A Court of Ice and Fire

Chapter 10

Music has different tones-and with each tone comes an accompanying mood. And for each mood, comes an alternating song that has the possibility of resonating with every single fibrer of your being.

I have seen masters perform in private rooms, their fingers adeptly flying over a paino, or quickly alternating notes on a violin or harp-or any instrument really. I've heard their music and felt each ring of the chords in my heart-in my blood. Each press of the keys sends me flying into a nearly subliminal sense of bliss.

I have no such ability to accomplish this.

My ability to actually play an instrument, stringed or no, seems to be surface based knowledge at best. "You lack the heart." My instructor drills the words into my brain everytime I play a piece for her.

"Your emotions, the feelings inside-they are as much of an instrument as this piano lying in front of you. You just have to learn how to harness them." I can play any piece nearly perfectly, but without 'heart' it doesn't sound the same-it doesn't resonate.

How do you tell someone that the reason you can't play with your heart, is because it feels like you no longer have one?

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Leyanne is the only piece of the manor I brought with me when I moved. Her bright, cheery face lights up the house whenever she walks in, and it feels nice to know that I'm not completely alone. 

She enjoys to listen to the songs I manage to produce from the Piano-partcularly the slow and romantic ones. 

While she praises me on my apparent talent and masterful ability, I know her compliments-while appreciated-are from someone who doesn't know what to look for. 

She doesn't notice how I pause slightly before moving onto the more emotional parts of a song, or how my body stays tensed as I play. 

All she hears is me playing the correct notes-and while I know that's what I used to strive for when I first started out, now all I want is be able to produce something that means more than the strike of a key. 

Most of my days are filled with me sitting in front of the piano, or lounging on a couch with a book in my hands. After leaving the manor, I found a new kind of sanctuary in reading-I found something that quite literally takes me away-to a place where everything makes sense-where everything has an ending. 

The beginning is always rocky-when the hero is learning about who he/she is and realizing what they have to do to accomplish their final goal. The middle is filled with difficult choices and sometimes heartbreaking losses, but it everything gets tied into a neat little bow in the end. 

If my life were a story, my bow would be considered slightly ruffled at first, then it caught on fire, and then the whole thing just dissintergrated. Even in my slightly off balanced state, even I know that life is not ever tied nicely into a bow at the end. 

There are loose ends, straggling pieces of fabric that ended too soon and will never be completed. There are knots and messy tangles as well-places that make no sense, and most liekly never will. Hardships that might never be overcome, loves that were meant to be but never even got the chance. Life is not a bow, and it certainly isn't neat. 

When I told everyone I was leaving, it caused a lot of knots to form in their lives. Father almost flat out refused-telling me he would never support his youngest child living on her own. Elain cried and wept for three days before finally coming to terms with the idea.

Nesta just nodded her head and left the room-never saying a word. I half expected the reaction from her-she most likely didn't care about my leaving, but the action still hurt.