Melancholy Rage: Video/Action;

[moonlitrequiem]

[Seeing as she had told Jinora she would, the next day after her distressing run in with Hei, Yin sets up the piano and her device to record.]

[While she isn't the type to pick a cheerful tune, Yin's pieces are usually tinged with a little sadness, but never do they have anger in them, no matter how slight. This time, it feels as though her fingers move a little faster, and she hits the notes a little harder, and the chords are deeper.]

[Yin looks as listless as ever, not a trace of emotional turmoil to be found, for the most part. For those who know her, however, who have seen her often enough, it might seem her shoulders droop just a little more, her lips are curved just a little more towards hurt, and her eyes give away to some pain in their half-lidded state.]

[When she finishes, she soundlessly turns the recording off.]

Comments

action;

[moonlitrequiem]

The tempo. The notes. [She slows the piece down even further.] It's different when played differently. [She adds more zest and speed to it.] Faster gives more energy, and can sound [she adds in some minor chords] angry or happy [major chords]. Slower is more melancholy [and also done in minor chords].

action;

[sleepingstar]

[Pai nods. She can understand that much. It still strikes her as strange.]

I wonder why. What makes slow sad? Why is a certain sound angry and another happy? [She doesn't expect answers from Yin -- the one person who probably understands human emotions even less than she does. But it seems so random and arbitrary, assigning different emotions to different sounds.]

action;

[moonlitrequiem]

[Yin finds herself incapable of explaining that, much as Pai would expect, still her voice is very soft as she continues to play the song in different variations, and she does give one answer.] Maybe it's associations.

action;

[sleepingstar]

Associations?

action;

[moonlitrequiem]

[She mutters as she continues playing, never looking away from the sheet music.] They associate the tune with the emotion.

[sleepingstar]

How does that association happen? And when? [Idle questions, expressions of curiosity that she doesn't often let out.]

[moonlitrequiem]

[Yin shakes her head to that.] Maybe timing. I don't really know.

[She might have known, had she continued on as a normal girl, but now she isn't very sure. She doesn't seem to have any of those associations, except one: She's pretty sure anytime she thinks of Hei, or sees him, or speaks with her, there's a light prickling of a sensation she once knew as happiness.]

[sleepingstar]

[The doll doesn't understand her questions. Which is hardly unexpected and doesn't even matter in the long run.]

When did you learn to play?

[moonlitrequiem]

When I was six. [She stops, finally, and turns to Pai.]

When did you become a Contractor?

[sleepingstar]

When I was nine. [She hasn't thought back to that time in awhile. She can hardly remember what she had been like as a human being.]

[moonlitrequiem]

[Having turned into a Doll at a young age herself, Yin feels much the same, though, in her own way, differently. She returns to the piano, once again her fingers flow over the keys.]

[sleepingstar]

When did you become a Doll?

[moonlitrequiem]

When I was eight.

[Remembering that, she slips into a familiar song - the one Elis taught her.]