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The elezen seemed pleased with himself as you sat before him, the backs of your thighs well padded by the upholstered stool beneath them. It was not so often that the unruly lord of the manor had taken guests into his home, and rarer still that he decorated them with whispered invitations to what was promised to be a quiet, uneventful evening. While you thought it strange that something as simple as a stroll through manor gardens or a walk across Foundation needed an invitation, you swallowed your trepidation the moment you crossed the threshold into the foreboding home of Ishgard’s most revered, and feared, musician.
He had been talking to himself about the difference between silk and satin when suddenly he seemed once against arrested by your presence. Clasping his hands together, the excitement seemed to roil from the width of his shoulders and outwards, turning the cool air of the drawing room into a space crackling with static. What had he called it the first time you had sat beside him on the piano bench for one of your lessons, you wondered to yourself as his approach made it increasingly hard to sort through memory at all, something about ripening like fruit in anticipation . For all of the nostalgia he cloaked himself in, Verrot Mielnoireu’s appearance commanded that naught else exist but him and his present. You had half hoped he would look away so that you could remember the world and its axis if only for a moment.
“It suits you nicely,” He started, stopping before you with a congenial air. Reaching out, the metal capped tips of his gloves that smelled of cedar and wine brushed against the lapel of the top he had tailored for you and you alone. Though the world seemed to dim and fade around the touch so close to your throat, you could still remember the purple ribbon around the black box sat before you earlier that evening. It was expensive in its construction, and he had seemed delighted to find you just as taken with the box as you were the shirt within. With a furrow of your brow, you wondered why it was you found such off-putting comfort in the man’s delight.
You opened your mouth to speak but where words wilted, the lord came with flowers.
“It sits finely at your throat, right against your pulse,” he hummed low, voice as rich as his namesake as the leather pad of his index found the cord of muscle he spoke of. Your shoulders stiffened at the intrusion, and though you wished to dart a demeaning glare in his direction, you found yourself instead at the reflection in the vanity before you. Verrot began to bend at hip, then, bringing himself fully into the frame of view like an oil painting made manifest beside you. “And here,” he cut through the rising tension like a knife, palm pressing to your shoulder, “the hem cuts you in a way that makes you look proud even though you slouch.”
You straightened your back at the sing-song condemnation, but not before the composer’s hand could find the small of your back to do it for you. Even in your free-will did you feel utterly bound by him, as if every thought of your own was outpaced in seconds by the strange man. Even in your eagerness to admit that the color of the blouse did suit your complexion, you could not help but feel offended in an unfamiliar way that he had obviously thought of such when requesting the garb from the tailor. Was it normal for tutors to lavish their pupils so totally in what seemed to be both body and mind? When had you become so vain to think to comment on lace before you had met him and his infinite compliments paid from your shoulders to your wrist?
“Thank you,” You said at last, finally having found your voice amidst the tempest that was the man’s presence. A curl of his own black hair had fallen from it’s perch at his widow’s peak to lay atop your own head as he leered close enough to share the reflection’s space with you. You watched as he smiled slow and watched further still how your own lips could not help but to tick upwards at their corners as well. With the hand still pressed into your back, you wondered with hazy amusement if the gifted shirt had come with puppet strings. You wondered if you would mind all that much if it had.
Blinking away the unsettling thought, you turned your head to appraise the man directly, latching onto the patch across his eye as a focal point to quell your nerves. “For the shirt, I mean.”
You should not have been surprised to hear the warmth of his laughter so close to your ear, a quiet sound that clawed over your cheekbone and into your hair. With a furrow of your brow, the sound only seemed to soften, like butter left to warm before being beat for baking. Before you could ask the duskwight what seemingly amused him so, he shifted his face from the left side of your reflection to the right, as if he were enjoying himself making a mummery of the moment.
“And here I dared to think you might express your gratitude for the compliments — or the invitation to a evening stroll at my side,” Though he feigned a pout, a playful wickedness had touched his voice. His breath felt like fingertips along your jawline. “But I have always liked keeping close to those that know their worth well enough to know that something as simple as kindness and company is not in need of being remarked on. But plainly,” Verrot pressed his palms down into your shoulders, forcing you to confront just how stiff they had become and willing away the tension with what seemed like an unseen trick of the aether. “You are so very welcome. The pleasure,” he dropped his voice low, “is all mine.”
While you formed the word around your mind, letting your thoughts roll through pleasure like childhood folly in tall grass, you had also allowed him to place his hands so gently at your waist to guide you up from your station before the vanity. As he murmured pleasantries, something about night blooming flowers and the scent of perfume oil, you took notice of how careful his hands were as they loped around your sides to fix the corset lacing on the blouse.
You wondered if he was always the meticulous sort, or if cufflinks and ribbon ties were naught but excuses to lay his hands upon another, feeling their flesh through layers of clothing no matter how many nor thick. It was as if the more clothes you wore before him, the more naked you became as he traced the outline of your form with increasing scrutiny. You started to laugh under your breath when he had touched a rib just so, and turned your face away when he deigned to brush against it again.
You thought in deadpan how merciful he was not to verbally address your ticklish nature before he was quick to undermine your kindness.
“You are not so different than the piano, you see, as I lay my hands against you, you become a font of noise,” His voice was vibrating with what felt with childish excitement as he turned away from you to grab at his own coat he had draped over the nearest chaise back, “You are, however, a bit out of tune, but there is nothing a bit of fiddling with your strings would not remedy.”
“Am I supposed to think that an insult?” You inquired, voice strong in the wake of the man who moved about his space like something between panther and wraith. You cast a look towards the nearby fire as he had begun to laugh.
“It is a compliment that I would compare you to a piano at all, surely you know this.”
You supposed you could have seen that one coming — but as he turned to face you once more, now donned in expensive leather and fur like a glittering onyx chalice set before someone too long parched, you found yourself struggling to see much at all besides him. The hair atop his head wore the firelight like a halo, but as you collected yourself to take a step towards the large oak door, you reasoned all at once that horns would suit him better. You tempered the small smile that started to itch the corners of your lips at the thought that you had paid for an Ishgardian devil to teach you your scales, and now in Halone’s own shadow, obliged his company without the pretense of music making. At least, not the music read from white pages and tapped out on keys..
If the Twelve were above, they must have closed their eyes for the evening — their lids carefully shut by the same palm that reached for the small of your back despite the likely difference in height, as delicate as it was near commanding. You scolded yourself for forgetting to breathe.
Beyond the threshold of the looming manor adjoined to the frigid cemetery of Ishgard’s bygone era, the weather was as unnervingly still as the streets were quiet. It was if one could have heard a pin drop at Saint Reymanaud’s Cathedral form the furthest reaches of the Brume, if one knew which way to turn their ears. In the uncharacteristic quiet, you had no choice but to amuse yourself with the rattling garb of your companion. From small chains at the leather lapels to the darkened spurs at the boot, your illustrious host seemed content to move like an musical shadow, painting Ishgard with the sound of his unnecessary baubles as he moved along. He had been remarking about a small plant in the crack of familiar cobble when you sliced his story of resilience and observation short.
“I have never seen Ishgard so empty,” You said plainly, looking through the stone awning that opened like a mouth into Foundation. The only population worth noting was that of the snowflakes, drifting slow and silent across the scene that, if it were not for the quiet hum of the luminous aetheryte, you would believe to be a painting. Stilling the trajectory of your footpath, you took a moment to halt. If Verrot was inpatient or perturbed, he made no real sign of it.
Instead, he seemed characteristically nonplussed. He even deigned to direct a flourish of his hand miming deep thought in your direction, as if the state of the city was as confusing to him as it was to you. As he took a wooden-soled step in your direction, you caught his heady scent of incense and scorched jasmine before you caught the sound of his breathing. In the quiet of the approaching plaza, you nearly felt relieved to hear the rattle of his voice start from his chest before it could reach his lips.
“There is no such thing as emptiness, as even silence is a form a sound. And besides, I have always preferred this place quiet,” He said simply, his one good eye fixed on you with enough intensity to burn through the new blouse, “As it allows one to focus on the notes that matter.” With the confidence of which Verrot spoke, you wondered with a flicker of amusement if he had been the one to empty out the city. If he had waved every child away with a flick of his skilled wrist with the same efficacy as it now came towards you, long fingers catching you beneath your chin with an unexpected softness.
The leather of his glove was cold, and yet the point of contact nearly burned. You hoped your half-offended gaze would do the same when it shot upwards to meet him.
“Like the sound of a heartbeat, beating ever so quick,” His voice was barely above a whisper but in the eerie stillness, felt like a scream. You closed your eyes, as if ignoring the sight of him would will him away all together. You closed them tighter when you realized you did not wish him to disappear at all.
Verrot chuckled at the sight of you, catching you red handed. “The harder you try to still your heartbeat, the stronger it becomes, my dear. Faster,” he mused, leaning closer to you until you could feel the pressure of his chest rising and falling in the space between your bodies.. “And faster. Would you look to me?”
You had every reason not to open your eyes and yet none at all, caught between fear of what you might see and the idea that if you were to permit him your gaze, he might remove the hand from your chin. You huffed a breath as you opened your eyes, hoping Verrot would not notice the slight descent of your chin into his touch.
“I am looking at you.”
Your stomach tightened at the sight. Handsome as ever and unbearably close.
“Does the silence bother you?” He asked and you felt your knees tighten, his thumb capped with silver filigree sweeping gently alongside your jaw. Platonic preening, he had once called it when he had done the same thing to your knee at the piano bench three months prior. You had never been able to deduce whether or not he meant such a word when he felt across your shoulderblades or corrected your hand posturing with the same tact as handling fragile porcelain. After some time, you deduced that it simply did not matter.
Surely a man of his stature and acclaim would take something if he wanted it, or in the case of his prideful manners, ask for it. He had never asked.
Finding your voice to push past the thoughts of what you might say if he did ask, you found yourself with a scoff instead. “And what would you do, bring a crowd? I am fine.”
Verrot seemed pleased with your answer, a small hum vibrating out from his throat as the hand at your chin fell to your neck in a singular, fluid motion until it found a small necklace at your clavicle. A gift from a relative, or was it a paramour. It had been stuck to your flesh for as long as you could remember that it no longer seemed to matter. You doubted you would be able to think of its origin besides as leather padded fingers played against it. You could feel your ribcage tighten and your lips dry as he did so, seemingly lost in his own thought as he drummed against the jewelry and flesh beneath it. You wondered if one day you might become like one of the moths he kept in his bell jars, and where he might hang you after before you laughed to quell the disturbing thought.
Suddenly, a bird sang loud. The bell tower cut at the silence of Ishgard. Some paces away, you heard a child laugh and threaten their companion with a snow ball. Verrot pulled his hand away from you with a small smile, a daring twinkle in his eye. You felt as if a thread between the heartbeat in your chest and the hand that touched you had been spun and then pulled, yet you attributed such easy excitement to too long without proper touch.
Looking to Verrot as he tucked his hands behind his back and pivoted in the direction of the ascendant stairs beyond the plaza, you watched his lips open to speak.
“You might thank me later.”
It was only when he chuckled to himself and made a show of hopping up the first step that you realized with a dawning horror that he had made your world quiet. And then he brought the music.
You awoke in your inn bed covered with enough sweat to make the linen of your underclothes stick to your body. When you cleaned yourself up and found yourself presentable enough to procure breakfast from the closest merchant beyond the Forgotten Knight, you saw a small card on the cobbled ground. Nearly a threat to stick to the bottom of your shoe, you bent to pick up the thick cardstock monogrammed with a delicate “M,” and read the fine print. A lord advertising his services to instruct anyone with a heart but without the knowledge of an instrument. With a quirked brow, you pocketed the card in your bag before following the scent of freshly baked bread.
You had always wanted to learn piano.
You wished you could remember the name of the man from your dream.