Someone was screaming.
Mai was fairly sure they were screaming with delight but they were screaming nonetheless.
It was probably around seven in the morning and everyone bar the servants was supposed to still be asleep.
All but falling out of bed, Mai stumbled to the doors of her bedrooms, tumbled through the entrance hall and threw open her apartment doors, finally identifying that particular note of operatic delight as Geneviève.
"Can't a man sleep around here?" Henri choked, hanging off the doorframe to his room, hair a mess and eyes closed.
"No, only women," Joliette snapped, appearing from her room resplendent in silk dressing gown and satin curls, looking perfect even when so rudely awakened.
Henri gave her a bleary eyed look and Joliette clamped a hand onto his face and shoved him back into his room.
"Henrietta, you should make yourself decent," she said before walking out to the balcony beyond the rooms to look to the floors below, joining Mai as she and other siblings started to appear from their rooms with disgruntled gentlemen- and ladies-in-waiting.
"What are you screaming about, you damned banshee?!"
That would be Dax.
He exploded out of his room, his hair on end and his eyes bloodshot with the distress of a youth woken before midday.
The Howling Beast from Hell appeared suddenly in a shower of pink nightclothes, waving a page around for all to see, not that any of them knew what it actually said.
"They're coming!" she screamed.
"To sack and pillage and have their wicked way with us?" Zola asked, dumping her cheek in her palm, frowning down to the floor below.
"My, I do wish they'd given us some warning," Adalicia said. "I'm not even dressed."
"At least they were so good as to send a letter to the noisiest princess, word does get around fast when you scream it," Mai pointed out.
"How true!" Adalicia said, clapping her hands, "Tell us, sister dear, what monster brings an army this way to burn down our fair kingdom?"
"Oh shut up!" was the reply. "Laugh all you like but I have here a letter Mama received last week!"
"Are you to find yourself in possession of a truly awful stepfather?" Azalea sneered.
"The Midnight Troupe has agreed to preform at the palace!"
Everyone was silent, just looking at her.
"Is that it?" Thiago asked, his lips curling with distaste.
"PAH! Is that it?! That is everything!"
"I'm sure they're quite awful," Mai said, draping her arms over the balustrade and looking across to Etienne.
"Oh it's guaranteed," he said, "Anything that builds this much anticipation never lives up to expectations. I suspect we'll be devastatingly bored."
"You don't know!" Geneviève snapped.
"Neither do you," Dax snapped back, "Go back to sleep, you stupid romanticist! No one cares about your obsessions this early in the morning!"
"Oh now, Dax," Daphne chided when Genevieve's lip trembled, clearly hurt.
Dax just bared his teeth at his sister and stomped back into his room.
"Not one for early mornings yet, I see," Mai said, straightening. She glanced down below, watching Geneviève looking at her letter like she was reading a lover's goodbye on it. "Tell us all about them at dinner, Gene," she said, her sister looking up. "You shall have our rapt attention when we sit to dine tonight."
Geneviève looked at her for a moment, then smiled and waved the letter. "I'll hold you to it," she said, holding up her little finger.
Mai held up her little finger in reply with a grin before walking back into her rooms with Joliette – who checked in on Henri to find he'd collapsed face-first back onto his bed and was softly snorting.
While Henri was left to sleep late after staying up late the night before to cover Joliette who had needed the night away to handle 'personal issues' she did not share with either him or Mai, she and Mai dressed for the day and Mai set out for breakfast then the studio.
With only a week before the opening night of The Sleeping Beauty and a few weeks before opening night of The Doll Maker, balancing her time between court and class was getting harder. Her father wasn't giving her any leeway, she had to stick to her aggressive schedules and if something went wrong, she had to fix it.
Part of her somewhat resented that he didn't help in the slightest but she knew he was testing her, relentlessly – it came with going against the norm. He'd done and survived it, so would she.
She had already come to accept that she would not open any of the ballets – which, in a way, took some of the pressures off her shoulders. She couldn't open when the royal family was expected to attend the opening nights for them in full force.
Swan Lake opened that night on the Analiesia Stage and Mai watched as Zedina glided through the ballet, pouring such maturity and sensuality and elegance and vulnerability into her two roles that she had to stop herself from second-guessing her place on that stage.
Zedina – like Marie-Anne and Marie-Cher – was a principal who was used to carrying the weight of a ballet on her shoulders. She had done it for years. She forever continued to practice the basics and built on them. She was older, she had been in and out of love, she had witnessed heart break and known pure romance, she had seen something of the world and survived it and that showed in her dance. She had something younger dancers – like Mai – could not mimic. She had maturity and experience on her side and, for all Mai's born talent; she knew people would see the different between her and the other principals.
Mai watched with her cheek in her palm, her elbow on the railing of her theatre box, as Siegfried and Odette conversed about her curse and how to break it when Genevieve tapped her on the arm.
"They say they're here," she whispered.
Mai looked blankly at her.
"The Midnight Troupe, apparently they're here."
"Here? In the theatre? I'm amazed they were able to get such last minute tickets."
"You see how successful they are."
Mai looked down from her box to the stalls below, not that she would have any idea what to look for or where to look.
She highly doubted Bunny Boy would be sitting in his rabbit-eared top hat throwing puppet strings around the place – it would distract from the dancers and, from one artist to another, that simply wasn't on.
"Do we know when they shall be preforming for us?"
"The first ball," Genevieve said as she made to stand. "I'm going to go find them."
Mai grabbed her arm and wrenched her back to her seat, drawing the attention of Amira and Avalon who they shared the box with.
"You most certainly will not," she hissed.
Geneviève gave her a look of utter indignation and opened her mouth to protest – probably quite loudly.
"They shall have their turn to show off and you shall meet them in person within the week," Mai hissed, stopping her sister, "These dancers have worked tirelessly to bring us a performance that will bring you to tears and leave you in awe of their skill. Don't you dare turn your back on them just so you might go chasing handsome boys who will not appreciate your pestering when here to watch a ballet. You have seen me every night after classes, you know how rehearsals tire me and yet I go back every morning because I want my audience to love the show they sat through. I would take great offence to your attitude and dismissal of all my hard work so do not be so rude."
Genevieve stared at her sister for a moment then, to Mai's surprise, she sat down.
"I had just thought to say hello," she muttered but picked up her small binoculars and trained them on Odette again.
Mai was still for a moment then let go of her hand and sat back.
Her eyes travelled back to the audience – for all her talk, she had seen the dance so many times through now she didn't have to be looking to know every step, hand gesture and facial expression that went with the music.
Picking up her own binoculars, she scanned the audience, watching the illuminated faces of the ladies and gentlemen below – all of whom she could name.
... Except them.
There.
She spied a small group at the edge of the stalls.
Four; two sets of seats, one row behind the other.
She couldn't see their faces, annoyingly, because they were turned to each other, whispering something but she was sure she didn't know them.
Not enough light reached that corner for her to make out much detail.
Maybe she did know them and just couldn't place them because of shadows and hidden faces.
There were two men and two women, the ladies dressed in gowns that looked expensive enough – they clearly earned a lot for a travelling circus or whatever they were.
Lowering the binoculars, she frowned slightly. Was she so wrapped up in her own dance company she really didn't have any concept of other performers and artists? Of course she knew of the other great ballet companies around the world but what about everything else?
Well, what else was there?
Ballet and acting.
What was a circus against such things?
Still, she felt she should know something more of this troupe if they were so very famous.
Bringing the binoculars to her eyes again, she jumped.
She swung her gaze around the crowd then back again, startled by what she saw.
She scanned the crowd a second time, sure she was looking at the wrong place but no, this was a sold-out show and she was looking at empty seats.
The quartet was gone.
So suddenly.
Why?
Her gaze spun to the doors and she almost dropped her spyglass.
One of the men was looking in her direction.
His upper-face was in shadow because he had put on his top hat – his top hat that had long rabbit ears sticking out of it.
And she knew when he saw her looking because just enough light illuminated his face in the shadows for her to see his sly grin.
He swept the hat from his head and dropped into an exaggerated bow – like he was mocking her! – before he replaced his hat and turned, flaring his cape around his shoulders and striding into the darkness for the doors at the back of the theatre, never once revealing his face fully.
Mai snapped the binoculars from her eyes, her face hot with irritation.
That was him, it had to be.
How dare he! He had obviously been mocking her, that bow was too dramatic to be anything else.
He had no idea who she was, just obviously a member of the royal family – considering her seat and the tiara in her hair.
Which meant he had simply been mocking the royal family.
Her eyes flicked to Genevieve who was watching the ballet with sudden rapt attention – having finally started to pay attention to what was on stage – and Zedina was a gifted enough dancer that even the most stubborn viewer couldn't help but be sucked into the story.
She was going to mention it to her father.
Perhaps she had been wrong.
Perhaps that hadn't been Bunny-Boy.
But she'd be damned if that wasn't the strangest of coincidences.
Perhaps the very reason The Midnight Troupe had never preformed for the royal family, despite their fame, was because they did not support the royal family and people like that were dangerous.
Especially ones in entertainment.
People like that held a lot more influence over others than people in power gave them credit for.
Snapping her spyglass aside, she let out a slight tsk and sat back in her seat, nails trapping against the velvet of the box balcony as she turned her attention back to the ballet, her lips thin and her eyes narrowed.
"Alright, Bunny-Boy, you have my attention."
~~~~
Next up: Thursday
Art By: Swan Lake Act 2, Odette's Entrance
The video below explains what they're saying in mine - from the Royal Opera House