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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 11, 2008 23:58:21 GMT -5
***From "Let the Games Begin"***
Maleo wandered aimlessly, having gotten himself down into the most pleasantly damp and chilly parts of the Opera House. He had woken up in a great deal of pain from falling asleep slumped over the piano; he needed to expedite his injuries with movement.
Anything to dampen the empty feeling that even made his stomach turn over. Marlow had not come to claim him from the rehearsal room - of course, simply assuming the Strigoi could find him at any given time, anywhere, with any sort of barrier between them was a bit of a stretch, but when there had been no sign of Marlow in his room, Maleo took to walking.
He wasn't sure of where he was walking, just that he needed movement and a place to be that wasn't his quiet, displaced dormitory. Following the footsteps of firemen, stagehands and other people who went around behind the scenes, Maleo intended to just wander the dark and dangerous areas below the theatre, then come up after spending an hour in the hellish fires near the furnaces.
However, it seemed he had not made it that far. Or too far. Whichever came first. The point was - he needed to fuel his muse. He had a roll of paper and a stick of charcoal in his pocket, and an unlit candle stuck in the other.
He had gotten some lyrics onto the paper, but so far they had been mediocre. Nothing to really offend anyone over. More of just his thoughts on what should happen as opposed to an actual set of lyrics.
Leaning heavily against a section of moist brick, Maleo folded his arms over his midsection, doubling over in pain. His bond with Marlow was more strained with his misdirection in the cellars.
Sliding down along the wall, Maleo felt his scabbed back throbbing with dull ache. Uram... Maestro...
Trying to take his mind off of the pain, Maleo pressed his bvack flat against the wall, starting to sing to himself. Whatever came to mind, came out of his mouth. Opera. Zarzuela. Lullabies. Dirges.
As long as he didn't have to think, he sang.
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Post by Erik on Sept 13, 2008 1:55:19 GMT -5
Erik had thought it time to leave his house.
He was comfortable there, but it would not hold his ambitions for long. And he had grown stronger, through swimming with Mortimer. Everyone had left but him and Julian, and Erik had lost any compunctions he might have had about drawing the cloak of the Opera Ghost around him again.
With Julian and Mortimer his only companions, there was little to recommend him to humanity.
Surveying the cellars and tunnels, he felt at home. he had built many of them, after all, and would never forget their secrets. They still held surprises, however. Like the sound coming from close by. Another man might have crown confused about the direction, but Erik honed in on the ethereal voice. High and clear, but no woman's voice. He had not thought to hear such a thing, and certainly not down here.
It was not like hearing Daae for the first time--neither of them. Not the sound calling to his soul, causing his heart to beat sluggishly in his chest once more. He was not quite the same man he had been, and his soul was not so easily touched. But his ear remained acute, and he heard things in this pale young man--he could see him now, from his vantage point in the shadows--that it seemed the man had not yet discovered himself.
Male sopranos were unusual, but not unheard of. And Erik had yet to hear one with the potential this one seemed to have. And he was currently seated, not projecting, and in pain.
Erik was very curious to know what he would do under full power. He watched, and waited, to see what he might learn.
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 13, 2008 21:13:56 GMT -5
Stopping for breath, Maleo leaned over and bent his legs up, trying to get some air into his lungs. When he stopped singing, his mind focused on the brick he sat near, the dirt floor under him, and something - someone maybe? - was nearby. It felt like he was being watched again, though the presence felt different than the Maestro - and as long as the creature had some blood in its veins, his mind seemed to latch on there. An audience? he thought, feeling his legs lifting him off the floor before he was really aware of his movement. If he were to be watched, he may as well give of himself properly. Smoothing his suit and hair a few times, he did not look in any particular direction, unable to see his attendant anyway. Another song came to mind, something rather apropos and a shade modern. Of course, it was suited to his kind of singing as well, seeing as the part was originally written for a female voice. Nothing wrong with his own take on the song. There was no back up music but that which lived in his starved mind, and as he felt himself become swept up in his own words, his black eyes slowly closing. Like many other times, he even started acting as though a madman, seeing things that were not there, but in the shadows of his eyelids.
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Post by Erik on Sept 13, 2008 22:44:34 GMT -5
Erik listened, transfixed, as the pale dark man sang a part he had never heard a man give voice to. But its appropriateness to his voice was undeniable, and the man's mastery of his instrument surprising. Where had he learned to sing like that, in a world that would have been so dismissive of such a voice? And his lack of irony, his sincerity, in uttering the words of a mad bride was arresting, if difficult to imagine on stage.
No, it was not like hearing Daae for the first time, for he was no longer so naive, but it was still intriguing. And the man was either mad himself, or performing for him.
Erik was not used to his presence being so easily felt.
When the song was done, and the bright voice receding in echoes, another echo joined it--that of Erik's hands, clapping slowly. The tunnels of stone left his location in doubt, but as the man already knew he was there, there was little harm in confirming it.
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 13, 2008 23:22:00 GMT -5
He had felt the man there, but it was only from what Marlow had done to him. Still, his senses were not nearly as sharp as the true Strigoi's, and he could only guess his host's direction.
When he finally opened his eyes, the ringing applause in his head faded to a single, soft clapping, and Maleo openly smiled to the darkness.
"I am glad you found it entertaining," he said to the shadows, still unsure of the direction from which the clapping came. Perhaps it was the same Maestro as before... but he was unsure. Last time, the man had made himself better known... this one was more apt to hide.
"I am Maleo Basilio Addams. A... newcomer of sorts to this opera. I am not quite so famous as l'Castro, however, that does not stop me," he said, taking a step before himself, then he turned, sweeping his gaze all around him, trying to guess at which shadow held his observer. Though talking to the dark had its fun too.
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Post by Erik on Sept 14, 2008 9:52:37 GMT -5
"El Castro," the Phantom's rich voice began, from some point not at all where Erik was standing, "is a bleating billy goat. But I have never seen him come to these corridors to practice." The voice moved abruptly, a whisper in Maleo's ear. "What makes you think you will be safe, hmm? Have you not heard the rumors?"
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 14, 2008 12:21:37 GMT -5
Maleo smirked, shivering a bit with the voice in his ear. What was it with whispering shadows lately? If they wanted to whisper in his ear, they could approach him...
"I never thought I would be safe. If I lived according whether or not things were safe, I wouldn't be leading a very exciting life, would I?" he replied, turning slightly in the direction of the whispered voice. He knew there would be no one there, as had happened before.
"I did not come here to practice, however..." continued the soprano, flinching with ungodly pain again. At this point, he was becoming used to it, but it never seemed to fail in doubling him over. "I was trying... to find a place... befitting my muse..."
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Post by Erik on Sept 15, 2008 9:43:54 GMT -5
Erik's eyes narrowed, though the man could not see them. This soprano was not like other men, and that interested him in a vague way that mitigated his possessive anger over finding people in his corridors.
"Your muse must be a curious creature," he said, "for you to seek her in damp cellars while you are clearly ill."
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 16, 2008 0:23:14 GMT -5
"All things considered, she and I are not like the rest of the bright and foolish world above," he said, gesturing with his arms, looking skyward to the underbelly of the Opera House. "Those who dwell in what they call normality, have a distinction between pleasure and pain. I, on the other hand, do not waste my time delegating my sense of touch. I just enjoy it all," he said, rather grandly, then let his thin arms fall to his sides.
"What of you, my hidden friend? Do you equate life the same way, or are you like..." he paused, for effect, really, and pointed up, "The rats above, or the rats here below?"
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Post by Erik on Sept 16, 2008 9:04:05 GMT -5
Erik could not tell if the man's decided oddity was studied or natural. He had never encountered anyone quite like him, though he thought he recognized something in him from certain faces which had paid to see him in decades gone by, but neither smiled nor turned away. It was disconcerting.
He certainly reveled in his flight from "normality," for all he was a handsome enough young man, with talent, who was not relegated here by fate.
"I am not your friend," Erik intoned gravely, his voice floating away across the room. "Have you not heard the rumors? I am not a rat at all; I am the Pied Piper."
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 16, 2008 15:05:56 GMT -5
"I've heard rumors," replied Maleo, swaying in his step. It may have, at first, looked like he'd suddenly lost his balance, but he merely swirled himself about, reaching his hands out to find the wall he'd been leaning against.
"Are you one of the many ghosts, then? One they say touts himself as an 'angel,' may or may not be the devil, and has been heard to wear Death's face? I've heard so many good things about you, then," he said, pressing his head against the cool brick, soothing the fever he felt washing over him.
"Either way, I am not afraid. It is not in my nature to fear the face of death, angels or devils."
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Post by Erik on Sept 16, 2008 15:46:05 GMT -5
"Then your nature is very curious," Erik said. If any of the things said about him were good, he was not doing his job. All the more reason to get back to it. "Are you merely delirious, or is your madness permanent?"
Erik emerged from the shadows, opposite Maleo's view, so that when he spoke next his voice emanated from his black mask, a mere foot away.
"Or are you simply a fool?"
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 16, 2008 16:00:19 GMT -5
"Some people think I am, merely because I am not the same as everyone else." He stayed pressed against the wall. He thought he could hear the voice coming closer - then again, that was their trick, was it not? The other man (he assumed) could be a mile down the corridor. Or still in his head.
"Or I could be all three. You could be a voice in my head still, someone I conjured out of my own painful loneliness. In which case, I am a fool for still talking to my own delirium instead of merely reveling in madness. And if that is the case, I wonder why I am suddenly so... philosophical." Maleo chuckled, pressing the rest of his body against the wall, embracing the bricks.
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Post by Erik on Sept 16, 2008 16:09:59 GMT -5
He was raving, was what he was, and possibly a drug addict.
Still... he had an excellent voice, and there was little enough of that around.
"You are not the same as everyone else," he mused aloud, though for Erik it did not follow that the man was like him. "You sing better, for one. But I think you are a fool, to risk such an instrument singing with a fever in the chill."
He slid around Maleo, a few feet away, a darker shadow in the dim cellar.
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Post by Maleo Basilio Addams on Sept 16, 2008 16:42:54 GMT -5
"Hmph, I would welcome a fever at this rate," he grumbled, sounding a little more bitter than his earlier bravado. "Perhaps infect that bleating goat with a wonderful virus of my own," he murred, turning to his side, raking thicker nails down the side of the brick.
"But my muse calls my attention, first and foremost. I needed to be away from those above, to write somewhere. The rehearsal halls are too bright and cheery for my tastes. And without my guardian-father, the lights upstairs are even brighter, and drive me below." All right, so he had just likened himself to a cockroach, but there was no real harm in that.
Pushing away from the brick, the soprano got to his feet, looking toward the darker blots of shadow, trying to determine which was his host.
"Will you drive me away, Senor?" he asked suddenly, staring at what he thought was the right shadow. Of course, he didn't really know. The presence was close to him, but between his own mind working against him and his new senses not quite keen enough, he knew not which belonged to the "ghost."
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