Why So Silent Inara?

[ladyonyx04]

Natalya smiles a little and stands up. "I don't wish it. Being colleagues is a good idea." She said as she walked to the piano. She had the thought suddenly that although she knew his name, he only knew her as the phantom, his Angel of Music. "So you want to create a duet? I am curious to see what you would create with my style." She said inviting him over with her words. The skin under her mask was itching but she ignored it with the skill of one too used to the sensation.

[Inara]

“Hmm, to write in your style. Well... your work has always struck me as quite dark, much like the work of Maestro Mahler, from Austria, but without the lighter parts.” The young man began to improvise a piece slowly, in A minor. It started off quite sad, almost weeping, going along at a relaxed pace, much like the Waltz Christopher had been playing before. But he realized that was not quite her style. Hers was much more “chordy,” dramatic. He added more chords, playing louder and louder until he was sure the sounds could be heard above them. Then he stopped, and went back to the melody from before, the more peacefully sad one. He decided that while it wasn't her style, it was closer to the way she acted. She had never rapped his fingers for mistakes in playing, like some instructors he had heard of from his friends in the dormitory. She had never raised her voice against him, merely criticized calmly. Even when he had been late once, a year ago, she had merely pursed her lips and calmly and coldly asked that he not do that again.

“How was that, teacher?” he asked, smiling at her. “Also, what am I to call you now, if you are no longer my tutor?”

[ladyonyx04]

Natya nods and plays in the higher chords adding in a lightness to the otherwise sad playing. Sure she was dark at times, but she had a really horrible past and in order to get it out, she often let out her murdering tendencies. But she wanted to show that she hasn't always been this way. "Hmm what indeed. I suppose a name would do. But once I give it I will cease just being a shadow, an Angel. But since it is what you desire I will not regret telling you. I call myself Natalya. You may as well." She said still playing the notes, changing some when they didn't seem to fit with what she wanted to put out so changed the chords to get it right.

[Inara]

"Natalya..." he repeated softly as they played. She was a great pianist, and it was amazing that she was self-taught. "That is a beautiful name, almost as beautiful as you," he finished, smiling. They played a few more bars and he whispered, "Let's finish this with a big ending." Without further ado, his tempo slowly sped up, and he ended the piece in a long and complicated cadenza, very fast, and very technically difficult, if he had had to learn it and hadn't just been making it up as he went along. With a few final chords, he turned to her. "It is nice to meet you, again, Natalya. I wish we had recorded that. It was beautiful, but I don't remember everything we did."

[ladyonyx04]

"The curse of being me Christopher, is that I can remember it all. I'll be sure to write it later." Natalya said and looked at him in surprise when his words of her being as beautiful as her name. She never heard complements before so had no idea how to handle herself in this situation. She blushes slightly. "Thank you..." she said after a moment of silence.

[Inara]

"For what? Oh, it was just an observation. You play and sing beautifully, your music makes you beautiful. And evidently you have a perfect memory? How is that a curse? I wish I could memorize pieces so perfectly," Christopher replied, smiling. He wished to know more about this woman's past, and was rather ashamed that he had rarely tried to ask before. The few times he tried, she had been evasive, and he did not want to anger her and risk his chance to learn. Now that he was officially no longer her student, he felt more brave, and wanted to learn more about her as a person again.

[ladyonyx04]

"Oh Christopher. You just have little idea how much of a curse a perfect memory can be. Course as I never told you about my past before, you wouldn't know." Natalya said sitting on top of the piano facing her former student. "I evaded the question before as you were young. I don't wish to spoil your innocence with my dark and terrible tale. But should you ask again, I do not think I would mind telling you."

[Inara]

"I want to know, Natalya," Christopher replied, smiling. "I am no longer so young and innocent, my friend. I am twenty after all." Honestly, Chris did not think much could shock him. His own past was rather dark as well. Both his parents had been world renowned musicians but had died together in a tragic accident when he was eight years of age. The manager and the headmistress of the Opera Populare had agreed to take him in, and raise him in the dormitory with the other chorus boys and dancers. He had spent most of his life in music, but had also gone to school for the basics of reading and arithmetic. In fact, when he was young, he tutored the children of some of the Opera musicians in return for piano and violin lessons. He loved to read and study all sorts of knowledge, but his first love was, and always had been, music.

[ladyonyx04]

"This might take awhile. So go ahead and make yourself comfortable." Natalya said and waited as he did as she asked. When he was situated she thought on where she could start. "I suppose I should begin with my earliest memory. I was four or five. The house I lived in can't even be called a house. It was a mess, but at least it was cleaner than----oops. I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, the people there were mean. They knew I was there just decided to either ignore my presence or make it a small level of hell. One day I think I spoke about some natural thing or another and the man became pissed off. He hit the left side of my face with a red hot poker. That's the reason why I wear this mask. But again I am getting ahead of myself. The man than sold me off to this circus of fellow freaks like myself to amuse the even darker souls of France. I had to do some things to earn food, water, and the right to relieve myself that no other child should have to do. I lost all kindness or caring at age ten. By then I knew that no matter how I pleaded, how much I cried, or the manner of which I begged no one truly cared. That day, I turned twelve, I snapped. The ring leader had pushed my buttons one too many times. I had this cloth on my person that I hid. When he got near me cause I refused to do as he told me to do, I took the cloth and I tied it tight around his neck, causing all but one to run out of the tent in fear. It was all of five minutes and the ring leader was killed." Natalya said her hands clenching somewhat as if remembering the life they took. "Meg, the older woman, was fourth at the time. She took me to the opera house when it was the dead of night. She said that this place was my home. So I made it that way. I had things delivered here and I took them. Then she asked if there was something she could get me to wear. I told her pants, a kinda loose shirt, and a white half mask. I didn't really pay much attention to what the people were doing. As long as they weren't murdering music I didn't give a damn. Music was the only thing that gave me light in that hell hole. Should someone do something I didn't like, they often suffered. Some broke their hands, others met with an unfortunate end. I think you were around when my more violent acts came to light. I believe it was a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday that I happened to look down from my point on the top of the stage. I saw you performing. I could see that you needed work, and that no one had seen your potential. I wasn't surprised at that. No, what had surprised me was that after that, everyone but you had left. Oh you did leave but just to make certain no one else was there. You crept to the piano and started to play. That was the night I came to you as your angel. I offered you lessons. And you know how the rest plays." She said cracking her knuckles.

[Inara]

Christopher was, in a word, shocked. In five minutes, he had discovered that his longtime teacher, and now friend, had been through the most horrific childhood he could imagine, and she had also essentially just admitted to being a murderer. Oh, he did not care about the sadistic man that she had killed from the carnival, that man deserved what he got and more. No, he feared for what she meant by "something I didn't like." What could people have done so awful that they deserved to have their hands broken, or to die for it? Subconsciously, he got up from the piano, backing away. He did not care what she looked like, he cared that she just nonchalantly confessed to murder. What will happen to me if I do something you don't like? he wondered, terrified.

"I don't know what to say," he whispered.