Appassionata

3x3

He's never needed to.

The parlor and the corridors beyond are empty, and he slides out old parchment and spreads it out on the desk and begins to play, one chord into another, a few tentative rising notes, a musical evolution, shock, resolution, the line downwards, the explosion afterwards, the melody rising sparkling and careening on over the pages. The brilliance, the innovation, the harsh beauty, slicing through him as he plays.

Music too complicated for high magic, too unpredictable. It tugs deeper than power, than emotion, than intellect. Straight to his core, body, mind, and soul.

His hands move by themselves by now; he knows his music that well; he must. The development tears through him like fire, exquisite agony; the recapitulation is a breath of sweet relief, a gasp before another blow, false resolution. The coda soars and shrieks and fades and settles over him in a haze, and for a moment he sits there, subliminal power hanging on the air, and then drops his head and laughs his little creaky laugh and transforms out and then back into his uniform in two quick washes of light, because the front of his pants was soaked.