[center] [img] http://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/5f708e0f-14d8-4926-b903-300da360203b.jpg [/img] [h1] Cadian Shirai [/h1] [color=Gainsboro] I want you to know I am fine here without you, but I can’t bring myself to lie to you… [/color] [ ♕ ] [ ♕ ] [ ♕ ] [/center] [color=Gainsboro] The music was palpable. A living, breathing, fighting, crying entity that seemed to range the vast spectrum of emotion, drawing the crowd along for the ride. First anger began things. The fiery notes rang out to create a powerful emotion, to draw the crowd higher, to catch ears and attentions, to burn away the youthful energies of his crowd in order to make them malleable for further molding. The guitar strummed, the drums hit hard and fast, and Cadian’s heart pound nearly as fast and hard as the crowd. Their hands up in the air, their eyes looking up at him, watching as they jumped. Thouse who knew Wither, knew what Cadian was about, lifted themselves higher than the rest, giving to his manipulations, understanding that the greater the elevation, the higher the elation when the descent came. The music raged against the oppression of The Badlands, raged against the unfairness of it all, the cold hearted nature of the world beyond the walls, the world that died away with the falling of the skies, and the dying of the sun. Cadian noticed little while he strove to raise his crowd and create the fire in which he would set them to burn. His fingers moved quickly on the neck and strings, flying with ungodly, inhuman speed, the music flowing from his fingers as though without thought, for surely there was no time for the mind to relay instructions, the fingers did it all, from memory. By the end of the first song, his forehead already beads with sweat, his chest already heaves, as he rolls the first song directly into the second. A slower melody, but just marginally so. Lyrics flashed through his mind, driving out all else, as his eyes lifted from the first time from his fingers, to scan over the crowd before him. Heads struck violently into nothing, as bodies struggled to contain their energy, his energy, to the small space between the ones surrounding them. Bodies clashed together, the heat of their energies, the power of his music driving their bodies into chaotic dances of lust, power and strength. He griped them, with words drove them onward, spicing his music with their sweat, their roars of empowerment and strength. They climbed, and Cadian’s fingers suddenly stopped. Silence hung as he eyed the crowd, sweeping his gaze from one individual to another. His fingers turned at thumbed screws at the top of his guitar, as his deep, earthen eyes met with the windows of countless souls. From one to another, he swept his gaze, watched as their chests heaved in response to his music, watched as fingers drummed impatiently against pant legs, as bodies high on the energy, the life and warmth of his sound, found it difficult to hold still, found the waiting unbearable. He heard voices call out, he ignored them. Passed his eyes again, and this time, it was his turn to catch a breath. She stood there, jackets about her shoulders, charms glinting the bright light flashing in streams from the stage, reflecting glints through metallic flecks in her eyes. Katja used to stare at him in the same way. His fingers began to strum again. Already, within the first few notes, it was obvious that melody and art would mark this set more than raw energy and power. The notes danced on different threads than before, slower, calmer threads, that seemed to smother out the flames of the first set. But the crowd fell into it. Their energies spent, given to the music, their hearts opened, their souls bared without the protective flames to ward off his spell. She had been his first victim. All those years ago. Katja and Yumi sat before his vision, the garage of his home surrounding him suddenly, as the music spills out into Passion. The loud echoes of his violent guitar rift fade into the stillness and melody of the same song he plays now. The guitar floats alone, the remainders of the band silent and still. The melody was haunting… [color=lightgray]"It’s like it withers away the energy you gave us,” [/color] Kate had told him so many years ago. Wither became a part of him that day. Did she feel it too?, Cadian wondered, as he searched her face for signs that she understood what was going on with her. This was life. This testament to the nature of the world. Life was energy, and itw as withering. Waxign and waning, morning and night, young into old, death into life into death. Music was art. Poetry of sound, not words. He kept his eyes on her a moment more, taking them away before he thought he could start to feel them on her. In that moment, he had captured all he needed to recall her, to see her even as his eyes looked away to the man three bodies back on the left, or the woman swaying in the back corner, mostly out of her clothes. Had he spent even a few minutes more building up their energies, their passions, hers would have overwhelmed her, or the other woman she had been with, whomever was responsible for leaving her now swaying in a white lace bra. Then Evan stepped forward, standing beside Cadian. All eyes had been on Wither’s front man, that Evan had been allowed to pass between the curtains, to put down the rhythm guitar, in exchange for the violin he played. Their exchange had been flawless. From hard, thrashing rock, to a ballad of softness and humility. The piano played, hidden by it’s black lacquered finish in the corner, now singing soft notes underneath Kry’s fingertips. The melodies melded together, coalesced as though three different dreams, from three different dreamers, merged into one thought, one perfect form of reality. Cadian’s eyes watched as the haunting melodies ripped open souls, drew out the pains and agonies from within. Cadian watched as the energy that had once burned so brilliantly, like hell’s flame, simmered and died to a low glow of cooling coals. [color=gray] “And when your fears subside, and shadows still remain,” [/color] Cadian whispered, returning his eyes back to Alexia in time to see her head turned, her mouth kissed. It was like a cymbal crashed over him. The veil of the world he created by his music tore itself, as loneliness and remembrance came rushing back to him. Once he had kissed Yumi so… remembrance brought his eyes up, away from Alexia, to gaze towards the shadows of the bar, to that dark shadow where Kate used to stand. [color=gray] “I know that you can love me, where there’s no one left to blame. So nevermind the darkness, we still can find our way, because nothing lasts forever…” [/color] he drew silent, letting the last verse hang, letting the hearts and minds of those who knew the song whisper it to their souls, while he undid the guitar strap from around his shoulders, and laid the instrument down on the stage floor, and he sank down beside it. The room went to pitch again, as Cadian closed his eyes, laid himself back against the hard wood of the stage, and let himself fall into the darkness. [center] [ ♚ ] [ ♚ ] [ ♚ ] [/center] An hour after Wither left the stage, Cadian finally steps into the club’s common area again, from the door leading to the back stage areas, and offices. His earthen eyes cascade over the crowd, nodding to faces bearing eyes that meet with his. The desperation in which he left the club’s patrons has faded with some carefully selected remedies from the club’s producer. Though the emotions were forgotten, Cadian’s face was not. Everyone he came across gave him a knowing smirk. Women in the crowd approached, asking if he had plans for the rest of the night, for a dance, a signature on the slope of a breast, or the bare slope of their stomachs. Nameless faces came before him, pressing slender bodies against his. Hands pressed against him as he passed through the crowd with polite insistence, to break through the mass of bodies with as much of himself intact as was possible. His jacket of black leather hung about his shoulders as he came to a stop in the crowd, ignoring the newest face to approach, looking the bodies over for one familiar. From the stage, Cadian had seen her here, around these parts, with a man Cadian believed was known as Danny. Of the women, he knew nothing, but rumor has it that this man, this Danny, was one who could acquire most anything you have a mind to have acquired. A talented and resourceful fellow of some renown in various different circles, thus an introduction that Cadian was also eager to make. But the woman was something of a haunting presence these last few hours, since having spied her from the stage. Try as he had done, her imagine wouldn’t leave his mind. Something about the way she looked up at him, something he thought he saw in her… he wanted to ask her what it was. Nobody’s ever looked at him like that. There was the typical awe that occurred when someone heard him play for the first time, but something else aside. Something this place has been so desperately devoid of these last few years: light. His world was rain and darkness, sin and violence. Light was rare and precious. Finally his eyes pass over the back of the man, and Cadian’s feet again start moving, pushing him through the throng of people crammed into the club. The night was young, and Cadian between sets, but he knew soon the heaviness of his thoughts would return. Soon this light he had found would fade, as it must, as the same thoughts that drove him from his dreams would return, the loneliness would return. Plans tonight would put him in Yumi’s bed, comforted by her slender arms. He would use her knowing that she used him in return, for mutual escape from the loneliness of their existence. This man offered another form of escape. Something that can make the days as livable as the nights. Kill the thoughts. Kill the need. [i]I’m tired of dreaming of her [/i] he told himself, as though having to justify his intentions to himself. [I] I wish I’d never gotten involved. I should have run. Fled. I should have told her I had nothing to do with it. [/i] Cadian caught up with Danny, coming to the man from the back, and as though they’ve known one another for decades, boldly Cadian put his hand upon the other man’s shoulder, clasping him firmly. When Danny didn’t stiffen under his grip, Cadian leaned forward, speaking quietly to the man of many talents. A whisper of hot breath onto his ear, letting the loud music of the club drown out his words to all but this man. [color=gray]We should talk, when you have a chance.” [/color] He came to rest at the bar, set himself down on a stool before Yumi, his back to the rest of the room. [/color] [sub] [color=Moccasin] Guns'n'Roses - November Rain [/color] [/sub]