hey, Iris. I want to apologize."
"For what?" she asked somewhat surprised, "You haven't done anything wrong yet have you?"
"Well no. I want to apologize for not seeing your performance. Its just I had to fight some inner demons and I missed you little act because of it." I finally turned to her and I saw that she was blushing a dark red color. She turned away from me as my lips curved up into a small smile and said, "There is no need to apologize for something so trivial."
"No I really should. I feel that you made good of a small performance, and I want to apologize for missing it."
"I thank you but you really didn't miss anything special. I was just there to look pretty in a dress."
"Well I bet you looked good in it." I said without really thinking, I thought about it and surmised that it could be taken as an insult and so quickly tried to cover up my mistake, "Not that you don't look good already, cause you do. I am just saying that yo would good in a dress too because you are a very beautiful girl and, and, and..." I stopped as I saw that I wasn't really getting anywhere and just decided to finish by saying, "I am not making a good argument am I?"
"Well you are trying hard which has to count for something." she said giggling, "but I will say this again you don't need to apologize. It was a one time thing and it was terribly embarrassing."
"Embarrassing enough to look worse than me cause you have to work hard for that ." I said and she laughed. She smiled at me and then got up saying, "Well, I better get back to serving people." However as she got up, she almost fell back down. Luckily I grabbed her before she could fall face first down onto a table.
"Looks like your a bit to worn out from serving" I said lifting her up. She nodded then tried again but again almost fell down and I saved her once again. This time however I decided to not let her give it a third try.
"You are going to bed." I said lifting her up in the strange wedding style. She looked as if she was going to protest but stopped and said, "Please. I can get there on my own."
"Yeah, definitely, after you get yourself a couple of bruises. Not a chance, now tell me where your room is." She looked up at me and then down as I saw a dark red blush come across her face and she pointed towards the kitchens. As I walked towards the kitchen I felt her shift a bit in my arms and after a after a couple seconds, I felt her breathing even out.
"Fell asleep in the arms of her knight." Mini said.
"Ain't that romantic?" Gemi asked.
"Zip it! Both of you" I mentally relayed to them.
"Oh is someone embarrassed?" Gemi asked in a mocking tone.
"I think he is!" said Mini laughing after.
"What are you two talking about?" I said mentally.
"Oh nothing. Nothing at all." Mini laughed.
"Yes indeed. Just admiring a nice scene." Gemi followed. I rolled my eyes. Once I found her room, I managed to open it without dropping her or removing my hand form her using my feet to do it. Once open I placed her on her bed and pulled the covers over her. She curled up into a ball with the covers and I smiled at the small scene. She was very cute in her ball of covers and her maid outfit.
"You should probably undress her." Gemi said.
"Yeah. I don't think she would like running her clothes." Mini agreed. At this, I felt my face grow hot and ran from the room before they could suggest anymore outrageous ideas. I sighed full of relief, letting out the tension out of the moment out.
I didn't talk to girls, doing so was already an alien experience. I didn't touch girls. I had never touch a girl before unless you count the three times I had hit them because I was having a bad day and then had pushed me over the limit. I had never held a girl.
The entire trip down to her chambers, I had been keeping that sole point behind a hole bunch of other things to keep myself calm. Keeping calm was something terribly hard for me to do because she felt so delicate in my arms and I was scared of breaking her. I was never one known for my ability to keep calm in a situation. I wouldn't get afraid or anything I was just very volatile and would lash out to violence as the first and best answer to situation. So breaking people has been second nature to me for a while now. I have hurt girls before and I wont deny that I have but she was cute, delicate and very nice to me so I didn't want to hurt her.
I continued my way back to the party and pulled a glass of alcohol from a passing waiter and chugged the drink down. I went and walked around a bit more before I decided to call it a night. As I walked up the stairs, I noticed many couples running off and having intimate contact. I tried not to noticed but it was hard not to as their were so many. At around the seconded to last floor he was stopped by someone calling my name, "Jacks!"
I turned towards the voice and saw Warde's sister, Sasha. I smiled a bit, but it faltered as I thought of what might happen if I broke her. Maybe I should stop drinking?
"How are you tonight?" I asked as she caught up to me.
"Swell, and you?"
"it's getting late, and I have had enough drinks for tonight. I'm going to bed."
"Ok, then. I would like to ask you something before you go. Do you mind?"
"You can ask me anything tonight." after the words had escaped my mouth, my immediately bit his lips. The damn alcohol had spoken at that point. I hopped I didn't look like some womanizer of overly suave character in a book.
Instead she giggled a bit as she finally managed to catch up to me. They began to start again and she asked, "The song you played, it has a deeper meaning doesn't it?"
"How did you guess?" I asked a bit surprised but more worried then that. I didn't like people knowing to much about me. Dad had once said that personal things are weapons and the less you give the less likely you are to get hurt. Then again he was never sober or nice to me so should I have taken that advice?
"There was a certain way you played the music that said it was a personal experience. Also, the fact that you had no papers with you said that it was some in memorized."
I gave a short laugh before saying, "Well yeah. You're right. It was something personal to me. I hope you didn't tell anyone else."
"Wouldn't dream of it. But that begs the question, how personal is it?"
I stopped at this and Sasha stopped as well. I thought about telling her to drop it by something held me back. Instead, I sighed and said, "Its quite personal. Personal enough for me to not really want to go into it anytime soon. It's a bit to hard to talk about." then continued to go up the stairs and she followed for a bit more.
"Ok, but I would like to give you something for it." she said from behind me.
"I'll accept but I have to say that the last potion you made didn't taste good even though it worked wonders" I said jokingly, turning around. Sasha went up and pulled him into a tight hug. Again, the thought of being in contact with a girl made me nervous but I returned the hug either way. For some reason that I couldn't explain, the hug made me feel worse, as if drinking bad milk while already having a bad stomach, but it also made me feel good inside as well. I felt both bad and good which confused me even further.
She relinquished me and gave me a smile as she said, "Hoped that made you feel a bit better. Good night." she then speed down the hallway, leaving with only a glimpse of her reddening face.
Again, I was almost paralyzed in confusion; What had just happened? The Gemini brothers didn't help at all either as they began laughing hysterically.
"Ooooh, someone the playboy today!" Mini said.
Gemi joined in saying, "He's collecting a whole set; first the lovely maid, then the sexy librarian, next you have to get the violently embarrassed guard women, a nice looking foreign princess and you have yourself-"
"BINGO!" Mini finished.
"Why is it that when ever you two talk, I can either not understand it or is to confusing to understand." I said opening he door to the room I was forced to share. I saw that Ward was there getting dressed into his night clothes. Ward looked to be a bit grumpy as he pulled his shirt on with force and only mumbled a "Hey" at me as I entered.
"I'm guessing things didn't go well with you and your attempt to get close to the Princess Louise?" I asked very cautiously.
Warde exploded with a small force as well. As he threw the shirt he was about to put away, a strange force, that was only visible as a small heat wave visual disruption, emitted from him. The strange magical force that excreted from Warde hit me as made me stop in all motions.
"I hate the damn guards! And my damn older brother! He they kept on interruption my attempt to talk to her! My older brothers kept on teasing me! You know what he did? He kept on calling me pipsqueak like he used to do when we were kids! I hate them!" as be took a pause to take a breath, I was released from what ever held me there in place at took a breath. Luckily, whatever force that Warde had released at the start of the rant didn't appear again.
"Once I did get a chance to talk to her, I was interrupted by other idiots that wanted to get closer to her. When we did talk, I couldn't get much in because she was so tired. I forced her to go to bed and so and now I am here!" he finally stopped as he jumped, back first, on the bed.
"Don't get yourself too down man. You did the right thing. Right now from what I can remember from stuff girls and other guys would talk around me, you are in the 'friend zone'. You gonna need a big push to get out of it." I said as I removed my gauntlets and shirt for bed.
"What 'push'?"
"If I knew, I'd help you but I really don't know what it is?" I finally said as he fell down on the patch of hay that I was forced to use as a bed.
"Well tell me when you figure out ok?" Warde said as he took the covers up to him.
We both fell asleep but one faster than the other. My head was still swirling with emotions and confused thoughts about what my mind was telling me during both experienced with Sasha and Iris. As I fell sleep, my dreams gave me a more surreal conflict about what he was arguing with himself. Sasha would come into my dreams and would openly put herself in chains but then would become Iris and then she split into both Sasha and Iris and both of pleaded for both escape and captivity. I really couldn't make out anything about the dreams but I thought it had to do more with my parentage.
However, during the dream I heard voices calling out to him. I tried to hear what they said, but it was hard and muddled. Eventually I woke myself up from the dream by drowning myself in it. It worked as I worked up panting hard. Thanks to this I was finally able to hear what was screaming at me in my head.
"Wake up!"
"Gotta get up! Something ain't right!"
The Gemini brothers were yelling at the top of their voice, into my head. I grabbed then and shook them hard saying, "What's up already? I'm up, I'm up! What's up!"
"There is some one here!"
"Well there is more than one. And they aren't probably not nice."
"How the hell do you know this?" I asked a but angrily. I had woken myself from sleep to hear these two blabber on about something that I don't care much about.
"Well you told us to keep an eye out for the any other pieces of the set." Mini started.
"And we did say that the belt was somewhere close" Gemi continued.
"Well... We forget to mention that the belt was moving."
"And moving to this very point."
"Waitwaitwaitwait wait wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The belt is moving?" I interrupted.
"Yes." the Gemini brothers said .
"Meaning that it can move on it's own?"
"No." Gemi said
"It's a belt. How would it do that?"
"Well sorry but it's a world of magic, how the he'll do I know what is possible and not possible? Wait, if it doesn't move on it's own, then that means-"
Just at that second, someone kicked down the door and looked at us. I didn't get much time to actually thing cause who ever the intruder was realized that I was awake. This was in conflict with his plan I guess as he looked annoyed and took out an axe. At this my body reacted instinctively, jumping up and putting on the gauntlets. Warde was up and finally managed to take in the situation and asked, "What is going on?"
The intruder attacked, swinging his axe at me. I grabbed the axe mid swing and broke the blade off from the shaft of the weapon. He wasn't deterred much as he pulled out small dagger and went for me again, this time getting a quite a bad gash from his attack. However, his attack drew him to far past me and I took advantage if this by bring my leg up and kicking his back hard. The force was enough to send him through the window where I heard him yell in surprise.
I looked at the broken window, and my body relaxed. Warde looked at me and then back at the window and finally returned to me.
"I think I just killed a guy."
OK.
Yeah fucked up dreams eh?
So this chapter was a bit strange as it shows our main character character having some baggage to which will come in more detail later which will also spark conflict in later chapters. Yes, its a bit weird but there are actual events of people unable to pick up things they used to do because of bad memories. The parents idea was something of self retrospect on what made my life hell up until this moment and it fell on them so I just changed up a few things.
Yes there is a strange dream sequence but they wont come into play in the next chapter.
Sorry about the time between these chapters its just to many things going at once in my life to get some free time to write and attempt to edit these.
anyway thanks for reading.