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Immediately Antoinette wiped the sadness from her face with a prolonged blink, trying to force a neutral mask over what wouldn't leave. Erik didn't mean to upset her, but she was still sensitive about it. Had he died naturally she might be over it, but the man had been murdered for the few sous he had in his pocket. She even bet the men who robbed him laughed as he bled to death on the streets before pocketing the meager earnings. Antoinette hoped they would burn in hell for eternity for doing something like that, but it was no good to curse people she didn't know or would never see.
"Don't get upset over it, Erik. I'm a widow and as such I should be huddled in a cave, mourning my husband and holding a rosary all hours of the day. But, I'm not the kind to throw away my life for one twist of fate." She said softly, turning to smile at him. "Life is far too short not to love and when it's gone we live on the memories until one day we ourselves pass." It wasn't to say she didn't wish she had someone beside her now, but it wasn't like she needed a man to keep her going. She had a daughter and Erik and for her that was what she really needed. "But the world isn't all bad. It's just not as good as fairy tales make it out to be." Antoinette added with a small sigh of indifference.

Antoinette wasn't totally sure of the look on Erik's face, but she supposed he was just thinking rudely about himself again. Maybe it was just that she was used to seeing him without the mask or maybe it was the poor lighting of the gas lamp about to burn up the last few drops of oil, but to her Erik really was handsome. The unscarred half of his face was strongly shaped with a high cheekbone and a strong brow. The scarred half was almost as if someone had tried tearing the flesh and muscle right off his face. Struck by the hand of the merciless God. Fate's slap. But beyond it was a soul needing love and care, a heart frozen in ice awaiting someone to melt it. Erik was intelligent and kind, but he had never known love. Not the kind a man needed, anyway. Antoinette loved him, but she was pretty sure it wasn't romantic.
"But they're always nice thoughts. You can't ever have wrong thoughts, I suppose." Slowly she reached up, putting a hand on his shoulder, craning her head up to give him a reassuring smile. "Now, I think Mr. White-Masked Knight, you need to get out of here so I can go check on my girls and get your pens and paper before this old brain forgets which way is up and how to spit on a man with no manners." Antoinette chuckled, raising her hand an inch from his shoulder before putting it back down at a fairly good rate in a good pat. "Go spy on the nonsense you caused and have a good laugh. Nothing wrong with laughing at something you started, anyway. Not when the Opera's resident fools are involved."

Antoinette stared at the door Erik had entered and exited through, only the left half of her mouth turned up in a halfsmile that usually came with either being tired or just wondering. The lock wasn't turned but the curtain was pushed back and the dress re-hung to cover what the curtain didn't. Her hand wandered from the velvet of the curtain to the silk of the dress and she nearly sighed in poor ecstasy. That dress would never be worn to anything and she knew it.
But her mind didn't stay on the dress for long as she went back to her vanity, eyeing the photograph Erik had returned. She wondered what he'd wanted it for, but knew better than to ask. If he didn't want her to know, he wouldn't say anything. Sometimes when her curiousity got the better of her she knew it was only his respect for the woman that he didn't do much more than yell.
Antoinette picked up the hairbrush from earlier, unclipping her hair and smoothing it out as she stared, unseeing, into the small mirror before her. There really was no need for it since she had no one to impress, but she was only human. Grabbing a few pins from nearby where she usually left them--between a photo of Meg as a toddler and one more recently taken--Antoinette pulled most of her hair up into her hands, pinning it in place before twisting it around into a ball. More pins were added and thus the odd ball became a bun situated nicely on her head, no loose hairs showing or arching out from the flat sphere. The rest was taken and braided, making it look like her hair made its own crown about her head before the braid cascaded over her shoulder where it promptly ended a few inches abover her waist and was tied off with a black ribbon. She took one moment to stare at herself, not real sure if she should really go out lest she run into Joseph again. Talking with Erik had made her feel better since they'd changed the subject from that perverse animal to fonder memories, but there was that glint in the man's eye that made her blood turn to ice and her whole body blanch whiter than chalkdust.
Deciding to go out anyway, Antoinette pulled a shawl about her shoulders just to keep her right hand busy as her left held her ever-present cane. She remembered when she'd first been told by the Opera's doctor to start using one. She'd been dancing in the head row of that month's performance and suddenly her knee had given way and her ankle twisted, forcing her to fall and take half the row with her. Her knee after that had a tendency to twist even when she wasn't dancing and since there was no way to fix it, a cane was in order. She'd been only thirty then. When Erik had first seen it, he'd cracked a handful of jokes about her getting old and looking like a hag with it. Needless to say, a single age joke hadn't been cracked since. Obsiously going with the solid silver handle was a good idea and bad news for anyone dumb enough to piss her off. But though her knee rarely gave out anymore, Antoinette still used it whenever she had to stand for any amount of time. Despite the stiffness from the bad knee, she could still dance which was why she was the Ballet Mistress.
The bittersweet memory left Antoinette cold for a while as she went through the semi-empty halls to reach the stairs that led up to the dormitories. She heard no noise coming from up there, but she was never sure since the girls liked whispering to one another just in case they spoke of any particularly untrue or juicy gossip. Using her good leg first, Antoinette climbed the staircase and walked in on a few girls who were awake. Christine's bed was out of sight since it was tucked away near a back corner. One of the younger girls was sitting on the bed of a first row dancer, who also had a third row dancer on the bed. All three looked like they had just woken up.
"Mother Giry!" The youngest girl whispered, getting up from the bed her eyes as wide as they could go. The girl was a little red-head with more freckles than hairs on her head. "Mother Giry, Meg left about an hour ago! I saw her go after she helped Christine to bed!"
"I know, Lucille." Antoinette smiled, letting the girl go back to her two older friends who lowered their talking to whispers as Antoinette left again to see if the mess Erik had started was still going on.

((*blows a bubble*))

((Hey! My cane! *takes back and hits upside the head*))

((*Unimpressed, swinging cane loosly from one hand* Ah hah, but with me dead, you'd have no one to mess around with when no one else posts. ))

((By the way, people should check the first page every now and then because I sometimes put up new info that I want others to read.))