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Ophelia

Before Jade could reply, a man came up to us. He was the one who had just disappeared and come back with the green-skinned girl. Wasn’t that his sister?

“Excuse me,” he said with a quick bow, two fingers to my chest. People here were odd, but I did my best to follow suit by doing a quick reverence.

“I apologize, but I couldn’t help but overhear a little bit ago, you two were talking about dancing?”

I nodded, trying to force a smile and pretend this situation was normal. This was just any normal teenager. I was good at pretending, I could pretend he didn’t have pointed ears and mismatched eyes, or that he had recently seemed to disappear into thin air.

“Forgive me,” he offered his hand. “My name is Abirami.”

Jade crossed her arms, apparently unimpressed by him.

It was up to me to be friendly and make sure the situation went well.

I took his hand. His hands were much bigger and harder than mine, as I had expected.

“Ophelia,” I said, with a smile.

“Jade,” she said, much more shortly. She didn’t take his hand.

“Um, this might sound strange, but I have a bit of a huge favor to ask? My sister, Ku, her birthday is coming up soon, and-” He seemed to be doing everything to avoid our gazes. “-it’s hard to tell the passage of time in here, and I really don’t want to miss it.”

Did he want me to check my watch? I was completely lost trying to figure out what he was trying to ask.

“Um, could I ask you to put on a dance for her? She’s never seen anyone dance before. Well, at least not a professional or anything.”

I couldn’t think of anything I wanted less. I didn’t want to suffer under the scrutiny of people who expected something of me. On stage, it was different. Looking from the bright spotlights into the crowd, there were no faces, just an impersonal black mass. It was between me and the music. This was different, and I didn’t want it.

I didn’t want to say no. It was for his little sister. He was trying to be nice. I shot a glance at Jade, who probably didn’t have any compunctions around saying no.

Jade just stared directly at Abirami, who shifted his weight awkwardly and gestured vaguely.

“It’s not really her birthday, but she was abandoned as a baby and grew up on the streets, so we really don’t know what her birthday is. So we’ve been celebrating the day that she was adopted into our family ever since she came to us. You don’t have to do anything special or anything. She hates it when we make a big deal out of it.”

Now I certainly couldn’t say no. But the thought of saying yes made my stomach twist and turn upside down. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t good enough. I was going to embarrass myself and let down everyone.

“What do you think?” I whispered to Jade. I didn’t know what I wanted her to answer. I felt bad for Abirami and especially Ku. He was just trying to make her feel special.

Jade seemed to make up her mind. I was just relieved I didn’t have to decide.

“We’ll do it on one condition.”

“What condition?” Abirami asked, uncertainly.

Jade grinned, the same wickedly amused grin Athena had when she’d just worked out something. “We’ll dance, but only if you participate.”

I could now think of one thing I wanted less than to dance before these people. That would be to dance before these people with Abirami.

“You want me to dance?” Abirami asked, apparently as thrown off by the idea as I was.

“Hey, you’re the one asking us for a favor,” Jade said, apparently reveling in her control of the situation. “It’s only fair that you take part in it yourself. Besides-” Jade said, shooting me a smile. “he looks like someone who could handle a lift.”

What difference did that make? If it just relied on strength, that wasn’t the least problem, but he had no idea what he was doing. If he put me down clumsily I could twist my ankle, if he got in my way either of us could get injured. I couldn’t get injured now, it was so close to the show. There were a thousand reasons this couldn’t work.

But it wasn’t up to me.

Abirami was already nodding.

“Um, thank you!” he bowed again, stepping back toward the door. “Let me go get my garb, then we can start whenever you wish.”

Jade watched him go with something between amusement and frustration.

“I thought that would dissuade him,” she said, less than thrilled with this development.

Apparently, he was more set on it than either of us had figured.

I sighed and sat down, then pulled out the few pins holding my hair back. I shook it loose, then pulled a comb from my bag and pulled it all back into a tight bun. Thankfully, I always had a ridiculous amount of pins. I pinned the hair net over it, satisfied with the pull at the nape of my neck.

“Do you need pins?” I asked Jade, offering her some of mine. She could take her time getting ready.

Another one of the problems was the floor. It was smooth, too smooth. If I tried dancing on pointe I was going to slip, and I didn’t have anything to roughen the soles of my shoes.

I took off my shoes and dug around in my dance bag. (Yes I know this is slightly incongruent but there’s no other way for me to make it work XD)

I pulled on leg warmers, then my demi-pointes, the soft leather slippers I used when pointe wasn’t necessary. I was not going on pointe on these floors. I couldn’t change completely, but my clothing wasn’t restrictive so I’d be fine.

I stretched my legs ahead of me and started warming up. The routine was so ingrained in me that it barely took a thought, so I dedicated that to worrying.

For example, how was I supposed to handle a performance with two people I didn’t even know? Especially anything involving a partner, and even more especially a partner who had no clue what he was doing.

I brought my right foot up to my left knee, then leaned forward, gripping my left foot and letting out a slow breath. I felt it all along my legs and my back, even though I’d done it dozens of times by this point.

It had taken Malcolm and me weeks before we managed to work together for our pas de deux. And Malcolm was better than I was, probably better than most others in the class.

I had started off star-struck that I had somehow been deemed worthy of dancing with him, but that had faded fast. Not in disappointment, but rather the opposite. Malcolm was probably even better than I had thought, but I could keep up with him, although it took everything I had.

Perhaps that was why Malcolm had always been better than I was. He did give everything he had. He worked a little harder, a little longer. He put in more effort than I ever had. I think he loved it a little more than I did too. It was everything to him.

It made me jealous. I wished I could love something so single-mindedly, I wished for the tenfold joy Malcolm seemed to find when something finally went right.

More than jealousy was the drive that I had to keep up. I couldn’t be the person holding him back, so I had to be just as good, or even better.

Malcolm was more critical than I ever was, though he had never once shot me a cutting remark, even when annoyance seemed to radiate off him. All his criticism was directed inward. I knew that feeling too well.

Malcolm wasn’t scared of performances, he wasn’t scared of embarrassing himself. After all, why should he? He didn’t fail at everything, he was always the one in front, not the one falling short every time.

If he could do it, perhaps I would too someday. I would try to keep up with him for just a little longer. And that included today. I got up, carefully feeling for any stiffness I had left. I found it and twisted into a different stretch, wincing as the stiffness pulled. I could handle this. If it went wrong, nobody would ever find out.

I spotted Cal, watching us from a corner, arms crossed.

“Don’t break yourself in half,” Cal said, ironically.

She would tell everyone. She would relish in the chance to embarrass me, to pull me down from whatever pedestal she had put me on.

Now I was more terrified than ever.

___________

That was actually really interesting to write! It was fun to spend more time on Ophelia’s relationship with ballet.

I wasn’t expecting Ophelia to be reluctant to agree. She’s always seemed like something of a show-off to me, who just loves to be in the spotlight. Apparently, that’s not all of it.

Also, Malcolm is another one of my main characters. I love him a lot, I want to try to get him in the castle sometime!

@e-n-leonard

I hope I wrote Jade right!