♫ [ffff]

[dustless]

Frisk's found the music room.

It's huge, too, filled with every instrument they've ever heard of, and many they haven't. Most of those instruments are pretty dusty and covered in cobwebs, but they seem to work fine after they test a few. Not that they know how to play instruments, but plucking strings of a big harp and poking at a couple pianos and not hearing anything off seems good enough. 

Making their careful way through the room, they think about alerting Mettaton and Ryoji--they'd probably want some for the play, right? Then they stop and think maybe they should go tell Sans first--he'd asked them to tell him if they ever did, after all, even though it was some months ago.

When they reach the back of the room...they kind of forget all of that. 'Cause the entire space they'd expected to find a wall is actually a giant pipe organ.

Naturally, they test it out. One, two, three long, loud notes. It works fine!

They step away. Because they really should go tell someone where the room is before it disappears.

They stop. 

The ivories gleam invitingly. 

...

They step back to it.

And they slam the lengths of both of their arms onto the keys, and the explosion of noise it makes shakes the dust from most of the instruments as well as dislodging plenty from the ceiling. 

Well. A good chunk of the castle probably knows where the music room is now, anyway.

(Sorry, Batman. Sorry, Tauriel.)

Comments

[boogerman]

A shadow creeps up the wall near an electric guitar (of all things), all thin arms and legs, eventually solidifying into one Boogeyman.

He snatches it up, plugs it in, all in a hurry before Frisk turns around to see him--and then he makes it scream... with some mad cackling, ohhhh he loves these things. What a glorious invention.

[dustless]

OKAY they are not expecting that. Pitch'll probably enjoy the spike of fear they give, and the sight of them nearly falling flat on their back. Then they smack their hand on some of the keys of the organ as they turn around, in retaliation.

"'Scuse me," they huff, carefully around the room. They don't know anyone in the castle who cackles like that.

[boogerman]

A newbie, and not a nice looking one. He plays another scream for good measure and then tosses it aside.

"There is no excuse for you."

Not that he knows Frisk, but he's been wanting to say that to someone who can actually see and hear him. It's been so long.

[trombones]

"Glad. I don't have ears."

Just like Papyrus is glad he doesn't live in Hotland. The other Sans is back, again here without announcement or reason. This time at least, he stands a good distance away from Frisk and the pipe organ.

"Puttin' those pipes to good use, huh? I don't think I've been in here before."

[dustless]

They jump a little, but they're grinning widely when they turn to look at him.

"Me neither! Been looking for a music room." Hey, they're not going to apologize if he doesn't seem to be bothered.

[trombones]

WHAT'S GOOD.

It bothered him a little if he were being honest, but the humor of the situation trumps the unexplainable pain in Sans' nonexistent ears. He permagrin widens as they turn around, and he unpockets his hands to start filching through the room.

"Not a bad find, kid. Ever play the ballpark organ theme on a real organ?"

Hunting for a trombone is a given, naturally. But he also find a drum set nearby that piques his curiousity. He sits in front of it and picks up the sticks.

"Hey. Frisk. Tell a joke."

[sansational]

Sans certainly knows where it is. The noise surprises him enough that he gasps in a breath in the nearby ballroom and lets it out up in a random tower. It's only after he catches his breath - metaphorically speaking - that he realizes that he recognizes that sound. Or at least, he recognizes it more or less. Undyne would have killed for a proper pipe organ.

Well then.

He grins, and hastens back towards the noise.

Depending on if Frisk is still playing, they might hear him push open the door. It still hasn't been used much, after all, and so the hinges still squeak. Sans pushes the door open, takes in the sight, and bursts out laughing.

"and here i thought i'd seen everything."

And he'd also thought Frisk had forgotten. It's kind of nice to be surprised on both fronts. Frisk isn't the only one who's been feeling just a bit bored without a crisis.

[dustless]

They're enjoying the notes as they fade, so they do, in fact, hear him come in.

Once they turn and ascertain who it is, they fling up their arms. "MUSIC ROOM!"

Frisk's voice--however enthusiastic and loud compared to its usual sound--drifts across the room almost comically quiet after the noise of the pipe organ. They wave wildly for him to join them.

[sansational]

Just for the hell of it, Sans flings up his arms as well. "music room!" he confirms, and his voice is barely louder than theirs', especially in the ringing silence left by the fading notes. After that, he needs no further prompting to hasten over to join them at the ivories.

"you look like you've settled in pretty well. never took you for the piano type, honestly." Frisk never seemed nearly explosive enough.

"man, mettaton and ryoji are gonna have a field day with this."

[antitemporal]

Noise. Loud noise. Very loud noise.

Sans-Serif is not a fan of loud noises, especially when they come up all of a sudden. He can just about handle storms, if he sticks close by S-4 or Tauriel.

Neither of them are nearby when the almighty boom of those notes echoes through the hallways. So Sans-Serif lets out a startled shriek, stumbling over to the nearest dark corner and curling up until the echoes die away.

When he can force his eyes to open again, the first thing he does is peer anxiously out the windows. Only to be confronted with a day that was as bright and sunny as it was five minutes ago. That is...odd, and even with his fairly limited experience with weather, Sans-Serif knows that that shouldn't be right. Then he realizes that the noise hadn't come from outside at all, it had come from inside the castle, and what if it's something dangerous? He needs to find out what so he can warn people...

The sight that greets him when he peers anxiously around the door into the music room, however, is incomprehensible enough that Sans-Serif even momentarily forgets his fear.

"...wh-what?"

OH NO

[dustless]

Frisk keeps 'playing' a little bit. The cacophony was surprisingly fun, but they can only smash around on the keys for a little while before that gets dull.

So he'll get to see them on the chair-stool thing, plinking on individual keys, and the weird foot-keys they discovered when they first sat down.

They glance over their shoulder, not enough to really see the expression on his face. "Serif! Found a thing! Dunno what it's called." They poke a key again, waving him over with their other hand.

[antitemporal]

He hesitantly waves back. "th-that's okay!" He doesn't know what any of this is called.

The noise is much softer, like that, but it's still recognizable as the origin of the loud noise from earlier. So Sans-Serif flinches without thinking about it, ducking his head reflexively.

...but, Frisk seems like they're having fun. So it's probably not dangerous. He's probably just being scared of nothing. He inches into the room properly and creeps across the floor to join them. The organ is very big and casts a very large shadow - he can't help but stare up at it. Normally, he likes hiding in shadows, and now he's hiding in one with a friend. So that's nice.

"what's it for?" He still sounds faintly suspicious.

[mettaton_rex]

They've attracted the attention of one Mettaton, at least. Although he doesn't really notice Frisk is there, at first, too distracted by the sight of the pipe organ. The rest of the room looks inviting, too, but that's just magnificent.

"Oh my god. I want five of those."

Only bigger, and more Mettaton-shaped. Obviously.

[dustless]

He'll notice once they lean their hands on another couple of keys.

"Don't think there are five, this is the first...this...I've seen here," Frisk tells him over their shoulder. They still sound excited, because who wouldn't want something like it?

[mettaton_rex]

That does get his attention on them, yes.

His expression stiffens. "Oh. Hello again - Frisk. That is your name, isn't it?"

He's perfectly calm. Perfectly.

[mediadarling]

It's only thanks to large amounts of practice that Mettaton keeps his balance when a thunderous chord positively shakes the castle walls. As it is, he totters around on his heels and nearly turns an ankle-joint. If that knockoff did this, he swears....

But it's not the knockoff--instead, it's his beloved nibling who's responsible, and the moment he arrives and lays eyes on them, he's beaming.

"Darling, you nearly gave me a heart attack! Or, well, the equivalent of one," he adds, because while it's a useful line he hears all the time in movies, it's not strictly accurate. "When in the world did you find all this?"

[dustless]

"Sorry!" They don't sound the slightest touch apologetic.

They plonk out a tune--it's sort of the MTT theme, if he focuses really hard and wants to hear it, maybe--and then gets up to bound over to him. "Just a little bit ago! Bet it'll help in the performance a lot. If it stays. Better stay." They give the ceiling a sharp look, as if admonishing the room in advance if it shifts.

[mediadarling]

"It had better indeed, or I will have words with it."

Even though he's positively dying to explore the room, first things come first: he joins Frisk at the organ, squeezing in on the seat with them.

"I see you've found the loudest instrument in the room." He rests his hands on the keyboard without playing--for now. "Is it your favourite, sweetheart?"

[justletmewin]

Oh. Uh. That was loud. Squeezing his ears until the ringing stops, he looks around until he finds the music room himself. His confusion gone, his eyes widen in awe... he had never seen so many instruments in his life! It's his turn to check things out: pluck every string, press every key. He doesn't know how to play any of them, but it's nice to hear notes come out. One acoustic guitar stands out to him; it had the richest, most comforting sound. Eventually he makes his way to the back of the room, where the huge pipe organ waited and...

"Frisk? Is that you?"

[dustless]

Either whoever's checking the other instruments'll come by, or they'll leave; it's up to them. Frisk keeps playing around until the choice is made--

Chara? Are you there?

--but they're not expecting to hear that voice.

Their fingers freeze over the keys. "Asriel?" They turn halfway to stare.

[justletmewin]

Asriel stares right back. He knows he met a Frisk on the island before, but not the one who had... had died. Doppelgangers are no longer new to him, yet each Frisk who comes here always... stuns him. There's always that mixture of joy and guilt when he sees them.

"Howdy." He fumbles with the sleeves of his shirt. "I... guess I haven't changed back yet." Yet. No matter how secure he feels on the Island, there's always that niggling reminder. Always that possible chance.

[demonthatcomes]

The aviary, while interesting, is WAY too noisy for Chara to stick around long. The pipe organ interrupts the non-stop chatter of the birds and sends them flapping. Well, enough of that. Time to see if the tragic ghost of a musician haunted the castle; a musician so tragic they can only play a pathetic screech.

This is new. Chara had never been in an orchestral room before, so a lot of the instruments are unfamiliar to them. Unfortunately, they believed, music wasn't exactly their... forte.

"Oh. It's you, Frisk."

[dustless]

"It's you, Chara!" they return brightly.

They're sitting now, pressing their feet against the weird keys hidden on the floor beneath the normal hand-keys. "This sounds really cool, but I dunno why it has so many things to press."

[andthebat]

Roughly a moment after the explosion of noise fades out, Frisk will hear a muffled crash in the distance.

A minute or so later, the door to the music room opens and in storms a slightly dazed and annoyed looking Batman, with bits of twigs and leaves stuck in his fur. He halts only a foot or so into the room, noticing all the dust hanging about Absolutely Everywhere, and quickly moves a hand over his mouth and nose.

That done, he turns his head in the direction of the vibrations, looking for the fiendish culprit behind it all. And quickly spots...

"Frisk?" he says, his voice slightly muffled by the hand he has over his face.

[dustless]

Ah crap.

It's not exactly hard to work out at least some of what happened. Those ears of his are huge, after all.

They're on their feet and racing towards him almost as soon as they see him. "Batman?"