There are, on the third Monday of January, 2005, two main sources of drama in the Forks High School cafeteria.

The first is that there's a new girl in attendance.

The second is more concentrated: known to fewer people but of hightened importance.  (Not that the competition is substantial.)  Superficially it's less so: merely a postcard.  But one with the potential to lead to danger, and the certainty of leading to discussions of how to avoid it.

A third item of interest is surprising in that it is not the subject of drama, when really it ought to be.  Normally someone playing music during lunch would be stopped quite swiftly by a teacher, especially if it were as loud as this.  And if for some reason permission had been given, surely the other students would be grumbling, at least internally, at the antiquated style.  It's pretty, and not something Eugene's heard before, which is surprising, too, given his extensive interest.  Flittering instrumentals fill the room -

. . . or - hm.  Do they really?

The thoughts of Eugene's family members (or the closest five, physically) are on a variety of subjects.  Dread in remembering a twin, less mature in both years and ideals; worry, bifolded for loves romantic and personal; annoyance at the thought of moving, of inconvenience, masking a hint of fear; trust, security, a confidence (perhaps undersubstantiated, but not truly unwarranted) that however this turns out all of them will make it through all right.

And not a hint of curiosity, not about the music which rolls and flows and occasionally pauses the way a drop of water accumulates force against its surface tension before swelling enough to drip off whatever overhang supports it.  It's enchanting, unpredictable.  And apparently: nonexistent.

Maybe his mind has finally snapped, but there is one potential explanation somewhat closer to hand . . .

The music stutters, motifs abandoned, as a different line comes in, swelling strings and wordless vocals in a golden tenor, complicated interplaying harmonies replaced by arching sostenuto.

The girl's attendance is perhaps a more interesting subject than Eugene had credited.  He turns his head but not his attention back to his tablemates.

The chord shifts when he does, and more-complicated patterns trickle their way back in under the held notes a few seconds later.

Eugene had previously been actively tuning out the other students, as usual; now he listens for information about the new one.

The probable source of the music is one Isabella or Izzy Swan, freshly living in Forks though she'd visited before.  She's pretty and cool and maybe the slightest bit weird and/or rude, the last opinion especially shared by the other children seated at her table, though it fades mostly away in short order.

Some of the interest in her is romantic.

Infuriating.  Teenagers and their shallow attractions are an annoyance he's accustomed to, but normally they aren't in the way of anything genuinely interesting.

Well she's got pretty hair and probably a nice body under that hoodie; her hands are delicate enough except that her nails and the skin around them are pretty chewed up.  Also a couple people like vaguely know or know of her dad.

None of that is helpful for understanding the music, which is the thing he actually cares about.

It's still beautiful, though, enough to distract him from his frustration.  The structure is all over the place; it's certainly no fugue, but there's something compelling about it nonetheless, both in moment-to-moment pleasantness and in the directions it takes.  And there is direction, even as lines are cut off abruptly or the melody scatters in six different directions - it reminds him of one of his phases in the thirties, a little, when he was experimenting with how far a vampire's attention and precision could stretch the boundaries of listenability.

. . . It's apparently beautiful enough to distract him from the end of lunch period, too, something he's normally acutely aware of his temporal distance from.  His siblings have to prod him biology-wards, and off he goes, listening to the music and testing how far away he can hear it from, whether he's already gained enough familiarity that it's further than when he approached.

It doesn't cut out the whole way to biology.  In fact, Eugene can pick up from the other students that the new girl's class schedule overlaps with his, here.

Finally, something useful.  This part of his day is going to be so much more tolerable from now on, and he'll have the chance to make conversation, maybe find out -

You know what happens here already
I'm not the first to tell this tale
Our dearest brooding sadboy Eddie
is put to test, to nearly fail.
The question which remains unseen
is how things differ for Eugene
And for his song-brained double singer
Where moth extends from swan and ringer:
1)  Her music, boon and bane,
2)  A lessened appetizing
3)  Her hapless fantasizing
The cause: 4) shadows' changed refrain.
And as Eugene reins in his thirst
'About three things': here's one such first.

(By tragedy, it's not the worst.)

To understate, she smells amazing
He knows her blood won't go unspilt,
And so Eugene begins appraising
efficient ways to hide his guilt.
No doubt that she's already dead
No doubt her purpose, being bled.
And though he sees, too, his repenting,
The certainty is unrelenting.
He hardly can contain his hate,
For her, the source of his corruption,
Himself, the cause of life's disruption
And lastly for the whims of fate.
He'll start with her, and then move on
till class and teacher are dead and gone.

And then - the piece of luck to save him -
A notebook closed, a breath of air
That only which could work to stave him
enough to hear the music there
Reminding him the stone's not set:
He hasn't truly killed her yet.
And till he has, there's hope remaining.
He settles in, his muscles straining
against the urge, with focused will
(he thirsts for death, ambrosia flowing -
her fragile human heartbeat slowing - )
He'll hold completely - perfect - still.

It's just one class; he can endure
Or so he hopes - thinks - no, he's sure.

The music changes in response to this, synchronized with the girl's external response, in case Eugene still harbored any doubt about whether her thoughts were its source.  It shifts rapidly through several completely different songs, sometimes doubling back to continue the one that was playing half a second ago, until it settles on something rife with uneasy harmonic tension as she sits down.  Right next to him.

Now that they're in a separate environment, he can tell there are some proper motifs going on - snatches of melody he heard in the cafeteria are popping up here and again.  Maybe if he had more context he could connect them to what they mean.  Some of the movements have similar tunes but with completely different instrument palates.

She draws through the class, he can tell by the character of her pencilings' noises, but the far corner of her paper, where she works, is just out of his sightline.

He's certainly not going to look over to see what it is.  He's quite sure that if he moves anything, even his eyes, she'll be dead, and that can't happen - she's just a girl, she's done nothing wrong, he'll be even more of a monster - and besides that she's a person and he turned his back on killing those even when they're not so clearly innocent as she is - and she's incredibly interesting and he wants to know everything about her, but that's secondary to the fact that she's a person and he has no right to her life.

The music is a help and a hindrance, because on the one hand it's a concrete reminder that she's a living, breathing being with inherent worth, who's also valuable to him in a completely selfish sense; he wants her alive alive alive.  But it's also distracting.  Mostly a good thing, but a time or five he feels himself get swept up with it enough that he almost goes for her neck without thinking.

Hold still hold still hold still hold - what is that instrument, it's not quite a theremin, and not not-quite one in the direction of a syn - hold still hold still hold still.

Her page rips, and she jumps - there's a tenor to her thoughts not quite the same as when he startled her earlier - she's looking at him, for a split second.

hold still hold still hold still

More of the harmonic tension comes back in, with - almost a flickery sort of quality, underneath.  Very tight chords.

And then it resolves - somewhat - as she turns back to her notebook.  There's paper tearing, and - he still can't see the product of her penciling, but he can hear that this time it's writing.  She slides it well into his view.

Are you okay?

That's - very sweet.  He - don't move - really doesn't want to kill her; he already didn't but this helps.  It gives him something to anchor on.

...It begins to feel like a possibility, that he could move and yet leave her living.  Convenient, given that it will be suspicious in the extreme if he fails to respond.  And yet - he can't seem to make himself do it, the mantra of stillness having apparently succeeded.  He feels his response time slip into the seconds.

How about this:  He'll say 'Not really,' in three-two-one, counted as thirty-second notes to a second's measure; three two one -

He'll say it after a full measure, counting sixteenths, how about; it really doesn't make sense, anyway, to frame something in powers of two and then use three of them; what nonsense; of course that wouldn't work: 1e&a2e&a3e&a4e&a -

Fine.  He's going to count out four full human seconds, in their entirety, and after that he will have responded to the girl's question.

One.  This is ridiculous, taking up this much time for a basic response.  He feels like a fool.  But his more-sensibly-timed attempts failed...

Two.  Maybe part of the issue is that he's being overambitious in trying to speak?  He'll downgrade to shaking his head no, perhaps; that might be the key.  Refraining from using his breath means there's no chance of accidentally-on-purpose inhaling afterward.  Just because social maneuvering is something that normally comes easily to him doesn't mean that it currently does.  This sort of body language will be sufficiently communicative.

Three.  Or should he nod?  No, no, he's clearly not fine, not remotely, and... he doesn't want to lie to her, he realizes.  Even if it would be a realistic way for a character to act, if Eugene the seventeen-year-old human who attends this school would lie and say he's fine, a basic social nicety that preserves his aloofness in spite of its obvious uncredibility - Eugene the hundred-and-four-year-old vampire doesn't want to.  Some amount of hiding behind a persona is necessary, but this instance isn't.

Four.  The music is so pretty, so intricate both in its construction and in its execution.  The pieces of it are all so different from each other, but they have that in common.  He wants to listen to it until he understands it, until he can guess where it's going...

He puts his hands on the table to make sure he has her attention, and shakes his head, minutely.

Success - and now he's proven to himself that he can move without killing her.  He should, he concludes near-immediately, use this ability for the end of not pushing his luck any further.  And now he's back to wanting to remain still, relatively; it wouldn't do to have gone through all this only to move visibly faster than a human can.  He counts out two measures and with great deliberateness - slowly, slowly - gathers his effects, and does not lunge for the girl's neck, and walks out of the room.  He's a musician, by God, and he will keep time.  What kind of amateur speeds up against the written tempo - his feet will fall, perfectly, on the half notes, in the direction of the door, and not anywhere or anywhen else.  His half notes, which are considerably shorter than those representing the girl's thoughts - but he's preserving the chance to hear more of that later exactly by leaving the room in a minimally-suspicious manner.  Step step step step step step door open step step turn look at the girl, her throat, her flesh - DON'T do that - door close.