Post by adelaide on Jan 11, 2009 14:48:42 GMT 10
raleigh
Her spine rolled upwards as she sat herself down, right foot automatically poising over the damper, her fingers draped across the black and white keys. She didn't need sheet music anymore, save for when she was learning a particularly difficult piece. Raleigh had immersed herself so deeply in the piano that she could hear a song a few times over, sit back down at the piano, and play it out, learning it all by ear. She wasn't nearly so proficient at guitar, although voice came naturally, too. Well, anyone could learn a song just from hearing it over and over.
"The paths have been crossed.
The crumbs are gone, and the way, and the way is lost."
Her fingers danced along the keys, playing a lively, fast-paced song, singing along as she went. It was a lovely voice, much deeper than one would have thought - quite unlike the typical "American girl" voice. She could belt, but it was more husky than candy-sweet. Think Macy Gray, minus seventy-five percent of her rasp, mixed with a little Conor Oberst, and add in the idea that Billie Holiday as her grandmother, and you got Raleigh. She'd always been a little self-conscious of her voice, until getting a job at the local jazz club back home, playing the piano and singing on the odd days of the week and Saturday evenings, before their main girl came in to perform. She'd fallen in love with singing after that.
"Melancholy phantoms eye our skin,
Poison apples falling with the wind.
Here the sigh of the trees.
Those who enter here never leave."
The music crecendoed, leading into the chorus, she bent over the keys, hair draped over haphazardly, growing more passionate with every note.
"And the rangers scream out of their cabins.
They are the hunters; we are the rabbits.
Well, maybe we don't want to be found.
Maybe we don't want to be found."
She paused, tapered fingers hovering delicately, considering where to go from there. She'd learned it only just the other day, and hadn't fully memorized it all - she dug into the back of her brain, straining to remember lyrics and the continuing notes, teeth biting her lower lip. It dawned on her then, eyes lighting up like a beacon, immediately progressing back into the song.
"Further in and on we go,
Sightless creatures tugging at our clothes.
Cutting through the twilight, sword in hand,
Strangers once united against the land."
It was a meaningful song to her, at least, although the lyrics may or may not have been rather confusing to others. She'd always found herself to really understand musicians that were deemed too cryptic for most listeners. It wasn't even that she had been through the same things as them - she'd lived a happy, simplle life, although perhaps a bit more closed-off from the world than the average person - but rather that she had the uncanny ability to put herself in another person's shoes.
Another pause then, although this one wasn't to remember what she'd forgotten. The girl slumped back on the bench, arms propping her up on either side, considering the lyrics thoughtfully. Poor girl, she was always such a thinker, always judged "too complex."[/font][/size][/ul]