Minor Annoyances [Blondie]

[Erik Gauthier]

Erik had not been in the manor for long, but he'd already started to loathe the place. He supposed that the change of location and scenery should have been a relief after everything back home, but it was not. Of course, that probably had more to do with the other inhabitants of the manor than anything else. There were other 'Eriks' - he still wasn't sure whether he'd gone mad or whether they were fakes - and each of them had others from their worlds as well. Some had arrived minus a Phantom, and the older man wasn't actually sure whether they annoyed him more or less.

Certainly the other Eriks were aggravating, but he knew that was simply because they were too much like him. There simply wasn't enough room for more than one 'Opera Ghost' in such a place and the manor was practically crawling with them. His instinct was to retreat to a place that would be soothing, but so far that instinct had only led him to more aggravation - everywhere he turned someone was doing something that grated at his nerves and left him snappish and bordering on violence.

Today had been no different - and he'd quickly retreated to a side room - it was one of the music rooms - but he'd been lucky and no one had been there. Not one to squander such an opportunity, he'd settled down on the bench and had began to play - softly though, as he didn't want to be disturbed and he had a feeling that the sounds of music coming from any room in this god-forsaken place was likely to draw an audience.

But his efforts to play quietly didn't last long as he lost himself to the music and it wasn't long before an achingly sad melody could be heard in the halls outside the room.

[Christine Daaé]

It was Early April. Spring had finally sprung, and the young mother-to-be was finally beginning to settle into what seemed to be her new home, nearly a year after she’d initially arrived there. She still didn’t like certain things about it (specifically things like the lack of privacy at times, the strange demons and ghosts about the place, the vast use of English among the place, and the rather frightening abundance of ultra-modern technology), but she could at least stand being in the place without being frightened out of her senses.

Things were finally beginning to settle down. She and Raoul had finally been married that past October, and the two were expecting a baby now, probably sometime in late September. Mamma Valérius had managed to regain some of her mobility thanks to a strange modern electronic chair, and Raoul had his job in the village… Granted, nothing was quite how they’d planned it would be, but it was enough to suffice, and for this she was contented.

Settling back into a sort of normalcy, music had slowly been creeping its way back into her life. She wasn’t performing, no, but she had started singing again. While she’d never stopped completely, it was the first time in a long time she’d begun regularly practicing, and she’d actually discovered a few of her old scores there in her room. Things from home had a strange way of somehow showing up there at the Manor…

She knew of several music rooms where it was somewhat seldom to find other residents, and was on her way to one in particular in order to plunk and sing through a few sections of Faust, when the percussive sounds of a piano-forte ringing through the halls captured her attention. She furrowed her brow just a little, holding her score close against her chest, and walked toward the sound of the music. It was in the direction of the music room she had been headed to, and so she thought that perhaps someone was there—likely an Erik.

Monsieur Lavalais, Perhaps? the girl thought to herself. There was only one way, really, to be sure, and so with a moment’s hesitation, she opened the door to the music room and peered inside a moment before stepping fully in and slowly, silently closing the door behind her in order to observe. There was a tall, masked man sitting there at the keyboard, though which Erik this was exactly she could not be one hundred percent certain. After all, Monsieur Lavalais and the Érik she knew were both very similar in appearance. While his mask was a bit different than the ones she’d seen, she knew that they both had several.

She cleared her throat a little in order to make her presence known and put on a pleasant smile. “Hello,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here… I’m afraid I am not quite familiar with that piece you are playing… Who is the composer?”