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Francois Dubois, crown Prince of France, famous musician and composer until his royal duties took over. He was known to be well-mannered, obedient, and quiet with a fleeting gaze. He was drawn to exits of parties as much as he was drawn to his virginal held within a room of instruments collecting dust. But how did our sweet and beloved Francois rise to where he is? How did he become such a loved musician?
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Well it started when he was five.
“Mama?” Francois whispered into the dark, listening to the soft melody floating from the ballroom, filling the castle. He didn’t hear a response if she gave one, but he was compelled to enter the room. Through the metallic tang in the room, Francois heard the slow and light patter of his own feet until he stopped behind his mother who sat on a bench. He looked up as best as he could, watching thin fingers dance along keys quickly, the same way she’d dance with his father. Francois was fascinated, completely entranced by the music.
“Mama, up.” He requested. He had never been a good talker, he didn’t really understand many words, and didn't feel like he could say anything most of the time as well. He didn’t speak till his fifth birthday months prior, mumbling out “thanks you”s and “appreciate it”s to guests against his wishes. It wasn’t that he was stupid, he really wasn’t, he was quite advanced, just a bit scared of saying words he read in books. His mother often told people he was shy and saving all his smarts until the right moment when they got frustrated at his lack of responses.
Francois’ mother stopped playing, but the music continued to echo, bouncing off walls and quieting like a horse from a gallop to a walk. She turned around, her eyes soft as she looked down at him. She reached down and pulled him up onto her lap. Francois held his stuffed elephant close to him, smiling up at her so wide she could see the gap between two of his lower teeth.
“Would you like to play, ma mélodie?” She asked, smoothing the young boy’s hair back. Francois looked at the instrument curiously, holding a shaking hand out and gently pressing a key, letting the sound buzz in his ears. He looked back at her, silently signaling for her to guide him, and she did, she took his hands into hers and Francois loved how soft but strong her hands felt. She pressed his fingers into different keys, playing notes, then forming chords. The sound consumed Francois and he’d never been happier than he was playing for the first time until he lulled himself to sleep, fingers resting on the keys under his mothers while his head slumped forward.
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So Francois began composing. He sat in his room for hours, writing meticulously, perfecting every little symbol down to the little dots that told the player to repeat. His father had made the deal with his mother that if Francois learned to play music, he’d learn to use a sword. Of course, Francois would just hide from every instructor his father hired, his father would sigh in response when at seven pm sharp, Francois was inside again. And this repeated, Francois would compose, choose musicians to play his pieces, practice playing his own various instruments, prioritizing his precious virginal that his mother gave him full claim to. And when it was time to work on his swordsmanship, he hid, continuing to write and imagine the melodies, feeling the vibration of music throughout his body until it was time to go inside.
“Francois, I find the best swordsmen in all of France, would one lesson kill you.” His father would ask him, frustrated and defeated. Francois would look down at his paper filled with music from the very top of one paper to the bottom of the fourth.
“He’s a prodigy, amour, music is his calling.” His mother soothed, holding his arm with such love. Francois could only dream of finding a woman like his mother, she was his inspiration after all. He had a small chest of pieces about the love his parents shared, deep and true. He loved reading over his own work, missing the way his father watched the nurse with the same eyes his own wife looked at him with. To Francois, their love was real and that was all he needed, his life was perfect as long as they loved each other, him, and his brothers.
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“Francois! You’re late for your lessons again, and I don’t want to hear any excuse unless it’s that you were on a date.” Lance looked at him with frustration and disapproval. He already knew why Francois was a no-show, it was because he was writing.
“I miss when we were a band, dad, when we toured and wrote music and performed as a family.” Frankie reminisced and Lance softened for a moment. But those soft moments never lasted long, Francois wasn’t his parents’ prodigy anymore, he was just his father’s greatest failure. He still played the virginal, still composed from time to time, but now the orchestra never played his songs of hatred and betrayal. There were no more ears to hear his songs after they had turned into desperate notes of pleading and longing, no one heard the chords of Francois’ mind begging for escape and freedom.
“I care about you, son, but I’m firm. You haven’t found a girl, you need these lessons when your time comes to serve your country.” And then his father would turn and walk away. No loving eyes to be seen, just an icy distance that chilled Francois to the bone, freezing his tears before they ever had a chance to leave his eyes.
Francois always felt empty after his mother died. There were no more hands on his, no more soft eyes looking at him from beside the virginal while he played. There was no more “mélodie,” there was only Francois, a future soldier and the last of the Dubois legacy. And the moment he truly lived up to his name and the standards everyone else had set for him would be the moment he was bleeding out in his uniform with a stab wound through his chest. It would be then that the deep hole in his heart would be truly revealed to everyone. A part of him thought his death would finally give his father a piece of who he was back, but the reasonable part of Francois knew that when the his funeral was over, his father would look at his grave with those cold and distant eyes.
So Francois continued to play. He would do what his father asked occasionally, he was muscular now, he could use a sword, he was ready for war. But before he would be a soldier, he’d always be a musician, playing rough songs of his anger, dispersing the building rage around the instrument room, letting his hatred bounce back into his own ears. He’d play and play, write notes upon notes, fortissimo after piano, the snap after the thread had been pulled too far too long.
Francois’ violence was music, his weapons were fingers pressed to keys in hatred, and a quill scratching against paper. In this state of mind his writing was messy, the tip of his pen was his sword, the ink was the blood of another human life he would take. Soldiers and bodies were the chords he played, their screams were the screeching of an instrument made to be played kindly and gently.
Francois was wrong. He realized that after all his anger was poured out, after his ink was seeping into his scratched and ripped pages, dripping down the sides of his virginal, his mother’s virginal. Francois wasn’t violent, he was just angry, and then he was numb and scared, shaking and sobbing. But there were no soft words to comfort him, just a dissipating rage replaced by regrets.
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“Play me a melody, Frankie.” Juliet smiled, leaning on the virginal that Angelique had already told her to stop leaning on thrice.
“A melody or ma mélodie?” He asked with a smile, surrounded by the people he loved. His father stood slightly further than the rest, quietly enjoying whatever Frankie played while he skimmed through old love songs.
“I want a song, Frankie, not you swooning over my best friend, I already know they’re so so gorgeous.” Juliet huffed out.
“Actually, ma mélodie is my latest piece, it’s the virginal accompanied by the lyre and guitar,” Frankie glanced at May and Romeo who were sorting through instruments to take their pick after being informed that there were some around the room wherever. “But the virginal part requires two sets of hands and I know someone who seems to be a natural.” Juliet giggled excitedly sliding next to Francois and taking a look over his sheet music when Romeo and May approached.
Lance watched all of the “children” take seats, May started the song with the lyre, followed by Francois and lastly Juliet and Romeo playing lower parts. It was magical seeing all of them work together, Lance nearly cried. It hurt to see how long he took to hear Francois cries for help, but he certainly saw them now through the stains on the virginal he used to cherish as a little boy. But that was all in the past, and this was the present, and they had the future ahead of them. Lance would make it right, he’d try every day to show Francois that he was never a disappointment and Lance was just stubborn. Francois was more than Lance ever made him out to be, he was prodigy and his father’s greatest joy.