[fic] [31_days] Half-steps, Gankutsuou
may 5 | put on your red shoes and dance the blues
caveat: i know nothing about music, and even less about dancing.
Title: Half-steps
Fandom: Gankutsuou
Society keeps their lives neat, whether through dates in calendars or levels of formality built into the very words they use for others, and the life of a young aristocrat is only as freewheeling as its set path allows. For the most part, this works: this evening Eugenie has to make no choice greater than that of which pair of shoes to wear, and she already has a mental list of guests with whom it would only be polite to dance.
It is not that Eugenie resents any of this. Whatever it is, this feeling that surfaces every once in a while, it is nothing as conscious as dislike. But once she is on the dance floor, half an evening of pleasantries behind her and two hours left to go, there is still something that keeps her from moving as lightly as formal grace requires.
She meets Franz when she has three names left to go on her list. A flourish of strings, half a step back, forward, back; she wishes she were playing the piano instead. The notes are tied to staves and time, but there is still space between phrases to find one's own fingering.
"Are you sad, Eugenie? Is there some negligence for which I should be berating Albert?"
"Just melancholic, perhaps." She smiles, so that he will know that it is nothing serious.
Franz smiles back to show that he already knows. "Thomas says that melancholy is a mere indulgence of the upper classes," he offers, and Eugenie laughs aloud, despite herself and despite the rules of etiquette.
The music rises, falls, and they move to a rhythm worn comfortable by time. Eugenie glances at the couples whirling past, hoping to catch sight of the three guests she has yet to dance with. Eventually the dance dictates that they part; Franz moves suddenly and out of step, reaches out, and suddenly Albert is standing before Eugenie, looking as bemused as she feels.
"Hello," he says, blinking in surprise, as Franz steps away and into the crowd. "Will you be playing later? It's been a while since I've heard one of your compositions."
Albert is not Franz, so he does not know that that question is the best one he could have asked. "Perhaps I shall," Eugenie says, and Albert blinks again as she smiles, and takes a too-early half-step backwards, and takes control of the dance. But he lets her lead, and for now this is enough: remaking a dance whose steps she would otherwise know by heart.
caveat: i know nothing about music, and even less about dancing.
Title: Half-steps
Fandom: Gankutsuou
Society keeps their lives neat, whether through dates in calendars or levels of formality built into the very words they use for others, and the life of a young aristocrat is only as freewheeling as its set path allows. For the most part, this works: this evening Eugenie has to make no choice greater than that of which pair of shoes to wear, and she already has a mental list of guests with whom it would only be polite to dance.
It is not that Eugenie resents any of this. Whatever it is, this feeling that surfaces every once in a while, it is nothing as conscious as dislike. But once she is on the dance floor, half an evening of pleasantries behind her and two hours left to go, there is still something that keeps her from moving as lightly as formal grace requires.
She meets Franz when she has three names left to go on her list. A flourish of strings, half a step back, forward, back; she wishes she were playing the piano instead. The notes are tied to staves and time, but there is still space between phrases to find one's own fingering.
"Are you sad, Eugenie? Is there some negligence for which I should be berating Albert?"
"Just melancholic, perhaps." She smiles, so that he will know that it is nothing serious.
Franz smiles back to show that he already knows. "Thomas says that melancholy is a mere indulgence of the upper classes," he offers, and Eugenie laughs aloud, despite herself and despite the rules of etiquette.
The music rises, falls, and they move to a rhythm worn comfortable by time. Eugenie glances at the couples whirling past, hoping to catch sight of the three guests she has yet to dance with. Eventually the dance dictates that they part; Franz moves suddenly and out of step, reaches out, and suddenly Albert is standing before Eugenie, looking as bemused as she feels.
"Hello," he says, blinking in surprise, as Franz steps away and into the crowd. "Will you be playing later? It's been a while since I've heard one of your compositions."
Albert is not Franz, so he does not know that that question is the best one he could have asked. "Perhaps I shall," Eugenie says, and Albert blinks again as she smiles, and takes a too-early half-step backwards, and takes control of the dance. But he lets her lead, and for now this is enough: remaking a dance whose steps she would otherwise know by heart.