Don't worry. I'm only a harsh judge when it comes to my apprentices.
[ And not even then, really. Their young minds are too lively for him to want to shutter them in any way with criticism, and so he chooses instead to lead, to discuss, to encourage. In return they've bloomed for him; open to a world of possibility, they see options instead of problems, opportunities instead of roadblocks. He couldn't be prouder than if they'd been the children he'd one day hoped to have.
His footsteps echo through the open space around them, floorboards creaking beneath his weight, the only sound in this enormous and empty place, until it isn't anymore. The man has shifted along the bench but turned back to the keys, and the first phrase — he recognizes it, the one that had floated through the open door and compelled him to follow — drifting gently into the waiting hush.
It's not a grand concerto, or a lush, layered classical piece of the kinds he recalls hearing in this place in the past. As Gustave sits down on the bench — towards the edge, to give the man as much polite room as he can manage — the melody expands, fills out, but it stays gentle and wistful and almost heartbreakingly beautiful in its simplicity.
Gustave keeps his own hands in his laps, but his eyes are fixed on the way the other man's hands move over the keys, as graceful as a dance. It feels like watching someone pen a love letter, sitting so close as the man plays this song. The theatre is vast around them, but he feels that sensation of being in a bubble again, more intensely still. In all this space, his focus is caught by the drift of clever fingers as they coax impossible beauty from something as prosaic as carved keys, padded hammers striking strings. He can't remember the last time he'd experienced something so captivating.
When the song ends, the last notes drifting slowly into silence, he takes a deep breath, like a man waking from a dream. ]
See?
[ He glances over his shoulder to look at the stranger, now only inches away. As the gentle clinging haze of transportation lifts away from him, Gustave smiles, warm and artless. It crinkles the corners of his eyes. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 03:23 pm (UTC)[ And not even then, really. Their young minds are too lively for him to want to shutter them in any way with criticism, and so he chooses instead to lead, to discuss, to encourage. In return they've bloomed for him; open to a world of possibility, they see options instead of problems, opportunities instead of roadblocks. He couldn't be prouder than if they'd been the children he'd one day hoped to have.
His footsteps echo through the open space around them, floorboards creaking beneath his weight, the only sound in this enormous and empty place, until it isn't anymore. The man has shifted along the bench but turned back to the keys, and the first phrase — he recognizes it, the one that had floated through the open door and compelled him to follow — drifting gently into the waiting hush.
It's not a grand concerto, or a lush, layered classical piece of the kinds he recalls hearing in this place in the past. As Gustave sits down on the bench — towards the edge, to give the man as much polite room as he can manage — the melody expands, fills out, but it stays gentle and wistful and almost heartbreakingly beautiful in its simplicity.
Gustave keeps his own hands in his laps, but his eyes are fixed on the way the other man's hands move over the keys, as graceful as a dance. It feels like watching someone pen a love letter, sitting so close as the man plays this song. The theatre is vast around them, but he feels that sensation of being in a bubble again, more intensely still. In all this space, his focus is caught by the drift of clever fingers as they coax impossible beauty from something as prosaic as carved keys, padded hammers striking strings. He can't remember the last time he'd experienced something so captivating.
When the song ends, the last notes drifting slowly into silence, he takes a deep breath, like a man waking from a dream. ]
See?
[ He glances over his shoulder to look at the stranger, now only inches away. As the gentle clinging haze of transportation lifts away from him, Gustave smiles, warm and artless. It crinkles the corners of his eyes. ]
Worth it.