![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
week 6 | Friday, Post-Investigation
[It will be coincidence, like most of their conversations. The chef doesn't know the other Ion well enough to look for him during such a charged Friday, but should the boy pass by the music room later in the evening, he will hear someone inside.
Plucking a harp.
... Just one note, over and over, letting the sound breathe and die, inhale and exhale.]
Plucking a harp.
... Just one note, over and over, letting the sound breathe and die, inhale and exhale.]
no subject
The other Ion, because that's what he is right now, in the aftermath of all this—the other Ion, the Ion who isn't dead, the Ion who is still alive, despite all odds—on hearing this...
The other Ion ghosts soundlessly over to. Not the piano, maybe. Maybe a piano, if there is more than one, other than the one Reyna's body was found in. Either that or a harpsichord, to play out a single, repeating note in harmony to the one Sanji's letting ring through the room. ]
no subject
At first, Sanji says nothing, does nothing, just listens to both notes mingle and die without turning to see who has entered the room. Perhaps he already knows. More likely, it hurts to care, so he knows better than to look.
But eventually, his fingers move, plucking the strings until he creates a chord, amateurish in the way a child might mimic an adult's playing.
Like someone who had watched a skilled player once before]
no subject
Ion will match that, playing a single chord in counterpoint. It's well practiced, pairing easily enough with the harp despite Sanji's level of skill. As if he's used to following alongside and providing backing to someone else's lead.
Just a few weeks ago, they'd been playing in a duet, after all. ]
no subject
He doesn't know when he starts to cry. It almost feels like the tears were always there, he just was that desperate not to pay attention, but it hurts too much suddenly, like the music is gripped around his heart and squeezed too tight.
He forces himself to keep plucking anyway, seemingly no rhyme or reason -- just... testing out the strings, slowly finding the notes they hold.
After enough time, Ion might start to recognize what Sanji's trying to play.]
no subject
He makes his first noise at that: a quiet, and long sigh. But he recognizes the melody, and if Sanji will allow him to, pick up the song and go forward from there, playing as lightly and delicately as his instrument will allow him to. His technique ... leaves some things to be desired, here or there, where skill in one instrument doesn't translate perfectly to another even if similar, but it's more in the weight of the notes and the strength of the resonance rather than missteps in key. Heaviness of hand, where there isn't meant to be.
(Or maybe that's less a product of technique, and more of their circumstances.)
... There is a paired song, to that one, the initial resemblances clear. He'll segue into it, in requiem, if not stopped. ]
no subject
Sanji doesn't stop him. The grief has hit him in full and so eventually, his own fingers... cease. He lets himself curl his arms into his lap, and simply listens like he did not so long ago, swept up in another melody that doesn't exist on his world.
Does it sound remorseful because he's grieving, or sad because he's not the only one hurting in this room?
By the end of the song, his shoulders have stopped quaking, and his face - while wet -- isn't lined with anymore tears.]
no subject
As the piece plays itself out and the last strains of the melody echo out into the empty room, he'll quietly fold his hands into his lap to stare up towards nothing in particular. ]
In truth... I only knew for sure that he liked one particular song, and it was neither of those two.
[ It doesn't mean that he couldn't have, but simply that if he had, this Ion had known nothing of it.
This room is too big for just two people. And such terrible things have happened in it... Even so. Despite everything, music is too important to the pair of them for the deaths that have occurred here to keep him away. ]
I wonder if it would be disrespectful to play it now.
[ It's a happier song. Calm, but still, it feels as if it would be misplaced levity after such a bleak evening. ]
no subject
[Spoken quietly, towards the opposite corner of the room, but echoing loud enough to hear. It is not meant as a demand for the other to play the song if he doesn't feel like it, and Sanji hopes that message is present in his reply.
It's just the simple truth of things, that they both know. Was Ion not always looking towards the light? And he would have asked his other half to play a warmer melody, for no other reason than it might give the two people in this room peace.]
no subject
[ Still, it isn't as if they haven't both played it before here. Not all that long ago, even, when Varian had requested something less somber, less solemn than the hymns their Order had been known for.
He'd let the other Ion take the lead on the melody then, and not only because of their respective choices of instrument. After all, regardless of their positions, regardless of their dispositions... regardless of his own feelings, as far as he was concerned, the other Ion had always been the one who was meant to survive.
But when he plays Finale - happiness in my hand now, he takes over for that part, trading backing for lead. Despite this, he doesn't add any flourishes, any excess, despite it being well within his ability if he wanted to try.
The result is a quiet melody that, while soft, and calm, and soothing, and all of those things that the other Ion had so cherished... Despite any warmth or sincerity to the song, there's still something quietly lonely about it regardless.
Perhaps it's the most fitting send off he can give to his replica. ]