Exile || Sebastian Sallow

19 | Sensual Silences

"You say that you hate me.
Then tell me shit nobody knows."
—Isabel LaRosa

───•~❉᯽❉~•───

19 | Sensual Silences

Belle's Perspective

The storm was a ruthless thing, raging outside the castle walls just as it had that night. A mirror to my erratic heart. I had been nothing if not mercurial for the whole day.

It was how I found myself inside the music room tonight. Because haunting thoughts had been suffocating me all day, though I tried to pretend I was fine.

But pretending could only get me so far.

It had been a stormy night when it happened. The grounds of our manor had soaked in rainwater and mud when creaking floorboards got stained with crimson sins.

It had been a stormy night when I ran away. When screaming would have gotten me nowhere. When my tears mixed with the rain, all I could do was keep quiet. Keep running. Keep looking forward.

I remembered slipping on something sticky and red, a coppery tang hitting my senses all at once. And when I realized what it had been, I still did not scream. Everything got caught in my throat.

I remembered just knowing, deep in my gut, that I had to leave. I had felt my ancient magic surging, a mighty thing I wasn't yet acquainted with that night. For all my years.

The storm had drowned out their screams, but it could not drown me enough to smother the heartache I'd felt that night.

And most of all, it could not drown the hands of fear that still held onto every inch of my skin to this day.

So, I played. After a few minutes of failed attempts at sleeping, I had jumped out of my bed in the Ravenclaw dormitory where the storm seemed to be the loudest and cooped myself up in the music room.

I played the piano and let my hands dance across the black and white keys and imagined myself dancing to the tune, somewhere in a field of wildflowers where blood stains and haunted houses did not exist.

For a moment, as I closed my eyes and lost myself to the music, I could pretend none of it existed. That none of it ever happened.

For a moment, the music and I were all that existed. It was a friend drowning out the sound of the storm outside the castle walls so that I couldn't be reminded of a horrible night when I'd been powerless.

I kept playing and playing, even as I felt my fingers getting tired. I kept playing the song I'd always known in my heart, and then some other one I'd intertwined with it. Some song I'd made up.

I always found myself playing the same melody when I felt this way. I let my emotions drive my music, and I poured all of it until I could no longer hear the storm, those raindrops of haunting memories.

The music slowed down to something more mellow as the pounding of my heart slowly subsided, and I finally felt myself start to calm down. I played a note, then two on a higher octave, trying to transition into a more hopeful tune.

I counted...

1... 2... 3... play, and I felt the start of something greater and brighter, and—