*Of Riots*
The weeks following Elodie's arrival in Winterwatch passed quickly, and she fell, quite easily, into the routine of the rest of the company, waking with the sun for breakfast and the morning practice, then lunching at a nearby eating house or at the main market in the square by the harbor breakwater, and then returning for the afternoon practice that sometimes lasted well into the night.
The new ballet that they had undertaken was called The Change of the Seasons, and, Elodie thought, it was possibly the hardest thing she had ever undertaken, except, maybe, her flight from North Avalon. Every night she collapsed into bed, her whole body shaking with exhaustion, and slept the night through, her sleep hardly troubled by her usual nightmares.
Once rehearsal had begun for the new ballet, Manon had stopped participating as a dancer, but joined M. Beaufort in watching and correcting the dancers. At first, she had tried to single out Elodie, pouncing on every opportunity to correct her, but, it seemed, as Elodie familiarized herself with the choreography, there was little Manon could find fault with. M. Beaufort, however, seemed never to be content with what she was giving him. Since Elodie was meant to be onstage for the entire duration of the ballet, barring intermission, he expected no less than perfection from her. He kept telling her to just let go! Elodie was finding this much easier said than done. It was one thing to lose herself in the dance when she was alone, lonely, and emotional–and wanted to lose herself!–and quite another, she was finding, to do it on command, in a crowded studio, with people she was coming to be more and more comfortable with.
Outside of practices, she was still only really close with Fleur. Though she liked Noah, she couldn't help but flinch when he, or any other man, besides M. Beaufort, touched her–even brushed her–when she was not dancing. Xavier was still cold and awkward with her, and Katia seemed to regard her with complete, admiral, indifference, and the rest of the ensemble dancers, besides Fleur, seemed to take their cues from Manon, who still seemed to dislike her.
Opening night of the ballet seemed to descend out of nowhere. They would be performing at the Royal Theatre, a tremendous honor, according to Fleur, and the Crown Prince would be coming. Elodie wondered if she should be worried about him recognizing her, but she reasoned that he already knew Donkeyskin was a dancer, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for him to accept that she had come to Winterwatch for that.
Backstage, before the show opened, Elodie was installed before a long mirror, Fleur on her right side, Katia on her left. They had all secured their hair in tight buns, held down with bucketloads–or, at least, what felt like bucketloads–of pins, hairnets, and gel. Now, they were painting their faces with the powders and colors that would keep their skin from shining in the light.
Fleur was attempting to talk Elodie through the routine, but, Elodie was finding, her friend was better at doing than explaining. She kept waving her brush around whenever she couldn't get her point across, and, really, that only served to confuse Elodie. Besides, Elodie, in her years as a princess, had developed some small skill with the paints and powders noble ladies used to decorate their faces, so she managed with this new task well enough.
By the time Manon came in to check all the women in the company, Elodie had arrived at some semblance of what Fleur had done to her face, and she felt content enough with her handiwork. Really, the audience would be far enough away that they wouldn't be able to tell if the kohl around her eyes was a little smudgy.
When Manon had declared that all the dancers' hair and faces were suitably arranged and decorated, they were dismissed to put on their costumes. Elodie slipped behind the curtain with Katia and Fleur, and took her costume off its hook. It was a dress made of soft, tan wool, embroidered across the breast with bright flowers in red, blue, black and white. it came only to her knees, and underneath she wore a pair of tight, white leggings, and black slippers that laced up to her knees. On her head, she wore a towering headdress of white linen, embroidered with red and black flowers.
The costumes, she and the other dancers had been told, were done in the style of the first people to settle the northern lands. The ballet told the story, rather loosely, of a tribe of these nomads, with a peculiar emphasis on the tradition of human sacrifice. The dances were unusual and unnatural, and the music was unlike that of any ballet Elodie had ever heard of.
Elodie loved it.
When every last dancer was in costume, they came together onstage to warm up together. Unlike most warm-ups, the dancers were quiet, each of them sinking into the place in their minds that they went to when the pressure of a show encroached. Some seemed nervous and agitated. Others were quiet, as if they had shrunk into themselves. Elodie, for her part, spent to entire half-hour they took to warm up going over every single step she took during the whole performance. She was the only person onstage from the time the curtain went up to the very last crashing bar of the orchestra.
The curtain was down on the stage, and the orchestra was tuning beyond it. Elodie knew that, behind that curtain, there lay a massive, gilded theatre hall, shining in red and gold. As the dancers dispersed, Elodie lingered a moment or two longer onstage. Her heart fluttered in her chest, making her stomach churn. She pressed a shaking hand to her breastbone, just below her breast. It felt like someone had tied her lungs in a knot.
"Lune," M. Beaufort called from the wings. "Places." She glanced back at him, doing her best to mask her fear, and nodded. M. Beaufort slipped away, and she padded across the stage to her place in the wings.
The curtain rose, and the orchestra lifted their instruments into position. Elodie stepped onstage as the first notes fluttered into the air. A single, high bassoon line wound its way around her, and she ran delicately across the stage. There was a strange feeling drifting up from the audience: uneasiness. As the bassoon was joined by other instruments, and Elodie began a string of unnaturally stiff leaps, a murmur stirred the crowd. Elodie hesitated, frightened, and missed a step. The orchestra soared into life, and a chain of men, their arms linked, spread across the stage.
Elodie, facing the back wall of the stage, was pulled into the middle of the line, between Noah and Xavier as the orchestra began a deep, angry thrumming. The music went mad as the men dragged Elodie this way and that in their grip, moving as one. Elodie hung limply between them, her body snapping from side to side as the men stepped in their violent dance.
The music changed again, just as violent and demanding, and the crowd's murmur turned into exclamations. This music, this dance, was nothing like they'd ever seen. Elodie flung from the men's hold to fall on her back, hanging half-off the stage, her head upside down. People in the audience began shifting uncomfortably as the music pounded into a new, urgent rhythm. Elodie rolled to her feet and was enclosed in a circle of human flesh that turned and churned around her.
A wave of unease bubbled up from the audience. "This is horse shit!" one man roared, launching to his feet. Elodie faltered again, and felt the other dancers waver. Before the first piece of music was done, the crowd had come to its feet, made uneasy and savage by music and dance it didn't understand.
The angry roar of the audience grew until Elodie could only hear the beat of the drums, and nothing else. She knew it all, though. She knew exactly when each step occurred. As long as she could hear the drums, she could dance. But the other dancers didn't know. She was on her own.
Hesitantly, she moved into the next sequence. Noah, seeing what she was doing, watched her closely. He would take his lead from her. Xavier seemed completely disoriented. Elodie knew she couldn't trust him to be where she needed him to be.
For a split second, she hesitated. Her eyes flew to the audience as unease took her. At the center of the seething, hissing crowd, a single spot of stillness caught her eye. In a row near the front of the audience, a young man stood completely still, mesmerized, his eyes on her.
Elodie fixed her gaze on him and launched herself into a set of pirouettes. As long as her gaze was on him, dizziness evaded her. But she still held back. Most of the men were tangled together in some semblance of the choreography. Xavier was caught in the center of that chaos, his whole countenance uncertain. Noah watched her, improvising a simple dance as he waited for her cues.
As she spun around, she caught sight of a familiar figure in the wings. M. Beaufort had come up from the audience, Manon beside him, and was shouting something at her. She spun carefully closer and caught the end of his words. "...let go!" he bellowed. "Lune, just let go!"
She let go, throwing her body into the rhythm of the dance. It didn't matter what she did, so long as she just danced. Her legs carried her into a long leap. Noah caught her, whirling her back into a deep dip. Her head practically touched the ground before he launched her up again, sending her whirling for Xavier.
The red-headed man fumbled the catch and dropped her. She landed neatly, as if it had been intentional, on her knees, her back arched back. She would have a bad bruise there. She launched herself to her feet and went on with the dance, following the steps of the beginning of the ritual the ballet told the story of.
She could feel eyes upon her, and, as she turned to face the audience, she saw that some had caused to watch her. And, at the center of her vision, the man stood still watching her. Her mind registered recognition even as she turned away to dance on. It was the prince.
A piece of the mob broke away. Elodie heard it before she saw it. Twenty people stormed down the audience towards the stage. Her brain screamed at her muscles to freeze, but her muscles remembered M. Beaufort's words: "Just let go!"
She had let go, and she couldn't catch herself again.
The mob reached the edge of the stage and began scrambling onto it. A pair of men grabbed one of the dancers and flung him off the stage. Elodie glanced around. She was alone at the center of the stage, the only woman there. The crowd advanced on her. Strong arms wrapped around her waist and ran with her offstage. She twisted around, trying to catch sight of her captor. It was Noah. He sent her down when they reached the wings where M. Beaufort and Manon waited. M. Beaufort had his arm around Manon's waist. He touched Elodie's cheek, gently. His eyes were proud.
"Let's go," Noah said, grabbing her hand. The four of them ran from the theatre, out the back door, and into the night-darkened city.