Composing the Present

Estri

It is said that, like pets, a person's room gradually acquires elements of it's occupant's personality. However, unlike a pet, those aspects aren't always as easily read. Some people say that an untidy room is a sign of a creative mind, another group say it is one of a thoughtless person, and a third of absentmindedness.

Quite what the psychoanalysts would have to say about this room is unknown. They would probably have said that it wasn't even used, save as a storage room. They would have said that the place lacked any feel of character, any feel of emotion that would tie it to it's living occupant. And that would be it.

Which just goes to show you that you should never trust analysts.

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Estri sat by a small computer terminal, meticulously taking in the little assembled chunk of research she had gathered in the past few hours. Across her, sitting on-top of a perfectly laid bed, sat a black violin case, the lid open revealing the old stringed instrument contained within.

She tapped another key, and printed out a copy of as many different definitions of the word Changeling as possible. Considering that they all, bar an obscure reference from some long forgotten game, referred to a being that could change it's form at will, she could not see what possible correlation this term had to herself. Altas must have been mistaken. Now, on to the other matter...

If she had been asked, all those years ago, which emotion she would have felt first if she ever regained that ability, she would probably not have said 'Anger'. A more likely response would have been ‘happiness’ or even ‘sorrow’, but that was the poetic answer. Nevertheless, she had felt her first emotion in a long time, and it was...intriguing.

What was odd was that she could not recall it in her seconds-perfect memory. She could recall the event, but just that she had felt it, and not the feeling itself. Which she also thought was intriguing. Estri strode slowly over to the bed, sat beside the instrument case, and fixed the instrument inside with her level gaze. It had been a gift from her Father, when she was accepted into the pack, following some ancient Japanese rule that a warrior should practice some form of art, which she had considered strange seeing as she was from Europe, and England at that. Yet, it had been a proper wooden violin, old even then. It was the first real sign that they were proud of her. She'd promised then and there to be as good at it as possible.

She lifted the stringed instrument out of the case, and looked it over. She'd had a long time to get good at it. She now knew by heart most of the more well known compositions, and had even attempted to compose her own, striving to get the perfect composition. She hadn't had many living people to hear them in the past.

Which of the parts had been described as 'angry'? A few arrived dutifully in her mind as having that keyword tagged to them, but they required a full orchestra, and she hadn't finished reprogramming the little computer to play the correct music yet. So, something else then.

Placing the violin under her chin, Estri reached down to grasp the bow in the manner that she had learnt, after many painful sounds, was correct, and drew it across each string in turn to discern how out of tune it had become in it's little trip. The A was an 18th of a semitone flat, which she adjusted with steady hands.

She began to experiment with a new composition, which she had already named 'Anger in G Major.'

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