Discordant Harmonies 1: A Pitch of the Scale

Chapter Five

Géta hurried to his room after his practice-lesson and put his flute and music away, then opened the window as quickly as he could. The letter from Alénil had been on his mind the whole afternoon, and he wanted to write a reply to it as soon as possible. He threw his tunic onto his bed and dropped into the chair.

Right in front of his incomplete composition homework.

He glanced from the scattered pages of music and the pencil and eraser on top to the letter laying on the near right-hand corner and back again several times as his enthusiasm cooled. It took a few minutes of consideration before he groaned and got up, untying his cravat and loosening the collar of his shirt as he retrieved his flute. He hadn't gotten ahead of his schoolwork at home by slacking, and he'd driven the habit in deeply enough to feel uncomfortable letting his homework be ignored now. The thing here was to stay ahead of lessons as much as possible, so he'd have all the time he needed for practices and studying journals. And today, in addition to the remainder of the music he had to compose, he had mathematics homework, so he collected that as well before returning to his desk. To prevent distraction, he hooked his tunic and covered the letter with it, leaving them on the bed. There. Hopefully his mother's adage of "out of sight, out of mind," would prove true right now, because he didn't know how he'd get through all his homework if he couldn't focus on it.

Before he finished everything, the bell rang five thirty. He'd gone through the mathematics homework first, since he had a fair idea of how long it would take from experience with such work at home. The composition of the bridge in his little classwork song took longer, and he knew it wasn't as good as the rest of the song, but that couldn't be helped. If he could have taken it to Shélan for a critique, he would have, but, having guessed the Priest was some sort of instructor or tutor, he assumed the man would be too busy to take the time to assist him now.

The moment he considered himself finished with the music (perhaps a bit before it was ripe), he set it aside with his mathematics homework and grabbed the letter from hiding. After reading over it again a few times, he carefully set it where he'd be able to read it as he wrote and pulled another piece of paper close.

Not wishing to make Alénil worry, he didn't write anything about his sudden shyness and inability to make friends here. It would only upset his friend, and, though level-headed for the most part, Alénil did occasionally have fits of temper, and Géta didn't want him charging over to try and convince his parents to bring him back home. One thing Alénil would be correct in assuming was that Géta was desperately lonely at times, and that would definitely pique Alénil's protective nature.

So he outlined how his days thus far had gone, starting with his early rising and visit to the library to study, making sure to emphasize how much he enjoyed it. Géta raved over the journals, waxing so enthusiastic he had to stop and read what he'd written a couple times to determine if he might be overdoing it. With a frown, he decided not. He'd always been like this over journals, an attitude his friends knew well. However, he had taken up both sides of a whole page writing about the journals, so he forced himself to go on to his classes, trying not to be too concise about them, but unable to find anything outstanding to say about them aside from the fact his instructors seemed competent and he believed he could keep up in the classes with little difficulty. That took one side of another page.

Then, with the commencement of the first paragraph regarding the flute practice-lessons, the dam broke. Oh, not the one he'd placed on his life here, but the secret desire he'd had to have the freedom—nay, the necessity—to focus on his flute and writing music for it scrawled across the page with abandon. He just couldn't withhold the fact, he was so happy to have this gift. It felt good to share it, and he even diverged onto the dreams of becoming a famous Court musician in his enthusiasm because that was what he truly wanted and would have no reason to accost his parents regarding his future with it. This took two entire pages, and he was so incapable of restraining himself, he repeated himself a few times.