Beauty and the Mask

The Master

"Shit!" A distressed voice rang through the corridors of the castle in the west wing. A man in a white dress shirt and hair meticulously slicked back sat a grand pipe organ holding his head in his calloused musicians hands. He had now spent all hours of the previous day and night working on his newest composition, an opera.
"Everything fine Master?" A Persian man asked from the doorway, not looking concerned but merely wondering if he should be expecting a fit of rage in the next few moments. The behavior of his master being rather unpredictable at times,
"Fine. Leave me," The deep voice said coldly. The Persian man bowed out respectively and left the master to his usual state of solitude.
"Erik you fool, that crescendo makes no sense," The irritated man said to himself in third person. He went back to hammering away on his organ, now melodies flooding his consciousness at every breathing second. The only peace to ever be his is tormented mind soul. He hit on key sending a twinge of imperfection through the melody making Erik's head send the peacefulness of his music away and ruining him to his constant enraged state. He stood abruptly and let the bottle of ink splatter onto his white dress shirt.
"Giry!" Erik shrieked for the Madame of the house.
Downstairs in the foyer Madame Giry sat with her daughter Meg, they had been dusting the newly acquired amour set Erik had purchased in an auction.
"Mama? I think he's calling you..." A frail voice of Meg said looking around the room to see if the master of the castle would appear from the shadows in a moment. Meg was terrified of the master of the castle. She was fourteen, she had only ever knows the facade of a monster that Erik wore, not the kind young man he used to be.
"I hear him child, hurry along to the kitchen and help cook prepare the master's dinner." Madame said leaving her daughter behind.
"Giry! What's taken you so long? Did you have to come all the way from Scotland?" The voice growled as Madame entered the dimly lit room. Erik sat at the organ once more, resting his head in his hands.
"Apologies, I was dusting the suit of armor Nadir had won on your behalf in the auction the other day," Madame said calmly no longer shocked by his tone after all these years.
"I need ink, I seem to have spilt it all over myself," Erik said in a demanding tone, as he stood beginning to unbutton his now spotted with ink shirt. Madame Giry softly smirked at the sight of ink all over him,
"Send the girl into town,"
"Sir, it is nearly dark. I refuse to send her at this time of day, there ruffians and rapists in the woods. I will not let my daughter put in harms way."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" Erik snarled at her.
"tomorrow I will go when I go into town for errands." Madame said not succumbing to his demands. He only shot her a look of distaste for not doing exactly what he wanted.
"Fine." He growled at the Madame.
"Dinner will be finished in an hour. Do you wish to dine? It had been almost four days since your last civil meal," Madame said letting her concern for the young man she had practically raised show.
"No." He said throwing his dirtied shirt onto the ground exposing his pale, muscled skin to the dim light of his music room. The old scars of his Father's beatings littering his skin, never fading. The needle marks from his addictions scattered his arms making Giry's heart break knowing what he was doing to himself.
"Fine, please do eat something to ease my mind Erik," Giry said using his name which she never did often for he had distaste for the name his parents gave him. It reminded him of his life that once held so much happiness and light. Until all of it shattered because of a curse, the curse of his deformity. A saddened yet disturbed look appeared on his face at the mention of his name.
"Erik is gone Giry, he has been for a long time. That sweet, charming boy you once knew will never return." He muttered under his breath. "There is only this," He said gesturing to the porcelain mask on the left side of his face.
He's still in there somewhere... Somewhere under the monstrous facade you've created child Giry thought to herself feeling her heart ache a bit for the man. Giry had began to raise him like her own after his parents began to resent him for the fact that he was no longer 'beautiful' like the two of them. He had a deformity caused by the ugliness in their own souls, damaging Erik's beautiful one. Giry had always cared for the boy, well now man. She and Nadir, the Persian, raised him attempting to create a great man but when his parents left him he seemed to go mad.
There was a uncomfortable silence between the two, Giry could only look at Erik with sympathy and heart ache.
"Do not look upon me with sadness and longing for the boy you once knew, Giry." Erik growled storming towards the washroom a he slammed the door behind him making the paintings on the walls shake.
Giry shook her head, denying what he had said. She picked up his ink soaked shirt from the floor and left the room in silence.

Erik stood in the washroom using some warm water and soap to remove the ink spots from his skin.
He's gone. She must learn to accept this, Erik is dead, He thought to himself.
"Fifteen long years, living a mere facade of life," He muttered softly to himself in a melodic tone. It had been so long, almost an eternity. He used to be destined for so much more than this pitiful existence. He was to be a Duke, and one day to marry a beautiful woman and make her his Duchess and then to let the hallway be littered with beautiful children. That was always the plan, but all of that had been destroyed. By now all that should've happened, but it was now only a dream. Erik did not know his exact age, not caring to find out either. Giry knew he was thirty one now, for she lit a candle for his birthday every year. He never knew this, it would rage him knowing she still mourned the past.
The thought of a wife and a child often haunted Erik's thoughts.