p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanThe stage was quiet, and Félicie was about to perform. Odette and Mérante were watching in the wings with bated breath. The curtain began to rise as Rosita and Félicie began their synchronous dance. The audience sighed, and Odette brushed a tear of pride from the corner of her eye. Mérante rested his pensive gaze on Odette's profile, shadowed by the darkness of the wings. The two of them had been inseparable before the fire. They headlined dozens of shows as the prince and princess of ballet, Mérante and Odette. But the fire had confined their fates to sorrow and loss. It made Mérante finally believe that old saying, that all good things come to an end. It had made Odette cynical, hostile. Just as she was forced to take on beggar's work when her leg no longer supported her own weight, let alone her dancing career, he rose to the top of the teaching staff at the ballet school. Mérante always thought it a twisted irony that, in becoming everything he dreamed as a child, he lost everything that he had ever loved./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"Yet here they were, standing on the edge of the stage watching Odette's young protégé succeed. She danced with the passion of a flame, the grace of wind rushing atop a canyon, the poise of a tiger prowling the underbrush. She was like nothing he had seen since Odette stopped dancing, and now he saw Odette with that spark of light in her, of hope he feared she had lost long ago. He watched her brush the tear from her face, and wondered for the first time in years at the old adage that had become his mantra. Maybe all good things don't come to an end, but are just peppered with some misfortune along the way. Perhaps life was just a dance between joy and sorrow, where even as one takes the upper hand of the other, a well-trained dancer knows that in a moment, the power will shift and the dance will become something new. Mérante considered this as he glanced between the girl on stage who was not yet lost to the world's sorrow, and the woman he loved most in the world who was just realizing joy again. He considered the events that had brought Félicie to Odette and the ballet school, and likened them to serendipity. In the end, he couldn't let this opportunity go to waste. Odette was right beside him, and who knew how long he might have to wait until that happened again? They had been this close perhaps three times in the last ten years, and he was determined to change that. He remembered his father's advice the day before his first ballet performance. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Louis, you're onto something good here. Don't screw it up. /emHe couldn't let the past control him anymore. He looked out at the dancers on stage and hoped that his luck hadn't run out yet. And finally, finally, he leaned in and pressed a light kiss to her cheek./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"Yet here they were, standing on the edge of the stage watching Odette's young protégé succeed. She danced with the passion of a flame, the grace of wind rushing atop a canyon, the poise of a tiger prowling the underbrush. She was like nothing he had seen since Odette stopped dancing, and now he saw Odette with that spark of light in her, of hope he feared she had lost long ago. He watched her brush the tear from her face, and wondered for the first time in years at the old adage that had become his mantra. Maybe all good things don't come to an end, but are just peppered with some misfortune along the way. Perhaps life was just a dance between joy and sorrow, where even as one takes the upper hand of the other, a well-trained dancer knows that in a moment, the power will shift and the dance will become something new. Mérante considered this as he glanced between the girl on stage who was not yet lost to the world's sorrow, and the woman he loved most in the world who was just realizing joy again. He considered the events that had brought Félicie to Odette and the ballet school, and likened them to serendipity. In the end, he couldn't let this opportunity go to waste. Odette was right beside him, and who knew how long he might have to wait until that happened again? They had been this close perhaps three times in the last ten years, and he was determined to change that. He remembered his father's advice the day before his first ballet performance. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Louis, you're onto something good here. Don't screw it up. /emHe couldn't let the past control him anymore. He looked out at the dancers on stage and hoped that his luck hadn't run out yet. And finally, finally, he leaned in and pressed a light kiss to her cheek./p