SERIES A/N: Thirty-one prompts to exercise my writing muscles. All Soul Eater, mostly my faves Spirit and Stein. Other characters will show up. Prompts from this list because I like it. Each story's notes will name its prompt.
STORY A/N: Soul needs to bond with Maka's dad. Just saying. Anime-verse, post-canon.
My headcanon is that the room with the piano and pictures on the wall we see in episodes 1 and 51 is actually an art gallery somewhere in the academy.
4. "Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go
Life is a barren field Frozen with snow." -Langston Hughes
Cadenza
Sunlight poured warm and bright through the gallery's picture windows like a curtain, bathing the room in gold. Just like any dawn, it served to bring a sense of freshness and rebirth to the surroundings and a feeling of hope for better things.
It should have been inspiring.
It was not.
Soul stared at the dust that floated through the yellow rays as he sat in the one part of the room untouched by the sun's warmth, the piano next to the wall still in shadow.
He looked down at the keys, pristine and unmarred even by fingerprints — a testament to the academy's custodial staff, he supposed. But, he also rarely heard of the instrument being played.
He set his hands in a familiar pattern, letting them rest upon the smooth ivory, but he didn't play. Countless songs were at his fingertips, but his soul denied each of them. Whatever it was he was yearning for that had brought him back to the rarely-used room, he couldn't identify it to bring it out.
And so he sat unsatisfied, letting memories of the past float through his mind like the dust in the sun and simply staring down at familiar black and white, a small comfort in and of itself even if it couldn't resolve whatever had his soul in such a twist.
"I'd expected to hear something by now."
Soul startled upright at the unexpected intrusion.
"D-Death Scythe!" he exclaimed, the name coming out less respectful and more accusatory, which only added to his sudden panic.
Outside of the collective safety of the classroom and without his meister, Lord Death's second in command suddenly seemed very intimidating. Not that it stopped Soul's cocky tongue.
"How did you know I was down here!?"
"I saw you heading this way. And the art gallery isn't exactly a popular student hangout," was the man's soft reply.
Soul slowly lowered himself back down on the piano bench, seeking that small familiarity for protection as the tall man slowly approached, hands in his pockets and a gentle smile on his face.
"I was looking forward to listening. Your playing is practically legendary," the death weapon continued, stopping just behind the hinge of the grand piano's lid and setting a hand on the smooth, black surface.
"Huh?" Soul replied, his initial panic being replaced by confusion. "You must be thinking of Kilik, or someone else."
"I think Maka talked for at least an hour about you and the piece you played after you two became partners," Death Scythe continued. He paused and glanced toward the windows, the light still streaming in and quickly increasing the ambient temperature of the room. Or maybe that was just Soul's nerves getting the better of him. "That's a night I'll never forget."
'Neither will I,' Soul thought, but he wasn't about to ask the man what had caused his eyes to grow misty and stolen the smile from his face. But before he could fumble out another response, the red-haired man had turned back toward him.
"So how about it? What can you play?"
Put on the spot, Soul wasn't sure if he should show off, flee, or say something insubordinate. But Death Scythe's comment about Maka talking about his playing for over an hour had caused the roller coaster of his thoughts to flatline.
She truly thought that much of it? Granted, she was wholly uneducated and slightly tone deaf when it came to serious music, but what he had chosen to play for her—in fact, what had been designed to put her off—had captivated her that much?
Death Scythe was still waiting, his expression calm but his eyes encouraging. Soul thought for another moment and then adjusted the placement of his fingers over the keys. 'Show off,' was what his racing mind kept repeating, and his fingers began flying over the keys in long-practiced patterns, filling the room with boisterous rhythms and jolly harmonies.
He didn't look up, focused on accuracy for something he hadn't touched in years, but he could peripherally see the expression on the man's face. He was impressed, and Soul smirked as he arrived at a cadence where he could stop. He wasn't about to play an entire sonata on the spot, no matter who the audience was.
When Soul finally looked up in victorious satisfaction, the death weapon lifted his hands and offered soft but affirming applause.
"You're very good," was the man's comment after several honoring claps. The words were genuine, Soul knew, but he suddenly had the feeling of being exposed—the way he used to feel during a lesson when he hadn't practiced beforehand and knew his teacher would be able to tell. Sure enough, the proof came out in Death Scythe's next words. "But that isn't what you played for Maka."
Soul wanted to snip at the man for his intrusion and for his assumptions. And he knew it would take the slightest thing—either an insult to his musical intelligence, or, it was past ten in the morning so shouldn't he be at the bar already?—to send the red-haired man spluttering angrily away. But, he found his mouth had gone dry.
As the tall man stepped around the instrument to hover over his shoulder Soul suddenly realized he wasn't seeing him as a death weapon, but as Maka's father. A man who despite flaws that could be listed from sunup to sundown (in his meister's opinion, at least) was still skilled, intelligent, and ultimately someone whose approval mattered to Soul.
"I used to play guitar, you know," Death Scythe said, reaching down to set a hand on the keys. Soul leaned away from the man's proximity and looked up at his slightly furrowed brow, where it was clear he was trying to recall something.
"What kind?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Electric. Les Paul."
Soul's brow rose.
"It's still in my closet somewhere. Haven't touched it since...I was younger than you," the man continued, pursing his lips with a small hum of nostalgia.
The younger weapon glanced between the man's face and his hand still resting on the keys not far from where Soul's had been, but he'd tucked his hands into his lap when the man came near.
"Why'd you stop playing?" he asked, unable to help himself.
Death Scythe shrugged lightly. "Got busy. Chasing souls, chasing after my meister, chasing..."
He trailed off, and Soul mentally finished with the likely demeaning comment of 'tail,' but his curiosity had been piqued now and to offend Maka's dad wouldn't get him any real answers as to why the man had followed him down to the gallery.
Before he could think of something else to say, a single chord rang through the room. It was slowly followed by another, and another. There was no added rhythm, each chord lasting a slow four counts, but it was clear almost immediately that it wasn't that type of piece as Death Scythe played. The progression was complex, having started in happy major but moving quickly to minor and drawing the tension out, approaching resolution but taking surprising turn after turn away from it. Soul glanced away from where he was memorizing the chords to the man's face, his eyes only half-watching what he was doing as they had glazed over, clearly recalling something. And whatever was on his mind, Soul knew it wasn't music theory.
"So you play piano too?" Soul asked, though he could tell from the uncertainty of the man's movements despite the lack of errors that this wasn't an instrument he had much experience with.
Death Scythe didn't reply immediately, hesitating as he seemed to struggle to recall something, and then brought his own impromptu performance to a conclusion with the expected major chord. But everything that had come before it had left the sunlit air with a feeling of melancholy.
The man finally straightened up and took a step away and back out of Soul's personal space, for which the teen was grateful.
"No, just when I would write... To hear the song with a different sound, to see if it was really going where I wanted it to."
Soul's chest was burning with curiosity now, despite the fact that this was Maka's hated, cheating father standing next to him. Had he written the haunting song he'd just played? What was its meaning? How many other songs had he written? And was that guitar in his closet still in fair condition?
Death Scythe moved back to where he'd stood before by the piano lid's hinge, in the position a teacher might occupy. Soul felt the familiar unease of being scrutinized again, but he didn't shrink from it. His expression was open now, watching the older, more experienced scythe and waiting. What for though, he wasn't sure.
"We never had to fight the kishin itself in my day," Death Scythe began, "but we certainly had our share of defining battles."
"Oh yeah? Like what?" Soul couldn't help but quip. He doubted the older weapon had ever dealt with anything quite as painful or terrifying as the blast of the kishin's weapon.
Of course, Soul recalled then with a flash of guilt...the man had lived through exactly that.
"Entire covens of witches. Rogue wizards. Immortal monsters who couldn't hardly sustain damage let alone die," Death Scythe reminisced, glancing out the window as his expression fell to stone.
Soul bit the inside of his cheek. Despite having faced and ultimately helping Maka win against the kishin, there was something too real and ominous in what Death Scythe had said. There was still madness and evil roaming the world, and he couldn't forget his duty just because they'd been victorious against one extremely large threat.
Soul began to mentally pack away the twisting confusion in his chest that had led him to the gallery that morning. His own problems were nothing in comparison to his responsibilities to Maka, or to Lord Death and the rest of the world.
"She doesn't love you because you're close to becoming a death weapon, you know."
Soul's thoughts were arrested again, every one of them floating away like the dust in the sunbeams as his throat constricted.
'What?'
Death Scythe was looking at him again, the hardness to his eyes having softened but not to the place it was when the man had entered the gallery. He didn't speak again, simply staring at him out of the wisdom of experience that was reflected in the clear, teal depths of his eyes, suddenly extremely visible despite the curtain of red hair that was designed to hide them.
When Soul remembered to breathe, he leapt to insubordination as a defense. Because talking about Maka in that way wasn't something Soul ever wanted to do with the older scythe.
"Psht, and what would you know about love?" he retorted cockily.
Death Scythe's expression only softened further, and Soul balled his sweaty hands under the piano in unease. No one ever looked at him the way the man was now, except perhaps Maka, and it was unsettling. As if he could somehow see through him even lacking soul perception, see his thoughts and insecurities and everything in his life that had his wavelength pulsing erratically as he wondered who he was and who he was supposed to be.
Death Scythe shifted to lean against the piano and inhaled slowly. His gaze on Soul clarified in seriousness. His voice remained low and soft as he answered, as it had with every word he'd spoken.
"I know that in the lives we lead as weapons, we're incomplete without it. We belong in the hands of a meister, and that relationship in itself is part of what defines us. Trying to make it on our own, or out of sync with them...it won't work. We'll end up losing ourselves if we don't...allow ourselves to accept love. And give it in return. Because the trust that comes in love is the foundation of a successful weapon-meister partnership."
Soul ran over the words in his mind, processed them... He knew they were true. But rebellion still won out.
"And I'll say it again... What would you know about it?"
Soul didn't like how Death Scythe had seen through him so clearly, to the questions that had haunted him ever since the kishin's defeat as life had slowly begun returning to normal. But, what was normal anymore? His soul had been stirring ever since that day with questions he couldn't even put to words, but hearing one of them spelled out so clearly was a bit more than the young scythe could handle in the moment.
Just who was he to Maka now, after everything?
Death Scythe's response to the dig against him was to hum softly in acknowledgement, his gaze lowering to the floor. But the small, thoughtful smile he wore remained.
He turned back to the window, and Soul noticed the brilliance was fading from the sun's rays. He couldn't see the dust floating in the air as clearly anymore.
"You're still very young."
"Hey—"
"And I don't want you to make any of the mistakes that I made."
This gave Soul pause. He watched in silence as the death weapon's smile began to fade to seriousness again, and he wondered... This was Maka's father. A victim of tabloid fodder for over a decade, an unashamed alcoholic and flirt, an utter failure in domestic life...and the death scythe of death scythes. The way he'd always viewed the man, through Maka's eyes, suddenly merged with the man who had taken that first nearly-fatal blow from the kishin, standing bravely with Lord Death between madness and the rest of the world.
Spirit Albarn turned from the window, piercing Soul with his clear, teal gaze once more. Crimson stared back, open and almost childlike in the hope Soul suddenly found he needed.
"Don't let what you think you need to be...become so important that you lose your soul."
The younger scythe was pierced by the words as well as the gaze, again struck by how the man he'd never wanted to respect had seen straight through him. Curiosity brimmed at the back of his mind, about what could have happened to lead the man astray from the foundation of love he had so aptly named as vital to a weapon's relationship to their meister. But he ignored it, swallowing slowly as he let his grip on nothing fade, his gaze falling to his hands as he spoke.
"What if...I'm not sure I even have the key to my soul anymore?"
Death Scythe's expression fought then between impassivity and a grimace, the man glancing down as the latter slowly won, and Soul had the overwhelming impression of seeing Maka's father once again and not the death weapon.
"Then...you look to your meister. And h— She'll...know where to find it. If you trust her."
The older man pursed his lips and seemed to force away whatever discomfort he felt and then looked back at the teen with knowing, pressing eyes. Soul felt his mouth had gone dry again as he attempted to process what in essence was permission and in fact encouragement from the man to love his daughter.
"So. Soul Eater..."
The red-haired man nodded toward the piano, his soft, parental smile returning as he straightened up from where he'd leaned against the instrument.
Soul looked down. He brought his hands back to the keys and moved them into another pattern, anticipating. They were still sweating, but not for fear of being judged on a mistake.
It all started with one terrifying chord. And after taking a deep breath, he let it resound through the room—through his fingers, through the floor, feeling the vibrations through his bones until the power faded. And then, a single repeated note that increased in speed until it finally climbed.
He let everything fade. The warmth and radiance of the sunlight around him, the gnawing in his chest of something yearned for and unsatisfied, and Maka's father watching him less than two feet away. He let himself slip into the music, ignoring the constraints of tempo and rhythm as he alternated between precision and recklessness, simply playing as his soul demanded.
And through playing... Not for his family, not for aid in battle, and not even for Maka... He felt the beginnings of peace; a settling of his wavelength into the same frequencies vibrating out of the strings as he played for him for the first time in perhaps years.
And that, he finally realized, was what was missing. Ever since the crisis of the kishin's escape, he had spent every part of himself on being what everyone else and especially Maka needed. It was in his nature as a weapon. But as he felt the confusion in his heart lessen, he was forced to admit that Death Scythe was right.
He couldn't continue being everything for Maka, and everyone else, if it all ended with giving every part of himself away. And with all he had learned in his short years at the academy, he realized he was ready at last to find himself again.
These thoughts sent more peace through his wavelength as he let the song almost play him, responding to it as much as he was directing it—the push and pull of the tempo, the power and gentleness of the dynamics, everything in his soul pouring out through his fingers in the way he had always desired but felt he couldn't permit himself to express.
As he let the newfound freedom bring rest to his soul, he suddenly understood just how right Death Scythe was. The passion he felt to be what his meister needed was no longer a pressure, nor carried fear of failure. It was light within him, and he knew...if he continued this pursuit of his own soul—the reason he'd joined the academy to begin with—then he could truly be the weapon partner she deserved.
The revelations washed over Soul as he played the final chord of the song with cathartic release. And he didn't want it to be over. He wanted to keep playing, to let his wavelength spill out in the way he'd first learned before he'd ever discovered his weapon blood, and relearn himself in the way that he never wanted anyone to know was so precious to him. But before he did that, he knew reluctantly that a thank you was in order. He lifted his gaze from the keys.
"Hey—"
Soul blinked at an empty room. Death Scythe was gone, and the suns rays had shifted, lighting up the ivory in an almost golden aura and leaving him feeling empowered, his soul practically vibrating in readiness.
"Hmm," he huffed lightly as one corner of his mouth curled upward just enough to reveal a toothy grin. He shifted his hands on the keys and began another song, his soul rising with the music like the sun.