[justprompts] You consider me the young apprentice, caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.
justprompts : Wrapped Around Your Finger by The Police
The school's conservatory is almost like a graveyard after hours. Empty seats all lined up in neat little rows like headstones in the darkness and even with the house lights on, everything just seems lonely and dead. Some people find beauty in empty theaters- Julian's pretty sure he's not one of them. Still, practicing during school hours just means he has to deal with the fact that there are so many other children better than him and being constantly reminded that there's something out there that he's not the absolute best at drives him crazy. Better to practice in the haunting, lifeless theater than under the scrutiny and mocking jeers of his classmates.
Ages ago, he learned the ignoble art of sneaking out of the dormitories and how to pick the locks on the conservatory doors and if the school's staff has any idea what he's been up to, they keep that information to themselves, but it's not like he gives them any indication he was ever there and the cleaning staff, even they ever bother with the conservatory after midnight, are probably superstitious enough to think the mysterious piano playing to be caused by errant spirits.
On go the houselights, up he vanishes into the light booth to get the stage lights, and then he walks down the path between the rows of empty seats, stepping lightly as if he were well and truly tiptoeing in a graveyard after midnight, up the stairs, and then onto the stage where the school's piano lies in wait, taunting him. He slides himself onto the bench, lifts the lid, and runs his fingers across the ivory. He's memorized every damn note down to the letter and yet applying himself to the task of playing a song just gives him a basic, simple sound- nothing pretty, nothing particularly noteworthy at all. The spark of creativity isn't there- he's too left-brained. Every one of his teachers has an excuse for why he can't do it.
That simply isn't good enough.
Somewhere in the back of the theater, a door slams shut and his head jerks up from his frantic focus on a mostly uncomplicated piece of music that still doesn't sound right. It's not that he's scared, but if people know he's been coming here, his nightly practices will be a thing of the past.
The woman who practically glides into the theater isn't anyone he recognizes and that causes him to tense- strangers make him nervous, although almost everyone does, really. She's pretty in a slim-cut black business suit, her auburn hair done up in chopsticks with a pair of cat's eye glasses with dark frames balanced on her nose. She moves with the grace of a predator and even at only thirteen and having never encountered a person like her before in his young life, he knows he should be afraid of her. Despite that, however, he stares at her levelly like he's daring her to make a comment about why he's lurking in the conservatory after midnight.
"I've never seen such dedication," she muses, a small smile pulling at her lips as she stops just in front of the stage.
"I don't like to practice during the day." He turns away from her and plunks out a few awkward notes- even his chopsticks sound forced. He just stares at the piano blankly like it's personally insulted him, waiting for the woman to speak again. She has a nice voice, soothing, but serious. He likes it, even if he won't admit as much, because trusting people is a lesson his father broke him of when he was so much younger and only further enforced by the cruelties of the students at this school.
"Your name is Julian, right?" She asks. He doesn't react, just attempts another couple of notes on the piano. "Julian Afanasiy Lazarey?"
That gets his attention. He slams the lid down on the piano so hard that the sound echoes across the empty conservatory and the bench scrapes against the stage floor with an angry, grating squeal.
"How do you know that name?" He demands. It's not the name his father gave the school- it's not a name he was ever supposed to know, he thinks. Of course, Lazarey was so disgusted by the prospect of a bastard son being dropped on his doorstep that he'd have any mention of the little blue-eyed boy his attache had dropped off at boarding school and abandoned eradicated. Evidently, he hadn't eliminated everything.
His aggressive tone and stance must amuse her, because she's smiling at him and he's not sure he likes it. "Julian, why don't you come down off that stage? Surely, you don't think your calling in life is to be a famous pianist."
He stays put, his fists clenched at his sides, his big blue eyes narrowed to dark slits. He doesn't say anything, just glowers. Sometimes if he looks threatening enough, no one bothers him. It doesn't matter that he can't make good on any of those threats- there's just always been something about him that intimidates people. Too smart, too ambitious, too young to have such an ancient soul.
She steps a bit closer to the stage, seemingly ignorant of the fact that there's a raised wooden platform between the two of them and that she won't be able to get much closer than that. "It isn't about the piano, is it? Your files said you were ambitious for your age. They said you were never limited by impossibilities and that if you couldn't do something, you would find a way to figure out how to do it."
Files. The school's files? Maybe. The notes that they took on him could probably fill a small novel- child prodigy, sullen, withdrawn, a fast learner who was already so far ahead of his class that the school was having a hard time keeping him stimulated. Everything but details on his past and Lazarey had probably paid them to keep them quiet and not ask questions about why the boy was left at school during the holidays or why his parents never visited. All of them probably suspected the truth- that he was Lazarey's bastard and the man was trying to get rid of him as innocently as possible, but the details, they would probably die unaware of.
So what makes this woman so special that she knows the things that his father had buried.
"Julian?"
He tilts his head to the side, fixing her with a look that's confused, but curious, but he doesn't speak. He's always been the sort to let his silence speak for him.
"I can help you. How would you like to come with me?"
"I don't trust you," he says, automatically. She's interesting, granted, and he'd do anything to get out of this place, but he's not stupid. He knows what happens to children who follow strangers. The same thing that happens to all children who trust too freely- they get let down, they get hurt, they get betrayed.
Trusting her, however, isn't the same as letting her get him out of here.
The woman's smile widens a bit, as if sensing the unspoken agreement. "You will."
~*~
She promises him a life that will mean something, where his ambition and talents can be put to good use and he'll no longer have to live in the shadow of his father's disapproval and disdain, forcing himself to be the best at even the most meaningless tasks just because he has something to prove. Part of him wants to trust her, because no one's ever taken much of an interest in him- it always seemed like the harder he pushed to be noticed, the more people avoided him as if afraid of getting caught in the manic crossfire. He wants to trust her, but trusting doesn't come too easily to scorned, abandoned children.
The next few months are an agony that would make trusting her an impossibility if she didn't stand there after every session and run her fingers through his hair, cooing that it's necessary and when it's all over, he'll be better, stronger, more capable, and isn't that what he's always wanted? That subtle conditioning works better than the harsh, painful variety- he's young and unloved, so of course a tender hand after hours of shock treatments and sensory deprivation intended to break him will strike him as the most wonderful thing he's ever experienced, even if that same hand is the one orchestrating the whole thing. She represents safety and stability, the calm after the storm, and just as she said before, he comes to trust her, but more than that, he comes to revere her.
A year later, where there was once a sullen thirteen-year-old boy, there's a weapon. Her weapon. Mistrust gave way to complete and utter devotion with a dedication to a cause he understands, because he was taught to understand it better than he understands anything else. She shows him how to defend himself, how to shoot, how to be powerful, and it's like nothing he's ever felt before. He spent so long trying not to be seen as weak, but he lacked the discipline and the training... And now.
Well, let anyone try to call him weak now.
He owes it all to her- his savior, his maternal figure, his guiding light. If she wanted an obedient dog, then she has one in him and he fell into that role ever so willingly. Maybe it was all the conditioning's fault or maybe he just needed that feeling of being needed by someone, even if she's told him several times over that if he proves himself less than valuable as an asset, then this arrangement is over. To a normal teenage boy, that would have been a horrifying statement, but to him, more instrument than person these days, it's a fact of life. She gave him a life and if he wants to keep it and return her generosity, then he best not squander the opportunity or disappoint her.
After all, what sort of gratitude would that be?
Muse: Julian Sark
Word Count: 1690