milliways_bar | (no subject)

He comes.

He listens.

"Beautiful," he whispers, his voice soft as a prayer. Few things are more holy to him than music.

The music slowly fades out as Asmodean finishes the song. He turns to his audience and studies him slightly with a tilt of his head. His voice is cool and dry, but a touch appreciative.

"Good afternoon, my lord."

He paused.

"And Thank you."

He smiles. "I'm no lord. Just 1900. That music is in the very walls of this place. Do you know what has happened here?" He's worried. He is quiet and scarce, but he cares for all places and all people as his home, this one no less than his ship, the Virginian.

Asmodean shook his head.

"There was a some commotion last night and many individuals seem haggard today..."

He paused.

"I am but a musician and I play what is felt."

"Yes, but so much pain... Though not everybody here mourns, the ones who do make up for it." He leans against the piano, eyes intense. "I hope you are not among those whose thoughts lean towards the grave outside. I've seen it there, and more besides. But I still don't know what's going on."

Asmodean shakes his head slightly. An odd tone in his voice.

"No, my music speaks of life, always life."

He paused.

"Would you care for some music, Lord 1900?"

"Not Lord. Just 1900." He traces lines on the piano's surface. "I always care for music. If I am here, I am playing music." He smiles. "I would very much enjoy hearing yours."

Asmodean nodded.

"Very well then."

The bard began to play a very simple melody, a child's lullaby, in fact. Though simple a terrible sadness filled it. This was the kind of lullaby that would be sung over the cradle of a child who had died when the rain did not permit a visit to the gravesite. The memory of that child, so very long ago, made Asmodean's face contort as he played the melody. Near the end of the piece, the bard began to sing, a touch out of key, and slightly behind the beat mimicking that parent of oh-so long ago.

The bard finished with a sigh, and glanced up at 1900.

"That's right," he whispers. "That's here. Now." He touches Asmodean's shoulder in a gesture of understanding and looks around, blinking like a cat someone's shone a bright light at. "Would you hear my music?"

Asmodean stands up, and gracefully gestures to the piano and piano bench before stepping aside. Hee tensed slightly at the touch on his shoulder.

"It would be my pleasure."

He takes Asmodean's place and plays what initially begins as an exact replay of his lullaby. It doesn't stay that way long. It begins as an extension of the other musician's music, but it swells into something deeper than the surrounding gloom. The melody is a suppressed lullaby as if for a dead child, but the harmony deepens and grows louder -- it is the sound of grief unmasked, the screams of hearts with no pride to hide behind. A musical realization of death under the melody of death's sweet ritualization.

It is terrifying. Like a child trying to sing itself out of a thunderstorm. And it does not end -- not the way music ends. It just stops, suddenly and disconcertingly. The harmony roars over the melody, crashes in a high squeal of something broken, and stops.

And there is silence.

Then there was sound again.

A slow, determined applause, exactly at the slow tempo of the song.

He shakes his head and stands. "This death is no celebration. Something's wrong." He tilts his head and closes his eyes, listening, breathing. "I've never tried to change someone's music before. Do you suppose we could? Do you suppose we OUGHT TO?"

Asmodean shrugged. His voice is calm.

"The Wheel weaves, and all service is to the Pattern."

"Is that us, then?" He looks around again, feeling a little bit helpless but no less determined. "Why can't be be the Pattern, then? Someone's got to HELP, don't they?"

Asmodean shook his head again.

"We are but one thread of the pattern, and the Wheel is unrelenting..."

He paused.

"We can but speak of the turning of the wheel and the pattern with our music. For it is not ours to change the world, merely to tell the story as it is woven."

"You know, when I was very young, I gained an insight in three little words that changed my life. Would you like to know what that was?" He pauses dramatically. "Fuck the regulations," he says. "Just like that. We make our own ways with what we have in us. Even if all we can do is TRY.... well what can that hurt? Really, who can be hurt by us?"

Asmodean blinked. Suddenly, fire filled his eyes as he seized Saidin. The very air around him began to burn with the power surging through his body. Arcs of lightning flashed around him.

"I am bound to a calling deeper than most musicians, Lord 1900."

He returns the gaze levelly. There is no fear. The worst that can happen is death, and death is not so bad. He knows death. He would welcome it. But not now.

"Then answer it," he challanges, making a fearless grab at the lightening. "Don't answer to me, answer it. You know this is wrong. Death has touched this place and changed its music. We CAN touch that change, and we CAN try to heal it. Don't give me fire. I have lived my life on the sea, and I will die there. You cannot burn me any more than you can burn the sea." His power is subtle, he has no fire or lightening, but his power burns in him nonetheless, a divine Innocence. "Why are you fighting this?"

Asmodean chuckled darkly, an almost evil light in his eyes.

"Because I do not fight Fate. I make what I can of it."

He paused. The raging power around him died down.

"I am not a Healer, I am a destroyer."

"Healing IS destroying," 1900 insists. "It's destroying what will destroy YOU if you let it. You think what you have is power. It's nothing but a parlor trick." This isn't baiting. He really thinks they can change something. "I don't believe in hopelessness," he hisses. "And whatever Max may say, I don't believe in letting the world do with me what it will. It's been no kinder to me than to anyone, but if I don't try, what will I turn into? What will you? I ask you again, why are you fighting this?"

Asmodean just rolled his eyes.

"You are so very ignorant."

Saidin pulsed within him. A sinuous line spun out a portal behind him. It opened to about two and a half meters above the lake.

"The Wheel weaves, 1900, and please do enjoy the swim."

A gentle, but strong thrust of air pushes 1900 through the portal, which promptly vanishes after it's departure.

Asmodean returns to the piano calmly, and begins to play.