A Raven or a Swan
"But we're friends, right?"
The words echoed in her ears, like the hourly chime of the clock tower. Friends? Rue thought, staring at the underclassman. She wasn't sure what her face looked like then, but it couldn't have been good, because Duck's smile faltered.
"I mean, aren't we?" the girl asked again, a slight edge to her voice.
"Friends," Rue repeated softly, neither a confirmation nor a denial. Other students strolled past, none so much as glancing at them. Perhaps they assumed she was giving the underclassman some dancing advice. That was perfectly reasonable, given the girl's skill level. Certainly, no one would look at this picture and think the two of them were friends.
"Yes, friends. You and me and Mytho and maybe even Fakir. All four of us."
Instantly, the small wonder she'd felt at the word disappeared. No, she thought. Friendship requires affection, and the only person who could ever give that to me is Mytho. "I'm sorry, but we can't be friends."
The girl's face fell. "Oh. But—"
Rue clutched her books closer to her chest. "I have other classes to study for, and dances to practice. I have to leave." She turned swiftly, so Duck wouldn't see the look of pain that shot across her face. Her toe shoes clicked as she walked, the rigid point striking the linoleum with each step. She timed her steps to the song they'd danced to this morning, so as not to break into a run. I can't have friends, she thought. Not with who I am.
Not being Kraehe.
The dorms were quite a long way from the school. One had to leave the building, cross the bridge, and navigate through a series of cobblestone streets before finally reaching the exterior door. By the time Rue got there, half-running despite her resolve to walk with dignity, she was panting with exertion.
She snatched the door handle and pulled, wincing at the creak the hinges made. How many doors had already been closed to her . . . How many opportunities cast aside because she'd born into this ugly human body . . .
It doesn't matter. Mytho will be my prince. I don't need anyone else.
She made her way up the stairs, heart pounding harder as she ascended. For all the exercise her dance lessons afforded her, most of it had served to improve her flexibility and increase the power of her legs. Her cardiopulmonary endurance was still quite limited. But she made it up the stairs and into her room.
They had an hour for lunch, between the morning and afternoon classes, in which students were allowed to return to their dorms or eat with their friends on-campus. Whenever Mytho wasn't available—or whenever she was faced with dilemmas brought on by words such as friendship and love—she returned here to find something to eat. It was a comfortable arrangement. After so many months being showered with praise for her dancing prowess, sentiments of admiration from her peers had ceased to mean much to her. It was better to dine alone than face inane comments about how wonderful her dancing was, or how gracefully she carried herself.
Better to be admired than hated, she thought. But better to be loved than admired. And there is only one person that can give me love.
She fetched several pieces of fruit from the bowl beside her bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. The crisp, blue sheets tickled the backs of her legs, sore from hours of practice. For a moment, she just sat there, nibbling an apple. Then, she flung off her toe shoes and walked barefoot to the window.
The rooftop was scaled with rounded shingles; crawling across it to reach her perch was simple. Her callused heels danced nimbly across the rough surface, the angle of her legs adjusting for the gentle slope. In less than fifteen seconds, she was sitting atop a section of the roof that jutted out from the whole, apple still secure in her hands.
"I must truly be a bird, to find solace up here," she muttered, since there was no one close to hear her. Her eyes—deep crimson, like the eyes of her father—scanned the horizon. People flitted up and down the cobblestone streets, coming together in groups of two or three at a time and chatting animatedly with each other. Some emotion stirred inside her. It wasn't jealousy, exactly, nor was it any feeling of rejection. It was more like a yearning for companionship.
She stared out a moment more, the midday sun warming the dark crown of her hair. This town seemed to be locked in eternal summer, for all the warmth of the daytime sun. After just a few minutes, Rue began to long for the pleasant bite of air conditioning once more.
She was just about to move again when she heard a creak from below. Her head snapped down to identify the source of the sound. It was too close to be coming from the ground.
As she craned her neck to look down, she saw the wooden beams of the window swinging open. Of course, she thought, pulling her head back so whoever had opened the window wouldn't see her shadow. I forgot, this part of the roof sits over a window.
Birds of all different sizes and colors flocked to the open window, chirping wildly. Rue blinked and reeled back, startled by the rush of flapping wings.
"Time for lunch!" cheered a voice. Rue recognized it immediately. I'm sitting on top of Duck's room?
She peered over the side of the roof, holding her hair back so it wouldn't dangle in front of the window. Below her, birds continued to swarm past the outstretched panes of glass. An orange braid peeked out from the flock, and Duck emerged with a bowl of birdseed. She placed it on the windowsill, which promptly swarmed with feathered creatures. Yellow finches, doves, even a blue jay . . . All pretty birds, Rue thought, turning away.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of black. Her gaze followed it automatically, tracking it until it came to rest a few feet below the window. Once it landed, she was able to pick out little details about its appearance. That is was a raven was obvious—this bird was too large to be a simple black bird, and ravens were prevalent in this town anyway. Stray feathers coming off its right wing eliminated the smooth sheen of black common to the crow family, stripping it of what little beauty it might've had. Its spindly legs looked knotted and scarred, probably from the same disaster that had damaged its wing.
It was, without question, the ugliest bird Rue had ever seen.
Duck's voice pierced the air again, directly below her. Rue flinched back, realizing she'd leaned over the window again in her examination. "Come on," the redhead called, holding a handful of seeds out. All the colorful birds continued picking from the bowl, their gluttony unnoticed by the blue-eyed girl. "You eat, too."
Is she talking to the raven? Rue wondered, eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. But why? It's so ugly.
Like me.
But Duck was insistent. She shook the grains in her hand, a couple slipping through her fingers as she stretched her arm toward the bird. The raven—not one of her father's, she knew from the simple black eyes—took a few tentative steps, then flew the remaining four feet to reach Duck's hand. It paused then, with remarkably human hesitation, then pecked a few seeds from the girl's palm.
Rue watched the girl feed the haggard animal, all notions of returning to her room banished from her mind. The sight was so odd. There were plenty of pretty birds Duck could encourage to return with the same tactic—why draw in an ugly raven when they would raid the area for scraps later on anyway? Yet there she was, treating the injured animal with more care than she'd given any of the other birds.
Too soon, the raven plucked the last seeds from the girl's hand and fled. The rest of the birds followed as soon as the bowl on the windowsill was empty. Duck's tiny hand took the bowl back into the shadows and pulled the windows shut again.
Rue sat there a moment more, waiting to see if the girl would return with another bowl of seeds. But when she heard the clock tower singing out the hour, her heart skipped a beat. Oh, now I'm late, she thought, getting back to her feet and skittering across the roof. She didn't even bother to conceal her progress with soft steps. Anyone still left in the dorms would be in just as much a rush to return to the school as she was, and likely wouldn't waste time puzzling over the sound of her rushing across the roof.
In one sinuous motion, she slipped through her still-open window and landed on the hardwood floor. She snatched her dancing shoes from the floor and put them on, wincing as they squeezed her toes together. Her feet were already so raw from practice this morning, any pressure made them ache.
As soon as she'd jammed her feet into the shoes, she got up. On her way out, she snatched an orange from the bowl beside her bed. No sense going out sore and hungry.
Duck massaged the knot in her feet, wondering why she even bothered to take ballet classes when her endeavors were only met with looks of pity and unspoken ridicule.
I'll never be a good ballet dancer, she thought, sighing as she relaxed into her mattress. Usually, she went looking for Mytho, or spent some time talking to Pique and Lillie, but after a day of trying to dance on point, the most she could manage was to lie down.
Maybe I could do something nice for Rue. She seemed awfully upset after this morning. She sighed. She wasn't sure exactly what had set the other girl off, but she'd seen the flash of pain that had flickered through Rue's eyes the moment before she'd turned away. Everyone admires and respects her, but no one really seems to know her. I bet she thought I was just trying to be a suck-up.
Duck sat up, her hand coiling into a fist as her resolve form. "That settles it then. I'll do something nice for Rue, and then she'll have to call me her friend."
She jumped down from her bunk, gritting her teeth when the impact sent a jolt of pain up her legs. After a moment, she got to her feet and hobbled over to the door.
As soon as the door shut behind her, someone crashed into her. She tumbled to the ground, a shriek exploding between her lips before she recognized the person who'd run into her. "Lillie?"
"Oh, Duck, you're always so clumsy!" The blonde hugged her close, as if she hadn't just insulted her coordination.
"You're the one who knocked her over," Pique muttered, approaching at a more reasonable pace from the other side of the hall. "Hey, Duck."
Duck stood up, feet protesting under the extra weight of her friend. Lillie released her a moment later, bounding off to Pique's side. "Hey guys," Duck said, trying to smile.
"Where were you headed off to?" Pique asked.
"Well actually, I was going to go find Rue and see if there's anything nice I could do for her. She seemed kind of down when I talked to her this morning."
"What's this?" Lillie trilled. "Our little Duck has developed an obsession with the lovely Rue, too? How wonderfully impossible it would be to gain her affections!"
Pique threw the blonde a weary look, then turned back to Duck. "Maybe you should get her a gift or something."
That would be nice, she thought, trying to imagine what Rue would like. She loves dancing, but that's so simple, it would look like I didn't put any thought into it at all. No, something more personal would work better. After all, a good friend knows what kind of gift will make the other person happy. A thought occurred to her right then, and her lips stretched into a grin.
"I want to give Rue something I made with my own two hands," she announced. "Something personal, that she'll really like."
Pique and Lillie exchanged glances. They seemed to be having one of those silent conversations where ideas and information were exchanged by rapid shifts of the eyebrows and twitches of the nose. In unison, they turned back to her. "I know just what you're looking for," Pique said, smiling to herself. "Come on. Let's go to my room."
As Rue stretched for her morning classes, a slight figure approached from her left.
She kept working, not wanting to disrupt the most important part of her daily exercises. Proper stretching kept the worst dancing injuries at bay, and reduced painful aches later on. She had no intention of missing a minute of her limited stretching time when they'd be working on point for the next few hours.
"Rue?" a quiet voice said. Her head snapped around, her mind finally identifying the figure.
"Yes, Duck?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain civilized. We can never be friends, she thought. So why does she try?
"I have something I wanted to give you."
The offer surprised her enough to make her lower her leg from the metal bar. "A gift?" she asked, voice wavering as images of the rooftop flashed through her mind. The raven, injured and ugly, a nuisance compared to all the other birds . . . The small hand, overflowing with seeds, reaching out to offer the wretched creature sustenance . . .
Duck smiled, relaxing as soon as Rue acknowledged her. She held out her hands, cupped to conceal whatever she had to offer. "I made this for you last night, after practice."
She unfolded her hands, revealing a piece of folded paper. Rue stared at it, trying to discern what it was. A shift in the other girl's posture threw the sleek shadows into relief, and Rue saw the shape of a bird in the folded paper.
"It's a swan," Duck told her, beaming. "Pique taught me how to make it. Here."
Tentatively, Rue extended a hand. Duck eased the piece of origami into her palms, treating it as gently as if it was a real bird. "It's pretty."
"I thought it suited you, since swans are traditionally considered graceful animals. Just like you, right?"
Does she honestly think that, or is she mocking me?
But the girl's face was ingenuous. Open and bright. Like sunlight streaming in through an open window, Rue thought, cradling the little piece of paper between her fingers. Her thoughts drifted again to the raven on the rooftop. Was Father wrong? Is it possible for someone to care about a wretched crow like me? Or does this girl really think I'm a swan?
"So, are we friends now?" Duck asked.
"Friends . . ." She looked down again at the piece of paper. A swan instead of a raven. A princess instead of a duck. Maybe we're not so different after all. She looked up, her lips unable to frame the words for several seconds. In the end, she settled on just one word—a word that rang with genuine fondness and acceptance.
"Friends."