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thehistoriangirl · 1 year

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The Never-Changing Things

I was supposed to write another thing, but this came out instead :D Hope you like it

Mel x gn!Reader--------1.6K-------SFW

Summary: You’re a musician under the clan Medarda’s wing, and while you haven’t touched the piano in a long time, you and Mel discover that there are some things that would never change regarding you two, no matter how much time has passed.

Tags: Light Angst, mostly Fluff| Mentions of one parent’s death (with no details)| Kinda domestic fluff (?)| Winter-y scenery

It has been a cold week, misty-stained the large windows dripping little tears made by the condensate water allowed you to see the city below. Between each melody of the piano, you heard the crackle of the hearth in the living room at your back.

Outside, blue roofs were filled with snow, mixing the buildings with their marble walls in an amorph, gigantic beast. Only the uneven little towers of the chimneys could be seen, slow, grey serpents ascending out of them.

Your fingers were warming up with each repetitive movement as you played the keys on the piano. The echo of each melody reverberating in the empty chamber like a ghost seconds after you stopped.

Mel told you the piano was there waiting for you to teach her—it was one of the many things Ambessa Medarda decided not to teach her in exchange for a more suitable activity.

You didn't dare to tell her that you barely remember the last time you have been sitting in front of a piano, the image of your mother teaching you diligently every afternoon even after she returned home exhausted being so hazy as Piltover’s view from the windows.

It had been so long, but your fingers moved with a memory of their own, your head nodding slightly as each note hit a correct harmony in the sequence of each little song you could recall.

Playing the piano wasn't a common activity to train your kid into, at least not inside Noxus, where other avocations were more useful, like languages, paleography, or even strategic games like chess. Only certain families—the ones already recognized to incline towards the arts—would do so. They were the background music inside the fancy parties organized by the wealthy clans and families.

No more utility than to maintain façades, but just as other props as expensive clothes, dignified portraits, or well-maintained gardens, these people would receive any collateral damage made to their patrons.

Your fingers got stuck in a loop of the last memory you could remember, an incomplete song your mother was teaching you a couple of days before her death. You frowned because the melody cut off abruptly every time you played it, the end always remain unfinished.

You pressed the last key in ripples, not hearing Mel´s heels muffled by the large carpets that were put since autumn when the house became much colder.

She cleared her throat, and you let the echo of the piano disappear before half-turning. Mel wasn’t wearing any coat, and her hair was down.

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

She sat on the couch closer to the piano, shaking her head slowly. "Don't worry, darling. I was working."

You frowned. “That’s not good. You should’ve been resting.” You sat back at your usual position, with your back toward her, and began to play again. “I remember you couldn’t sleep properly last night. I heard you.”

Mel sighed, and you had to hide your smile. “The doctor said it’s normal to have lingering coughs.”

“And? You shouldn’t wander around without a sweater unless you want to get the flu again.”

She stood up, taking the coat you had lay next to you. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take this one then.”

Back on the couch, she crossed her legs, the gold in her armor shining as if it were molten against the everchanging flames Mel sat across from. A yellowish art notebook sat on her lap as she flipped the pages filled with doodles in dark charcoal.

Mel had always written with so much force pressed into the papers, and you weren’t surprised her drawings followed the same principle.

“What are you doing?”

She chuckled, pencil already sliding graciously across the page. "What does it look like I'm doing, dear?"

You tilted your head, soft notes on repeat. Unconsciously you’d been changed the incomplete melody to what you remember was Mel’s favorite tune.

She noticed, smiling softly. “You still remember it.”

Your lips mimicked her smile as you observed your fingers move in synchronized moves, showing the tendons with each motion that resembled the piano’s insides. You felt like an instrument, then.

Outside, the wind began to howl. Night was falling quickly, the whole room was painted red and orange.

“When we were little, you’d escape after your lessons to hear me practice the same songs on repeat for hours.” You could hear the scraped paper; her breathing came with uneven little coughs she tried to hide as she crossed her legs to have her body completely covered by your coat. “I would never know how you didn’t get bored.”

You looked at her from the corner of your eyes. Her eyebrows pinched together in focus, lips forming a pout. It was the same expression back then.

“The music room was built to impress the guests while hosting parties," she said in a low tone. "That's why its windows were from roof to floor, framing the main garden. But…" Mel stopped, tapping the pencil against the notebook's spine. "It was also designed so beautifully that the musician could compose music efficiently. You can't fake inspiration like that if you want joyful, regal music."

"That's why it inspired you too, isn't it?" You kept her first drawing of you tucked somewhere inside your vanity, in the broken music box your parents gifted you on your twelfth birthday.

It was simple, and each time that Mel saw it you could see she got all flustered. Eyes averting yours, fingers fidgeting the Medarda’s ring. The charcoal was fading away, the paper crumbling apart, all as a result of not being made with specialized tools. But she tried, and you’ll always cherish that.

“When I was there, I could imagine I was somewhere else,” Mel muttered, and you stopped mid-song. She frowned, looking at you as you gazed at her. “What’s the matter?”

“If you’d ever have the chance, would you rather be a painter?” Because by choice, you wouldn’t have chosen to be a musician. You wanted to be useful to her outside playing for her in the spare time that each day was getting thinner, or to be praised by meaningless faces in each fundraiser she hosted. You didn't want to be only a pretty thing used as a mere decoration, even if for Mel you were more than that.

She contemplated the idea, looking at you and the flames of the hearth. "Probably not. I don't know. I can't imagine myself being something else than what I am now." Mel pressed her lips, nose crunching. "It's pointless."

You nodded, because she was right, as always. Those hypothetical scenarios stole you from sleep some nights, and now you knew that perhaps Mel suffered from them, too.

"But no. Even if I could rethink my choices, I would take them all the same. Because if I weren't me, I wouldn't have the opportunity to know you."

You smiled, heart fluttering. “Maybe we would be a musician and a painter working for the same clan.”

She tilted her head, taking away locks of black, curly hair that covered her eyes. They pop out from behind her ear too fast, it was both cute and funny.

"In that case, I'd be jealous of you playing the piano for someone else."

“Oh. But it will be remedied easily. I'll just play for you alone when the patrons weren't home."

Mel chuckled, gazing back at her drawing. "I don't think we only deserve stolen moments with each other."

Your fingers, now warm and familiar with the piano were flying from key to key, the same river of melodies flowing on repeat as you nodded to her. “No, we don’t,” you muttered.

“Can you keep playing the one you’re playing?” she said after a couple of minutes.

“Of course.” So you did.

Looking out at the windows, you saw the streetlights shining between the navy blue of the snow reflecting the nocturnal sky, sometimes you could see your reflection when the flames took force and outshined the outside. You looked happy, a soft, almost secretive smile playing on your lips as you gazed at Mel's image, head tilted against one armrest, notebook hugged to her chest, eyes closed.

You repeated the song one last time, much slower, soothing her in a lullaby until your fingers itched with the impulse of covering her with a blanket. The echo of last note echoed in the room as you stopped, quietly tiptoeing toward her room to retrieve a blanket.

The couch was big enough for two people, comfortably sitting next to hers as you unfolded the blanket and covered both, taking your coat from her firm grasp just as well as the notebook.

Checking the charcoal, you noticed an almost identical copy of her first drawing. Where before the piano almost swallowed you, now you stood with the back straight taller than it, your face tilted toward her in a confident little smile.

You tilted your body to kiss her forehead, muttering: “I love you, Mel.”

She blinked with dormant eyes, smiling. "Come here to rest for a moment. I'm cold." You rest next to her, your head resting against her chest as the steady rhythm of her heart accompanied by the cracking fire lulled you to sleep.

It wouldn't have surprised you, that just some months after, in a fundraiser, you saw a full-color painting of that same drawing, almost covering one wall. Your dark clothes absorbed the red lights of the fire at your right, while your smiling face was bathed in silver moonlight. Outside, the world was a reign of white and blue, where you were the center of it all.