: Application for Bellum LeTale (The Fiddler/Edward Strong)
The Fiddler: The Fiddler has always been a ruthless breaker of hearts. A former musician with exceptional talent, a physical disability now prevents him from playing. He's inherently destructive, and he lures people with his words, which are almost lyrical, and drags them down with him. Once he has them, however, he quickly tires of them, and leaves them broken and discarded. His past conquests include Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel.
Basic Info;
Name/Handle: Michele or Ariel
Journal: (Your personal journal, where ever you have one) (Optional) justicegurrl@insanejournal
AIM: (Or any other instant messenger you can be contacted through.)(Optional) justicegurrl (AIM)
Email: justicegurrl@gmail.com
Are you 18 or over?: yes!
Character Info;
Premade: The Fiddler
Name: Edward (Ed) Strong
Age: 39 years old
Played By: Viggo Mortenson.
Icon/images in my user profile: http://www.insanejournal.com/allpics.bm
Personality:
An unsettling mix of charm and venom, Ed Strong is quick to flash a crooked grin at most anyone he meets. But those grins can just as easily turn into the cruel smirk of a man who thinks he has the upper hand. His crooked grin is the first of the slight contradictions that mark his appearance and lifestyle. Sandy-blond hair is never quite styled, but sort of pleasingly mussed and he regularly sports at least day's worth of beard as a rough and ready shadow on his face. This devil-may-care look is often in contrast to the designer jackets and silk shirts he wears with perfectly fitted jeans and Italian loafers. If the clothes say "dandy," the angle of his jaw and scar on his chin say something else. He might not be a man's man, but he's also not likely to back down from (or lose) many fights.
Ed is haunted by an injury that limits the dexterity of his left hand and he smolders with a deep resentment of anyone and everyone that he thinks might be truly happy. When the injury took away his ability to pursue his career as a classical pianist, Ed withdrew into the smokey, boozy world of speak easies and piano bars where he chain smokes, downs shot after shot of Jameson's, and preys on the lonely.
If he thinks he can charm his way around someone's defenses, he can be ruthlessly charming--using his artist's sensitivities to "read" his target's weaknesses the way he once read sheet music. If he suspects he can't get what he wants from someone, he can be ruthlessly indifferent--barely pausing to notice her or him at all. Either way, people often end up being a means to an end for him. He takes some pleasure in the company of people when he's in the mood to socialize in a "normal" way, but when he does find someone that begins to actually breech his steely boundaries he will shy away as much as possible and lash out cruelly if he can find no other way to keep some distance.
Despite his destructive tendencies, he can be quite good company and most will never see the real depths of his hurtfulness. He isn't interested in financial gain or material exploitations--so while he can be hard on one's heart he is also quite generous with money and gifts. A charming host, he knows how to entertain and make everyone feel welcome. His apartment is tastefully decorated, much more so than one might expect from a guy who hangs out in piano bars. Fine wines fill the wine rack, leather-bound books line the bookshelves, and small knick-knacks speak of antique stores and European capitals. While nothing is ostentatious, everything indicates a life of moderate refinement; it's the perfect setting for a charming rake bent on mischief. Notably, however, music in all forms is absent from the public and quasi-public rooms of his apartment. No cd players, radios, or iPods are present. An oversized flat screen TV hangs on a wall, but dust on the screen hints that it goes unused--as if even the threat of an MTV/VH1 video or a commercial jingle was too much to bear. In a locked spare room, the music lives in dusty, desperate, isolation: an upright piano, a small collection of 3 or 4 classical guitars, boxes of sheet music in dust covers, and the pictures and awards that marked his former career. These things remain locked away out of sight, but never out of mind or out of reach of his bitter heart.
History:
Born on October 20, 1970 in Amsterdam, Edward Strong spent his childhood attending private schools and taking music lessons. That's all there really is to say about his childhood or at least that's all he ever really tells anyone. But the basic facts go like this: is father was from a Danish wealthy family, who had moved to Amsterdam to run a branch of his family's Denmark-based insurance and financial services company. His disappointed and disdainful Parisian mother spent her time commuting between Amsterdam, Denmark, Paris, and London--chasing the social seasons and spending more than his long-suffering and besotted father could afford. Despite making a lucrative living, he could never quite keep up with the demands of his wife's voracious appetite for spending; nor could he, despite desperately trying, ever manage to satisfy his wife's voracious appetite for attention and adoration. Both appetites often led the stunning French beauty to be less than faithful to her marriage vows.
Tutors, boarding schools, music camps…all blurred into a childhood that focused more on learning than on learning to love. Instead, what lessons Edward absorbed with regard to the latter tended to be cautionary tales of the dangers of devotion and desire. Schoolbooks and practice rooms were safer than flesh and blood companions. This is not to say that Edward was neglected as a child, that would be too easy an excuse for what he later became. No, there are prime, original causes here. Just a talented boy with not-so Rockwellian upbringing.
The music camps and private lessons brought Edward his happiest moments. He had a natural talent that never failed to impress his teachers and the judges at the music contests he began to enter at an early age. Sitting at a piano Edward could finally begin to imagine what it meant to be completely and utterly in love. He speculated that perhaps his father felt about his mother the way he felt about playing the piano. He began to understand almost everything emotional in life through his relationship to his music; after all, he could find music to fit any mood, any flight of fancy, any ambition. His emotional involvement with music lead to a single-minded pursuit. Every bit of his youthful energy, his young man's passion, his emerging discipline was bent on this pursuit. As his friends at boarding school discovered girls and parties, Edward discovered only that he needed more and more material--more experience, more emotional fodder--to fuel his exploration of music. Parties, with the thrills and shames of teenage debauchery, and girls, with the thrills and shames of teenage lust, opened new ways of being and feeling. He experimented not for the experiences themselves, but for the aftermath--for what those experiences allowed him to give to his music. This was all well and good for Edward and his music (in fact his commitment and talent made him something of a prodigy and it was clear that he was destined for the life of classical musician of the highest caliber), but was not so positive for the young women (and occasional young man) who fell prey to his emotional experimentation. With his off-beat good looks, upperclass upbringing, and musician's refinement, Edward was a natural charmer. He never really meant to be insensitive or cruel, but deep down he had his mother's disdain for anything that didn't "measure up" to his expectations or meet his needs. Unfortunately, since only music could truly satisfy him, no romantic fling with a flesh and blood being could ever escape his disappointment for long. And yet, he pursued the object of each fleeting fling with the passion of a true romantic--displacing his passion temporarily each time from his first and only love, music, onto the unsuspecting lover that he would soon crush beneath his heel as he made his unexpected and unexplained exit.
Because he was on tour, competing or giving concerts 10 months out of each year, his young adult years were littered with only a handful of seriously broken hearts. There was a much longer list of weekend flings that left would-be lovers hoping for a phone call that would never come, but the real destructive impact of his misplaced passion and cavalier approach to human emotion was kept in check by the rigor of his schedule and the demands of his Mistress music. He known as a cad--a honey-tongued, silk-shirted, charmer with a hard heart. He cared nothing about how he was known. He cared only for the next concert or the next composition.
When Edward's mother died in the spring of 1999 he flew to Paris to help his father make arrangements for a burial in the city she had always considered home. His father was crushed, even after years of infidelity and neglect, the older man had never stopped loving his wife. Edward saw his father's unrequited longing with the disdain of a man who possesses what he needs to be content. As Edward watched his father stagger up the aisle to say his last farewell to the beautiful, heartless, obsession that had been his life's entire focus, he discovered that his disdain for unrequited longing was mingled with a hint of wonder: how could anyone love another person to such distraction? It made no sense, his depth of feeling only extended that far when it came to music.
But Edward's mother wasn't the only beautiful, heartless, obsession in the world. Having come to the lap of Music at an early age, Edward could never imagine that his Mistress's favors might be dependent on his prowess as an attendant. And in the last flush of indomitable youth, the not yet 30 Edward could never imagine that his prowess might somehow be diminished. Hubris, as we know, comes before a fall.
It was December of the 2000 and it was just one of those chain of events kind of things. If he hadn't gone home with the 1st Cellist from the Orchestra that was performing with him on his upcoming album, he wouldn't have been looking for a cab on an frigidly cold Saturday morning in New York. If it hadn't been so cold, he wouldn't have taken the first cab that came along--despite the fact that it swerved to a stop, skidding along the icy street, with more than the usual cab-like recklessness. If he hadn't been lost in the melody to the composition that was already taking shape in his mind--weaving itself out of the bitterness in the Cellist's eyes as he mentioned, on his way out the door, that her solo during the 3rd piece on the album was going to be cut--he would have noticed that the cab driver was intoxicated; he might even have noticed that the light was already yellow as they barreled toward it. At the very least he might have put his seatbelt on. As it was, he was humming to himself as his fingers flexed over a phantom keyboard in his lap when the tipsy driver noticed the red light and slammed on his brakes.
Speed, ice and poor reflexes combined to send the cab spinning through the intersection right into a bank of newspaper stands. The driver walked (or stumbled) away into the rapidly responding arms of NYPD. Edward was, as the medics told him when arrived on the scene, almost as lucky as the driver. He was able to walk away, too. His injuries consisting only of shattered bones in his left hand, the result of instinctively trying to keep himself from smashing headlong through the plexiglass partition between the front and back seats.
The bones would heal, but the hand would never be the same. Functional for practically any purpose in the world, except the one purpose that had always driven him--his left hand would never again meet the demands of a concert pianist. And, as the doctor's predicted, arthritis set in almost as soon as the bones were healed, making even casual playing a painful challenge.
One could debate whether Mistress music turned her back on Edward or whether he turned his back on her. Certainly as a Mistress music was accustomed to receiving his finest attentions and adjusting to the clumsy, fumbling caresses of an injured man would not be easy. But from the outside it seemed to many that the real end of his affair with Music came because Edward himself could not stand to approach Her in his less-than-complete state. Perhaps he feared Her disdain--shying away from the kind of scorn his mother once heaped on his eager, but inadequate, father. At any rate, Edward parted company from his lifelong love. Music might not have suffered, it's hard to say, but Edward's suffering was deep and real: perhaps it marked the first real emotion he experienced for what it was.
Edward stayed in New York, moving every few years from apartment to apartment as if his broken-hearted longing for the Mistress he could have again made him restless and wary of putting down roots. Of course, his regular change of address might also have been related to the fact that he eventually made numerous enemies among the residents of whatever building he resided in. Single women, married women, the husbands of married women, and a handful of men (both single and married) would gradually discover that he had turned his single-minded devotion away from his former Mistress and toward another form of artistry. Denied the favors of his one-true-love, he began to pursue the favors of substitute after substitute. He perfected his charm the way he had once perfected his compositions, taking pleasure in the process of practice and refinement as much as he savored each virtuoso performance.
What had once been a byproduct of his devotion to Music--his cavalier use of love affairs for things other than actual love--became his primary occupation and purpose. Each abandoned lover, each broken promise and shattered dream, fueled the flames of resentment and despair that burned through him. With each lover he left crying or screaming in his wake, he thought only of the next time he would sit--crying and screaming--at his now dusty piano and move fumbling fingers silently over the well-worn keys he was now forbidden to touch.
He moved into Bellum LeTale as part of his usual cycle of relocation. It was less upscale than his other addresses, but something about the place spoke to him. And, after all, it's not like he was really looking for a home--just an address from which to continue his charming assault on "happily ever after" whenever he saw it taking shape.
Future Plans:
Bellum LeTale will be an interesting place for Edward to find himself. With at least two exes (Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood) currently living in the building, I expect he'll meet with a bit of a chilly reception on some fronts. He isn't eager to re-hash the past but he also isn't one to avoid people just because things are awkward. The fact that so many musicians/musically inclined people live in the building is going to be a bittersweet thing from Edward. Hearing music in the halls will bring back old feelings and remind him of what he has lost--how he will handle this is something that will unfold over time. I suspect that like a moth to a flame, he'll be drawn to the music despite the pain it causes him. The music connection would draw him toward (and drive him away from) The Gingerbread Wo/man, The Pied Piper, and even one of his exes--Red Riding Hood.
Confronting his long-lost-love (Music) may yield to some particularly bad behavior as seeks the comfort of human conquests to slake his unresolved passions. But, I hold out hope that Edward can find peace some small measure of peace over time--not that he'll ever completely stop being a cad.
Edward will spend his days managing his investments online, reading, and wandering the City. He spends some evenings and nights in piano bars (or similar) charming unsuspecting women. Whether or not he follows through and seduces them into bed depends on his mood, but he always enjoys charming someone into being willing to be seduced. When he's home in the evenings, he'll read, drink, sit on the fire escape and chain smoke, and hang out with anyone that catches his fancy or seeks him out.
Ability/Powers:
Other than a frustrated pool of musical ability, which manages to manifest in flashes of playfulness despite his injury, his only developing power would be an eerie power to "break matches" or to temporarily thwart true love. I envision a gypsy-like ability to cast an evil-eye of sorts on happy couples or on one of the lovers--sowing seeds of jealousy and doubt with his honeyed tongue and wry smile. But I think this would be a longtime in developing, as he becomes engulfed in Bellum LeTale's ambiance. At first, this would be the object of wishful thinking as he sullenly obsessed over love as he never knew it and cast dark thoughts on those he envied; we'd see/hear him wishing he could accomplish this mischief more than seeing him carry it out.
Examples;
First Person Community Example:
Can anyone tell me why the service elevators in these buildings can't really accommodate a piano? I can't be the only person around who lives in apartments AND owns a piano, can I? Or maybe I just end up hiring really inept moving companies… Anyway, I am pleased to announce--not that anyone necessarily cares--that my piano has been successfully dislodged from the service elevator and normal maintenance activities, etc., can now resume. I apologize if anyone has been inconvenienced. Don't worry, neighbors, I don't actually puss the piano, so there won't be a noise problem. And yes, I do realize that moving a piano around with me despite the fact that I don't use it is hardly a practical course of action.
Obviously I'm new here. I'd like to invite everyone around for drinks, but that will have to wait until I get more settled in--right now you'd all end up sitting on boxes and drinking out of plastic cups from the corner grocery. Not that there's anything wrong with plastic cups, mind you, it's just that I always feel a bit guilty about using them, even if I do recycle. Which I do. Re-using them seems gauche somehow, so yea… I'll just wait until the boxes are unpacked and I have access to my glasses and stemware. In the meantime, don't be afraid to stop by and say hello or send me a note here on this forum. Also, if anyone knows of some nice bars or pubs in the area would you let me know? I like to go out in the evenings for a quiet drink and a chance to meet new people, so I'd love to get some recommendations.
I look forward to meeting you all very soon! Cheers, folks!
Third Person Log Example:
Alone in the apartment, he leaned out the long window that accessed the fire escape and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. A self-destructive vice, smoking was a habit he picked up after That Day. Along with the kind of drinking that would make a functional alcoholic proud, smoking was a gesture toward the mortality that he now felt so painfully--particularly each time he flexed the fingers of his left hand. Cigarette held in his grimacing lips, he looked down as he turned the offending left hand over again and again, curling and uncurling, stretching and wriggling his fingers as he went. The hand was nearly perfect from the outside. Only a slight, permanent curve to the fingers, as if they had been clenched in a fist too long and could no longer properly unclench, and a slightly crooked bend to the third and fourth fingers just above the first knuckle suggested that anything was wrong. Minor flaws to the casual observer, even next to the perfect lines of his right hand the offending left hand looked "pretty damn good" as the reconstructive surgeons had so proudly pronounced. But it wasn't. It wasn't good at all. It was slow and clumsy. The now crooked fingers not quite as long as they needed to be. The the permanent clench-curl limiting reach. The dull ache of arthritis--much too old an ailment for man not yet 40--slowing down once fluid, flying motion. With a frustrated snarl he clenched a fist and slammed the damaged hand down on the window sill, cringing with the renewed ache that shot through his arm and added to the heavy, breath squeezing, tightness in his chest.
The bitter cold of a New York winter swept through the window and swirled around him. But he stood there long after the cigarette was crushed out and tossed aside. Staring out into the blinking blur of streetlights and neighboring windows. Signs of life. People going along with their pretty damn good existences. In a flash he thought to himself that he hated them. All of them. Especially the ones that were actually happy with "pretty damn good" as a measuring stick. From somewhere in the night the sound of music made its way to the window. He glanced around for a moment, like a soldier trapped behind enemy lines searching out the enemy before an ambush can happen and then he slammed the window closed--retreating into the empty apartment before the memories could completely engulf him.
To get the touch of memory out of his head, he flings on his coat, grabs his wallet and keys from the dresser and heads out into the icy night. Empty cabs crawl past, hoping to entice him with their warm backseats. Like fucking hell… he mutters to himself, shoving his hands in his coat pockets and continuing on his way. His feet know the way and he doesn't have to think much about where he's going; he uses the short walk as a chance to compose his thoughts, to relax his jaw and soften the lines of his mouth. He begins to smile a bit as he nears the upscale bar where he has been spending time as of late. He can already taste the easy lies he'll spin--little "white" lies designed to flatter and befriend. He can feel the warmth of the smiles that someone, and there was always someone, would cast his direction.
There would be music of some kind playing in the background, the more or less generic, unoffensive pablum that passed as "rock," but he was prepared for it. Ready to tune it out and sometimes even to muster the energy to use it as part of the silver-throated small talk that would pave his way to seduction. In fact, the music in the background was essential; what good was it to seduce a new conquest if Music wasn't there to witness it? To see what She had helped him become. And when he walked out of whatever bedroom he landed in, sliding into the gray New York morning with the feline grace of a sated predator, he would wonder whether the woman he left behind would remember the song that he hummed in her ear as he told her bedroom lies or whether she'd just remember the lies and the realization that he never, once, spoke her name.
Notes:
Edward used to play guitar in his spare time (a way to relax and exercise his talents away from the piano). His injury limits his guitar playing as well, although he's more likely to pick up a guitar and pluck at it than he is to sit down and play piano. He likes photography although it never captured his passion the way music did. When he's not deep in the throws of his ongoing depression/anger over his injury he treats people nicely and he is capable of friendship to some degree. He's only even intentionally cruel to the random flings he picks up in bars. More longterm lovers aren't subjected to intentional cruelty so much as really asshole-like insensitivity and neglect as the thrill of the conquest wears off. He knows what he does is wrong and is able to feel a bit of remorse, but he's so bitter that the remorse is always limited and short-lived.
The Fiddler: The Fiddler has always been a ruthless breaker of hearts. A former musician with exceptional talent, a physical disability now prevents him from playing. He's inherently destructive, and he lures people with his words, which are almost lyrical, and drags them down with him. Once he has them, however, he quickly tires of them, and leaves them broken and discarded. His past conquests include Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel.
Basic Info;
Name/Handle: Michele or Ariel
Journal: (Your personal journal, where ever you have one) (Optional) justicegurrl@insanejournal
AIM: (Or any other instant messenger you can be contacted through.)(Optional) justicegurrl (AIM)
Email: justicegurrl@gmail.com
Are you 18 or over?: yes!
Character Info;
Premade: The Fiddler
Name: Edward (Ed) Strong
Age: 39 years old
Played By: Viggo Mortenson.
Icon/images in my user profile: http://www.insanejournal.com/allpics.bm
Personality:
An unsettling mix of charm and venom, Ed Strong is quick to flash a crooked grin at most anyone he meets. But those grins can just as easily turn into the cruel smirk of a man who thinks he has the upper hand. His crooked grin is the first of the slight contradictions that mark his appearance and lifestyle. Sandy-blond hair is never quite styled, but sort of pleasingly mussed and he regularly sports at least day's worth of beard as a rough and ready shadow on his face. This devil-may-care look is often in contrast to the designer jackets and silk shirts he wears with perfectly fitted jeans and Italian loafers. If the clothes say "dandy," the angle of his jaw and scar on his chin say something else. He might not be a man's man, but he's also not likely to back down from (or lose) many fights.
Ed is haunted by an injury that limits the dexterity of his left hand and he smolders with a deep resentment of anyone and everyone that he thinks might be truly happy. When the injury took away his ability to pursue his career as a classical pianist, Ed withdrew into the smokey, boozy world of speak easies and piano bars where he chain smokes, downs shot after shot of Jameson's, and preys on the lonely.
If he thinks he can charm his way around someone's defenses, he can be ruthlessly charming--using his artist's sensitivities to "read" his target's weaknesses the way he once read sheet music. If he suspects he can't get what he wants from someone, he can be ruthlessly indifferent--barely pausing to notice her or him at all. Either way, people often end up being a means to an end for him. He takes some pleasure in the company of people when he's in the mood to socialize in a "normal" way, but when he does find someone that begins to actually breech his steely boundaries he will shy away as much as possible and lash out cruelly if he can find no other way to keep some distance.
Despite his destructive tendencies, he can be quite good company and most will never see the real depths of his hurtfulness. He isn't interested in financial gain or material exploitations--so while he can be hard on one's heart he is also quite generous with money and gifts. A charming host, he knows how to entertain and make everyone feel welcome. His apartment is tastefully decorated, much more so than one might expect from a guy who hangs out in piano bars. Fine wines fill the wine rack, leather-bound books line the bookshelves, and small knick-knacks speak of antique stores and European capitals. While nothing is ostentatious, everything indicates a life of moderate refinement; it's the perfect setting for a charming rake bent on mischief. Notably, however, music in all forms is absent from the public and quasi-public rooms of his apartment. No cd players, radios, or iPods are present. An oversized flat screen TV hangs on a wall, but dust on the screen hints that it goes unused--as if even the threat of an MTV/VH1 video or a commercial jingle was too much to bear. In a locked spare room, the music lives in dusty, desperate, isolation: an upright piano, a small collection of 3 or 4 classical guitars, boxes of sheet music in dust covers, and the pictures and awards that marked his former career. These things remain locked away out of sight, but never out of mind or out of reach of his bitter heart.
History:
Born on October 20, 1970 in Amsterdam, Edward Strong spent his childhood attending private schools and taking music lessons. That's all there really is to say about his childhood or at least that's all he ever really tells anyone. But the basic facts go like this: is father was from a Danish wealthy family, who had moved to Amsterdam to run a branch of his family's Denmark-based insurance and financial services company. His disappointed and disdainful Parisian mother spent her time commuting between Amsterdam, Denmark, Paris, and London--chasing the social seasons and spending more than his long-suffering and besotted father could afford. Despite making a lucrative living, he could never quite keep up with the demands of his wife's voracious appetite for spending; nor could he, despite desperately trying, ever manage to satisfy his wife's voracious appetite for attention and adoration. Both appetites often led the stunning French beauty to be less than faithful to her marriage vows.
Tutors, boarding schools, music camps…all blurred into a childhood that focused more on learning than on learning to love. Instead, what lessons Edward absorbed with regard to the latter tended to be cautionary tales of the dangers of devotion and desire. Schoolbooks and practice rooms were safer than flesh and blood companions. This is not to say that Edward was neglected as a child, that would be too easy an excuse for what he later became. No, there are prime, original causes here. Just a talented boy with not-so Rockwellian upbringing.
The music camps and private lessons brought Edward his happiest moments. He had a natural talent that never failed to impress his teachers and the judges at the music contests he began to enter at an early age. Sitting at a piano Edward could finally begin to imagine what it meant to be completely and utterly in love. He speculated that perhaps his father felt about his mother the way he felt about playing the piano. He began to understand almost everything emotional in life through his relationship to his music; after all, he could find music to fit any mood, any flight of fancy, any ambition. His emotional involvement with music lead to a single-minded pursuit. Every bit of his youthful energy, his young man's passion, his emerging discipline was bent on this pursuit. As his friends at boarding school discovered girls and parties, Edward discovered only that he needed more and more material--more experience, more emotional fodder--to fuel his exploration of music. Parties, with the thrills and shames of teenage debauchery, and girls, with the thrills and shames of teenage lust, opened new ways of being and feeling. He experimented not for the experiences themselves, but for the aftermath--for what those experiences allowed him to give to his music. This was all well and good for Edward and his music (in fact his commitment and talent made him something of a prodigy and it was clear that he was destined for the life of classical musician of the highest caliber), but was not so positive for the young women (and occasional young man) who fell prey to his emotional experimentation. With his off-beat good looks, upperclass upbringing, and musician's refinement, Edward was a natural charmer. He never really meant to be insensitive or cruel, but deep down he had his mother's disdain for anything that didn't "measure up" to his expectations or meet his needs. Unfortunately, since only music could truly satisfy him, no romantic fling with a flesh and blood being could ever escape his disappointment for long. And yet, he pursued the object of each fleeting fling with the passion of a true romantic--displacing his passion temporarily each time from his first and only love, music, onto the unsuspecting lover that he would soon crush beneath his heel as he made his unexpected and unexplained exit.
Because he was on tour, competing or giving concerts 10 months out of each year, his young adult years were littered with only a handful of seriously broken hearts. There was a much longer list of weekend flings that left would-be lovers hoping for a phone call that would never come, but the real destructive impact of his misplaced passion and cavalier approach to human emotion was kept in check by the rigor of his schedule and the demands of his Mistress music. He known as a cad--a honey-tongued, silk-shirted, charmer with a hard heart. He cared nothing about how he was known. He cared only for the next concert or the next composition.
When Edward's mother died in the spring of 1999 he flew to Paris to help his father make arrangements for a burial in the city she had always considered home. His father was crushed, even after years of infidelity and neglect, the older man had never stopped loving his wife. Edward saw his father's unrequited longing with the disdain of a man who possesses what he needs to be content. As Edward watched his father stagger up the aisle to say his last farewell to the beautiful, heartless, obsession that had been his life's entire focus, he discovered that his disdain for unrequited longing was mingled with a hint of wonder: how could anyone love another person to such distraction? It made no sense, his depth of feeling only extended that far when it came to music.
But Edward's mother wasn't the only beautiful, heartless, obsession in the world. Having come to the lap of Music at an early age, Edward could never imagine that his Mistress's favors might be dependent on his prowess as an attendant. And in the last flush of indomitable youth, the not yet 30 Edward could never imagine that his prowess might somehow be diminished. Hubris, as we know, comes before a fall.
It was December of the 2000 and it was just one of those chain of events kind of things. If he hadn't gone home with the 1st Cellist from the Orchestra that was performing with him on his upcoming album, he wouldn't have been looking for a cab on an frigidly cold Saturday morning in New York. If it hadn't been so cold, he wouldn't have taken the first cab that came along--despite the fact that it swerved to a stop, skidding along the icy street, with more than the usual cab-like recklessness. If he hadn't been lost in the melody to the composition that was already taking shape in his mind--weaving itself out of the bitterness in the Cellist's eyes as he mentioned, on his way out the door, that her solo during the 3rd piece on the album was going to be cut--he would have noticed that the cab driver was intoxicated; he might even have noticed that the light was already yellow as they barreled toward it. At the very least he might have put his seatbelt on. As it was, he was humming to himself as his fingers flexed over a phantom keyboard in his lap when the tipsy driver noticed the red light and slammed on his brakes.
Speed, ice and poor reflexes combined to send the cab spinning through the intersection right into a bank of newspaper stands. The driver walked (or stumbled) away into the rapidly responding arms of NYPD. Edward was, as the medics told him when arrived on the scene, almost as lucky as the driver. He was able to walk away, too. His injuries consisting only of shattered bones in his left hand, the result of instinctively trying to keep himself from smashing headlong through the plexiglass partition between the front and back seats.
The bones would heal, but the hand would never be the same. Functional for practically any purpose in the world, except the one purpose that had always driven him--his left hand would never again meet the demands of a concert pianist. And, as the doctor's predicted, arthritis set in almost as soon as the bones were healed, making even casual playing a painful challenge.
One could debate whether Mistress music turned her back on Edward or whether he turned his back on her. Certainly as a Mistress music was accustomed to receiving his finest attentions and adjusting to the clumsy, fumbling caresses of an injured man would not be easy. But from the outside it seemed to many that the real end of his affair with Music came because Edward himself could not stand to approach Her in his less-than-complete state. Perhaps he feared Her disdain--shying away from the kind of scorn his mother once heaped on his eager, but inadequate, father. At any rate, Edward parted company from his lifelong love. Music might not have suffered, it's hard to say, but Edward's suffering was deep and real: perhaps it marked the first real emotion he experienced for what it was.
Edward stayed in New York, moving every few years from apartment to apartment as if his broken-hearted longing for the Mistress he could have again made him restless and wary of putting down roots. Of course, his regular change of address might also have been related to the fact that he eventually made numerous enemies among the residents of whatever building he resided in. Single women, married women, the husbands of married women, and a handful of men (both single and married) would gradually discover that he had turned his single-minded devotion away from his former Mistress and toward another form of artistry. Denied the favors of his one-true-love, he began to pursue the favors of substitute after substitute. He perfected his charm the way he had once perfected his compositions, taking pleasure in the process of practice and refinement as much as he savored each virtuoso performance.
What had once been a byproduct of his devotion to Music--his cavalier use of love affairs for things other than actual love--became his primary occupation and purpose. Each abandoned lover, each broken promise and shattered dream, fueled the flames of resentment and despair that burned through him. With each lover he left crying or screaming in his wake, he thought only of the next time he would sit--crying and screaming--at his now dusty piano and move fumbling fingers silently over the well-worn keys he was now forbidden to touch.
He moved into Bellum LeTale as part of his usual cycle of relocation. It was less upscale than his other addresses, but something about the place spoke to him. And, after all, it's not like he was really looking for a home--just an address from which to continue his charming assault on "happily ever after" whenever he saw it taking shape.
Future Plans:
Bellum LeTale will be an interesting place for Edward to find himself. With at least two exes (Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood) currently living in the building, I expect he'll meet with a bit of a chilly reception on some fronts. He isn't eager to re-hash the past but he also isn't one to avoid people just because things are awkward. The fact that so many musicians/musically inclined people live in the building is going to be a bittersweet thing from Edward. Hearing music in the halls will bring back old feelings and remind him of what he has lost--how he will handle this is something that will unfold over time. I suspect that like a moth to a flame, he'll be drawn to the music despite the pain it causes him. The music connection would draw him toward (and drive him away from) The Gingerbread Wo/man, The Pied Piper, and even one of his exes--Red Riding Hood.
Confronting his long-lost-love (Music) may yield to some particularly bad behavior as seeks the comfort of human conquests to slake his unresolved passions. But, I hold out hope that Edward can find peace some small measure of peace over time--not that he'll ever completely stop being a cad.
Edward will spend his days managing his investments online, reading, and wandering the City. He spends some evenings and nights in piano bars (or similar) charming unsuspecting women. Whether or not he follows through and seduces them into bed depends on his mood, but he always enjoys charming someone into being willing to be seduced. When he's home in the evenings, he'll read, drink, sit on the fire escape and chain smoke, and hang out with anyone that catches his fancy or seeks him out.
Ability/Powers:
Other than a frustrated pool of musical ability, which manages to manifest in flashes of playfulness despite his injury, his only developing power would be an eerie power to "break matches" or to temporarily thwart true love. I envision a gypsy-like ability to cast an evil-eye of sorts on happy couples or on one of the lovers--sowing seeds of jealousy and doubt with his honeyed tongue and wry smile. But I think this would be a longtime in developing, as he becomes engulfed in Bellum LeTale's ambiance. At first, this would be the object of wishful thinking as he sullenly obsessed over love as he never knew it and cast dark thoughts on those he envied; we'd see/hear him wishing he could accomplish this mischief more than seeing him carry it out.
Examples;
First Person Community Example:
Can anyone tell me why the service elevators in these buildings can't really accommodate a piano? I can't be the only person around who lives in apartments AND owns a piano, can I? Or maybe I just end up hiring really inept moving companies… Anyway, I am pleased to announce--not that anyone necessarily cares--that my piano has been successfully dislodged from the service elevator and normal maintenance activities, etc., can now resume. I apologize if anyone has been inconvenienced. Don't worry, neighbors, I don't actually puss the piano, so there won't be a noise problem. And yes, I do realize that moving a piano around with me despite the fact that I don't use it is hardly a practical course of action.
Obviously I'm new here. I'd like to invite everyone around for drinks, but that will have to wait until I get more settled in--right now you'd all end up sitting on boxes and drinking out of plastic cups from the corner grocery. Not that there's anything wrong with plastic cups, mind you, it's just that I always feel a bit guilty about using them, even if I do recycle. Which I do. Re-using them seems gauche somehow, so yea… I'll just wait until the boxes are unpacked and I have access to my glasses and stemware. In the meantime, don't be afraid to stop by and say hello or send me a note here on this forum. Also, if anyone knows of some nice bars or pubs in the area would you let me know? I like to go out in the evenings for a quiet drink and a chance to meet new people, so I'd love to get some recommendations.
I look forward to meeting you all very soon! Cheers, folks!
Third Person Log Example:
Alone in the apartment, he leaned out the long window that accessed the fire escape and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. A self-destructive vice, smoking was a habit he picked up after That Day. Along with the kind of drinking that would make a functional alcoholic proud, smoking was a gesture toward the mortality that he now felt so painfully--particularly each time he flexed the fingers of his left hand. Cigarette held in his grimacing lips, he looked down as he turned the offending left hand over again and again, curling and uncurling, stretching and wriggling his fingers as he went. The hand was nearly perfect from the outside. Only a slight, permanent curve to the fingers, as if they had been clenched in a fist too long and could no longer properly unclench, and a slightly crooked bend to the third and fourth fingers just above the first knuckle suggested that anything was wrong. Minor flaws to the casual observer, even next to the perfect lines of his right hand the offending left hand looked "pretty damn good" as the reconstructive surgeons had so proudly pronounced. But it wasn't. It wasn't good at all. It was slow and clumsy. The now crooked fingers not quite as long as they needed to be. The the permanent clench-curl limiting reach. The dull ache of arthritis--much too old an ailment for man not yet 40--slowing down once fluid, flying motion. With a frustrated snarl he clenched a fist and slammed the damaged hand down on the window sill, cringing with the renewed ache that shot through his arm and added to the heavy, breath squeezing, tightness in his chest.
The bitter cold of a New York winter swept through the window and swirled around him. But he stood there long after the cigarette was crushed out and tossed aside. Staring out into the blinking blur of streetlights and neighboring windows. Signs of life. People going along with their pretty damn good existences. In a flash he thought to himself that he hated them. All of them. Especially the ones that were actually happy with "pretty damn good" as a measuring stick. From somewhere in the night the sound of music made its way to the window. He glanced around for a moment, like a soldier trapped behind enemy lines searching out the enemy before an ambush can happen and then he slammed the window closed--retreating into the empty apartment before the memories could completely engulf him.
To get the touch of memory out of his head, he flings on his coat, grabs his wallet and keys from the dresser and heads out into the icy night. Empty cabs crawl past, hoping to entice him with their warm backseats. Like fucking hell… he mutters to himself, shoving his hands in his coat pockets and continuing on his way. His feet know the way and he doesn't have to think much about where he's going; he uses the short walk as a chance to compose his thoughts, to relax his jaw and soften the lines of his mouth. He begins to smile a bit as he nears the upscale bar where he has been spending time as of late. He can already taste the easy lies he'll spin--little "white" lies designed to flatter and befriend. He can feel the warmth of the smiles that someone, and there was always someone, would cast his direction.
There would be music of some kind playing in the background, the more or less generic, unoffensive pablum that passed as "rock," but he was prepared for it. Ready to tune it out and sometimes even to muster the energy to use it as part of the silver-throated small talk that would pave his way to seduction. In fact, the music in the background was essential; what good was it to seduce a new conquest if Music wasn't there to witness it? To see what She had helped him become. And when he walked out of whatever bedroom he landed in, sliding into the gray New York morning with the feline grace of a sated predator, he would wonder whether the woman he left behind would remember the song that he hummed in her ear as he told her bedroom lies or whether she'd just remember the lies and the realization that he never, once, spoke her name.
Notes:
Edward used to play guitar in his spare time (a way to relax and exercise his talents away from the piano). His injury limits his guitar playing as well, although he's more likely to pick up a guitar and pluck at it than he is to sit down and play piano. He likes photography although it never captured his passion the way music did. When he's not deep in the throws of his ongoing depression/anger over his injury he treats people nicely and he is capable of friendship to some degree. He's only even intentionally cruel to the random flings he picks up in bars. More longterm lovers aren't subjected to intentional cruelty so much as really asshole-like insensitivity and neglect as the thrill of the conquest wears off. He knows what he does is wrong and is able to feel a bit of remorse, but he's so bitter that the remorse is always limited and short-lived.