Angel of Music

The door to Ayame's room was thick, wooden, and very nearly soundproof. In fact, the excited chattering on the far side came only to his ears as a muted whisper. This was not, in Ayame's opinion, a bad thing.

The windows to Ayame's room were thick, heavy, and very nearly opaque. In fact, the bright moonlight outside filtered in as only the merest illumination, enough to see by but only with great exertions of the imagination. This, in Ayame's opinion, was a bad thing. He stumbled about blindly until his roaming fingers came in contact with a suspiciously rectangular box, then blinked as the match he struck flared into life. The dangerous portion of the evening over, it took only moments to light the forty-two candles dispersed liberally around the dresser.

"Much better," Ayame said with a satisified nod. He turned to the full-length wall mirror to the left of the dresser and contemplated his reflection for a moment. That last seam down the side - the one he'd completed fifteen minutes before the opera began - really was rather crooked, he decided. He would have to fix that before the next performance. That gave him just under twenty-four hours; plenty of time. No, the problem was not the seam. The problem, he thought, was the veil. Or rather, the lack thereof. He had discussed the issue at length with Iruka, one of the new managers, and with Iaani, the actual head of the costuming department (officially, that title belonged to some woman named...well, some other woman, but her complete lack of skill, dedication, and above all presence had deprived her of the true position). Iaani had not been entirely enthusiastic, but had agreed that given sufficient time a solution could perhaps be worked out - time that they didn't have before the first showing, unfortunately. So the matter had been set aside temporarily. Just something else to deal with in the morning.