She was the first thing the Music Meister saw waking up on the beaches of Normandy.

He'd been in and out of consciousness for some time now, how long, he couldn't tell. When he was on the verge, he would see visions: bats, clowns, canaries. He wouldn't always see all three at the same time, but he would always see at least one. The only real and consistent thing in his life, as long as he could remember, was the ocean blue-it's turbulent, violent waves throwing him under the water only for him to bob his way back to the surface. When he would dream, he would only see water and waves. Sometimes there would be birds or maybe even the moon. He could tell what the constellations were but he did not even know who he was or why he was.

There were other little things he inherently was aware of: he was male, his hair was red, and he could sing. He could sing really, really well.

Sometimes, when he felt that he wouldn't make it much longer without food or water and his throat was dry, he would hum in some uplifting pattern that would give him just enough strength to make it a little farther. Just a little farther.

Suddenly, he was on a beach. The gruff sand rubbed against his skin, and he was being dragged. He opened his eyes, and three women were pulling him by his arm. Their hands were hard and calloused, and their pull was powerful. Then his vision began to focus, and he found there was just the one. She was dirty blonde and short; her hair reached down to the bottom of what looked like a nightgown. Just then, she turned around, and he saw the most beautiful angel. Her eyebrows were furrowed from the strain of pulling his dead weight.

It was cute, really.

Her blue eyes stood out even in the purple sky of the dawn. It was still dark outside and yet she shone with the light of a million suns.
"Don't give up on me!" she urged. Then she turned back around to focus all of her energy towards forwarding their momentum.

He would've done anything for that voice. So warm and inviting. Her accent was so richly French-oh, the language of love. If not already halfway dead, his heart would have skipped a beat. He wanted to stay, he did, but his vision began to double, triple, quadruple. He was so tired. So very tired.

The next time he opened his eyes he was in a cot, and his arms and legs were strapped down. He didn't struggle. He was too weak for a struggle, and he didn't think he had any reason to be afraid. He remembered the woman and thought there was no need for her to try so hard to save him if she was going to harm him.

"Hello?" he called out, weakly. When no one came immediately, he began to look around. To his left, he saw a tin of La Trinitaine butter cookies and a glass of water sitting on a nightstand. There was a box TV beyond that, and it was switched on. It was a small screen so he couldn't see the faces very clearly, but it looked like the news. It had the most color of everything in the room. The walls and bedsheets were all baby blue. The carpet on the floor and the ceiling were both off-white. The colors that floated on the screen of the TV didn't even seem to be real.

A news bulletin flashed across the screen. A woman's head appeared on the screen, and although he heard the French, he understood it perfectly.

"Massacre in Arkham Asylum! Three days removed from the attempted escape of the animal supergenius Gorilla Grodd that resulted in the deaths of multiple prison guards and two prison inmates, and there is still no decision on what to do with the enormous supervillain who still maintains his innocence." Then, the screen split in half and he could see a man in the other box, "And now, more from our Gotham correspondent Justin Dupont as details are released on the victims of this tragedy. Justin."

"Thank you, Alice. Just three hours ago, Gotham PD released the names of the three security guards but not inmate who was killed. Correctional officers James Beatty, Doug Caldwell, and Raymond Best were victims of the onslaught of inmates as they attempted to escape from the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. They are still performing identification and will have an official statement out shortly." His heart was pounding for some reason. There was something about this story that was just so vaguely familiar.

"A tragic and unnecessary situation, Justin. What can you tell us about the escaped inmates and what is being done to determine what role Gorilla Grodd played in all of this?" Alice asked.

"Yes, the night of the escape, over 50 of those criminals trespassed onto Wayne Manor and attempted to take Bruce Wayne, the owner of Wayne Industries, hostage. However, their attempt was brought down by Starling City's Green Arrow who has been in and out of the public view for some time now. We can confirm at this time that Bruce Wayne was not harmed. As far as the role Gorilla Grodd played in all of this, much of the evidence that would have been available went up in smoke as shortly after the inmates were apprehended, Arkham was destroyed by a series of bombs that went off. Insider sources say that they heard laughter coming from inside before the explosions erupted and that there was a secret tunnel beneath the asylum that was large enough for an animal the size of Gorilla Grodd to fit through. At present time, that is the only evidence available and the primate is still at large."

The two correspondents carried on talking, but he wasn't listening. It felt like he was back at sea again. The light blue on the walls served as the sky and the ceiling was the clouds. What did he know about a hole or even this "insane asylum?" It was all so frustrating and nauseating. How did he know Green Arrow and why did hearing his name cause his heart to hurt?

He heard a door close as two pairs of footsteps made their way towards him.

Justin Dupont continued in his coverage, "-death penalty. Pressure from animal rights activists has delayed any kind of decision being made from the District Attorney's office. Alice?"

"Thank you, Justin. Come back for our evening coverage as we bring more details to light in-"
"This just in, Alice! Gotham PD has just released the name of the inmate who was killed in the escape: The Music Meister," and now, he was in a desert. His mouth was dry and he desperately needed a drink of water for fear that he could asphyxiate on sand, "We are working on uploading a picture as soon as possible, but the Music Meister is best known for his attempt at world domination by controlling the entire planet's population through song. If it were not for the efforts of Batman and Black Canary, he would have likely succeeded."

Black Canary.

Black Canary.

Who was this "Black Canary?" And Batman? What kind of name was that? And why was he angry when he heard the name?

He needed to know who this "Music Meister" was. He had to have been a pretty bad guy for him to almost succeed in taking over the world.

"Here is an image of the Music Meister taken as he raced through the streets of Gotham attempting to outrun Batman," the pop-up began to appear on the screen, but then the screen clicked off.

A short, burly man with enough hair on his arms and face to provide enough fire for a month stood there by the TV box, "Hope you've been enjoyin' your complimentary stay," he spat. His muttonchops connected with his mustache and the combo hid his mouth from public view. The man's nose was the size of a lemon. He could've been snarling, grinning, frowning, and his face wouldn't look any different. His skin was tanned and leathery.

He wore a tight-fitting white t-shirt, dirtied overalls, and spotless combat boots. They looked old, but he obviously went to great lengths to keep them in prime condition.

But his accent, what was this accent? It was thick with something, but he couldn't pick his finger on it. It was almost a mixture of every continental European language.

"Gonna say 'tank ya'?" He said. Was that an attempt to mock him or was he genuinely asking for a thank you?
"I'll get right to it," he strolled to the bedside, "You've got the hair of the Devil, and those purple eyes of yours don't scare me none. Dianne may have raised you from perdition, but I have no qualms throwing you right back out-"

"Dad," there was that voice again.

She stepped through the door frame, now wearing blue jeans and a blue, tucked-in button-up. She'd been hard at work-her dirty blonde hair was matted to her face, and mud was drying on her legs. This was a farm, of some sort. Dianne wasn't rough and jaded like her father, but she was no-nonsense and stubborn. She could outwork a dozen Spaniard bulls, but she could soothe an angry giant(and with a father like hers, it was a necessary skill).

It wasn't lost on their guest that her father believed him to be Irish, and so when asked what his name was, he responded with Fergus. Fergus MacConmara. The disdain in Dianne's father's eyes rose considerably, but he said nothing while she was present-she more often than not was. They asked him frequently if he remembered anything before Dianne saved him, and each time, he confirmed that he, in fact, remembered nothing. While masquerading as an Irishman, his voice needed to be flawless, but it wasn't hard for him. For some reason, the language and accent came naturally. Who knows, he may have been Irish after all.

They kept him strapped to the bed at all times unless to let him use the bathroom and to change clothes. Her father accompanied him and remained stationed outside the door. He didn't blame them for their caution. He didn't know if he was dangerous either, and the last thing he wanted to do was harm those that had given him a chance at life. Initially, he'd been strapped from his head, shoulders, arms, legs, and feet. However, as the weeks went by the restraints eased, and some two months later, he was allowed to sit up in bed with only his feet in shackles.

Every morning, before dawn, Fergus would hear the front door open. There'd be an hour to two hours of silence, and then the door would reopen and Dianne would come to his bedside. There was sand on her feet. He assumed this was a ritual of hers that began even before he appeared on the beach. They talked about a lot of things, mostly trying to get him to remember what he was before he washed up in the English Channel. Occasionally, they'd speak on international issues, but Dianne and her father weren't very inclined to pay attention to things that didn't concern them directly: a gorilla put to death, a tsunami in Indonesia, an intergalactic battle in space-it was all out of their control and they didn't want to spend a lot of time dwelling on those things.

Dianne was actually into interior design, but she was on paid leave until further notice. Why? She did not discuss it in great depth, but Fergus could see the pain in her face every morning when she returned. She'd lost someone-that much was clear to him. Dianne was beautiful, but seeing her every morning had become a poignant ritual.

There came a day when she stopped going to the beach, but he didn't want to make a big deal of it. Her dad, however, noticed.

"I see you've stopped torturing yourself," he'd said one day while he and Dianne were having breakfast.
Originally, it sounded like two people eating, but it was reduced to one, the sound of chewing greatly diminished. Then, softly, "If that's what you want to call it."

She sounded hurt. Dianne expected more compassion from her father, and frankly, so did Fergus and he didn't even know what the situation was.

Her father was quiet, but his voice carried so much force, Fergus could understand what was said through the vibrations in the floor, "I haven't been able to say Teddy's name for five months," there was a pause, and when he returned, his voice sounded congested, "Five months. Don't you think I've needed someone to talk to? While you've gone out to the Manche, I've watched my door waiting for my grandson to crawl through, and after five months he still doesn't. We've both suffered. We've both lost someone so when I ask if you've stopped torturing yourself, I'm asking if it's okay for me to stop, too."

There was a grandson: Theodore Tucci Rouse, or "Teddy," was Dianne's son. The father left once Dianne told him of the pregnancy, but her father was good enough to let both of them stay at home. He didn't look down on his daughter for her bad luck in finding a faithful companion, and he surely didn't love his grandson any less for being born out of wedlock. He just wished his wife would have been able to see how large their family had grown.

Dianne never told Fergus how Teddy died, but once they were married she told him that she'd stopped going to the beach because she had found that coming to see him let her feel much better than staring out into la Manche did. Five months after he'd been found, he was released from his chains-if he was to do something, it would've long been done. Her father protested it initially, but even he admitted it wouldn't hurt to have two more hands around the house and in the fields.

Fergus, however, by the second month, was beginning to remember that he wasn't actually Fergus.

At first, it was bits and pieces. He hand inklings of memories like when he induced Gorilla Grodd, Clock King, Black Manta, Aquaman, Black Canary and Green Arrow to dance in a conga line. It was so wacky it could be easily dismissed-why in the world would that be a real memory he had? There were vague thoughts of satellites and millions of people singing, but the thoughts felt more like an itch he couldn't scratch than any sort of urgency could have afforded.

He was also rediscovering his powers. There was a day once he was allowed to sit up in the bed where he found himself particularly happy. Dianne and he had had an especially good conversation that morning. She and her father were now in the kitchen, which he could see from his room, and they were silent. It wasn't a tense silence. It was more content. So he hummed a mindless tune. He thought about dancing. Not necessarily him, but he thought about people dancing and having a good time. It was like a ball or some formal event that was playing in his head.

Everything remained normal for a while, but then, something strange happened.

Dianne and her dad floated by his door, hand in hand, like ghosts. He watched them come back through, and they were dancing. Her father didn't look to be the ballroom dancing type, but they both looked splendid. They swayed and stepped to the rhythm in which he hummed; were they dancing to his tune? He hummed faster, and likewise, they began to dance faster.

How exhilarating!

Fergus felt this adrenaline bubbling deep inside of him. The things he could make them do. If he sang an aria, would they begin to act out the scene as he imagined it in his mind? If he sang a slow, melodious opera, would Dianne and her father wilt as Romeo and Juliet faded?

He stopped humming, realizing that he was becoming drunk on his own power. He remembered something from the news broadcast the day he woke up in the very same bed.

The Music Meister had attempted world domination through song.

Could he have been the same man? But they said he was dead, could he have been dead and right there all at the same time?

"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," Diane's dad said. He was sweating profusely.
"No, I don't know what happened either," she had her hand to her face, "I just really wanted to dance for some reason."

They both sat down and were asleep in minutes. Being controlled like that took a lot out of them, and so, he vowed to never use his voice in that way again. He planned to ask Dianne more about this Music Meister the next morning, but she didn't come to his bedside. With his vow of silence, he didn't see the need in bringing up a dead man anyway.

Then came the nightmares. Many of them were when he was in the school choir. The boys would break his music note, prescription glasses. Having purple eyes gave certain other colors a purple pigment. The girls would mock his hair, disguising it as jealousy. Then, there was the day he snapped and made one bully eat his whole lunch bag: the bag, the apple, the sandwich(and its saran wrap), and an ice pack. He was in the hospital for three months. The Music Meister made another boy run laps around the football field until his femur broke through his leg. He made a girl with long blonde hair use the water fountain to squirt water in her ear until the water came out all other holes in her face. The teachers attempted to remove her, but she had a death grip on the fountain. They could only make her stop once they disconnected the water source.

Fergus relived these memories but only as he slept. When he'd wake up, Dianne would always be there and she would comfort him. Sometimes he would tell her what he saw if it was palatable enough, but others, he was afraid that she would learn of who and what he was. A freak and a murderer.

It was five months after he was released from the chains of the bed that he and Dianne were married.

He didn't use his powers to convince her father, whose name was Geoffery, Fergus learned. He wasn't sure why her father finally changed his opinion of him, but he was glad that he did. Her father even let him propose to her with her mother's ring.

They were married on Utah Beach on April 13, 2020. In May, Dianne decided it was time for her to go back to work, and so they moved from Normandy to Thann Dánn. She returned to the same firm she was in before, and life was back to some semblance of normal for her. Fergus, who maintained that he had no skills and was too far along in life to learn anything new, worked from his computer.

Fergus meant what he had resolved to not do back in Dianne's home. He avoided any and all situations that would involve him singing because he knew trouble would follow. Ironically enough, trouble found them.

They were robbed. It was a simple robbery-no guns were fired and no one was hurt. They had gone to eat and were walking back to their vehicle when a man jumped from the inside of an alley and pulled Dianne inside. It was none other than Charlie Hassan with a knife to Dianne's neck, and he flashed a tattoo: a knife embedded in a rose bush. He demanded all the cash they had, Fergus' watch, and Dianne's wedding ring. Fergus had tried to bargain: anything except the wedding ring. It was all Dianne really had to remember her mother by, but Hassan relayed that Fergus wasn't in a position to haggle. The ring came off and Hassan disappeared into the night.

Something clicked inside of Fergus when he saw how brave Dianne was trying to be. She put on a strong face, but her eyes were hurt. She knew there was nothing Fergus could have done, but it didn't make everything okay, either. Fergus decided he was going to get the ring back, and if he had to fight every bad guy on the way to the top, he would most certainly do that-for Dianne. Trying to investigate the Troubadours led him to fighting the Ducard Assassins, Manchester Black, the Royal Flush Gang. The connection he had made provided him with his suit and he crafted his own technology. He had opened Pandora's Box but for a noble cause.

So maybe his powers weren't a bad thing as long as he used them for the right reasons. Those reasons led to him skydiving onto an illegal art show where he was sure the ring would be up for auction. As he felt the wind rushing against his face during his free fall, a moment occurred to him that maybe once this was all over, he would reveal to Dianne who he really truly was.

Songbird shook his head clear.

She could never know.