The Elementals

Chapter 2 - Scarlet

It is rumored that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his "Pas de Deux" from the The Nutcracker as a bet. He was bet that he couldn't compose a piece whose major theme was a simple descending major scale. Tchaikovsky did it and won.

Andante maestoso. Majestic, but a walking pace. Four-four time. G-scale. F-sharp. And one, two three, four...

Scarlet's finger moved nimbly and gracefully across the ivory-colored keys. She occasionally glanced up at the sheet music but mainly she kept her head down, eyelids lowered. She knew each note by memory. Her right fingers struck the appropriate eighth notes. Her left fingers maintaining a slower pace but Scarlet felt as if the left hand was trying to catch up to the right one, who with every descension teased the left hand. Come, come, lefty, come, come. Catch me if you can. Ha ha ha! La la la!

The music surged a typhoon of emotions within Scarlet. Emotions that were tagalonged by memories.

Serenity. A six year old Scarlet seated beside her father on the piano bench, her right hand learning to play a common C-scale, her father's own right fingers rested on top of hers so as to guide her.

Achievement. Scarlet winning her first youth piano competition against preteens and teens at age eight; after only two years of training and playing the piano she was able to play the original works of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Schubert.

Rage. Scarlet hearing at age sixteen that her parents had died in a work fire at their lab. Scarlet screaming and sobbing as the flames within her escaped later that night and she took it out on the music. Her hands lit, the fire spreading up her arms and all over her body. Burning, Burning, Burning all the songs she and her father had composed together. Burning, Burning, Burning the piano bench, then the piano. Fire clung to her and smoke choked her lungs but Scarlet only knelt on the ground before the piano. The episode only stopped when Raven doused Scarlet's Fire with her Water, Violet choking her Fire by taking their oxygen, their Air. Scarlet and Fire. One. Then, Nothing.

And Melancholy. Always Melancholy, and Nostalgia whenever she sits down at the new piano they'd purchased a month after the incident. Whenever she grasps her father's acoustic guitar and plucks the strings. Whenever she hears a song on the radio. Whenever she is creating her own music. Whenever she performs her music. Their music.

With this, the piece came to a gentle, melodic end. As did her emotions.

Scarlet gently rested her fingers upon the keys, but didn't press down on them. Closing her eyes, she let the pads of her fingers glide across the smooth keys, their coolness bring out out the prominent heat which was ever present beneath Scarlet's skin. No matter what, the Fire within her could never be smothered.

How comforting, Scarlet thought.

Eyes still shut, Scarlet brought her hands up and lowered the lid over the piano keys. Impulsively, Scarlet stretched out her Emotodar, her "energy" as Raven called it. From upstairs, Scarlet felt the Curiosity and Determination which were the signature emotions for whenever Emerald was working on one of her experiments. From the kitchen, Scarlet felt Happiness and Amusement. Violet and Raven. The two were making some late night snacks. Puppy Chow and hot chocolate, Scarlet had to guess from the smells which were drifting from the kitchen and into the living room.

Scarlet reined in her Emotodar, so that the only emotions her "energy" sensed were her own. Thankfully, that was little. Scarlet didn't like calling her gift "energy". She preferred Emotodar. Radar for Emotions. Empathy.

Scarlet snorted. Out of all her sisters, she was given the gift of emotions, of empathy. Scarlet Greene. The least empathic person on the planet. Gifted with the glorious power to sense others' emotion...and even manipulate them.