Blood, Sweat, and Hanon - A Ranger's Apprentice fanfiction

Chapter Nineteen - Will

It's competition day.

Apparently, yesterday administration decided to take a leaf out of Halt's book. They locked all the practice rooms and sent all of the students on an impromptu field trip to the music history museum on the other side of Araluen city. 

It was a good day, and a smart move on the part of administration. The trip helped diffuse some of the tension gripping the school, and the other students were more animated and social than Will had seen them be in the past few months.

Will, for his part, appreciated the day off immensely. Sure, a large part of him was screaming at him to find a practice room because FOR PETE'S SAKE YOU'RE COMPETING TOMORROW, but he did manage to relax a bit. He was able to spend time with his friends for the first time in ages - well, all of them except Alyss. No one seemed to know where she was. Jenny suggested that maybe she stayed back at the dorms to catch up on sleep. Will thought that was likely. Every time he'd seen Alyss for the past week or so, she'd looked exhausted.

However, Alyss's absence seemed to be a message of some sort to Cassandra Regan. Once she realized Alyss wasn't there, she attached herself to Will like a magnet and followed him around all day, talking and laughing. Gilan seemed to find it amusing, George looked pained, and Jenny didn't seem to mind. Will found it slightly annoying, but he didn't want to hurt Cassandra's feelings, so he smiled wordlessly and nodded when she spoke to him.

Yesterday, though, seemed like a million years ago. 

Today is much different. There's a frantic, panic-inducing quality in the air. No one slept a wink last night. Some tried, and some simply abandoned all pretenses of sleep. The practice rooms were still locked, but the lights in the dorm rooms stayed on all night while the inhabitants listened to their pieces and frantically studied their scores, trying to cram every last minute detail into their minds.

The auditions started at eight o'clock this morning. Each instrument is judged by the faculty members of that program, so Will and Gilan will be judged by the piano faculty, including Halt and Mr. Brunt, while Alyss and George will play for the string faculty. Then in the afternoon, a maximum of five students from each program will be called back to compete for actual places on the Redmont team.

Will doesn't play until ten thirty, so he spends the entire morning locked in his practice room. He resists the powerful urge to play through his pieces over and over. Ironically, such an action can increase the possibility of memory slips, and he doesn't want to risk that. So he goes over his trouble spots for the last time, solidifying his hands-apart memory, making sure he has a solid place to start after those places in the event that something goes wrong.

Always expect the worst, Halt has drilled into his head over the past few months, so that when it happens, you won't be surprised.

Finally, it's ten fifteen, and he has to head down to the audition room. He carries his scores with him, erased clean of all his markings and with the measures numbered neatly. Once he's there, he slumps down into one of the chairs on the side of the hallway. His stomach is in knots, worse than it was the night of the Ensemble Contest. He closes his eyes and begins the breathing exercises Alyss showed him. He focuses on his breath, slow and deep, going in and out, and slowly, his shoulders begin to loosen.

The door opens and the competitor before him comes out, face white and hands shaking. Will stands, his stomach roiling, though his feet are steadier than he expected. He hands his music to the room monitor and waits for them to call him in.

He follows the monitor into the room and goes to the piano, adjusting the bench to its tallest setting and scooting it back a little bit to get some more room.