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In the end, the conductor never showed up; not that day, not the next week, not a month later when Liana gave up even the pretence of playing her violin between leading the orchestra from one piece to the next. Hawke could have been a master conductor for all she knew, but instead, she found herself leading the entire orchestra on the merits of a single conducting elective she took 3 years ago.
But that was months away; today, Liana idly plucked at her instrument, blissfully unaware of her future responsibilities. All around her, musicians chattered idly, violins perched in laps or hanging off music stands like lines of oddly shaped laundry. A little further away, Blackwall was leaned down over his double bass to exchange quiet words with Cole; a moment later, he nearly dropped his instrument as Dorian blasted a piercing trumpet fanfare.
At the front of the orchestra, Cassandra paced restlessly down the aisle, hands twitching toward her pocket as if considering phoning Hawke for a fourth time that morning. Leliana leaned against a pew a few feet away, making marks on a score as, beside her, Dagna conferred with her in high pitched, excitable tones audible even over the idle fiddling and fluting of the orchestra.
"Do we have someone for the piano solo?" Dagna asked, tucking her pencil into her bun before resuming shuffling through crisp, white scores half her height. "I know you were having trouble finding a pianist but the piece just didn't feel right without it, and I haven't written for piano in so long it's actually kind of refreshing you know?"
"It works very well," Leliana agreed, and Dagna beamed. "In any case, you needn't worry; I asked Morrigan."
"Perfect." Dagna flipped another page with a humming noise. "And then the piccolo—Vivienne?"
Leliana gave an inelegant snort. "You must be joking. Vivienne? 'My dear,'" she said in an exaggerated rendition of Vivienne's dulcet tones, "'nothing could tempt me to touch that awful screeching instrument.'"
Dagna laughed.
"Forget Hawke," Cassandra said suddenly, and the two of them fell silent, watching as she pivoted on the spot, raising her voice to call out over the chatter of the orchestra: "Let's tune, and then we can start going over some of the material."
There was a murmur of assent, and the rest of the stray instrumentalists made their way back to their seats. Varric gave a wide yawn, viola settled under one arm like a guitar. "Not a great start," he said, plucking at his viola as if for emphasis. Cassandra shot him a venomous look.
Varric had a point though, Liana thought, watching as the second violins murmured among themselves, only to be shushed by Harding a few moments later. Half the people assembled hadn't even known about this group for more than a week, and Cassandra had only managed to persuade Liana because she was short on gigs this month. If the conductor didn't even want to be here, she was better off forgetting about the entire thing before it collapsed around her.
As if reading her thoughts, Cassandra chose this moment to loudly clear her throat; Liana startled, shooting Cassandra a guilty look, but Cassandra just gestured at her impatiently.
Oh, right.
Liana jumped to her feet, violin dangling loosely from one hand. "Go on, then," she said with a wave at the winds, and Cassandra played an A, the sound echoing around the small church.
By the time it came for the strings to tune, the other sections were already dissolving into idle chatter; and the cellos had barely finished before Dalish and Skinner's bows were skittering across the strings as if music was a race and they were going to win. Cassandra turned in her seat to exchange an exasperated look with Leliana; beside her, Josephine gave a half-shrug that was only just visible behind the large bass drum. Whatever she said next was lost beneath the steady tam tam-tam tam of Cullen's mallets on the timpani.
Leliana caught Bull's eye. and he nodded. "Hey!" he bellowed, and silence fell like a crash of cymbals. "Listen up," he said calmly, before gesturing at Leliana.
"Thank you, Bull," Leliana said. She tucked her mallets under one arm, paging through photocopied music. "Why don't we start with the Mendelssohn," she called.
"Yes, good idea," Cassandra agreed. There was a moment of silence as the entire orchestra looked up at the empty space where their conductor should have been. Cassandra made an impatient noise. "Liana, would you lead us in for the time being?"
"Oh, yeah, sure," Liana said. She stood and raised her violin to her chin, watching with some trepidation as a sea of faces turned to watch her. I'm sure glad I'm not the one holding the baton, she thought. Then, with exaggerated bobs of her instrument, she counted to four, and the orchestra began to play.