yearnsforheavenxsecretly:

 

♪ — 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 his blackened soul?


                                                       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.”

yearnsforheavenxsecretly:

♪ —    How could Erik ever know what this woman was?
      How could he know her struggles, the truth of her kind and the fact that she,

          like him,

              Was alone?

    The music that found its way into his voice again was brought to his tenor, lifted to a range comfortable for him.  He sang it with soul, from memory of his childhood. And in places, it truly did sound like a plea. A plea, for forgiveness, for that dear Mother Maria to show hm love and mercy.

                                  That perhaps he’d be loved.

         “Ave Maria, Gracia Plena
                     Maria Gracia Plena…”

  And the words like notes from heaven, falling and spiraling, floating and descending all at the same time. An unearthly tenor seemed to fill the emptiness the darkness offered. Oh, yes, it warmed the cold and sent the Opera Ghost’s mind into a tender state of focus.

                                  He could relax at last, even despite the threat of unwanted company…

   And when the song ended, when the words and the melody drifted away, there was only the silence left again. The silence, and a painful loneliness.

             When the Opera Ghost spoke again,
    it was with wearied heaviness, with an almost unmistakeable grief.
 
                                 He’d exhausted himself, drained his countenance of all calmness, and now only yearned for peace.
He’d sung, and now, he half expected to have to take off his mask, awe the crowd.


       “………Please, Mademoiselle……
                   The Opera Garnier is closed…..
       Please, leave me in peace.”

Music, how she loved it. All of her long life music was a way to call to her. Princess’s would sing for her, prince’s would sing of her and birds would sing around her, mingling within her flowing mane. But she could never sing, if even in a human form she was of a different grace. A grace that spoke of time and wisdom, of a loneliness that had never been felt until the very end when she was no longer alone.

But the voice grew and now she swayed, how she wished to simply lay and to finally rest confined within the notes and pitches,

R e m e m b e r i n g.

It was in the silence that soon fell, his notes fading softly into darkness that she removed herself from her thoughts. Large doe-like eyes reopening to look unto the darkness that did not feel heavy. Appreciation seeped from those sad eyes that could only remember. She had been given a song, a sweet song that had enchanted her. In all these years she had wandered aloof, watching, unseen from most for that was how she wished to be and when she had finally asked for something, she was well received. Amalthea had almost forgotten the dulcet tunes a life could hold.

The woman stood, long billowing hair fell to her hips as if it were sea foam washing against the shore. She mirrored perfection except for the mutilation upon her forehead to which she would always have when in this form.

“Monsieur,” she called softly as she walked to grand stairway, “I cannot tell you the service you have gifted me.. ”

She wished to remain, she wished to listen and wait until his voice began once more. Whether in the next hours, days, weeks or years. She wished to stay and relive her memories. To recall those faces of those she wished never to forget. Where would she go? Her woodlands destroyed, her kin diminished, her love a relic. She was a wanderer, she brought spring wherever she walked. She had slayed dragons, saved a king from poison but she could not belong anywhere. She would find a meadow, and she would rest upon soft grass wet with dew drops and she would tell the rabbits and the birds of what she remembered and of what she heard.

Her hand rested against a wall as his voice sundered within her mind. She did not wish to leave yet. He had given her a gift and received nothing in return. “Will you be here in the ‘morrow?”

yearnsforheavenxsecretly:

 

♪ —         Wasn’t it funny, how the nature of the Opera Ghost pulled him when he was at his weakest back to the darkness?
In the dead of night he’d been birthed. In the depth of darkness he’d grown. And even now, it held him prisoner, begging for the light.

                   And yet his only comfort was music. Music, sweet and kind. His voice, the voice of an angel…! And his Angel….. his Christine—-

     But concentration and syllables were broken by the sound of another being, some sort of human— It tore him away from the melodies of his anguish and sent him into churning silence, backing into the shadows of the outside as if trying to meld with them.   Golden eyes, alone, shone past the mask to pierce that inky blackness.

                 Was that—-? A woman. A woman with a tender face, sweet and young, and unbearably  familiar.
  No, he did not know this woman, but he’d known one with such tender features as her before.

           Giovanni’s daughter, who he had killed by only showing her his face.

      But her words sent him back into that world of his own, the one spiraling with chords and notes, of key signatures and harmonies. And so his voice resumed n the darkness, wavering at first, but growing in 

temulous, angelic strength.

      If she desired him to sing, he’d most certainly sing.

There was silence, a long note of silence as she waited. Her mouth opened ever so slightly with a stilled breathe, for so long she wished to hear such song. It made her feel as though she was at peace, she was at home – home. What was that even anymore to a wanderer? The voice; It made her feel comforted and doe-like eyes that shone of no reflection, not even that of the darkness to which she entered without fear, were anxiously searching the darkness pleading silently for that voice to return, to renew those feelings - if only the memory of them.

Amalthea’s face washed over with soft joy as the voice began once more. It was lovely; no human had such a talent, human’s were once so simple and now so cruel. They had hunted most unicorns for this world had been changing those many, many years ago when she left her lilacwoods to find her kin. She had not realized then, through all the tragedies she faced that in the end she would not win, because they all would be hunted to extinction and that was the greatest tragedy of all. That was the sharpest pang of regret she felt - that guilt.

Except for she, for she held both a blessing and a curse, she held onto the magic of a magician long since dead, He had saved her immortality with the illusion of a mortal life that came at her beck and call. But what use was living forever in a world so empty for she.

Amalthea breathed in deep, eyes closing as she remembered life so long ago and all of the warmth there was – she felt it in the voice that sang to her and she dare not disturb the voice from singing.