Kink Me! #21
Kink Me! #21
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Welcome to Kink Me! Merlin #21!
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At the next rehearsal, they spend the first half on the “Sicilienne” from Pelleas, the section the most people would recognize and, thankfully, both the easiest and the shortest. Uther hasn’t given Morgana a final answer one way or the other, so she’s impatient the whole time, to the point of missing a few obvious cues. Looking to Merlin is no help-he and Arthur tried going out on a date, to try to work themselves out, and it all degenerated into recriminations again, so he’s staring at his stand in misery and probably composing a cello concerto. If the symphony doesn’t work, she’s going to have to resort to drastic measures. Gwaine just shrugs when she looks over at him and goes back to sniping at Vivian, who’s in fine form.
Uther spends the whole of the break on the phone, but Morgana squints at him instead of talking to any of her friends, waiting, even when Gwaine squeezes her shoulder and makes a face trying to get her attention. After, when they’re all about to turn back to review the “Fileuse,” the maestro holds up a hand instead, and then picks a folder up off his stand. “Tonight, we’ll be practicing one of our other pieces for the concert.” His mouth pinches for just a second, and that’s when she knows they’ve done it. “A world premiere from a promising young composer,” he adds, like the words hurt to say, and Morgana watches Arthur’s and Merlin’s heads snap up in unison while everyone else starts whispering. By the time Arthur turns around, though, looking startled and a little bit hurt, Merlin is looking back at the maestro, biting his lip.
Uther raps his baton on his stand, quieting them before anyone can ask who the composer is, why now, why this piece. “You will read this, I trust, with more attentiveness than you have been giving to the Fauré, because Camelot is taking a chance on this piece and I will not have it ruined. We may receive edits as the concert grows closer. I expect you to keep up with them and keep your scores up to date.”
With that, he hands the parts out to the section leaders, who pass them around. Morgana takes her parts and tries to look as attentive as everyone else. The title is on there, Dragon Symphony because nobody could talk Merlin out of it, but where the composer’s name is, there are just initials: M.A.E. It’s enough that some of their friends are darting glances at Merlin and that Arthur isn’t even pretending to look at his score, just staring at his father, but Merlin keeps his eyes on his stand, fingering through a few of the parts.
What follows is another shock to the way Camelot usually does things. The maestro always works every tiny section before allowing a read of their pieces all the way through, but he tells them to open to the first movement, first section, they’re going to play through it. That starts out another spate of whispers, but Uther puts a stop to it quickly, raising his baton and waiting to give the downbeat.
They play.
The first twelve measures are a disaster of everyone scrambling to read their scores while still trying to telegraph looks about why the maestro has chosen now to leave his usual path, and Morgana’s afraid it’s not going to work, but then it straightens itself out all at once when the timpani comes in, Percival exactly on beat because he’s been bored these past few rehearsals. She spares a glance at the cello section just in time to see Merlin’s shoulders relax.
It isn’t perfect. There’s a section in the first movement where Merlin was trying something experimental with the harmonies that he really shouldn’t have tried, Uther’s tempo on the slow movement is just a shade too fast to make it as lovely as Morgana knows it can sound from her sessions with Gwaine and Merlin, and Arthur fumbles a cello feature in the third movement not because it’s difficult but because he can’t seem to keep his attention on the music. It isn’t perfect, but it’s good.
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