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Carlo Gepetto is dead and Lea's world has fallen silent.
No music. No laughter. She sits in her empty room and can barely even hear the beat of her heart inside her own chest. She cries but the tears are silent now, her throat still raw from all the curses she had screamed to the heavens the night of his passing. Everything is different because of the lack of one person. One young man who had always, always undervalued himself. One gentle soul with a sharp tongue who hadn't realised that he held the rest of them together.
Life imitates art she thinks, blankly, as if words make any sense to her any more. She's covered the treasured painting on her wall but she can still see that day so clearly. She had been trying to get out of playing with her apprentices for months but, like with everything else, they had found a way around her. Once she finally took out her violin, Romeo had beamed at her with all the radiance of a summer's day and nearly tripped on his cello in his hurry to get back to his seat. Carlo had laughed at him, given them both a truly unguarded smile and begun to play the piano, beautifully as always, and she had almost been afraid to join them when her part came. Yet as soon as she started to play, the world just melted away to nothing but the music, a world of happiness and harmony and love without words.
And through that life-changing, miraculous moment, Carlo had been the melody guiding them. He had set the key, the pace, the style. Life imitates art, and together they made a perfect ensemble. They had made beautiful music together, beautiful memories. With their instruments, and their weapons, and their belief in justice and truth. They had been ready to change the world, to strip away the corruption and rewrite the melody of Krat in a kinder key. It had seemed possible with all three of them.
But without him, the two of them are... well. Her violin has a thin patina of dust over it. Romeo's cello case has become a makeshift table in the corner of his room. There's no point in music now that Carlo's gone; nobody else seems to understand that. Without Carlo, she's unable to hide how broken she's been from the start. Her polished facade has shattered and everyone can see the way she truly is, the wreck of a heart she's always hidden. Romeo is the only one who doesn't try to fix her. He's broken too but his wounds are more fresh, something whole and wonderful tarnished by grief. She wishes she could fix the both of them but if she knew how to do that maybe Carlo wouldn't have died under her tutorship in the first place.
She didn't deserve him. She doesn't deserve Romeo either. Especially not now. But he needs someone and even if she wanted to, she doesn't think she'd be able to leave him now. Even if it means braving a silent and hollow world with a false smile, even if it means taking the lead herself. She wishes Carlo could have left her a manuscript for that instead of all those piano books; she never was good at improvisation. But she has to try.
She won't fail again. No matter what it takes.