Sienna had been sat at the piano in the music room for three quarters of an hour, working and reworking the same chord progression until her head was pounding. She'd tried to enjoy Christmas day without working on her music theory assignment, but now she was regretting taking the day off. The assignment was due on the first day of term and it still needed to be finished, rehearsed and recorded - and most of the recording studios in the city closed over the new year's holiday. If she didn't get the music finished today, she wouldn't have time to coerce anyone into performing it for her, and then she'd need to record herself. Sienna rested her head against the cool cover of the piano and sighed.
The assignment had seemed easy at the outset; their music theory professor had pulled an emotion and an instrument and told the class to create something that was typical of their style. Sienna had pulled out piano (great) and longing (really?) and it should have been fine, writing a song about unrequited love and missing someone, but hell. Every time she got to that blasted bridge between the first verse and the chorus, the keys seemed to move under her fingers, and the lyrics just wouldn't fit.
She got up and started pacing across the room, humming the tune under her breath as she walked back and forth in front of the doorway. The flash of dark hair that stalked past the doorway looked familiar, and Sienna recognised it as belonging to Roisin, the transfer student who had applied to join the orchestra. She called out before she had a chance to doubt herself. "Hey, Roisin? It's Sienna. Are you busy? Can you come help me with something?"
