The Art of Manipulation || Phantom of the Opera & Loki the God of Mischief ||

5. The Old Managers

A/N: My first post of 2016! I meant to post this way sooner but, of course, got caught up with the new year and the rest of the holidays. I was also determined to finish at least two more chapters of The Angel's Shadow's sequel before I posted another chapter of The Art Of Manipulation. I apologize ahead of time if my next update takes a while because...*drumroll*... This Friday is my birthday! Sooo, to celebrate my last few days as a teen (*cries*), I may not be writing as much. But I'll try to update as soon as I can. Enough of my rambling! I hope you all had a great New Year! Happy 2016!

Chapter Five || The Old Managers

"And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?"
~ W. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night; or, What You Will Act 2, Scene 4, lines 110-112

~*~

I twirled my rose between my fingers, the twin to the one that will sit in the Prima Donna's dressing room later tonight; the twin to the rose Erik will give his future wife. A light blue mist fell over my rose, the same rose that sits on my bookshelf in Asgard. I vaguely wondered how Loki's magic worked and if that rose from the future still existed there, safely kept within a glass case, sheltering my memories; or perhaps protecting me from them.

There were no sounds near my room, not at this hour; no sounds but the lone beat of my battered heart. I saw a memory of myself in the form of a ghost sitting at my vanity table. I watched her from my desk as she hunched over the translucent rose in her hands, confused by the things she had heard outside of Christine's dressing room; confused by the voices of the man she loves and his pupil she had just assisted.

"You must love me!"

"How can you say that to me, when I sing only for you?"

I had been so naive then, so innocent, pure even. I hadn't believed what I had heard. I hadn't wanted to believe it, so I denied it, over and over again. It wasn't Erik's voice telling Christine to love him. It was some other man. Some other mortal with the same entrancing heart beat that I lived for.

My ghost's head snapped towards the door, hearing the rich voice that called for her from the catacombs. I almost wanted to reach out and grab my eager spirit before she left the room, wanting to spare her the pain she would soon experience. Wanting to spare her from what she kept denying just now at her vanity table. My vanity table.

I remember it so well, that night. How could I forget such a night, such a painful memory? He had been so excited, so frantic, so fervent, so...in love. In love and lost.

"Alouette! Alouette! Did you hear her?! Did you hear her?! Have you ever heard such an unworldly voice?! Such an angelic voice?!"

Yes I have. I had thought. Yours.

If my heart wasn't already at my feet I would have felt it sink again. He had held me, praised me, thanked me for putting Christine in Carlotta's place. "And what a beautiful song you had chosen, Alouette! A perfect song for my little Christine. My Christine."

His Christine.

"But I fear-" he had spoken quickly, anxiously, stopping his hyper pacing as if he was afraid his movement would trigger whatever he was afraid of. "Did you see him, Alouette? Did you see that insolent boy?"

I laugh now at the name boy. Raoul was only a few years older than Christine who was just a girl herself. Is just a girl. Present tense.