The Truth Of Life- BBRAE One-Shots

Playing Piano

My mother's fingers had drifted over keyboards like clouds in the sky, graceful, sleek, careful. The music that followed it was even more lovely, with colors and people and traditions you could not even imagine.

When my mother had to leave to Azarath, she specifically asked to only have her piano brought with her. None of her other personal belongings came with her. So, as expected, as a child I grew up with the piano.

We played duets, solos, soli's, anything we could get our hands on. I especially loved to play duets of music with my mother, to watch my fingers with hers. I was a great musician by age eight, who could play at almost the same level a fifteen year old could play if they'd played for eight years. That was how involved my mother and I were. Her piano was purple, her favorite color, with blue keys. She had painted the outside herself, but it was unique enough to have blue colored-keys. It was the prettiest piano I've ever seen.

Ever since my mother.....left me, I never touched a piano. Never. It was to painful. I could still play, I knew that for a fact. My demon qualities remembered almost everything, especially piano. Sometimes I'd find myself tapping a sound onto my desk or drawers. Once I accidentally did it on the kitchen counter, and Beast Boy told me that that was a pretty song. I hadn't responded.

Earth had a lot more songs that I would've loved to play if I could touch a piano. The songs here were colorful and exquisite, fun, full of life. I looked at sheet music, but didn't play it.

I yearned for a piano. Music was my solace on Azarath, too, me away from the kids teasing and taunting, expressed my emotions in a way I never could. In a way, it was my solution to showing my emotions, since when I played it as a kid I never had that much of a handle on my emotions. But that could just be because of age.

So I lived my life as a Teen Titan, locking my talent away. Until someone discovered it.

We were fighting Control Freak. The couch potato never seemed to cause much of a threat, but I was still on my guard. We were led around town, him using his remote to teleport away to some other location, not getting the fact that we had put a tracking device on him. All was normal.

Until he teleported away again. Cyborg told us he had gone to a music store, which did give me an uneasy feeling, but I stomped it down. It didn't matter. Other instruments are in a music store.

We got there and I realized Cyborg wasn't being specific. It wasn't just a music store, it was a piano music store, where they sold pianos. I told myself to be strong. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was happening. It would just a quick in an out.

I didn't look at the pianos as I came in. I heard a shuffle inside, which distracted me instantly, then a screech. I raced over just as Control Freak was going to use his remote again. A quick uppercut solved that problem, hitting his arm which threw the remote in the air. Robin caught it and broke it.

As they rounded him up and tied him, I looked around against my will. They were pretty, but nothing like my mother's. It took everything in me not to play one, so I just continued to stare.

One particular piano caught my eye. It was purple, situated right next to a blue colored one. I walked over to see it was aged; the corners were yellow and it needed a good paint down.

I turned to face the keys and my breath caught in my throat. Something between a sob and a scream tore loose from my throat and I slowly backed away from the piano, shaking my head. No, no, no, no.

I let out a little gasp and a tiny scream. I couldn't contain myself, my eyes filled with tears. I heard the Titans rushing over to me, asking me what the matter was. I couldn't respond, so I shook my head, pointing at the piano.