A sound….

….

It was a simple sound, to tell you the truth, for anyone could know it for themselves. It is the sound of when you walk outside, anxious, naked in the rain, finding it as calm as a mid afternoon as the droplets pelt your cheeks like minuscule tears. It’s also the sound of a grandfather clock, being tolled at one o’clock at night, when no one is around to disrupt the noise as it chimes, ever so slowly, to greet the new hour. Yes, such a beautiful noise, soft and silent, able to stop the entire dining car of enlightened sounds, of tipsy men, of painted women, of inane children, still in their tracks, to listen to the echo that rang from it.

And from that sound, within the sweet, came another almost completely alike, as if it was the forgotten friend long since remembered. Following more notes, the sound became a chord, and then soon, after many of these miraculous chords played, it became a melody. This melody then strengthen, growing longer, recognizable, sweeping over the tables, the bar, the ceiling of the gods, threading larger, more, fretting, so meticulously, so strong….

For this song, was no song, ever played before?

It sounded so familiar to the stewardess who leaned against the bar; she simply had to ponder. Was it from a symphony of the great masters? No, they were known to well. Even if she did contemplate on this moment, she couldn’t help but become more easily distracted and turn her head towards the sound across the room.

And as she did, abruptly, her heart descended, not out of love. For across the room, she spotted him, playing deftly with fingers that seemed to be of the lightest air, on the seat of the grand piano that lay so cautiously beside the windows of the glass. His body, straightened and tall, moved barely at all as his eyes were focusing down upon the strips of black and white keys. So much more relaxed than the others, even though, as he was playing, many started to whisper behind his back with tiny strokes of purple cloth.

“Ah, what’s that man doing up there?” she heard one woman yell. There was such a sickly snarl in her voice, that even Emeline noticed the lipstick around the corners of woman’s mouth curl.

The man beside her played with the end of his stache, coiling it, twisting it around his finger. “Is this the Duke…?” His eyes grew stern to the point where he was squinting them closed. “Who…who is that?”

The youth was slender, with such unshorn, shoulder-length black hair that anyone might have mistaken it as the mass of black feathers. The color was just as dark as his burgundy, brown patterned vest, his sleeves rolled to the elbows as if not to hinder his performance. However (not with concern to him, of course), everyone seemed to notice that just the little things about him, were flawed ravishingly. His eyes, deep colors, were polar opposites, one containing a deep green while the other, swirling, was a brilliant gold. His black tie was dollied in a loose knot, snaked around his white collar, which was opened up to reveal beautiful pale, white skin. But that’s not what concerned the people the most. Oh no! The most noticeable thing that just about everyone saw, was that he was absolutely wearing no shoes, or even socks for that matter! A silly but important little manner!

Everyone merely spat as he continued to play, nodding his head accordingly to the notes as he opened and closed his eyes. His lips pursed, the words, so soft, that no one knew what his notes sang. It made everyone want to scream silently, for their mouths that gaped open made no reverberation.

Emeline ignored the eyes that spat like drips of venom.

She became enmeshed into the waves of sounds. Every part of her body, from her heart to the marrow in her bone, solidified, and grew statuesque to where she felt herself convulse. The exact feel that she had grasped her skin tight, as if afraid to let go to the point of bruising her exceptionally, was something that she had felt almost touch her moments ago.

This was the incubus who acted on the piano.

And all she could do was stand aghast, half shocked on the outside. Words could not seem to explain what she was seeing, nor could they come out like they used to.

But, she didn’t have to say anything, for as soon as she started to stutter and the music began to wean….

Someone started to applaud, gladly whistling on words so bittersweet….

“Bravo, bravo, bravo…”

The minute those words were spoken, everyone, excepting the pianist, turned to find themselves stunned. Clothed in the finest set of a green and blue (and rather gaudy) waistcoat suit, the Duke kept clapping his white cuffed feather boa wrists together as he made his way down the center of the tables.

There was a painted, curved line, portraying a smirk that only seemed to grow larger as he came nearer. Callous, he stood near the side of the piano, leaning against the curve of the body, while his hands were folded neatly, rested, together in light grip. The supposed fragrance that wafted from his presence contained an unexplainable fakeness that even butterflies would have mistaken it as a flower. It wasn’t before long that the nobleman, santering over to the board of the piano, pressed his fingers on the keys.

“Well, well, well…” the Duke said, sashaying his voice, “I must say, for a man who looks the way you do, you certainly have thrown everyone in this room off guard….”

He chortled, holding hand up to his lips, looking more and more like a rat as he continued.

“I’ve never heard a man play a song so gracefully before, that, even I, a master of the craft must give my most humble regards to talent as glorious and as beautiful as any man would ever dare hope to dream upon. However….”

The pianist’s struck the keyboard, ending the song.

With that, the Duke grinned. “You’re merely raw aren’t you? You’ve never had any practice neither any kind of training! I can tell. I see it clearly, the way you press the pedals and the way you flatten your fingers! It’s simply hilarious!” This point, from what Emeline could see, the Duke seemed to be really pushing the limits. No man, no…no one would ever be able to stand something of this measurement. If he continued any farther, he might just push this man’s last button, and maybe…if this was the guy from the dream…he….

“Maybe it would be, for the better of us….”

Emeline’s chill took grabbed her eyes.

“…If instead, you just stood aside….”

The audience kept there eyes fixed on the men in front.

“…And let a real pianist entertain these people, hm?”
The man on the keyboard paid no attention as the Duke leaned in closer.“Well….”

What do you say?

A middle C….

The pianist continued to play, oblivious to his comments. Oblivious to the remarks, the slew tipped hissing of his tongue, and the gasping of the crowd.
Oblivious to everything around him….

Oblivious to Emeline….

And he did all of this, with a smile and a bit of a curtsy….

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