Dance Until You Drown
by Thyme In Her Eyes
For demihime, in thanks for her lovely sketch.
Author's Note: Just a quick Rue-centric ficlet, inspired by demihime and a gorgeous sketch of hers. And just to disclaim as usual, I own neither the characters or the series and am just playing with them. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the story – all feedback is encouraged and appreciated!
- DANCE UNTIL YOU DROWN -
Once upon a time... Ah, those wonderful words. Those terrible words. Unchanging and absolute, the letters printed on the pages of numerous storybooks, and sealed on her spirit, seemed to contain all the dreams and disappointments in the world.
Very often, Rue loved to hear them, and requested Mytho to read a story or two to her during their sunny and sleepy afternoon picnics together. Sometimes, there was something so comforting and reassuring in hearing various happily-ever-afters spoken in his calm, steady voice. Other times, the words and stories were a heavy burden, pinning her in place and pressing down mercilessly. It didn't help that her favourite fairy-tales were the tragic ones, the ones that made her shudder in fascination.
As she danced on blistered and callused feet, trying to ignore the growing ache in her calves and lower back, the morning sunlight poured through the stained glass of the studio's upper-windows, and bathed the floor in soft spotlights of rose, gold and deep blue. Her body broke across their beauty to the triumphant and joyous finale of Odette's variation, and she was gliding, then flying, moving from demi to full pointe, again and again, so quickly that it burned as her arms opened like pale wings. She was a glorious white bird soaring on red and ugly feet, but for now it was enough to keep the black feathers of her dreams far from her mind, at least until Mytho arrived.
Even without a stage and audience, all alone, being like this was bliss and intoxication. And once Mytho was with her, dancing with him would be the justification for any sacrifice or any crime. The pain didn't matter. This was a fairy-tale that was real, within reach, that could be touched and loved, and hers alone.
But as Rue passed under the coloured light of the windows again, instead of feeling the usual rush of breathless satisfaction as she completed her dance, she frowned as she noticed her arms. They were stained blue by a beam of light, and to anyone watching it might have given a pretty illusion of a ballerina dancing underwater. Rue saw no beauty in it though, only danger. Beginning her dance again, she tried to shake away her thoughts and be Odette moving gracefully on the water's surface, but an old story kept coming back to her and pulling her down into the depths. It was one of her most familiar fairy-tales, one of the ones that used to make her shudder and read again, but one that she'd never asked Mytho to read to her, and never would.
It was the story of a mermaid who loved a prince. For that love, she gave up her family and even sold her voice. There was nothing she was unwilling to risk. To be with him, she sacrificed her former life far beneath the waves, the only world and home she'd ever known. Everything of her identity, she was willing to surrender. And she did.
In the world of the humans, the mutilated mermaid was stranded and lonely, surrounded by creatures that she resembled, but with whom she could never really belong. Adapting to her strange new life wasn't an easy task, but she was with her beloved prince every day, and so she was happy, and more determined than ever to win his love.
But there was a price to pay for that happiness, as there always seemed to be. Every step she took on her new legs was an unbearable agony, like walking on a blade, and it brought tears to her eyes. Yet for the sake of her prince, she endured the pain and learned how to dance. Voiceless, she expressed her feelings and all her love in this way, bearing her torment with grace and transforming it into beauty. Though her feet screamed and bled, she became the finest dancer in the kingdom and won the awe and admiration of all. Standing on her toes, hoping her tortured feet wouldn't touch the ground, she flew and floated, and no-one could move as finely as she did, or had seen such loveliness before. At night, she cried and bathed her bleeding and bruised feet in gentle water, but when she was with the prince, she put aside her pain and thought only of delighting him, loving him, and hoping for the day when he would ask her to stay with him forever. She enchanted all who saw her dance, and they had no idea of how she suffered, or how her feet sank onto an invisible and burning knife-edge with each perfect step.
Rue knew that pain. It was so like the illusion of ballet. Like the fairytale mermaid, she knew what it was to nurse blistered feet and bathe them in water by night. She knew how to hold back pain, and never stop dancing. She knew the nauseating sensation of looking at her hard-skinned feet and seeing only a mutilated mess of bunions, blisters and corns, ironically encased in the most delicate satin sheath. But she also knew the joy and freedom of dancing, and the pleasure and completeness of being Mytho's partner. Being with him was the reward for every pain, so much that when her feet burned and her head pounded from effort of concentration, she could get through it by thinking of him, and how she had to work to deserve him. To be beautiful for him. And the better she danced and the deeper she loved, the more she deserved. This was the great rule of her life, as she saw it. It was inscribed in her blood and tears, and in her very nature.
Outside the ballet studio, she was already a graceful and refined princess, admired and respected by everyone. Inside the studio, she was queen absolute. With Mytho, she was a girl in love. He might never love her back or ask her to stay with him forever, but that was fine. She'd learned long ago to understand and accept that, and loved him all the more for his brokenness. When she danced, he looked only at her and no-one else, and that was enough.
But it wasn't enough for the little mermaid from the story. She failed, and couldn't win the prince's love - and instead of her, he chose to marry an unworthy princess who could never love him as deeply and desperately as the mermaid had.
And the final price of being human was this: if her prince ever loved and wed another, her heart would break and she would die. And she did.
Rue had heard the story many times. As she floated and soared across the studio floor and spun powerfully through streaks of blue, gold and rose-tinted light, she nursed the tale deep within her, but never learned from it. Instead, she chose to dance and bleed.
- FIN -