[ Maelle is still petite at thirteen, but lately Gustave has noticed her coming a little further towards his shoulder, eating more at meals, sleeping longer. She's hitting a growth spurt, he thinks, and his suspicions are only confirmed when his light-footed little sister stumbles and falls on the uneven cobblestones of the marketplace, skinning a knee and flushing with embarrassment in the process.
He'd been there in the next moment, kneeling to examine the poor scraped knee and telling her silly jokes until she could blink away the surprised dampness in her eyes and laugh, but there had been a moment, just before he moved to her assistance, when he thought he saw a shifting, abortive motion in the shadows of a nearby building. A man...?
Maelle's distress had taken precedence, though, and when he'd looked again, the figure in the shadows had gone, if indeed he had ever been there at all. For a moment he thinks he sees someone — an expedition uniform, dark hair — but then there's nothing but the shift of the usual marketplace crowd, flowing into place like schools of fish. Gustave shakes it out of his head and turns his focus back to Maelle, fondly scolding her for rushing about and hurting herself while she smiles at his lack of sternness. A pain au chocolat later, he watches her already back to running full-tilt through the crowd, ponytail swaying, on her way home to Emma with a bag of fresh viennoiseries.
The evening is too fine for him to rush along with her, though, and he takes his time, wandering along a few of Lumiere's quieter streets, up towards the garden and the cracked tower.
It's as he's passing the opera house — closed for the season and with that strange, almost expectant feeling of an unused building — that he hears it: a clear, ringing note, chasing through the air like a bird in flight.
Others follow: lingering chords and triplets that flow into one another like water bubbling around rocks in a stream, and he's heading to the opera house before he can stop himself. The door is cracked open, the building cool and quiet and dim inside. It feels strange to be here on an evening with no performance and no crowd of chattering people, but he knows the way in, quietly pushing open one of the heavy, intricately carved doors to the theatre itself, following the lilting notes as if each one were a breadcrumb scattered along a path.
There's a man on the stage, sitting at the piano like he's been there all along, a gleam of white tracing through dark waves of hair. Gustave watches for a moment, listening. The song is lovely, it's—
The man stops abruptly, stiffens, all the relaxed ease draining out of him, and Gustave grimaces at himself before lifting a hand in an awkward greeting as he steps out from the shadow of the balcony above. ]
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Date: 2025-05-21 08:57 pm (UTC)He'd been there in the next moment, kneeling to examine the poor scraped knee and telling her silly jokes until she could blink away the surprised dampness in her eyes and laugh, but there had been a moment, just before he moved to her assistance, when he thought he saw a shifting, abortive motion in the shadows of a nearby building. A man...?
Maelle's distress had taken precedence, though, and when he'd looked again, the figure in the shadows had gone, if indeed he had ever been there at all. For a moment he thinks he sees someone — an expedition uniform, dark hair — but then there's nothing but the shift of the usual marketplace crowd, flowing into place like schools of fish. Gustave shakes it out of his head and turns his focus back to Maelle, fondly scolding her for rushing about and hurting herself while she smiles at his lack of sternness. A pain au chocolat later, he watches her already back to running full-tilt through the crowd, ponytail swaying, on her way home to Emma with a bag of fresh viennoiseries.
The evening is too fine for him to rush along with her, though, and he takes his time, wandering along a few of Lumiere's quieter streets, up towards the garden and the cracked tower.
It's as he's passing the opera house — closed for the season and with that strange, almost expectant feeling of an unused building — that he hears it: a clear, ringing note, chasing through the air like a bird in flight.
Others follow: lingering chords and triplets that flow into one another like water bubbling around rocks in a stream, and he's heading to the opera house before he can stop himself. The door is cracked open, the building cool and quiet and dim inside. It feels strange to be here on an evening with no performance and no crowd of chattering people, but he knows the way in, quietly pushing open one of the heavy, intricately carved doors to the theatre itself, following the lilting notes as if each one were a breadcrumb scattered along a path.
There's a man on the stage, sitting at the piano like he's been there all along, a gleam of white tracing through dark waves of hair. Gustave watches for a moment, listening. The song is lovely, it's—
The man stops abruptly, stiffens, all the relaxed ease draining out of him, and Gustave grimaces at himself before lifting a hand in an awkward greeting as he steps out from the shadow of the balcony above. ]
Sorry— sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.