The greatest problem with pianos is that they're not particularly mobile.
The Greenes have one, of course--they're a respectable family, they can hardly skimp on evening entertainments--and if Beth had her way, she'd spend all her time with it. Only, it lives in the drawing room (also very respectable), despite the fact that she's the only one who ever plays it. Her elder sister gave it up in frustration after a year of lessons, and Mama's passing left Beth the only one in the house who can play hands-together. (Maggie is, admittedly, not terrible at picking out popular melodies with her right hand. Maggie's also on the verge of marrying and leaving all of them, so it won't be relevant much longer anyway.)
But drawing rooms offer little in the way of privacy, and one sometimes wants to do something other than entertain others. It would be ideal to keep the piano in her room and have it all to herself, but Daddy's evenings would be sorrier for it, and they'd have no music when guests came over. So Beth's begun to play at night, when her father's retired to his bedroom and her sister is off reading or possibly slipping out in secret to see her beau. It's quiet then, and Beth can make up her own melodies if she likes, placing chords beneath them and singing along lyrics she doesn't dare share with anyone else. There's no promise, after all, that what she makes up is any good. She does it for the fun of it, and to have some songs that belong to her alone.
She leaves the windows cracked in search of a breeze, and though she plays softly, the music drifts out over the dark courtyard and perhaps beyond the garden wall.
He hears the music every night as he passes back this way.
Which isn't strange in and of itself, to hear music in the quieter, more respectful districts, music often echoes. A more gentler version of what is played down by the dockyards, the richness of street music that is drums and violins and a raw woman's voice singing. They dance to it, men tearing off their shirts to move and the women with their skirts slit up to there thighs.
No, this isn't music at all like he finds usually in Serkonos. It's light, it sounds like air put to the press of keys. Lightly played through a window he sees candlelight flicker across the cobblestoned streets, behind a garden wall, the music winds.
Perhaps it is not why he first cut through these streets. It was the fastest path from the shipyards to the mining families districts where his mother worked late every night. But it became the reason, even when heavy booted feet patrolled, he now came this way.
He can't say why, exactly, this time, he looks at that garden wall. He looks at his hand - and perhaps it would ruin where the music comes from to know it's truth but he can't help himself. There are barely any guards and - big as he is getting, his mother teases - the wall is nothing for him to climb.
So he does.
Bare feet on stony crags, his fingers finding grooves of the uneven stacked stones to bring himself up higher, and - pauses, as he hears a voice below on the street side where he perches on the top of the garden wall.
Then vaults himself down the other side into the garden proper. A rose trellis in front of him - and this will get him hung at the worst, depending on who he's creeping towards. It does not stop him climbing up, thorns and all, faint little cuts he's learned to long ignore on his arms and knees before he comes up to the open window.
It's there, he looks from, and there he stops, as he sees who causes the music. His head peering at the edge of the window, just a little and no more. It's there, that his breath falls short and empty in his throat. Staring at who causes the music like he's something transfixed. ]
She tries to compose melodies that remind her of all the best parts of Morley: the sight of the waves leaping up shorelines on the coast, the scent of vegetables fresh-dug from the garden, the thrill of community dances lit by candlelight or bonfire. More often than not, her words follow suit. Only bring me home and I shall wear a crown of ivy in my hair, a lacy moss-shawl from the trees, and every flower that you please. It doesn't compare to the real poets of home, but it's a pleasant way to spend late evenings. So many of her days are spent inside this house that she can't take much inspiration from her new home, beyond what she sees from the window.
It's easy enough to lose herself in songs she's still trying to figure out; sorting through the chords and fingerings, not to mention looking for suitable rhymes, takes concentration. When she's flitting between songs she's known in her fingers for years, though, her mind has space to wander. And that's why a little scuffling sound near the window catches her attention. She glances over toward it, expecting to see nothing, and hits a sour chord at the sight of a face peering in at her.
Beth scrambles up, nearly knocking over the piano bench, her hands up before her. She's heard all kind of horror stories about Serkonians, of pirates and kidnappers and who knows what else, but her sister never paid them much mind, so Beth hasn't, either. Until now.
"I--" She has no idea what to say, and she's not armed, but--there's a small, heavy bust on the piano top, and she grabs at it, the closest she has to a weapon. It won't do much, but maybe it'll slow him down, whoever he is. "Who are you?"
He remembered well, the day his mother first showed him the mother of pearl that lived inside the middle of oyster shell. Showed him how something secret, all to itself, could be so beautiful.
She seemed like it, her hair gold, her voice as sweet as the bird songs. Not even Nelly down in the docks sang like that. Shimmering like the sea as her fingers danced on the keys. The layers of her clothes like the spirits his mother used to tell him played at the water's edge.
And like watching ships come in and out, he watched and watched and watched until the song stopped, and he realised in his daze, he was half way into the window out of a need to hear more. That she can caught him.
He was always quick and quiet and clever. Much too much his mother insisted for a boy getting to be such a tall man. But it seems to left him now. Like she'd thrown open a morning widow at him.
He pulls back too little too late. Scared her and scared him with her jarring note. Corvo's hands hooking on the trellis, and just like the first day he saw something so beautiful, he bleeds. The thorns were no kinder to his bare feet than oyster shells for how they cut. He hisses soft for the mild pain and drops his weight low.
She couldn't hurt him if she hit him, but that lobbed bust might near knock him clean from his perch. Stays quiet, loose in his movements, holding his weight carefully. Voice low in his chest as not to scare her.
"Listening, Lady, I thought I heard a Spirit sing."
For she was a lady, where he was shoeless child of a miller, long dead. There could be no mistaking where he had snuck into.
It had been months since he had started coming. Since the first time he had dared to shimmy his way up the trellis to her window. Enough that in that time he had even gotten shoes to his name. Learned to start cleaning himself before he came, despite the teasing the other men in the gang gave him over who he might be chasing. What bit of lace that quiet, meaningful Attano could be chasing.
Not that he ever said much. Did he ever? Not even to his mother about what made him late most nights. She suspected at least. She knew her son was up to something, that much was a mother's prerogative. But he hoped that soon he might give his Lady Spirit a reason to visit her. Even if their small apartment was far, far from this grand house.
Still, that was a thought for later. For now, like every other time, he hoped the wall of the garden. Vaulting it easily with his rapidly extending height as he grew these days. Until he was coming back up the trellis, up to hang below the windowsill. Listening, carefully until he heard her moving - always making sure that she was alone, with more impatience than he had ever had in his life over the hesitation. He sat quiet, waiting, until, until.
Carefully, he stuck his head up when he was sure. Pulling himself up. Head and shoulders, then the rest of him. Swinging up and over, his legs folding under him as he perched like an over eager gargoyle watching her. His stolen seconds before she might not be completely aware of him, just to watch her move about. She was softer than anything his rough hands had ever known and what cruelty to ever touch her with them.
Beth's come to look forward to evenings alone in the parlor, practicing at the piano and waiting for Corvo to look in on her. Daddy's come to accept her late nights as a curious eccentricity, a little freedom to make up for how little time she can spend out-of-doors here; her sister, who's heard stories of the handsome boy who comes up to listen to her play, thinks Beth's a little bit lovesick.
The truth lies someplace in between. She'd like to think she'd welcome in a harmless, friendly face even if it weren't fair to look upon, but it doesn't hurt that Corvo's sharp features and long hair suit him so well. And though they rarely talk, Beth sometimes feels like an ocean of conversation happens silently, as when their eyes meet after she's finished playing something.
When he arrives tonight, she's come to be anxious to see him, too; her father was up later than usual and she'd been half-terrified Corvo might pop his head up while he sat reading. Fortunately, he has the sense to wait until Daddy's safely in his room upstairs. Beth fairly rushes over to him when she sees his shape in the window, holding out a hand to help him into the room.
He pulls up and takes her hand - a treasured, selfish stolen act. He has chastised himself a thousand times, that he has no right to look at her - let alone all that she allows otherwise. But it had not stopped him, no matter how many times he told himself, he shouldn't not be hovering at her window like a lovelorn, overgrown bird.
Maybe he hadn't come here for any other purpose but curiosity that first time, but that was not the reason now. He holds her hand still, as he pulls himself up to his full height. A thing he was still not square used too. His mother bemoaned constantly that he had grown out of even his father's pants when she took down the hems yet again. He squarely dwarfed his company now.
Not that he ever wanted to put her at ease, and rather than box her in, he drops his head, lifting her hand in the same motion. Leaning to bow over it - he might come into her window every night like an overgrown vulture, but he could... give her everything she deserved, even if he couldn't give her everything else.
He straightens and achingly, lets his fingers loosen so she could pull away the second she wanted too. The smile playing there - that was selfish too, to know that she came over to see him, the second he arrived. "Was that a new song you were playing?"
"Mmm-hmm." It's one she's only started to learn today, picking out first one hand and then the other; she hasn't quite gotten to both hands together on more than a few measures, but the sound of it is pleasant enough even while she's still putting it together. Pink-cheeked, she lets go of his hand and returns to the piano bench--but she sits so that she's facing him, back to the keys. "There's a singing part, too."
Beth hasn't done much with the vocals yet. She knows those'll be easier to learn--singing always comes most easily to her, of all her musical talents--so it doesn't need nearly as much study. Eventually, though, and maybe tonight, letting Corvo sit on the sofa or at her side on the piano bench, softly so that she doesn't wake her father.
For a moment, she's quiet, but then a light comes into her eyes, a smile forming on her lips. She leans forward a little. "How are you at singing?"
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Date: 2017-01-10 04:31 am (UTC)The Greenes have one, of course--they're a respectable family, they can hardly skimp on evening entertainments--and if Beth had her way, she'd spend all her time with it. Only, it lives in the drawing room (also very respectable), despite the fact that she's the only one who ever plays it. Her elder sister gave it up in frustration after a year of lessons, and Mama's passing left Beth the only one in the house who can play hands-together. (Maggie is, admittedly, not terrible at picking out popular melodies with her right hand. Maggie's also on the verge of marrying and leaving all of them, so it won't be relevant much longer anyway.)
But drawing rooms offer little in the way of privacy, and one sometimes wants to do something other than entertain others. It would be ideal to keep the piano in her room and have it all to herself, but Daddy's evenings would be sorrier for it, and they'd have no music when guests came over. So Beth's begun to play at night, when her father's retired to his bedroom and her sister is off reading or possibly slipping out in secret to see her beau. It's quiet then, and Beth can make up her own melodies if she likes, placing chords beneath them and singing along lyrics she doesn't dare share with anyone else. There's no promise, after all, that what she makes up is any good. She does it for the fun of it, and to have some songs that belong to her alone.
She leaves the windows cracked in search of a breeze, and though she plays softly, the music drifts out over the dark courtyard and perhaps beyond the garden wall.
i don't have a good account for this rip me
Date: 2017-01-16 02:55 pm (UTC)Which isn't strange in and of itself, to hear music in the quieter, more respectful districts, music often echoes. A more gentler version of what is played down by the dockyards, the richness of street music that is drums and violins and a raw woman's voice singing. They dance to it, men tearing off their shirts to move and the women with their skirts slit up to there thighs.
No, this isn't music at all like he finds usually in Serkonos. It's light, it sounds like air put to the press of keys. Lightly played through a window he sees candlelight flicker across the cobblestoned streets, behind a garden wall, the music winds.
Perhaps it is not why he first cut through these streets. It was the fastest path from the shipyards to the mining families districts where his mother worked late every night. But it became the reason, even when heavy booted feet patrolled, he now came this way.
He can't say why, exactly, this time, he looks at that garden wall. He looks at his hand - and perhaps it would ruin where the music comes from to know it's truth but he can't help himself. There are barely any guards and - big as he is getting, his mother teases - the wall is nothing for him to climb.
So he does.
Bare feet on stony crags, his fingers finding grooves of the uneven stacked stones to bring himself up higher, and - pauses, as he hears a voice below on the street side where he perches on the top of the garden wall.
Then vaults himself down the other side into the garden proper. A rose trellis in front of him - and this will get him hung at the worst, depending on who he's creeping towards. It does not stop him climbing up, thorns and all, faint little cuts he's learned to long ignore on his arms and knees before he comes up to the open window.
It's there, he looks from, and there he stops, as he sees who causes the music. His head peering at the edge of the window, just a little and no more. It's there, that his breath falls short and empty in his throat. Staring at who causes the music like he's something transfixed. ]
idc this is acceptable *___*
Date: 2017-01-16 05:43 pm (UTC)It's easy enough to lose herself in songs she's still trying to figure out; sorting through the chords and fingerings, not to mention looking for suitable rhymes, takes concentration. When she's flitting between songs she's known in her fingers for years, though, her mind has space to wander. And that's why a little scuffling sound near the window catches her attention. She glances over toward it, expecting to see nothing, and hits a sour chord at the sight of a face peering in at her.
Beth scrambles up, nearly knocking over the piano bench, her hands up before her. She's heard all kind of horror stories about Serkonians, of pirates and kidnappers and who knows what else, but her sister never paid them much mind, so Beth hasn't, either. Until now.
"I--" She has no idea what to say, and she's not armed, but--there's a small, heavy bust on the piano top, and she grabs at it, the closest she has to a weapon. It won't do much, but maybe it'll slow him down, whoever he is. "Who are you?"
no subject
Date: 2018-06-28 06:17 pm (UTC)She seemed like it, her hair gold, her voice as sweet as the bird songs. Not even Nelly down in the docks sang like that. Shimmering like the sea as her fingers danced on the keys. The layers of her clothes like the spirits his mother used to tell him played at the water's edge.
And like watching ships come in and out, he watched and watched and watched until the song stopped, and he realised in his daze, he was half way into the window out of a need to hear more. That she can caught him.
He was always quick and quiet and clever. Much too much his mother insisted for a boy getting to be such a tall man. But it seems to left him now. Like she'd thrown open a morning widow at him.
He pulls back too little too late. Scared her and scared him with her jarring note. Corvo's hands hooking on the trellis, and just like the first day he saw something so beautiful, he bleeds. The thorns were no kinder to his bare feet than oyster shells for how they cut. He hisses soft for the mild pain and drops his weight low.
She couldn't hurt him if she hit him, but that lobbed bust might near knock him clean from his perch. Stays quiet, loose in his movements, holding his weight carefully. Voice low in his chest as not to scare her.
"Listening, Lady, I thought I heard a Spirit sing."
For she was a lady, where he was shoeless child of a miller, long dead. There could be no mistaking where he had snuck into.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-01 06:51 pm (UTC)Not that he ever said much. Did he ever? Not even to his mother about what made him late most nights. She suspected at least. She knew her son was up to something, that much was a mother's prerogative. But he hoped that soon he might give his Lady Spirit a reason to visit her. Even if their small apartment was far, far from this grand house.
Still, that was a thought for later. For now, like every other time, he hoped the wall of the garden. Vaulting it easily with his rapidly extending height as he grew these days. Until he was coming back up the trellis, up to hang below the windowsill. Listening, carefully until he heard her moving - always making sure that she was alone, with more impatience than he had ever had in his life over the hesitation. He sat quiet, waiting, until, until.
Carefully, he stuck his head up when he was sure. Pulling himself up. Head and shoulders, then the rest of him. Swinging up and over, his legs folding under him as he perched like an over eager gargoyle watching her. His stolen seconds before she might not be completely aware of him, just to watch her move about. She was softer than anything his rough hands had ever known and what cruelty to ever touch her with them.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-06 11:39 am (UTC)The truth lies someplace in between. She'd like to think she'd welcome in a harmless, friendly face even if it weren't fair to look upon, but it doesn't hurt that Corvo's sharp features and long hair suit him so well. And though they rarely talk, Beth sometimes feels like an ocean of conversation happens silently, as when their eyes meet after she's finished playing something.
When he arrives tonight, she's come to be anxious to see him, too; her father was up later than usual and she'd been half-terrified Corvo might pop his head up while he sat reading. Fortunately, he has the sense to wait until Daddy's safely in his room upstairs. Beth fairly rushes over to him when she sees his shape in the window, holding out a hand to help him into the room.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-06 04:50 pm (UTC)Maybe he hadn't come here for any other purpose but curiosity that first time, but that was not the reason now. He holds her hand still, as he pulls himself up to his full height. A thing he was still not square used too. His mother bemoaned constantly that he had grown out of even his father's pants when she took down the hems yet again. He squarely dwarfed his company now.
Not that he ever wanted to put her at ease, and rather than box her in, he drops his head, lifting her hand in the same motion. Leaning to bow over it - he might come into her window every night like an overgrown vulture, but he could... give her everything she deserved, even if he couldn't give her everything else.
He straightens and achingly, lets his fingers loosen so she could pull away the second she wanted too. The smile playing there - that was selfish too, to know that she came over to see him, the second he arrived. "Was that a new song you were playing?"
no subject
Date: 2018-07-17 06:22 pm (UTC)Beth hasn't done much with the vocals yet. She knows those'll be easier to learn--singing always comes most easily to her, of all her musical talents--so it doesn't need nearly as much study. Eventually, though, and maybe tonight, letting Corvo sit on the sofa or at her side on the piano bench, softly so that she doesn't wake her father.
For a moment, she's quiet, but then a light comes into her eyes, a smile forming on her lips. She leans forward a little. "How are you at singing?"