"These lyrics are amazing," Leea says after reading the last line of my lyrics.
"She's right," My says from reading over her shoulder. "Although I have to admit, I liked Nick's rhyming better."
"Thanks," Nick says with a smile. "These go really well with the overall theme, I think. I mean, most of the verses are kinda modern, but this brings a nice old time-y feeling without it sounding weird."
"And it is the first draft, so we can work on the rhymes... Should we see how it fits with the music?" I ask, walking over to the piano. The others nod in agreement and I sit down, flexing my fingers and running a few scales before I start with the melody.
There's a loud thump from my room halfway through the introduction and I come to a halting stop.
"What was that?" My asks, craning her neck as if she could see around the stairs and into my room. There is a heart clenching second where I wonder if I closed the door properly.
"My books probably fell over," I say, face emotionless. "The pile was getting kinda wobbly."
My makes a 'hmmm' sound but after a few seconds of silence I sigh and turn back to the piano. When I get to the first verse someone starts to sing. It takes me an embarrassingly long time to realize who. My fingers falter and I freeze. Everyone is silent except Flame who keeps singing.
"Oh," says Leea.
"What is that?" says Nick.
"Shit," say I.
We're all staring at Flame, who finally quiets, tilts her head and grins. Leea's hand is on her mouth but she instinctively catches Flame when she jumps onto her lap.
"Okay, seriously, what is that?" Nick says again. Everyone turns to me.
"It.. uh.. I, uh..." I open and close my mouth a few times.
"Why do you have a fire elemental in your house?" My asks cautiously. "Any why didn't you tell us?"
"Well, you see..." I pause for a second, trying to think how I should explain this. "Okay, here's the deal. Apparently this is a very special elemental and there's this guy, Wasp, who's trying to capture it and sell it to some black market people and then there's this other guy and his sister who work with Wasp but want to protect the elemental and they've helped us keep her hidden from him because whatever happens Was can't find her. And it's really dangerous and secret so we couldn't tell you guys, I'm sorry."
"Wait, "we"?" My asks. My eyes flicker to Leea, who is looking at me with her best "bitch I will cut you" face, and My looks over at her. "Did you know about this?"
Leea opens her mouth and then closes it. "...maybe?"
"I can't believe this!" My throws her hands in the air. "Why would you ever keep this a secret? We could've helped you! Also, why would you keep such a cool adventure from us?"
"It's not cool," I say. "It's exhausting! We can't tell anyone, not even our families and any second now a flipping mafia dude could bust through my door and shoot everyone to get Flame!"
"Wait, the mafia?" My says, at the same time as Nick says: "You named it Flame?"
"Leea named her, and I don't know if he's actually mafia. He's Italian, he might as well be," I sigh, rubbing my eyes.
"We were told to keep this under wraps," Leea says gently. "We did want to tell you, but we couldn't risk it. The fewer people know about Flame until we get rid of this Wasp problem, the better."
My seems to consider this. She reaches out her hand and Flame sniffs it a few times before poking her index finger with her own and then grabbing a hold of it and shaking it. My lets out a soft laugh. It's like clear bells on Christmas morning.
"What's so special about our little Flame here?" she asks as Flame jumps to her. "Besides being the most adorable elemental I've ever seen."
"She's one of the mystical elementals, who are very rare and super powerful I guess," Leea says with a smile. "They have a magical singing voice. Figuratively, I mean. Although it might also be literally..." She rubs her chin with a thoughtful expression.
"Actually our carol is based on one of the old elemental carols," I say. "They used to go around in choirs and sing songs around Christmas, apparently."
"That's pretty cool," Nick says. He still has a kinda dazed expression. "Maybe we could get Flame to sing at the ball with us?"
"What part of "no one can know" did you not understand?" Leea asks dryly. Nick shrugs.
"You got anymore secrets to tell us, now that we've started?" My asks. "Who're the other guy and his sister?"
"Cecil and Rachel," I say. "They work at the tattoo parlour at the mall, but they're also a part of this organization that study magical creatures."
"Hey, I know Cecil!" My says. My eyes widen just a bit. "Yeah, my sister got a tattoo there. Did you know that he can actually make moving tattoos? That's super complicated magic!"
"Oh," I say. "That's pretty cool. You know I've thought about getting a tattoo sometimes. It'd be pretty cool if he can make it move."
"I thought you had to be eighteen to get one?" Nick says, looking up from where he's scratching Flame behind the ear. She seems to like it very much.
"I didn't mean I'd go get one now, I just meant it'd be cool and all," I scoff. "Besides, I'm turning eighteen in a couple of months anyway, so..."
"So now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag," Leea says, "how about we go back to task at hand? We still have to finish up the lyrics."
Everyone mutters in agreement and we turn back to our hard task, which is made slightly more bearable with Flame sitting on the living room table and happily singing with us.
______________________________________________________________
Fuck lyrics. I ain't gonna try and come up with them, and I don't think you need to either. Unless tou want to ofc. But yeah, it's late again, I'm sorry. Why am I always the most inspired in the middle of the night???
Your topic isssssssss..... Bond. (James Bond. Just kidding. Although you can write about James Bond if you want to.)
Pie out.
No comments:
Post a Comment