Work Text:
Gloria in excelsis
Gloria in excelsis Deo
The sea of voices, harmonizing beautifully, amplified by the acoustics of the church in Ganji...
He was dreaming, he knew that. But Damien was so unused to a nightmare-free sleep (whether manufactured by Tarrant or inspired by his now-daily horrors) that he let himself drift a little longer in the space between sleep and wakefulness, letting the familiar music wash over him.
The choir in his dream gave way instead to two distinct voices: a light tenor and a soft young soprano, and he slowly realized that he was not in fact dreaming. When he opened his eyes, glancing around the interior of the cabin where they had taken shelter, he first noticed Hesseth seated on the floor near him. She was bristling slightly and as he oriented himself in the room, he realized with a start that the source of the sound and the source of the rakh's uneasiness were one and the same.
The dust cloth had been pulled off a piece of furniture in the corner of the living room, revealing some unfamiliar sort of instrument. And Tarrant was seated in front of it, playing easily -- beautifully, in fact -- while Jenseny stood within arms reach of him. Something in the sight shocked Damien into remaining silent, even as he met Hesseth's eyes with open astonishment.
A piano, Damien finally realized. He recognized it from drawings in old books, but not by sound. They were uncommon enough that he had never seen one before. Like other old earth instruments, they had been recreated on Erna, but the difficulty in producing them guaranteed their rarity; the only original destroyed along with the rest of Casca's sacrifice. Maybe they were more common here on the Eastern continent. They had to be, if someone could just keep one in their summer home.
Tarrant's posture shifted slightly; doubtless the adept realized that Damien was now awake and watching. But he didn't turn around to acknowledge him.
"And this...helped you?" Jenseny asked. "When you were young?"
"It utilizes many of the same principles as Working. That sort of discipline will help you focus and better control your abilities."
Damien couldn’t help but feel uneasy watching the two of them together. Although he hated Tarrant's coldness to Jen, seeing its opposite was still less than reassuring.
Hesseth snorted. She shared a look with Damien. "Of course, even your music needs to be pragmatic." Her feelings on that subject were plain in her tone of voice.
Tarrant ignored her. "And control, Mes Keirstaad, is what stops us from conjuring a storm and almost killing a ship full of your companions."
Jenseny flinched, and Damien's fists tightened. But there wasn't any open malice in his voice, just that smooth, lecturing quality Tarrant adopted when he was enjoying himself, and the tense moment quickly passed.
"Think of the sound as being created here, instead of in your head." He held a hand up in front of his face. "You want that brightness that only comes with a little distance, or the sound will get lost. It might feel a little counterintuitive, but the most difficult Workings always do. Music isn't any different."
Jenseny's face was scrunched up in concentration, and then she sighed and shook her head. "Show me again. Please," she added politely, and Tarrant gave her an amused look.
"Of course," he said mildly, before he replayed a few introductory bars and then he began to sing again.
His singing was technically perfect and yet there was an emptiness to it, as if something vital had been leached from it. Damien felt himself oddly hungering for a dissonant note somewhere, a roughness, some small spark of flawed humanity to come through underneath the cold perfection. It was a relief when Jenseny joined her voice with his again.
"Precisely," Tarrant said once they had finished. "You have a natural talent for it," and Jenseny flushed at the compliment before the smallest of smiles crossed her face.
Hesseth's voice was almost a growl. "Kasa, it's time to help prepare the meal."
Jensensy looked at Tarrant, a frown line creasing her forehead, and when he nodded, she grabbed the sheet of hand-written music and slid off the bench to join Hesseth. The rakh touched her arm lightly, as if she needed the contact to reassure her that Jenseny was unharmed.
What strange companions the four of us are.
Damien rose to his feet and walked over to where Tarrant was still sitting in front of the piano. "I was always more partial to the Terran Requiem myself."
Tarrant's eyes glittered with amusement.
Damien sighed. "What?"
"I wrote it."
"Of course you did," Damien muttered, and Tarrant smirked.
"On Earth," Tarrant began, with an almost wistful tone, "they had something called a grand piano. The shape was very different -- they took up much more space, but the sound quality...it must have been extraordinary. I thought I'd eventually recreate it."
"Nine hundred years wasn't enough time?" Damien asked dryly.
Tarrant shrugged elegantly, but didn't respond, seemingly lost in thought. Damien looked down at his slender hands, resting lightly on the keys. There was a small silver line beneath the knuckle on his left ring finger.
A birthmark? No, a scar: the sort of small, unnoticeable injury that was just part of a human life.
It was something he hadn't noticed before, but the sight of it was so incongruous with how he thought of him that Damien could only stare, oddly transfixed.
He'd spent so much time on this journey trying to reconcile the conflicting identities of the Prophet and the Hunter, viewing them as two opposing sides, good and evil, black and white, that he hadn't thought of Gerald Tarrant the man before.
"I apologize if we woke you, Vryce."
Damien waved off the apology. He knew Tarrant well enough to determine when he was being polite instead of sincere. "It was time for me to get up anyway."
Tarrant glanced up at Damien, and then back to the keys. His eyes still had that strange far-away look as he began to play the beginning chords of the requiem. "Is it really your favorite?"
"Yeah," Damien said, and then he dared: "There's a quiet sort of longing throughout it. But I always thought it was...hopeful, I guess. Never heard it played on piano before, though. Just the choral renditions."
"You won't hear it if you continue talking throughout it." But Tarrant was smiling now, and Damien found himself grinning in response, letting the familiar music wash over them both.