Things seemed a little easier now—or, at the very least, if she wanted some space she had it, and if she wanted company the others in the palace were more than happy to talk with her. That alone was a change from the mansion. Rene did her best to leave the palace somewhat often; to achieve that she simply picked up some odd jobs like she used to, which had the bonus of giving her leverage to argue with Adelinde later if one or the other needed to buy something.
The arts festival came and went without incident; Rene noticed the Dazuz family while she was walking around with Adelinde, Matteo, and Mark, but neither group made an effort to speak with the other. She didn’t pass by them without acknowledgment—Lord Dazuz frowned and Elina glared, notably—but they didn’t force her into a conversation. Being with Adelinde’s family felt significantly better as a result.
December arrived rather quickly—for her, at least—but seemed to linger more than before, if only because of preparations for the end of the year. Rene did her work for the day, then went to the music room in the afternoon as agreed with Adelinde that morning.
She didn’t come in here a lot, to be honest. There wasn’t much that appealed to her if someone wasn’t in there playing something; she couldn’t read sheet music, and she would only admit to sounding decent with a guitar now, but not good. She would still be one of the worst performers if she went to the gazebo and played.
Adelinde wasn’t there, so Rene walked around a bit. Not much changed since their last meeting here, but there were pieces of paper taped on to both Adelinde’s piano and Matteo’s toy one, each piece having a letter on it and its placement in a score. Considering the kid would be four in March, it likely served as a visual on what each note was.
Rene still stood behind the piano when Adelinde came in, but offered a smile almost immediately.
Rene gestured to the piano keys. “Teaching Matteo to read notes?”
“I’m trying to get him to think about it, at least,” Adelinde replied, walking back to the piano as well. “I’d like to transition him to the real one before he outgrows the toy. I decided pointing out the similarities between the two would be a good starting point.”
“You would know better than I would,” Rene said, chuckling a bit. She went to the guitar and waited for the request to start playing.
“We’ll see,” Adelinde mused. She took a seat on the piano bench, idly tapping some of the keys while they talked. “I had formal instruction, but I can’t say I’ll be a good teacher based on that. Worst case scenario, I can find a suitable teacher later if he wants one.”
“So you are taking the kids’ feelings into consideration?” Rene asked jokingly.
“I won’t force him; that would ruin the point of it.”
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The line of conversation ended, but Adelinde spoke up again as soon as Rene reached the guitar and picked it up.
“Could you bring that over here?” Adelinde asked. Smiling, she continued, “I want to start working on our song—not one about you or you and Matteo, but something both of us provide input on and build. That would be easier if we were a bit closer.”
Rene nodded, bringing both the guitar and the chair over so she was next to the piano. She sat down, took some kind of uneducated position that felt most comfortable, and waited for Adelinde’s instruction. Her partner smiled instead.
“I want to follow your lead,” Adelinde said. Rene started a protest, cut off by Adelinde’s feigned frown. “And you can’t keep saying it won’t sound good. I don’t care if it’s the most chaotic piece ever to be played by anyone—it would be ours and that alone would make it beautiful. It doesn’t need to be understood by anyone but us.”
Rene paused for a moment, then chuckled before settling into the chair a bit more comfortably.
“As long as you don’t mind me making it up as I go,” Rene replied, still guilty of that dumb smile she could never hide. She looked back down at the guitar. “That being said…”
She honestly didn’t know what strings made what sounds—Adelinde leaned over for a second just to confirm it was tuned correctly, which Rene hadn’t even noticed. Rene tested with a few different notes to remind herself of the basic sounds, then paused. She continued with something she still wasn’t entirely confident in, but Adelinde seemed to think was fitting.
Adelinde wrote down notes as they went, although both of them occasionally decided whatever they played wasn’t worth going in—not that it stopped Adelinde from jotting down anything particularly nice anyway, just on a different sheet of paper. Rene alternated between looking at the guitar and just…watching Adelinde and only half-remembering to keep playing. The latter actually prompted her to chuckle.
“Strangely enough,” Adelinde noted, glancing at her, “It sounds better when you’re looking at me.”
“Does it?” She was both curious and a bit embarrassed, honestly, but Adelinde still smiled.
“You don’t play as self-consciously when you do,” Adelinde explained. “When you’re looking at the strings, you’re paying more attention to them and how to make them sound ‘good’ by your definition. When you’re not looking at the strings, it’s more like when I play whatever music seems to fit my thoughts—you’re not really thinking, just producing sounds.”
“And it sounds better to you?” Rene asked to confirm.
“It’s more pure that way, if nothing else,” Adelinde mused, looking back at the piano keys. “You play off your emotions in the moment, rather than what you know to sound ‘decent.’ It gives it more feeling.”
Rene nodded, mostly understanding. She tried to continue without looking at the strings, but also not staring at Adelinde—she let her eyes and thoughts wander to an extent, but still focused on whatever music they made. That seemed to have the desired effect, judging from Adelinde’s smile.
They stayed there for about two hours until dinner, taking short breaks to work through what they had written down. It started snowing by the time they were done eating, so the evening was spent watching Matteo play outside for a bit then entertain him with some stories.
She liked living in the palace, if only just to admire how easily belonging came here and not needing to rush back to the mansion when she was done with them for the day.