#i just wanna play my viola on a regular basis

[the-blaze-empress]

fuck i miss being in an orchestra

[applegelstore]

Fic: The Magic Flute, Violin, Viola, and Clarinet

Tales of Zestira, Gen

(what else)

Summary:

Little Rose makes friends with some other kids in the orchestra. She then proceeds to incorporate her new friends into her business plans.

AO3 Link here!

Or hit the cut to read on tumblr!

Hey look it has pictures. If you’re ONLY here for those, check out the post with the isolated pictures! (also because tumblr fucks up pictures within posts)

CREDITS:

@jadeluminescence wrote a few lines; namely, she fueled me on tumblr with ideas for the weird magical girl powers that little Sorey comes up with; I really wanted to include her ideas because it warmed my ice cold heart with warm and fuzzy feelings to see somebody else adding to my ideas on their own volition.

@pengiesama was so infinitely kind and beta’d for me to make my sentences 100% better readable. All remaining mistakes and bad decisions are my own. She also wrote me two one-shots from that same universe earlier, so if you enjoyed this, I highly recommend you check out her take on the theme! Here’s the AO3 Links: One Two

Rose was about nine-something years old when she met Sorey and Mikleo. They played in the same junior orchestra that she recently got into, and soon they’d go to the same school together in Marlind, so it was in everyone’s best interest that they’d get along. It was additionally in Rose’s best interest to get along with Alisha.

Alisha Diphda was the latest addition to the junior orchestra, and clearly needed Rose’s guidance. What else would you expect from the illegitimate daughter of some filthy rich dude of old noble ancestry? She’d been raised in some big fancy mansion and, up until recently, had been homeschooled by private tutors. She was very lost in this world, and Rose was the one who would have to teach her social skills. But that was okay – Rose had already planned to sit behind her in every class so she could drop frogs down her blouse, as needed. She’d simply draft up some paperwork to take her share of the Diphda family’s business as compensation for her hard work.

It aligned with Rose’s business plans that neither Alisha nor the boys were particularly hard to get along with, and they seemed to share her ambitious plans for the junior orchestra (such as playing with the adults some day, and patiently explaining to them that it was very cool to play the opening song  from your favourite show on your clarinet even though you were supposed to practice that Mozart piece whose name you forgot because usually they were all just named “etude in G major” or whatever.)

However, despite the easy familiarity, the boys were profoundly weird. They were both able to remember with terrifying accuracy which piece was part of which opera, or oratorio, or symphony, and which composer had written the particular “etude in G major” that they were currently playing. Sorey didn’t really mind if you pointed that out to him – he would just grin at you, and continue to blabber about what you had previously pointed out as weird. Mikleo did mind it, but he brought it upon himself, really. It was one thing, and plainly a fact, that some people needed glasses – but it was another thing to wear blue-rimmed fat spectacles that covered almost half his face, screamed “I sit in the first row at school,” and looked like they were pulled straight out of a cartoon.

Alisha was. Well. Alisha.

They had gathered at Mikleo’s house in the (terribly tiny and irritatingly quiet) town of Camlann to practice their parts for their first orchestra performance together – mostly because they were out of other options. Sorey’s house was next door, but his parents were basically never at home, and he might as well have lived with Mikleo and his mum. Rose was an orphan and lived in a crowded little place with a friend of her late father and various members of his rock band. In the same house lived Dezel, whom she valued as the only person who could counter her throwing kazoos – as every good adoptive big brother should be able to do. However, there was no way Alisha’s father would allow her to come to a place like that, so it wasn’t even worth discussing.

The downside of Mikleo’s place was that it was Sunday, and they never really got much practice done there on Sundays. Sundays meant that Uncle Michael was at home.

(Uncle Michael was, of course, only Mikleo’s uncle – but since Mikleo shared basically everything with Sorey, why shouldn’t they share Uncle Michael as well? This was why Rose only ever heard of him as “Uncle Michael”. The first time she had come to visit, Michael brought a tiny reconstruction of an ancient hydraulic organ. The boys had been so fascinated with it that they wouldn’t do anything unless it involved the organ. She had to admit that it had been fun to play with the pipes, and to see what happens if you blow into them, and to annoy Mikleo because “that’s not how you play an organ”. Sometimes Mikleo’s mum would come in, smile at everyone, bring them waffles with whipped cream and maple syrup, ruffle Michael’s hair, and leave again. All of this without anyone batting an eye or making a comment.)

Michael burst into the living room and yelled: “I brought new samples!”

Sorey and Mikleo visibly lit up, and promptly dropped their instruments, so apparently this particular scenario of Uncle Michael bringing home “samples” took place on a regular basis and needed no further explanation. The “samples” were a whole assortment of smaller items, presumably more reconstructions of ancient instruments, and a big one wrapped in cloth that made it look like a tube.

Michael arranged the smaller ones on the floor for the children to see. Rose really liked the ancient harp because it was made of bones and a turtle’s shell. Alisha, however, was clearly disgusted. She idly plucked the strings on the wooden lyre, though.

Another item looked like a fly swatter without a net, except it had interesting metal pins stuck through its sides. They looked like spoons, but Rose figured they would still make decent spikes if need be. She gripped one of them between two fingers, but was stopped in her tracks.

“I think you’re supposed to rattle it,” Sorey whispered.

Rose shot him a glare. She fully expected some weird curse to fall upon them when they used the rattle, or a dragon to fall from the skies and eat them up for breakfast. She greatly preferred the latter option because she disliked ghost stories and disapproved of curses that were laid upon her without her being able to physically touch and punch the culprit.

“Rose, you also play winds, don’t you? This one should be more to your liking,” Michael said and unwrapped the big package.

It looked like a wooden cannon, and had white and red animals painted on the outside, which Sorey and Mikleo clearly appreciated if Sorey’s little squeals of delight were anything to go by. Rose expected him to start discussing which cave painting this reminded him of.

“It’s called a didgeridoo,” Michael announced and gestured the children to sit still, watch and listen. “They’re still used in folk music in Zaphgott Moor, so this is a new one, fresh from the man who built it. But they’ve been in use for at least three thousand years. I’ve been thinking about investigating their relation to the woodwinds used in Hyland at that time.”

“What does it sound like?” Mikleo asked.

Michael brought the mouthpiece to his lips and blew into it to demonstrate. The didgeridoo made a deep, deep humming noise that sounded distinctively different from any instrument used in a modern orchestra. It piqued Rose’s interest for being exotic, and potentially exploitable. If all else failed, she could surely just drop it on people’s heads if she didn’t like their opinions.

Alisha and the boys stared at Michael with wide eyes. Rose could have sworn there were sparkles in them.

“Who wants to try?” Michael asked them and handed over the didgeridoo.

Mikleo sat in the middle, so he stretched out his hands to take it. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked, but it was unwieldy. This didn’t keep the other kids from clinging to his back and shoulders. Rose peeked into the mouthpiece to check for any curses or dragons.

“Don’t lean on me,” Mikleo complained, which earned him a pout from Sorey that he didn’t see. “I wanna try this and you’re in the way.”

The didgeridoo was bigger than any of the kids were tall, so Mikleo opted to stand on the sofa to blow into it. The sound it made wasn’t exactly what any of the children expected. Because it didn’t sound anything like what Michael had just done with it, and instead sounded more like what happens when you pout and then blow through your closed lips. Except with a loud echo.

It wasn’t what Mikleo expected to come out of the things he usually blew into at all, and he backed away from the instrument with a slightly disgusted face. Sorey fell over and rolled with laughter.

“I’m still figuring this out,” Mikleo grumbled.

“See how big it is and how large the mouthpiece is designed?” Michael explained with admirable patience. He wasn’t usually patient enough to deal with anyone (child or not) who couldn’t immediately follow his university-level lectures on additive rhythm in music composed during the Temperance of Avarost. People had reported first-semester students leaving with headaches. Luckily, he had more empathy for a lack of air in a tiny boy’s lungs. “There’s no way you could make high-pitched sounds with this like you would with a C-tuned standard Hyland concert flute. It also means you can’t purse your lips the same way you do with your flute. See?”

Mikleo nodded in understanding.

Rose nodded in a different kind of understanding. She drew Sorey and Alisha close and mumbled low: “Do you think the people in Zaphgott Moor would pay good money to see their traditional giant music cannon thingy on a big stage?”

“There should be a movie with those!” Sorey decided. “A musical! To show how the magic in the instruments works.” He waved his hands around to explain. Which didn’t help at all, but he wasn’t bothered by such trivialities.

“Magic?” Alisha piped up.

“Yep! Like, the didgeridoo would be used as a cannon in ancient days. It’s the heroes’ secret weapon which can only be used if they all combine their magic powers into one to create the force of void!”

Rose didn’t dare to ask which powers, but luckily (or unfortunately?) Alisha did it for her. Even Mikleo let the didgeridoo be for a second and turned back to them with one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“So, imagine if we could all summon magic with the songs we play? Like the heroes in the ancient myths?” Sorey babbled on. “You know what happens if you wear one of these cheap sweaters and then rub Oysh’s fur and get an electric shock? Imagine if I could send shocks like these from my violin strings!”

“What’s my power then?” Mikleo inquired.

“How about you can control the flow of water if you play your flute? And when you play staccatos, the water freezes!”

“And what does the piano do?”

“That one can make the water dance! The louder you play, the bigger the drops!”

This was going into a direction Rose could get behind. “Well, what’s my ability?” she asked.

“Rose, you can… uuuuuh, shoot knives out of your clarinet.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “That’s not magic.”

“It would totally be magic if you could fit knives into a clarinet’s mouthpiece,” Michael pointed out, but he was ignored.

“I’m still thinking!” Sorey retorted. “Alisha can make magical sound waves!”

Mikleo raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t we just establish that we all have magical sound waves? You should make up your mind how the song magic works before you assign any powers to us.”

“You wanted me to make up powers for you!”

“Excuse me for assuming you had thought ahead then. I should have known better.”

Sorey opted to tackle him and throw him off the sofa to tickle him. The resulting scene resembled kittens at play – always going for the necks but miraculously always being left unharmed in the process. Alisha looked down at them in shock. Clearly she had never been in a good old pillow fight brawl. Rose had so much yet to teach her.

Michael silently gathered his “samples” to get them out of the way of harm, so all of this was presumably normal. He waited until both boys were out of breath from laughter and leaned their backs on the sofa. Michael crouched down in front of them and tousled Sorey’s hair. Mikleo was already busy fixing his own (and his glasses).

“So, to get back to the topic. What’s your expert opinion? How’s the tuning?”

“The flutes all sound weird. Like half a note off,“ Mikleo mumbled.

“More like three quarters,” Sorey added. “The lyres were also three quarters. All of them.”

“I liked the sistrum,” Rose chirped.

“Well, they’re modeled after instruments used roughly two thousand years and some ago, so naturally they must be tuned differently than your modern standard Hyland concert tuned instruments. Thank you, guys. I knew I could count on you.”

He left the children alone to play. Or to continue practicing; whatever they’d fancy. Except Sorey couldn’t concentrate for the life of him. He picked up his violin and glanced down at it with longing.

Sorey usually only looked that sad when you tried to take Mikleo-time away from him for some reason. And making Sorey sad was very much like kicking a puppy. Rose would never kick a puppy, even if Dezel wasn’t there to scold anyone who’d dare, but she just knew that she wouldn’t be able to bear the guilt of doing it. It was the same with trying to imagine making Sorey sad on purpose. You just didn’t do it. There were evil people, and there were people so wicked to the bone that they kicked puppies and made Sorey sad. She would never be one of them. She was a good girl, after all. She understood the gravity of the whole situation.

“You know… it would really be cool if we could summon magic with our music. We could make it rain if it’s too dry in the summer, or summon wind to make the old windmill run, and save kittens from trees,” Sorey mused.

Mikleo wiggled close to him again and silently guided him to lay his head on his shoulder. Sorey accepted with a dramatic sigh. There was a minute of silence.

“I would love to know how you save kittens from trees with music,” Alisha eventually offered.

Cute, but Alisha still wasn’t seeing the full potential of things.

“I would love to see you show a bit more business sense!” Rose scolded. “It would make a great show, don’t you think? Captain Sorey and his merry music friends saving the world with the power of music! Every week! But we still have to add some murder and mystery and a giant space monster who was banished from the realm of giant space monsters to earth as punishment for enraging the queen of the elves, otherwise it’s boring.”

Sorey beamed. “I don’t know about a show, but we could make it an opera! Then we can make Lailah sing the part of the queen of the elves.”

Rose nodded gravely and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Leave it to Rose Sparrowfeather. She’s got big plans. If she’s to stay in this orchestra, she’s gonna make it big. I’m gonna give your old Gramps a hint that it would be a cool birthday present.”

It took a little longer than little Rose would have anticipated. More than eight years.

But now, she was finally basking in the feeling of seeing the final product of her production on stage. It was surprisingly high quality for an opera whose plot was the product of a nine-year-old’s vivid imagination, and which dealt with a bunch of kids saving the world from evil forces with the power of music and also friendship. It had been a bit of a challenge, since Zenrus’ orchestra was a bit peculiar. It wasn’t a full in-house orchestra with contract-bound musicians and a choir; it was a hobbyist orchestra. A good hobbyist orchestra, mind you. You had to audition to get in. But you were not bound to stay, and you weren’t paid either. People moved. People got new jobs. People lost interest. And Zenrus was only a good natured professor emeritus who didn’t want to fully retire yet, and he had little funds to compensate his people for what they were doing. Ticket sales went to an allowance for special expenditures. Many of the people stayed for years (Sorey and Mikleo had pretty much been born into it. It was probably okay that they had had little say in the matter as infants because they never complained). It was great, in a way. It was refreshing, and welcoming, because you got to know many different people who all actually wanted to be there.

It was fun, but it wasn’t ambitious enough yet to support the dreams of a bunch of nine- or ten-year-olds.

Zenrus had insisted on writing the music himself – anything for little Sorey (Nevermind Sorey was no longer little.) That was the easy part. The part that actually took Rose eight years was growing up, and letting her ambitions grow alongside her.

She procured a loan from a source she didn’t tell anybody about to get some top-notch solo singers. The light show was a sight to behold. Milla had offered to provide some special effects for the magic music that the protagonists would be producing, but Zenrus had gently but insistently argued against real fire on stage, or a landslide. But he granted that a bit of rain and wind wouldn’t hurt, as long as the orchestra wasn’t in range to get watered like a bunch of flowers, or have their sheet music blown away by the fans.

By now, Zenrus was living his dream of adopting a collection of small kids who may or may not need actual adoption by mentoring a ten-year-old named Laphicet (or Phi, for short.) Phi would have jumped a cliff for the chance to conduct an opera (if his aunt didn’t stop him in the process), so he stood next to Zenrus during all the performances to learn what he could. Since little Phi was already taller than him, and also had such an obnoxiously wide smile on his face that it visibly lit up the entire orchestra hall, it was hard to overlook him. The main difficulty for the orchestra was following what Zenrus was doing with his baton, not what Phi was doing (He tried his best to copy Zenrus’ movements, and he did a good job on it, too, but it was still distracting to see this little kid stealing the entire show.)

It was worth the effort, though. Phi’s presence added to the performance. Nobody even dared to think of talking him out of the idea that the singers on stage were his chosen holy warriors and he was the god of the conductor’s baton.

Rose basked in the spotlights as they highlighted her during the applause, stepping in front of the stage, ready to (more or less) humbly accept the cheers that were due for her job as producer. And oh dear, did she bask in it.

Two weeks after the premiere, Rose counted the sold tickets. A broad grin split her face as she waved a sheet with the final count in front of Sorey’s face.

“So? You happy with your own personal little opera?” Rose said and tried to rest her elbow on Sorey’s shoulder. “Tried,” because he was like almost a head taller than her, and she had a nagging suspicion that he wasn’t even done growing yet. But she was athletic and always up for a challenge.

He beamed. “I love it! My favourite thing is the light effects and the waterfall scene with the rainbow.”

“No shit. I was talking about the sales, but okay. Good old Zenrus sure knows his craft. And I bet Lailah’s aria alone would have been enough to squeeze that applause out of the audience every damn time. I told ya the minute you slap classical music over it, the people eat up everything as high culture. Shakespeare. Offenbach. Just everything about the Magic Flute. I mean, our plot isn’t much dumber. See what I mean?”

“Well, I do. But Shakespeare’s plays were the Renaissance equivalent of soap operas, and nobody took Schikaneder’s libretto seriously even after Mozart had written music for it…”

“Ksh. Ksssssh. We’re no longer friends if you keep talking.” Rose punched him gently in the shoulder when she couldn’t keep up leaning on it any longer. “So. What next? Phi told me you made friends with his aunt and her metal band…”