The Music of the Spheres
The stars were beautiful at night. There were things he needed to say and so he was sitting out in the garden. Beside him on the bench was a cup of hot cocoa identical to the one he had in his hand. A large blanket, folded in half, lay draped across his lap. He had left a note for Shelley to find instructing her to come out and talk with him.
"If I don't like this, I'm going straight back in," Shelley announced, stepping out of her back door with the crumpled paper in her hand. Stupid man. Why couldn't he just come find her if he wanted a chat?
"Of course," he responded plainly. He gestured graciously to the space beside him on the bench, and proffered the mug of cocoa.
"This is for you."
She moved warily closer, but stopped before getting to the bench, eyeing the mug as if it might explode.
"What's in it?" she asked doubtfully. The day she trusts anything he offers her without discernable reason would be the day the sky fell, then took to wearing shades and dining at the Ritz.
"Hot cocoa," he commented before peering into the cup and adding, "With three marshmallows."
After a pause, she took it. She gave him a look that was possibly meant to be stern, then sat down, as far from him as possible while remaining on the same bench.
"What was this about, then?" she asked, waving the paper. It fluttered limply in her hand.
"Ah, that," He said flatly, and sipped his cocoa. His lips pursed slightly as he thought about how to say this.
"Have you ever looked up at the stars at night and wondered what you are missing from beneath the cloak of the atmosphere? How very different things must be up there? I cannot hear it from down here--the music of the spheres. If I could, I would take you to the far side of the moon, and we could, just the two of us, sit on the shore of the Sea of Shadows, dip our toes into the dark lunar dust, and we could hear the music of the spheres, the melody of the infinite of creation in flawless harmony."
Shelley appeared to think.
"No," she decided.
Rather seriously, he glanced over to her and said, "But it does sing, you know. Black holes as they spin hum a note sixty-three octaves below middle C, they form the bass of the chord and it goes up from there. Pulsars send out their percussive beats." He gestured circularly with one hand up at the sky. "And the whole universe spins and moves with this music, and to punctuate a particularly sublime moment, a supernova will occur, a cosmic cymbal crash--Think about it, Shelley, a star will die, exploding and taking a whole system planets with it, just for that little extra... something in the grand cosmic symphony. Of course, stars have to die so we can exist since our world is made of elements only found in the cores of huge stars, and only by them exploding could we be sitting here tonight."
"Is that why you wanted to destroy yours?" she asked shortly, glaring at the surface of her cocoa.
She didn't like the fact that all of that made sense to her.
"No, that is why I want you to forgive me. I shall never hear that music as I am, but perhaps, and only perhaps, I could hear it with your forgiveness. This sublunary place being what it is, it is a faint goal, but maybe with peace within myself and between us, I might."
Shelley blinked, shocked, then looked down at the floor. She was silent for a long time.
Until she looked up again. "So you don't want it because you want to make up for everything?"
His lips tightened slightly in irritation, "The music is a metaphor for a soul absolved."
"You could just have said that," she said uncomfortably.
Shifting slightly to face her more directly, he shrugged his shoulders, but kept his voice firm, but not harsh.
"I thought it the best way, but the message is the most important, not how I said it."
"And the message was to ask me to forgive you. Yes?"
Her tone was doubtful, and the look in her eyes may not be promising. His eyes met hers--Lacking the often predatory gleam, but instead holding a strange softness. He wanted her to believe him.
"Yes."
Shelley swallowed, and tried not to drop her eyes from his. It's hard, though, she had spent so long cringing away, physically and otherwise, keeping her distance. It felt unbearably... well. Intimate. She didn't like it, but she can't look away now.
"Can you-" she paused, trying to keep her voice level as she asked, honestly curious. "Can you tell me why I should?"
He paused for a moment, his face twisting, "No, I cannot." With a small sigh, he folded his hands in his lap, but kept his eyes fixed firmly upon her. The distance between them seemed very small, indeed.
"In all honesty, carrying your resentment and hatred to your grave is your right, but I had to ask regardless."
Well, that took the wind out of her sails. If he had tried to reason that she could, she could have railed back, giving the hundreds of reasons why she had no intention of giving forgiveness he doesn't deserve, and ...
"...I can't."
She swallows, and breaks the eye contact to look down at her knees as a shiver runs through her.
"I could say it, but I don't feel it. And- it's not something you can ask for anyway."
He glanced up at the sky, his voice as soft as hers. That was hardly a surprise, but what he had wanted to do had been accomplished.
"Very well."
"You have to have known I wouldn't. Why did you ask?"
She didn't look at him.
Gazing up at unfamiliar constellations, he commented distantly, and hopefully.
"So that, perhaps, on a cloudless night, if the world is at its stillest, then I might catch but a few notes of that celestial music, and it is more than I might have ever heard otherwise."
Shelley didn't like the silence. She had to say something.
"You're very strange."
"So are you."
A faint smile on his face as he studied the sky.
"...Am not!" she returned with a slight frown.
She might lose this argument.
"As you would like to think, Shelley."
A pause for a moment as he frowned. He had not thought of it before tonight, but it seemed particularly germane. He shifted all but imperceptibly closer to her.
"The sky is unfamiliar to me. Strange and alien. What are the stars called here?"
She eyed him suspiciously, but shrugged. "I don't know many of them. That one," she pointed up, "The brightest one, that's the North Star."
Elan thought for a moment, and then pointed up to a line of stars. He sipped his now fairly tepid cocoa.
"Does that band of stars terminating in that bright one represent a constellation?"
"Yes, I think so," she replied, screwing her eyes up and trying to remember its name.
The seemingly infinite field of stars fascinated Elan. All those pinpricks of light, each a star, some with planets, but from where he sat they were like fireflies floating over the surface of a dark lake. It was both immutable and ever-changing. He smiled.
"Constellations are strange things, really. As they are creations of perspective alone, yet are the only way of mapping the dark depths above us."
Shelley eyed him. "...I suppose."
She'd never really thought about it, one way or another. They just are. Thinking for a moment, Elan glanced over to catch her eyes, before asking curiously.
"Can you hear it, Shelley?"
She eyed him. "...Huh?"
"The music, Shelley. Can you hear it?"
His voice sounded honestly curious as he solidified his eye contact. He gestured upwards to the heavens as he inquired.
"No. There is no music."
He broke the gaze and glanced up at the sky.
"But men will always dream and many will hope of one day catching a strain of it."
Rising from his seat beside her, he took a few steps forward, but turned around and faced her. Kneeling down, he lowered his head to inquire of her closely, softly.
"But shall I live in hope?"
Shelley froze, eyeing him. His eyes were now level with her own, making them harder to avoid, and she really didn't like that. "...Of what, exactly?"
Her tone was not encouraging. He glanced down and away from her at the tone in her voice, his own still and quiet.
"Never mind, then."
Shelley shakes her head, almost in a shiver. "What?"
Possibly it was a bad idea to insist. Rising to his feet, he turned from her and glanced over his shoulder.
"It is unimportant."
"Then why did you ask?"
"Because here I have no hope."
"You asked because you have no hope? That's stupid. If you thought you had no hope you wouldn't have said a thing!" her voice rose, almost hysterically, and she swallowed to calm down. His voice is clinical and cold as he retorted sharply.
"You misunderstand my intentions, Shelley."
"You didn't say what they were!" she almost shrieked back, and bit her lip hard enough to hurt, to stop her voice getting any louder. His mouth twitched slightly at the corners as he turned back around, leaning down to look her in the eye.
"I wanted to be forgiven, or at least the hope, that one day I might be."
Shelley was silent for a moment, breathing faster than is quite normal and staring at him.
Then opened her mouth again.
"...If you suddenly got the Power back. Completely. What would you do?"
He thought for a moment as if the wind were from his sails. His eyes flicker to the ground for a moment, before returning to hers.
"In all honesty, I do not know."
"If you were back in V'Saine right now, and someone was defending something you needed to take over, what would you do?"
Her face was pale, but obstinate. He pursed his lips as he thought. V'Saine was a place where political means were very effective.
"Political subterfuge, I think. Rouse their opponents and have them voted out. V'Saine is a highly democratic place with an ever-changing political climate. I could probably wait a half hour and the person would be out of office regardless."
"I meant immediately. If they were standing in front of you and you were trying to get in."
"Is this after I tried reasoning with them?"
"It's everything you would do."
She didn't believe him. Even now, she didn't believe him. Reason with them? But then, wouldn't they be a witness to what he is doing...?
"Reason with them first, and if not, then open a portal to another room close by behind the person and push them through. Obviously, this assumes that I am not dealing with one of the Chosen."
Shelley shook her head slowly. "I don't believe you," she said softly. He'd kill them, and lucky if they didn't suffer. With a small sigh, he walked over toward her, leaned down and whispered in her ear.
"Remember when I said that I did not know what I would do if I had my powers return to me? That I would even consider a scant few years with you here compared with immortality in the Second Age speaks volumes both of my honesty and of my love."
"No it doesn't," she said, face still turned away. "Because you don't get to choose what means anything and what doesn't."
"And you do?"
Shaking his head, he pulled away from her, crossing his arms, and speaking calmly, "I do not think there is much left to be said, Shelley as I have asked your forgiveness and you have declined. Would that you could see my heart for anything but subtle, false, and treacherous for it is brim with love and affection for you. All good to me is not lost as I have remorse."
Elan began to walk towards the house.
Shelley shook her head, but didn't go after him. Yes. Only she could choose what gestures of his mean anything - to her.
She hated him.