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“…Alright, I’m bored.”
“Theo— What??? It’s barely been a minute!” Parrot exclaims, whipping around in his chair to look at Theo. He was fairly certain that the papers he was looking over had flown but, miraculously, they haven’t.
“Yeah, because it’s obvious what you’re gonna do for the next.. forever! I do not want to sit here staring at you sign papers for 5 hours, bro..” Theo huffed, throwing his clawed hands onto his face. His sunglasses shift a little bit, and Parrot can just barely see Theo’s scrunched up eyes underneath.
“Dude, it takes, like, 20 minutes. What are you talking about?” Parrot chuckles.
Theo stops his motion and walks closer to Parrot, the former putting his claws on the latter’s shoulders, and kneels down just slightly. Parrot could see his eyes peaking through the sunglasses, clear eye contact being made.
“Parrot. My king. Ruler of the Unstable SMP. Do you NOT check the time before and AFTER you finish?” Theo deadpans, with a voice so low Parrot was almost taken aback.
. . .
“…Uh..”
“PARROT! Bro! Oh my gosh,” Theo screams, taking multiple steps back and throwing his claws on his face once again, “You have a WINDOW in front of you, Parrot, a WINDOW. IN FRONT OF YOU!!! How hard is it to check OUT OF A WINDOW THAT’S IN FRONT OF YOU????”
“Bro! I guess I just lock in too much,” Parrot chuckles.
Theo mutters to himself, and fixes his sunglasses that had gone askew during his crash out, then crossed his arms and sighed, “Parrot, in an hour from now, we are gonna take a break,” using his fingers to gesture his emphasis.
“…’We’???” Parrot’s eyes scrunched.
“Yes, ‘we,’ a royal guard needs a break, too, from watching his king stare at papers the entire day.”
Parrot chuckles again, “Alright bro, but don’t, like, complain again if you get bored.”
Theo smirks and clicks his tongue, waving a finger in the air, “tsk tsk tsk, You see, Parrot, I’ve already complained, which means I’m gonna go patrol the castle in my absence from you.”
And then swiftly turned his heel towards the door in Parrot’s bedroom, marching towards it rather hilariously. Parrot huffs, “Alright bro, I’ll see you in an hour.”
Theo turns around and salutes towards Parrot, a grin growing on his face, clicking his tongue again. He turns back around, grabs the latches on Parrot’s door handles, and left the room as quickly as he complained. There’s too much silence in the air now, none of it being able to replace Theo’s energetic (but frankly chaotic) nature.
Parrot sighs, “…This kid, bro…”
He turns around, picks up the quill, grabs ahold of the document he was looking at earlier, and starts looking over the paper once more. He places a folded claw under his chin, and taps the quill gently on the table, as his eyes go from left to right, the next line, left to right, the next line, and left to right over and over again.
From the soft (but probably extremely dirty) red carpet to the cobblestone walls that make up the castle, the small TheobaldTheBird marches around, looking up at random banners and statues that appear every 30 or so steps.
One of the banners he was looking at was just of Parrot. Parrot had insisted to not be on one them and have it commemorate the history of Unstable like the other ones, but Theo managed to convince both him and the banner-designers to use Parrot’s likeness as, “he’s just as an important part of history as any other thing!”
Theo chuckles staring at it, and walks further down the hall… Man, this castle is humongous. What was Lettuce doing with a castle this big, anyways? Wasn’t there only, like, 6 big members of LAW or something? They did not need this entire castle.
Mid-thought, Theo suddenly discovered a room that immensely caught his eye. Normally, the rooms in the castle are either a library, a meeting room, a kitchen, a bedroom, or an armory… It’s actually varied a little bit, but that’s not the point; There usually wasn’t anything recreational inside, as that was mainly for the garden in the back (but, since it’s a garden—a flower garden, too—, there weren’t any swings, or anything else that was remotely fun).
However, this room in particular had a giant grand piano in the center, amongst a few other things. Theo didn’t play the piano, but he figured that this room had to have something interesting. There’s other guards in the castle anyways, he could take a short break from walking semi-aimlessly.
Upon entering the room, not only was there the massive grand piano (seriously, it took up nearly half the walking space), but so many instruments, there was no way this was cheap. If there wasn’t some super secret vault, or if the armory didn’t exist, this was probably the most expensive room in this entire castle.
Theo walks around a bit, staring at every single instrument, looking completely untouched and, somehow, there wasn’t a single grain of dust on them. He hadn’t heard any music play throughout his entire time at the castle, so that means somebody was in this room (probably every night) cleaning something that was basically useless.
But, today, that’s gonna kinda change, (he can’t play every instrument in the world, dude), as Theo spotted a shiny violin with a beautiful bow just behind it.
Yeah, Theo might be King Parrot’s royal body guard and one of the best insta-carting players on the server, but even he has a few hobbies he picked up from.. however when.
He doesn’t really remember where he got a violin for the first time, but he does remember being taught very briefly. What was his teacher’s name again? AZ… something? Whatever, not like it really matters.
So, Theo picked up the violin, finding it just a tad-bit smaller than he normally would have it, but there’s not really any other violins in the room, so he’ll just have to deal with it. Then, he picks up the bow, perfectly… full of hair. Wow. The bow might be behind the violin, but it doesn’t deserve to get entirely loosened!!!
If the bow’s in a bad position, then surely the violin, the supposed “main attraction,” would be kept in a better state, right??
Theo plucks the thinnest string…
twang
The string slightly loosened the moment he let go and he nearly jumped back. “How do you clean an instrument every night but not even bother tuning it??” he mutters, face scrunching in disgust.
What’s supposed to happen was that the string he played was supposed to sound like an E, the brightest string possible on the violin, and now it just barely sounded like a note played on the second-thinnest string.
Theo sighs, placing the violin down, and takes out his communication device to pull up a tuner. He proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes tuning every single string (if you hadn’t guessed, the rest were extremely out of tune).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Finally, the entire violin was tuned to perfection. Thank Void that it’s relatively easy to tune (the author says, crying in cellist), otherwise he’d probably be here for longer. But, what could he play?..
He decided upon a random piece that he once played a long time ago. What was it called anyways, “Meditation?” Not like it really matters, a pretty and fairly simple song should get him back in the “musical mindset.”
And pretty it was; every bow stroke felt calculated, every note felt like it came to life right in front of his eyes, every melody played had echoed throughout the room. The spotlight’s on him now, and music radiated from every movement he made. The violin sang a hopeful and gracious melody, like the incoming moon becoming a beacon of guidance to everyone below, like the sun shining its rays to any dying flowers that miraculously grew in clay-based soil, like the shining light that pulled someone out of the deepest and darkest of shadows.
…Yeah, that’s pretty enough.
Theo was shocked at how well he played, but was also just as shocked at the amount of mistakes he made. Yeah, he might’ve not played the violin in, like, a while, but it doesn’t mean he should make mistakes on a piece he’s known since.. forever!! Granted, he’s on a smaller violin, but still!!!!
So, Theo spent the remainder of his time fine-tuning any mistakes he made, which was surprisingly difficult. Maybe, on a proper violin, there would’ve been less mistakes, so trying to refine old habits was.. difficult, to say the least.
Parrot figured that Theo would probably barge into his room at some point, basically screaming in his ear that it’s time for a break, so he figured that it’s time for the other way around.
He sets the quill down and straightened out his clothing, cape elegantly falling to the floor, and refined his crown and jabot. With a sigh, he starts heading out of the room, his posture radiating his royal status.
Since the castle is essentially a glorified maze, Parrot asked a few guards which way Theo went, and they all pointed down the hallway that… had a violin playing?? He didn’t even know that there was a musician in the building, let alone a violinist. But, it did sound pretty, so Parrot got out the few pieces of diamonds that he had on him, and headed for the room.
Every step that Parrot took was one note belting its tune, every click in the floor made the violin shine brighter than it ever had before, every breath he took allowed the musician’s morceau to dance louder and louder. Every high note held had Parrot’s curiosity rise, every vibrato he felt had him quickened his pace even faster, and every note that was held just long enough made him think he missed the fields of flowers shining under the morning sun.
Parrot arrived, he can finally put a face to who was making such a gorgeous melody. Parrot took a step to the side, not wanting to accidentally scare the musician waiting inside. He peaked, just around the stone corner..
But all he saw was… Theo? As in.. TheobaldTheBird?? Parrot had never once heard Theo talk about being a violinist, and seeing him be anything else other than.. well, annoying and frankly chaotic, was… foreign. So very foreign. But, also.. comforting? In some weird, elusive way.
In contrast to his explosive nature (pun intended), he almost dances to the soft tune, pulling the bow with an impressive amount of elegance, and allowed the violin to sing as gracefully as it could, while Theo, himself, let his fingers guide the way he shined in the sunset, the window glistening in awe of the performance itself.
Before Parrot knew it, the song had finished, and Theo’s feathers no longer puffed up. Theo sighed, then turned around, and jumped back almost immensely, nearly dropping the violin and bow.
Parrot chuckled, “I didn’t know you could play the violin,” and walked closer to the frightened bird, the former’s arms are now crossed.
Theo sighed, his stance no longer looking as if he’s doing the limbo, and held the violin and bow both comfortably and awkwardly, “I mean, I never really talked about it. There wasn’t really a good time to bring it up, too.”
“That makes sense… How long have you played?”
“Uhh… at least, like.. 5 years? I don’t really remember, I just remember being able to, like, play for a while. Still surprised I can play it this well, though, since I haven’t really gotten to in a minute.”
“Oh, my bad then, I should’ve let you, like, have your free time and stuff.”
Theo’s face scrunches, “Dude, no, what? It’s fine. Besides, I’ve been losing a bit of interest anyways.”
“Well, why did you, like, start, then?” Parrot asks, tilting his head ever so slightly.
“Uh.. for, like, fun and stuff… I think. I don’t remember, but I don’t regret it, honestly. Like, this?” Theo starts doing a random trill, alternating his fingers rapidly across the violin’s fingerboard, “Like, that helped me with x-bowing, bro! Like, you gotta be insanely fast doing it, so I guess the violin just skipped the hard part for me,” Theo chuckles.
Parrot looked down at Theo’s left claw, and noticed the callus once again. He always figured that it probably came from the amount of times he’s had to insta-cart and whatnot, but it probably was also because of the rapid movement needed on the violin.
Parrot chuckles, “So, what was that song you were playing just then, huh?” he asked.
Theo thought for a second, “Like… ‘Meditation,’ but French, so ‘Méditation,’ or whatever. It was made for some opera performance, and the song was, like, about the main character going through an awakening. But, I don’t remember the smaller details like that,” and sighed.
“That’s fine, bro. Uhm…”
Parrot starts twiddling with his sleeves and darted his eyes to the side, his lips forming a flat line. Theo cocks his head, still holding the violin, but dangerously loosely.
Parrot stutters, “I-If you don’t mind, can you, like, play that song again? It.. honestly sounds kinda nice.. and stuff,” he sighs, then quickly added, “But, like, if you don’t want to, that’s fine too, like, I don’t want to force you or anything.”
Theo puts his bow in his other hand and puts the free hand on top of Parrot’s shoulder, “Dude, it’s fine. Like, yeah, I’m losing my interest, but I’m still basically having fun and stuff, no need to get your hair in a knot over this. Plus, there’s a reason why I played this instead of, like, classic Bach or whatever,” he chuckles.
Theo motioned Parrot to sit on the piano bench (he wasn’t about to allow his king to keep standing for another 5 minutes, or allowed him to sit on the floor!!), and got ready again to play the song one more time.
He inhales, and, just like that, Theo had transformed into a completely different player. The Theo that Parrot met long ago back in the Farlands wasn’t this.. calm. Well, calm wasn’t exactly the right word. Rather, Farlands Theo was a bit snappy, and definitely jumped into action way too much. That was basically the entire trope of the Warriors.
But, right now? The Theo that’s standing in front of Parrot doesn’t even inhabit any of those traits. He pulls the bow slowly, but melodically. His fingers move at a somewhat-surprising rate, but it still looks.. kept. Clean. Not like the explosions Theo pulls off every other day. His legs, his feathers, and his stance overall; it looks composed. More composed than Parrot had ever seen him be the entire time Parrot knew him.
There’s a melody playing throughout the castle, the most at-peace it has ever been. Maybe they can forget about the papers for a moment, maybe they can forget the war they’ve fought to dethrone Lettuce. And maybe—
Just maybe—
They can just sit here, listening.
A Parrot and a Theo.
The sun sets through the window, night time falls upon the Unstable SMP.