Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognize elsewhere (the plotline of Swan Lake, the dialogue of Black Swan, and characters and personalities of Lorien Legacies). Anything else is unintentional.
Swan Queens
A Swan is Born
"I had the craziest dream last night," Six says, finishing the last of her breakfast, before helping Katarina wash the dishes, "I was at a forest," she lies after, "that I have never been to, and there was this handsome guy," Mama groans, "who flirted with me a little. Then there was this pain," her voice has not gotten out of the daze as if she is trying to remember, "I think I turned into a type of bird, white, afterwards. The man was something else, and then there was another bird, the same type as I, except black. I don't remember anything else."
"Well dreams don't mean anything," Mama says. Six knows she is lying, but she doesn't want to upset the delicate balance they achieved.
Later that day, Mama helps Six dress up for what she thinks is an outing with her friends from the Aristocratic Garde.
"My sweet girl, one day you will grow up to be a Princess of Lorien," Mama says, caressing her daughter's hair. Six simpers crossly, letting her mother braid her hair, out of her mother's sight.
"There are only so many Princes," she sighs sarcastically, and she likes none of them.
"My sweet girl, you will grow up to learn the meaning of love," Mama whispers before taking the white flowers out of her hair. Six has every intention of pulling them out as soon as she deviates from her normal path to practice her Legacies.
Six slips her white dress on, the soft gauzy fabric lying loosely on her. It's pretty, but girly, and too expensive-looking. Just what Mama wants her to be, and just what Katarina understands she herself doesn't want to be.
It's for someone else in another life.
Hopefully one of the peasant cleaners with fix the damage put on it by the continuous practice that will come. Although she really doesn't care, she just doesn't want Mama and Katarina to be disappointed in her. They think she is going out to visit friends (friends she made up), but of course she isn't.
There is a slight rustling noise behind her and she looks to the tree, other than a slightly abnormal lump there is nothing. Six resumes practicing, moving through different stances of Loric fighting, imagining the enemies around her.
Slowly, other feelings melt away from her mind and the combination of Legacies and the sheer skill that comes with being part of the Aristocratic Garde replace it.
Hours pass, and once again the sun wakes her from the instinct. She goes back to the path to home but hears someone calling to her, "Wait."
She stops and turns around.
The sight takes Six's breath and she bows in the way her mother spent painstaking hours teaching her, rather clumsily. Her hand moves itself towards her, and she stills the weather with her other hand, moving several clouds out of nervousness. He bends down and kisses her hand. Six tries to keep her heart from melting, she must get home. Katarina will be worried.
Whatever, why should they control her life?
"What would a young girl like you be doing out here," he asks, his accent trilling. Six withdraws her hand a little too hard. Six was never invested in learning proper manners, what her mother
But if he really wants to love her, he should know the real Six. The haughty, contemptuous girl who loves winning more than anything.
Oh, the magic of the perfect childhood. The kind that pushes natural insecurity so far to the corners, it is invisible.
"Oh those who think I'm young," she says, bringing her hand up then down, thinking of Mama and how she is always too terrified over her. Secretly, she is wondering if she is in fact too young to be flirting, too young to be all alone.
"What is your name," he states more than asks.
Six leans against the house and tries not to be enamored by the bottomless depth of his deep, black eyes filled with dark fire.
Something sounds, and Six recognizes it as a swan. Oh the giddy feeling, the dark eyes so handsome, the darker curls more so, and the copper tone of the skin, beautiful.
"Six," she responds truthfully. The following question slips her mind.
Something glints in his eyes and draws her in further. Six knows not of these feelings, the intrigue setting in.
Way in the back of her head, she knows that she is being unwise, that there is danger. But Six is enamored by him, and notices that he is lives in the trees. Oh a fable courting her.
He comes closer and draws his hand to her face. Blackness starts and fills her world, she tries to extend her senses to the sky, to form a perfect storm. Something is blocking them. Whatever.
Six's body is pushed to the tree, she leans against it gasping and gaping, pain rips again, something white falls from her bodice. She can't look down for what. Never, never, in her life has she been weak, or out of breath, or anything!
She needs to get home. She needs to get home now. Now, and never come back here.
Looking into his eyes, she remembers those same dark flame staring at her countless times, yet she did not notice.
Something malevolent glitters in his eyes, instead of lust she feels terror, utter terror, the kind that races your blood, pounds your heart yet there is nothing you can do.
The world turns dark for a brief second, he tosses her inside of the tree and then pain rips through her muscles, her white dress is gone. Mama...
When she looks down, the feathers of a swan embrace her body. And with the flying swans, the lake calls her too.
He leads her, shepherds her to the lake. The wings of the swan lead the way, and he pushes her when she stops to look back.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees white swans and then one black swan, staring at her maliciously, dark eyes ravishingly eating her suffering, and the long black hair framing the porcelain skin.
The lake appears, blue glassy lake, and then the man disappears. Somehow, Six knows that the only way she will leave the swan form is by love. The thought becomes as much instinct as the fighting was.
"Six... Six!" she hears the screams fade away into white noise, and then falling, falling, to black and darkness, only vaguely aware of the feathers and the flying, and then the swan.
Her lake.