♪ — Perhaps Erik didn’t want her to leave.
It was with painful L O N E L I N E S S that he watched the woman rise, her hair blooming out behind her like a sort of cape, those innocent eyes staring about the darkness as if to find him.
She’d never find him. Not without his consent, not without him wishing her to see him.
….. He did wish her to see him.
Perhaps, in his brokenness, she might show him a form of compassion,
Kindness…….
But could she?
Even Christine Daae had loved his music.
But she had not loved him.
The air was unusually warm tonight. Not in the hot, heady, weighing, uncomfortable sense like it did in summer. No, it came with a lick of welcoming, like a soft embrace, holding the Opera Ghost’s words in his throat just so he might taste its sweet fragrance.
Her kindness only added to it, lifting upwards toward him, filling the shadows with a sort of peace he had not known in the midst of his burning i n s a n i t y and brokenness.
Perhaps……. perhaps she was an Angel.
Oh, but not a tale, not a being of fictional roots that only existed when believed in, no…
Not like him….
Perhaps she was true missionary sent from God above to find some hope in hisblackenedsoul?
How could he know what she was?
And the Opera Ghost would allow his own held breath to whisper from between his malformed lips, to tear through his teeth and meet that overwhelming sweetness that she seemed to bring to his dark, empty home like an embrace.
The words of a D E M O N would mingle with the breath of an A N G E L…….
“Mademoiselle……
The gift of music is all I can do to meet this cruel world. It is the only sanctuary I know, and thus I must offer if to those who ask.
………. Oui……. Oui, I will be here. I am always here, you know.
You simply must look in the blackness to find me.”
As silent as a blade of grass awaiting the wind to touch it’s form, whether a soft gale or a gust, Amalthea stood in wait.
She stood enchanted by the warmth of the many torches that lit the grand hall, unwilling yet to be the one to finally leave. It had been so long since she felt the urge to stay somewhere. She had never welcomed, everything was always like starlight for her. Perhaps she was like starlight to another individual.
Beautiful and inspiring to look upon, yet distant and cold –
unreachable,
untouchable.
But if she were the star within the story, could she not then come falling down to the Earth and finally belong somewhere?
No,
She couldn’t.
She was an immortal, graced with the touch of life beyond life.
The most she could ever do for anything was protect and wish it to live a longer life, as she did for many within her lilacwoods. Even from those that wished a creature death.
But what if she were to come falling here,
what if every night she remained after hours to listen to song, to listen to this voice sing to she. It almost hurt to think she would live on with this voice,
it would become another memory,
like all the rest.
“–!”
She lit up then like sunlight, glowing almost in an ethereal aura as he addressed her,
Though his meaning Pyrrhic it was the simple acknowledge of her being, for so long she had been only a shadow concealed to all who saw her as either a simple mare or a beautiful woman who had nothing to say.
“The gift of music is by far one of the most treasured gifts. It is not much to offer you, and I,” she sighed softly thinking what she was to say next would sound foolish and delusional to a human.. How it was humiliating to conceal one’s true form, to be known and accepted only as a human – for the love of schmendrick, she was at least able to maintain the form with magic, and she was not trapped within the confines of mortality - she was not in a burning building. But she was Unicorn and she was infinite, how could she ever tell the one who sang to her what she was? Human’s were no more accepting of Unicorns as they were of Fairies or Dragons.
Yet She would tell rabbits when they began to write books and sing songs about the humans of the kindness and beautiful gift she was given in the opera house: song. A song more fairer than any song bird.
“I thank you to the ends of time, I will return tomorrow. I wish to stay, but if I hinder your peace than I will most surely be upon my way. I will return tomorrow, if you would sing for me once more."
It was a shame she could not cry. It was a shame for she silence herself and frowned, bowing her head. Amalthea had not remembered all those memories in so long, it was truly a gift to remember them and it was a great pain to realize it was so long ago that she now had been able to forget.
Her sweet, soft voice crescendo into nothing more than a pleading oath,
"Hundreds of years I have wandered and I have never felt such warmth. The roads are cold and hard, the trees are bare and burnt. And yet in a place I wandered into with no thought, I have found more thought than I once had, long ago and I thank you for it.”
