A Songbird's Lament

Chapter 9

Author's Note: This one will be slightly NSFW, but not in a violent sense if you get what I mean. Nothing too extreme will happen, so don't worry.

Though it was Spring and the weather was already warm, Gabriele's blood turned to steam. The world swayed as though Gabriele was on a boat, unable to retain his balance. His headdress felt heavier as he semi-stumbled back to his tent for fear that if he stayed, he would become inebriated enough to die. Falling onto his chair, it nearly collapsed under him. One glass had turned to two, and then three.

His eyes cast up to the ceiling, Gabriele inhaled slowly as he blinked, his eyes lingering closed for a moment. Grabbing the fabric at his arms in his fists, he slid the dress off his shoulders. It was high time he changed anyways, a speck of mud water had gotten onto the bottom of his costume.

"Calm yourself, 'ragazzo mio,'" a voice barely lower than his said from another corner of the tent. It laughed, a sound like wispy cirrus clouds. Jacopo.

"Ah, so you heard the Maestro?" Gabriele asked, propping his head up on a hand. He raised an eyebrow.

"All of Napoli could have heard him shouting of your talent," Jacopo said, rolling his eyes, "Lord, I pray they saved some wine for me, I believe I will need it after all the words I heard,"

"Oh, speaking of, what were your thoughts on my performance?" Gabriele asked, stumbling behind a screen to change. He fumbled with the countless laces and pins on his costume.

"You have a beautiful voice, no doubt, but in a competition of appearance," Jacopo said, "I am the winner,"

Gabriele knew this may have been true, but it still bruised his ego. He carelessly draped his dress from the second act and discarded the stomacher in a dark corner.

"Do you not have a corner of the stage to be standing in?" he asked as he emerged from behind the screen in the most heavily embellished, and heaviest of his costume yet.

The other soprano hesitated before shooting back a response.
"Do you not have a boy to pretend to love?"

"Yes, I do, for the reason that I spend more than ten seconds onstage during the opera, unlike you," Gabriele retorted, stepping out of the tent. Maestro Fontanelli waved from his small bacchanalia and swallowing the lump in his throat, Gabriele waved back.

"You have time, go watch the intermezzo!" he shouted at Gabriele.

Joining the crowd near the back, Gabriele certainly looked very out of place in his long bejeweled pink costume and towering headdress. People stopped watching and conversing to stare. Onstage, an actor fell off a rose trellis. The crowd howled with laughter.

"Oh, so you have come to me at last," an unfamiliar voice said from somewhere in front of him.

"I apologize, who exactly are you?" Gabriele asked, still unable to find the source of the voice. They sighed, tapping the soprano on the shoulder. It was the girl with the red lips, the one he had blown a kiss to. Up close, he could see that her eyes were dark, nearly black. They were hungry for something, but Gabriele could not quite tell what it was, for it certainly was not food. Thinking of the possibilities, his face flushed. He didn't know much, but he knew enough to know what he and the girl might do.

The curtains closed, and the audience began speaking and clapping louder than ever.

"I caught you admiring me, and I am certainly interested in-"

Once more, the audience laughed.

"Ah, I may recall blowing you a kiss, Signorina," he said, "In that case, I apologize for defiling your hono-"