[Open Post] A pale ghost in the ballroom

[alcuin_delaunay]

From the ballroom comes the soft sound of music. Very quiet, so that it barely carries outside of the ballroom itself. The melody seems inherently apologetic, as though it is surprised that you have heard it and it is sorry for disturbing you

Comments

[bnans_r_good]

He might hear someone with a fruity baritone humming that old chestnut "Hinky Dinky Parlez-Vous". Sure, it's more something that Jack would sing, but the Doctor just likes humming it (and for all we know, he could have come from checking on a now bed-ridden Time Agent). Then a tallish, cropped-haired fellow in a black leather jacket that's seen better days struts into the ballroom.

"Oh, hullo: thought I heard music in here," the newcomer says.

[alcuin_delaunay]

At this point, Alcuin is picking out melodies one-fingered, with many mistakes. He stops at the Doctor's entrance, and looks over sheepishly. "If you can call it that," he says, with a smile. He shuts the cover over the keyboard and turns to face the Doctor. "I'm Alcuin. I'm sorry if the sound was bothering you."

Ah, gods. XD *giggling helplessly* That song. What even.

[bnans_r_good]

"Botherin' me? Nah, the Screech-Singers of Nantos-4, those bothered me: pretty things with bright-colored wings, but the voices on them would shatter glass, an' that was when they were singin' soft," the newcomer says, rolling his eyes and rubbing his ears at the memory. "You a student?" he asks, recovering and looking from the keyboard to Alcuin.

Ain't it the limit??

[justiceis_blue]

You've been very interesting to observe, of late, Alcuin. Very interesting.

L, though, won't break his cover so very blatantly, no. He opts to be visible in the hallway, somewhere further off, instead of in the ballroom, and will be found crouching on an armchair, flipping through the compendium of mythologies.

He won't mind being tapped by a returning Alcuin.

He might even be grateful.

Hope that's alright? Others will be along as they fall into my rotation ;-)

[alcuin_delaunay]

Alcuin's still restricted to the treble clef. He picks out little scraps of melodies by trial and error, but he's getting better at predicting the note he wants next. He always starts with D'Angeline folk songs, moves into half-remembered Skaldi lullabyes, and always finishes with the strains of the Cloud Atlas sextet. But, if not interrupted, he always stops there. Folk songs and lullabyes are well enough when picked out one note at a time, but Cloud Atlas is far too nuanced and complex, and he always gives up in frustration, snapping the cover shut in misery. He wants to understand it, to hear it again and to be able to summon it up at any moment. But he can't. It's impossibly out of his reach, and he feels like a fool for trying

[justiceis_blue]

Page 21. Celtic mythology.

Almost within our own day, many an Irish peasant has made his scanty harvest still smaller, rather than violate with the plough, the grass-grown "rath," or Druid circle. Death within the year is the supposed penalty of such an act. In Brittany, malignant dwarfs and night-elves still haunt the deserted cromlech, and have power at certain times, to wreak their malice on the belated traveller.

L sighs, closes the book, then looks up at Alcuin, the very picture of boredom.

“If you were curious, you might have just said so,” he points out blandly.

Herm, it's occurring to me that having an ear for languages may mean good memory for things that already exist, without meaning a natural talent for aligning notes into new patterns. (That would be because linguistic talent is based on mimesis...) Random thought on the matter.

[homely_sonja]

The very odd sounds are attracting Brienne's attention - and she is who she is, so she will stand in the doorway, staring at Alcuin, the piano, the sounds he's making, and wondering what in the world he's doing.

She doesn't even have the slightest clue what a piano is, so this is quite confusing to her.

She's hoped he was alright - seeing as she hardly saw him after their emotional, first and only sparring.

And now she's herself still rather distressed, emotional and fretty. You can blame Catelyn for that.

[alcuin_delaunay]

Her confusion is warranted. After much trial and error, he can string together melodies that he has heard before, but the process of finding them involves a lot of mistakes and plunking, and even then they don't sound right to him. Frustrated by his memory faltering on a topic where he never expected to use it, he shuts the lid again and pushes away from the piano.

As he stands, he sees Brienne and blushes sheepishly. "Brienne. Forgive me. Was I disturbing you?"

[homely_sonja]

Brienne shakes her head very slowly. “Though I've no mind of what your were doing, in truth.” There isn't the slightest hint of sarcasm in her voice, nor in her blue, guileless eyes.

“Have you been well?”

[fairy_fingers]

Someone old, someone blue... someone new? This one is, to Alcuin. She might have been his sister, light-skinned and haired as she is, lithe as is her body. Like him, taken from humble beginnings. Like him, given to a greater destiny.

Like him, snatched from it, in various ways, too.

Unlike him perhaps, Angelique is still struggling for her happy ending. For now, though, she's crossing the ballroom. She hadn't noticed there was someone there, and only meant to cross it as a shortcut.

She may pause and wait, though, curious of this young (beautiful) man, sitting at the piano, wondering if he is practising for a recital (or, at all, wondering what he is doing).

[alcuin_delaunay]

Trying to harmonize his hands is almost impossible. Alcuin tries to remember how the notes wove together in songs he has heard, and sometimes he can pick out the multiple notes that formed one chord, but more often the notes he plays blur the notes he's trying to hold in his head, and he makes a mess of it. He's improving, but doing so is so frustrating that he's beginning to believe that he's simply not meant for music.

As he pauses, he sees Angelique out of the corner of his eye, and startles in surprise. "Oh! Hello."

[fairy_fingers]

“I'm sorry,” the young woman says gently. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

From her accent, Alcuin can probably judge that she's French. From her dress, she's clearly not a modern - having been married some years to a Westerosi, she dresses now mostly in their fashion, and so Angelique's dresses are not unlike what might be found in Terre d'Ange.

She's hardly D'Angeline, though.