🎄 PotO Advent Calendar ‘19 🎄
To Love, a Winter Fairytale
by @arelya-andaria
To be loved is to be consumed. And yet it didn’t feel that way at all. With her, it was as gentle as a warm sunny morning, the pink dawn carefully tinting the blue sky, timidly brightening until it was shining and unstoppable.
Loving her certainly felt like that, slow and gentle at first, and then encompassing, never ending. Epic.
Thirty one Christmases after their first, it was still bright and warm. She was still the same gentle and kind soul who so unapologetically captured his heart, when they first met. Sweeping him off his feet in barely a heartbeat.
A masquerade ball, in Vienna. One they had always said they would go to, and now the time has finally come.
It had snowed this morning, and when they reached the Musikverein of the famous Vienna orchestra and its balls and musical concerts, night had settled in, but the city was shining with thousands of lights. It truly was a beautiful place, with its old buildings, and the sound of music hovering around every corner.
Why they had waited so long to go there, he didn’t know. Because while he’d loved Paris for all his life, he fell in love almost instantly with the Austrian Capital. It was, after all, where some of the most beloved music had been written, played, and first discovered, for many, many years. And he could feel it, as strange as it sounded.
They both could.
Around every corner as they made their way over to the building, music surrounded them. Christmas bells, violin concertos, operatic arias filled the air as much as the oxygen. And despite the cold and the white snow covering every inch, it brought warmth to their hearts.
She had her arm on his, carefully hidden by a huge and warm cloak. He hadn’t had a chance to really look at her in her gown, saying he would see her well in the ballroom where the concert will happen. Dinner first, concert and finally dancing.
It was hard to understand why they’d never done this before.
He wore his mask, as usual, but it didn’t matter, not anymore, not while she was with him, and the love in her eyes made his deformity irrelevant. If she could bear him with it, then so should he.
And he hadn’t given it a thought for the whole journey. Not even when he prepared himself back in their hotel room and ajusted it in front of the mirror. Of course, the lingering, long and delicious kiss she’d given him afterwards, when he’d been finished with his preparations and had emerged from the bathroom wearing, if he dared saying so himself, a dashing tux perfectly tailored to fit his tall and elegant frame, the silk white shirt cleverly hiding some of his thinness.
“What a handsome man you are,” she’d whispered in his arms.
And not for the first time, now, he’d believed his lovely wife, the picture of beauty and love. She was still small and lovely, blonde curls bouncing over her shoulders, her blue eyes filled with so much tenderness.
She was always smiling and laughing, these days. Still singing with him every day.
But not today.
Today would be a different kind of performing, one neither of them was very familiar with, but he knew it would be wonderful, if only because she was right there with him.
They found the building of the concert, a beautiful magnificent edifice of the 19th century, golden and marble and white, shimmering with all the lights that had been installed for the holiday season.
Christmas trees were set on both sides of the door, butler taking their cloaks after checking their identity. He didn’t say anything about the mask. They’d been expected, after all.
They followed other well-dressed couples to the dining room, where another fifty hand-picked people were arriving and settling down.
He pulled her chair out, at their little table for two, in the right corner near the stage and the orchestra.
She’d never sung here yet, but after tonight, she would hope to be reinvited for the next year.
They sat down, and he could finally have a better look at her. Her gown was a clear blue, set with stars and sparkles. In the light of the dozen chandeliers of the room, she was positively radiant. It almost hurt to look at her.
She wore satin gloves of pure white, her hand reaching over to grasp his. For once, their fingers matched, both encased in the soft and delicate material.
On the stage, the orchestra played light music, while waiters dressed in their finery began bringing the plates. A four-course meal, of the most delicious food they had both tasted in a while. Red wine, to accompany their dessert. One glass, and Christine was already feeling the most delightful effect. The room felt pleasantly warm, her belly filled and her wonderful, gentle husband smiling at her with shining eyes. And not least, the music was good.
But this was only a prelude to the rest of the concert they were to attend tonight, before the great ball.
They were both listening quietly to the music, lost in it, together exchanging glances in recognition of a particular favored piece. A secret language only the two of them spoke.
Their love language.
After dinner, their plates were cleared, and with a last glass of wine, they sat back in their chairs, hand in hand, while the performers, a soprano and a tenor took their places on the stage. Friends of theirs, for many years, it had been at their invitation that they had both come to listen and to dance. Not that they hadn’t already been invited to perform many times over.
Refusing, for they preferred to make this night their own. Many years later, after much pleading, they had been convinced to come.
Their friends knew it was a game the couple loved to play, little tricks they shared, many laughs exchanged over the years as they imagined their friends despairing over their case.
Older than their age, they were said. Hermits, the both of them.
The opera arias began, as the orchestra soared right behind them. The maestra knew them both, of course, and had saluted them when she’d entered the room.
Still, she hadn’t given them more attention than necessary. Fame wasn’t what they were looking for.
In the rising silence, the diva started to sing, an aria Christine adored, and had sung many times over the course of thirty years, most of them with her husband adoringly gazing back at her, teaching her, loving her.
Then followed ten other pieces, recent and old, famous and obscure, even one, the very last one, composed by the in-love pair. Music and lyrics from their magnus opus, “The singer & the ghost.”
An opera they had first interpreted in Paris, just for their friends. And then, meeting an unexpected success, they had brought it to the stage of the Palais Garnier. Ten dates, each one sold out. Afterwards, they had disappeared for a while, returning to their old love, finding themselves again. Making more music, together, of course.
The singers played an encore, the traditional Mozart ending piece, preparing the audience for the opening of the ball.
In the beautiful room, they all stood while the tables were taken away from the middle to make way for the dancing area.
He had dreaded this part, he had to admit. Dancing might be one thing, in the privacy of their home, and he’d loved doing that often. Dancing as the main couple at their wedding had been a long time ago, and he’d put up with it mainly to please her, because she’d been adamant about it, and of course, who was he to deny his Angel such a small thing? There had been no strangers, then, surrounded by their friends and family.
Still, this was a different ordeal altogether.
And yet, when she put her small hand on his shoulder, her other in his, squeezing his hand with her usual tenderness, and he towered over her as she looked up with such warmth in her eyes, he forgot about everything. The party, the guests, the other attendees, there was only them both, two lovers lost in a sea of lights, gliding over the marble under their feet. The music accompanied each of their movements, and at times, he whispered a line of melody under her ear.
They waltzed gracefully in ever growing circles from one side to the other of the room. The lights dimmed, until all he could see was her face, her smile, the small wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. Age had no hold over her. For him, she had not aged a day past the moment they’d met.
He forgot about the pain in his joints, how his back sometimes held him back now, from too many years hunched over a piano. In her arms, he was still the awkward, shy youth he’d been when they’d met, thirty-two years ago.
Uncaring as to where they went, they ended up on a balcony, open to the city lights and the cold, night air, still dancing, the music still deep within their hearts.
From up there, they could see the whole capital of Vienna, illuminated like a giant Christmas tree, gold and red and green.
And the snow was still falling softly overhead, white fluffy flakes they almost didn’t shake off their arms and shoulders.
But it was nearly time. Midnight. Excitement was coursing through the town, reaching over the ballroom in hushed tones and thrilled whispers.
They stopped dancing, two minutes till the New Year.
“Here’s to another beautiful year, together,” he said.
“And here’s to many, many more,” she added.
“To Music.”
“To Love.”
“And to us,” they whispered together.
As the sky overhead exploded into fireworks, and the bells echoed with the ringing of the New Year, she reached up, cradling his face in her still gloved hands, and kissed him.
Another year began, as the last one ended. And like the thirty one years before, this kiss sealed a promise.
To love and be loved, to be consumed by it, until they were but ashes lost in the wind.
And yet the skies would still sing of their love, forever.
