A Search For Something More

Chapter 11: Artists and Arcades

For a few minutes, Octavia and I sat down in silence, contemplating the past 15 minutes or so.

"So...that was a little productive," I finally say.

"Quite," She says. "If anything, at least we're on slightly better terms with the Rainbooms. I'm certainly glad that they're respecting our boundaries about magic for now."

"Yeah, and I hope I don't have to wait long to tell Caramel and Soarin about our group and everything," I add.

"I'm sure you won't, darling," Octavia says kindly.

"Supportive as always, dearie," I say with a smile.

Octavia raises an eyebrow.

"Dearie?" she asks.

"Yeah, well, you wanted me to come up with my own nickname for you, so that's what I've thought of," I explain. "I heard it once in a show, and I figured why not? It's a name that not many guys call their girlfriends nowadays."

Octavia kept her eyebrows raised before she says, "I suppose we can try to make it work for now, but I'll expect you to come up with something better. Understand?"

"As you wish, dearie," I say.

"Good," She says, satisfied. "Anyway, I'd say we have about an hour and a half or so until you have to meet up with your friends, so what would you like to do? And don't say make out, I'm not in the mood today."

"Aw!" I said playfully whine. "But I can't remember the last time we did that."

"Oh, typical guy response," Octavia says with a scoff. "Always thinking about the physical moments of the relationship."

"Hey, I take offense to you always stereotyping us like that! You take that back!" I say jokingly.

"I'll take it back when it becomes less true," She says playfully.

"Oh fine," I say with a playful grumble and start to think of something else. We sit next to each other in silence for another couple of minutes before I get an idea. "You know, I haven't heard you play your cello since before we started going out, maybe you could play me a tune again? You did kind of promise."

Octavia gasps with a big smile on her face.

"Rough Draft, that's a marvelous idea!" She says. "I did bring my cello over here to practice when I thought you would be gone after the meeting."

"Great," I say excitedly as she walks over and grabs her, said cello and bow. I stay seated on the benches while Octavia takes a stool and places it in front of me and sits down, holding her cello facing me. She takes out her phone, opens her music app, and selects a track of background music. She smiles at me before she takes a deep breath, presses the play button, closes her eyes, and after a few notes of the song playing on her phone, she began to play.

Imminently I am astonished to watch her play with such passion. Her performance is as beautiful to listen to as when she played during her concert. But this time it's different. Instead of just playing a music piece she's reading from a music book, she lets her emotions dig into the music, giving in to her passion as an artist. It's mesmerizing to watch her be calm, collective, and in her own musical world. It was entrancing to see her get so deep into what she loves.