(no subject)

[mogget_cat]

Some days call for musical accompaniment.

This is one of them.

A chill, autumnal rain is coming down quietly outside, leaving the day dim and grey, and the bar room a bastion of light and color. Yrael is at the piano, the pale musician playing some slinky, luxurious jazz tune that makes one feel languorous and warm, loosens the tension in one's posture, makes the breath come a bit deeper, a bit slower. It's a soft smile of a melody, the notes' gentle discord and resolution like the delicious stretch following a natural waking from good sleep.

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

Of course Hannibal is there, tapping his foot and listening, relaxed, with a glass of red wine in his hand.

[mogget_cat]

It's music for a day that flows like molasses, thick and rich, a blanket of sound. Warming, softening, comfortably drowsy against the backdrop of quiet rain outside and the murmuring of the bar room crowd, each moment of dissonance echoing a faint clink of cutlery, a glass moving against the tabletop or the sound of plates being stacked. Yrael plays with his eyes mostly closed, letting himself translate the day into sound.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal sips his wine, but otherwise doesn't contribute to the soundscape.

[mogget_cat]

The music is as familiar as the bar itself, though there are faint lines of melody missing or recently altered. There is a thread of melancholy twisted through it. Voices are missing. The ovens are cold.

[cook_the_rude]

After a while, Hannibal wanders over and leans on the piano.

[mogget_cat]

Yrael's green eyes open, gazing up at Hannibal with a faint smile.

"My friend."

[cook_the_rude]

"Mind if I join you?"

Jamming four-handedly on one piano is quite the challenge, but Yrael and Hannibal can probably pull it off.

[mogget_cat]

"Please," Yrael's smile returns more fully, glad of the opportunity. The bar has been too bereft of music lately. "Which side would you prefer?"

[cook_the_rude]

"To your left; if you would slide over a little?" Hannibal says, putting his glass down on a nearby table.

[mogget_cat]

"Of course," Yrael obligingly scoots, making room on the piano bench and offering access to the keys.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal starts by chiming in with a simple if jaunty beat, played in three chords only.

[mogget_cat]

Yrael listens, then his fingers take up the sound, improvising a tripping little melody to dance through the chords Hannibal set down. He doesn't shy away from occasional discord or tensely precarious mutterings, but their resolutions are always satisfying.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal's little beat strengthens, as if somebody who had been creeping along started stepping out boldly.

[mogget_cat]

The higher melody follows the beat's mood, layering sounds both bold and complex upon it.

[cook_the_rude]

The beat keeps providing a solid base for Yrael's meanderings, until it suddenly doesn't, instead tripping sideways, syncopating unexpectedly as if drunk.

[mogget_cat]

Yrael chuckles, playing up that stumble - it turns out that even a little Atlantean may be too much Atlantean, as delicious as it may be. The melody weaves and stumbles belatedly like one pulled forward and off-balance, creating a drunken and wavering syncopation of both discord and harmony with the tripping beat below.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal even gives a little chuckle, and allows his beat to stumble more -- like the rush-rush-stop stagger of someone destined for the puddle right there beneath the streetlight.