The Caged Bird
Title: The Caged Bird
Author: restlessdreams7
Disclaimer: I own nothing. sigh Do you really have to keep rubbing it in?
Rating:PG
Genre: GEN, maybe a bit of angst
Warnings: none
Summary: Christine contemplates the fact that in some ways she's always lived in a cage
When people ask the question ‘why does the caged bird sing?’ they never seem to come up with the obvious answer. Perhaps the caged bird likes its cage. It’s safe in its cage. The cage -and the person keeping the bird in its cage- protect it.
How would I know? You ask, I know because I am a caged bird and I sing happily. My name is Christine Daae. I am a singer at the Palais Garnier. The cellars of that magnificent building, serve as my cage. Let out occasionally to soar upon the stage.
In a way I guess you could say I’ve always lived in a cage. The times I have not been in a one or knowing that I would soon return to one, have been the worst moments of my life.
Growing up my father kept me in a cage of music and tales of the north. I knew nothing about how the real world worked. As far as I was concerned, the world consisted of my father and I traveling from place to place. Him playing his violin whilst I sang or listened. When we were not lost in music I lost myself in the tales of the Angel of Music father would tell.
When he died my cage disappeared and I was lost. Not even music held me like it used to.
That all changed the day I heard the voice of the Angel of Music. I was ecstatic, I was no longer lost, and once again I lived in a cage. He coached my voice to height I never thought possible. For thee blissful months I once again lived in a cage of music and fantasy.
The night the chandelier crashed I was in a panic. What if my Angel was injured or dead? I would once again be cage less and lost. When I heard his voice reassuring me that he was alright, I cannot describe the feelings of joy and relief I felt.
That was also the night I discovered that my Angel was not an Angel at all. He was nothing but a man, an extraordinary man, but a man nonetheless. For a moment my cage was once again shattered. Shattered until Erik (for that is my Angels name) showed no signs of releasing his hold on me. As frightened as I was of this man and his visage, the fact that he was determined to keep me in my cage was oddly comforting.
For awhile I was so frightened that all I wanted was to escape the comfort of my cage. My childhood friend Raoul aided me in my fear and he made plans for us to escape. For a brief time I thought that perhaps the confines of being a Vicomtess would be as safe and as comforting as my cage.
Erik overhearing my plans of escape with Raoul abducted me from the stage during the final trio of Faust. Oddly enough I was not frightened as Erik took me back to his cage in the fifth cellar.
I was also strangely disappointed when Raoul and The Persian came to rescue me. The fact that they had fallen into the torture chamber and therefore could not carry out their rescue was a terrifying relief. A relief because I did not want to be rescued and terrifying because I did not want their deaths on my conscious. So I pleaded with Erik to set them free. Erik ignored my pleading and demanded that I make a choice between ‘the wedding mass or the requiem mass’.
I never was good at making decisions. I always let others make them for me. Which made my horror at Erik’s demand worse. Why would Erik do this to me? I kept wondering. He knew about my inability to make decisions. If he had simply taken me from the stage and told me that I would have to stay down here forever, I would have protested of course, but I would have accepted my fate. At least then I would no longer have to make a choice between him and Raoul. Yet now not only do I have to make a decision between them. I also held the fate of Raoul and the Persian in my hands. Thankfully at the time I did not know about Erik’s plan to blow up the opera house, or I might never have been able to make any sort of choice.
During the long agonizing hours that followed my abduction I realized that the confinement of being a member of the aristocracy was not what I needed. I realized that I have always been at my happiest whilst in a cage. A cage made up of music, fantasy, and having someone else to make decisions for me. Something life with Raoul could never offer. So I did the only thing that would allow me to stay in my cage. I turned the grasshopper.