Welcome to Gaia! ::

The afternoon had been loosely planned at best. Otto had stopped off at Desdemona's desk at the end of the work to inquire of the lovely secretary was hungry, if she'd like to head out to grab a bite to eat before heading back to his place for the night. There had been no concrete plan in place for where they'd go or what they'd do after, only the desire to be in her company.

So Dinner had been early, a little cafe that seemed relatively new that Otto had passed once or twice on his way into work and had wanted to checkout but hadn't had the chance up to that point.

Now, dinner over and bellies full, the two were enjoying the mild weather on the way to another little new business, but this one was a coffee shop.

It was then that Otto heard it, the long, soulful note from a flute drifting up and over the murmur of the crowd. It demanded attention, but in the way a brush of fingers along a shoulder might, and Otto drew to a stop, hand interlaced with Dessy's squeezing gently as he glanced out and around. "Do you hear that?"

There was nothing beyond the perfect darkness of her closed eyes and the sound of her music as it trailed up into the night, fluid sorrow that dissipated into the city sky. The noise of the block began to fall away into the backdrop until it was nothing but a distant hum to accent the ache in her melody; she heard nothing but the longing notes, not a car horn or a click of heels, nothing could distract. Long, dark fingers danced along the glimmering keys and as she tilted her head up to the moonlight, she could feel herself back there again, laughing with faces that she had never seen again.

They were more beautiful when they visited her outside of her nightmares.

The mournful sound trailed to a fluttering halt but she stood there for a moment longer, flute poised just against her lips, so that she could hold onto the feeling of the goodness. The peace. How everything should have been.

A car honked at the closest intersection and her eyes jolted open, up to the moon that taunted her in the sky. She wasn't with her friends. She was still here. When the silence settled and she looked down from the starscape, a handful of people around her applauded lightly and tossed coins in her basket before they wandered away. To them it was just a pretty song on their way home from work or on their way to the bar, to her it was a lot more than that. No one ever heard the sorrow in the songs but she kept coming back, hopeful, that maybe some kindred spirit would surprise her one day. It was too much to hope that it would be someone she missed, but she did. On good days.

It was a breath before she realized a couple was still standing there, watching her, and with a sudden sense that this was maybe awkward, she smiled and dipped her head. That was the proper, normal thing to do at a time like this.

"Do you have any requests?"

Music was a funny thing, wasn't it? - not that Desdemona had any talent for it, or for much of anything beyond charm, passion, and violence she supposed. She didn't think badly of herself for it. She knew she was powerful, efficient, necessary. But music in particular was a funny thing, accessible in ways that painting and writing were not. It could be a comfort, a catharsis, a mindless indulgence into another world - a harmless one, not like the entire circus ordeal that danced still behind the lids of her eyes. It was a private indulgence back from when she'd first been corrupted, something she fell back on during hard nights, a piece of her that Otto had only just begun to see.

This music, the one the girl was playing now, it was the kind of music was that easy to lose herself in. Desdemona allowed it to wash over her, strikingly beautiful and very skilled - but there was a heaviness to it, wasn't there? Something poignant and sad. Heavy beneath the surface, just barely treading it.

The song finished, then, her lips pressed in a line, not quite smiling or frowning. Otto had already asked her favorite; Desdemona gave a nod of assent to that, inviting her to play whatever that favorite might be - she was intrigued.

It was absolutely not the response Otto had been expecting to hear. Usually when you asked a person what their favorite song was they rattled off a title or two and perhaps even broadened that out to a specific band. Sometimes their favorite was a temporary thing, fleeting and ever changing with whatever new hit or single seemed to catch their fancy and burrow into their psyche. The answers all varied, of course, but they were all simple things, light and easy.

Her answer was none of those things, and pale eyes widened a touch as he listened, flicking a glance sidelong to Des to see what she thought of the girl standing in front of them before offering a smile at the suggested alternative.

"How about the most complex tune you're comfortable playing?" She'd made him curious with that deep answer. Made him wonder about her in a way he didn't often wonder about anyone beside the woman standing beside him. It had been a deep answer, a mature one that spoke of layers upon layers.