Mardoña enters the room, strumming her guitar and smiling brightly at him, "My Bonnie lies over the ocean..." She sings nicely, trying not to laugh, "My Bonnie lies over the sea...My Bonnie lies over the ocean....Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me..." (familiar-but-not)
With Francisco, Elena and the rest of his familysinging their heart out often and loudly (sometimes with the chirpy assisstencefrom the servants) he usually didn’t feel like adding to all the noise.Nonetheless he would bet he first to acknowledge that silence, one enforced andseemingly endless, can be suffocating. Such as the silence that strangled thefree speech and music in Avalor in the not-so-distant past.
Today he woke up with a melody in his ear. One hecouldn’t rid off, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the matters ofstate. After a few hours of fruitless resistence, he decided to yield. Thistune was similar to Elena in that it didn’t give up until it led him to a placehe didn’t want to be and roped him into something he didn’t plan.
The place was called Music room because it was theroom for storing sheet music and instruments. It has suffered, like anythingrelated to music, but the renovations were going alright. Esteban picked up hiscitar and played a few tones.
Then he recalled the pesky melody and startedplaying. It was an old ballad. The lyrics were trite, with phrases that werethought cliché hundred years ago already but the melody itself was captivating,yet sad. “No,“ Esteban correctedhimself in his mind,“that’s not it.Nostalgic, that’s the word I’m looking for.“
As he finished a self-confident, satisfied smile hascrept on his lips. No matter how old he will get, he will never forget how tostrum a guitar. In this moment Mara walked in singing a folk song and caughthim gazing almost dreamily on his instrument. „My Bonnie is over the ocean, myBonnie is over the sea. My Bonnie is over the ocean, oh bring back my Bonnie tome.“ A song once very popular among the sailor’s and their families as it isabout a sailor’s wife missing her husband who has left on a ship.
He turned to his friend who liked to sing this song,too, despite not being a sailor nor one’s wife. Mara would use this song andespecially the word bonnie to tease him. Thanks to her, Bonnie has become hisnickname. She has never played it to him on a guitar until today though.
„I see you have finally learned how to play thatsilly old song.“
