A/N: omg you guys, chapter tow already! Just so excited about this fic and the reviews I've ALREADY gotten that I had to stay up late and plunk this one out. WOOHOO!
The sun had long since set as Aphrodite made her way back up the winding wrought-iron staircase that lead back to the dormitories. She found herself fatigued within an inch of her life after rounds of introductions over dinner. Madame Giry, it seemed, had not been pleased with the core de ballet's performance at practice earlier, and as a result, the girls had been made to put in an extra two hours at the barre. Mme. Giry was being kind to Aphrodite, partly because she was new, and partly because of what she saw in the girl's eyes beyonjd their color: a pain, still fresh, raw, and almost ecsquisite. Mme. Giry knew it was much to soon for anyone to be asking questions, so she allowed the other girls to think that her kindness was wholly based on Aphrodite's relative inexperience. Still in her practice skirt, with a simple white blouse and waist that would not hinder her movements, Aphrodite joined the rest of the ballet rats at the barre. Mme Giry pounded her stick every so often on the floorboards of the practice-room and shouted commands at the rest of the girls, allowing Aphrodite to catch up on her own, her movments somewhat slower than the others, as she still ached slightly from traveling and from having not danced for some time. Aphrodite knew she ought to have warmed up properly before attempting her audition, but time had been of the essence, and luckily, she had managed to dance a near-flawless routine anyway.
Aphrodite was unable to keep the joyous smile off her face, even as she ached in places she had previously thought impossible to stretch during ballet. She happily undressed for bed and then sat on the edge of the thin, lumpy, stained mattress, which was nonetheless covered with a cleanly starched white sheet and a soft, thick blanket of woven wool. Madame Giry oversaw all that went on in the dormitories, and even if the furniture was old and more than a little worn, it would be kept tidy, clean, and as comfortable as possible on her watch.
The usual chatter of the ballet girls surrounded her, but Aphrodite was too caught in her own daydream to note the petite blonde who approached her.
"Hello," a voice suddenly cut through the fog of Aphrodite's thoughts, reminding her of her manners.
"Oh, hello," she said, smiling gently at the other girl.
"I'm sorry I did not introduce myself ealier," said the girl. "I was late for dinner and missed the introductions. My name is Meg. Meg Giry."
"Oh! Your Madame's daughter…?"
"Yes," she said, nodding, with a slight grin. "But trust me, there is no special treatment when it comes to my mother. If anything, she pushes me harder."
"I can understand that. I saw you dancing earlier. She must be very proud of you." Meg blushed prettily at the compliment, but shook her head.
"Not that she would say anything like…" she muttered good-naturedly. "I saw your audition, and your dancing is some of the best I've ever seen. You may even elicit a complilment from Mama!"
"Oh! How rude of me! My name is Aphrodite Ange la Fleur."
"What a lovely name! To be called after the goddess of love! I am only named for my silly old maiden aunt, I think."
It was Aphrodite's turn to blush.
"I don't think that I would, in any way, resemble, well, the goddess of love. My mother was fanciful when it came to naming me, I suppose. It's certainly not a family name. I haven't the aspect of a godess, in any case."
"Aphrodite! May I call you Aphrodite?"
"Certainly."
"Oh, then, Aphrodite, you—you have no idea?"
"No idea of what?"
"You are lovely, dear. Oh your hair and your figure are all just so—how can you think so little of your looks?"
"W-what?"
"Your skin is like cream bone china! You'd think you'd be freckled, with hair like yours, but not a spot on you!"
"Meg, do you really mean it?" asked Aphrodite, raising her eyes to Meg's face for the first time.
"Oh, how could anyone not…" Meg trailed off as she looked deeply into Aphrodite's eyes. "I-I mean, that is to say…" Meg's breath quickened, and her small breasts heaved in her corset, and a wild, fleeting look of fear passed through her own dark brown eyes. She drew the fingers of one hand over her mouth, and Aphrodite saw that her hand was trembling slightly.
"Meg? What is…?"
"Forgive me," said Meg, backing away a couple of steps. "I didn't know…forgive me." she stammered. Meg turned quickly and went back to her own bed, her arms wrapped around herself. Having grown up in the dormitories, with these tales of the Opera Ghost—Meg was far too superstitious in spite of her usually charming good nature, and none of Aphrodite's intreaties could induce her to speak to her at all. The other girls followed suit, one by one, and at long last, Aphrodite found herself lying on her side, all the lights extinguished in the room, listening to the indistinct whispers of those around her, some of the girls giggling over admirers and handsome stage hands, others muttering tales to the others of stories they had heard about witches and demon children being born with two differently-colored eyes.
Aphrodite pressed her face into the pillow, choking back her sobs, the tears streaming silently out of her accursed eyes anyway. Only hours ago she had felt such hope in coming to this place…only to find that she had not a single friend, nor any prospect of one. Well, she had learned before now that she could not rely on people for support, that affection was vain and fickle, and no one ought to be trusted. As her memories darted back to the past months, her heart seemed to twinge, and a burning pain twisted it's way through her gut.
Gradually, the dormitories fell silent as one by one the other girls drifted off after a long day. Only Aphrodite was left, alone and awake.
Somehow, the silence hurt her more than their not-so-subtle whisperings, and eventually she could stand it no more. She sat up, lit the candle stub that had been provided to her on her rickety bedside table, and jammed her feet into her worn dancing slippers. She grabbed the sash she used as a shawl—an emerald green silk scarf, with tassled ends, that her father had given to her before he died, long ago.
Aphrodite gently made her way to the stage, getting lost at least twice in the warren of passages in the Opera Populaire before she emerged onto the empty stage, facing the yawning cavern of the unlit auditorium filled with red plush velvet seats. The pale starlight streaming in through the high-placed windows barely glinted off the gilt edging on the chairs, and the only useful light came from Aphrodite's candle.
Setting the candlestick down in the centre of the stage, Aphrodite slipped the shawl from her arms and hastily wrapped it around her waist, hiking up her long white nightgown and tying it in place. She rubbed her arms, as gooseflesh suddenly pricked her, and there seemed to be an overwhelming cold in the massive room. Well, she thought, it would go away soon enough if she moved about.
Without any aid of music, Aphrodite rose up en pointe and began to dance. Almost immediately, her eyes closed and she allowed the rhythm in her soul to move her. Swaying, dipping, spinning, bending…her limbs were in perfect time with each other, and she moved with a grace seldom seen. By allowing herself to dance freely, Aphrodite unknowingly aquired a certain purity to her movements, a purity often lost in the rigorous training and exact science taught to the masses as ballet.
Grass-green eyes with small flecks of gray and gold watched from the dark silence of the auditorium as the girl danced in the silence. The viewer was glad. It had been many months since he could stand to hear music of any kind—this is why he only trusted himself to move about the opera at a time when everything was dead, as he felt.
But this girl, moving with such endless grace and energy, in such seamless and fluid motion, she—she, he thought, was what music should look like.
Oddly, the thought did not give him pain. She was not singing, she was not even humming…the only sound from her was the faint, soft tapping of her toe shoes against the floor boards, and the brisk, slightly husky breathing from her rose-bud-like lips. The music was contained within her, Erik saw, and needed no outward expression other than this. Music, he thought, would ruin her. She would still be great, oh yes, that he saw—but the pure grace and ecstacy of her dance would be tarnished…like the full moon shining through the mist.
Aphrodite continued to dance, her head thrown back slightly, exposing the milky column of her throat, her unbound hair sweeping the air about her with almost electric strokes, swirling madly about her face and shoulders as she twirled like a dirvish. As her feet flew under her, the edge of one slipper reached out and caught her candlestick. Aphrodite's eyes flew open with a small cry as the candle clattered, spluttered, and went out. In the sudden pitch darkness of the stage, she was afraid. She groped for the candle, even though she knew she had no way of relighting it. She grasped it for a moment, and got nothing but hot tallow and the end of a glowing wick pressed into her skin for her pains. With another small yelp of pain, she left it where it lay, and stumbled backwards, falling to her knees, nursing her injured hand by cradling it to her bosom.
Her sharp, rasping breathing filled the silence for a few moments as she wondered what to do. Aphrodite was desperately afraid of the dark…the dark held things in her past that had given her terror beyond anything else.
A soft footfall somewhere in front of her caused her to hold her breath and peer into the unrelenting darkness.
"W-who's there?" she whispered, taking comfort that if she could not see them, they could not see her. Hopefully. "I am new here, and, and I do not know my way back to the dormitories in the dark. Please, who's there?"
A dark shape suddenly loomed before Aphrodite in the watery dim starlight, and she gasped in terror and bowed her head, curling in on herself and shrinking back. She knew not who—or what, this was. Surely someone with good intentions would have spoken to her by now.
Something warm drew itself along Aphrodite's jaw, and with a gasp, she dared to glance upwards. A hand, encased in a black leather glove, caressed her face almost curiously. Aphrodite did not draw back from the touch—if anything, she thought, it was gentle and kind.
The shape abruptly turned from her and knelt, and a moment later, her candle blazed to life again.
"I have no need of light, mademoiselle, but I fear you do?"
Aphrodite nodded wordlessly at what she could now see to be a man in a dark suit, wearing a hooded cloak with the cowl drawn over his face. He extended a hand to her, and she grasped it without thinking of her burnt hand and her face crumpled with pain as she quickly withdrew her hand on a hiss of agony.
"Here," said the voice, musical, gentle, soothing…but with an edge to it that Aphrodite couldn't place. Again, he reached out, but this time, he held a black silk handkerchief. Deftly, he wrapped it around her hand and knotted the ends together.
"Better?"
Again Aphrodite nodded, seemingly unable to recover her voice, until—
"T-thank you, Monsier," she stammered softly.
Erik groaned inwardly. Of course she would have a voice to make his skin tingle and the musical portion of his mind to spring to life. Others may not have noted it, but his highly trained ear, with his natural gifts, detected that this girl, with time and training, could sing to make the seraphim weep. No, he thought. Never again. Enough is enough. Was enough.
"Come," he said in a tone that had lost some of it's gentleness and gained a harsher edge. If Aphrodite noted this, she gave no sign, and she mutely took his hand with her uninjured fingers and grasped it tightly. Even through the body-warm leather that covered his own palm, she felt a shivering tingle travel up the length of her arm and down her spine, settling uncomfortably somewhere in her stomach.
Erik clenched his jaw tightly and swallowed as he lead the girl back to the dormitories. Her hands were so small, so delicate…a surge of unexplicable protectiveness and even anger had shot through him at the sight of the angry red burn on her palm. She should have been more careful, he thought. There was no one around here to take care of her, and there were worse things than burns from candles to fear. A pretty little beauty like her…Erik knew all too well the lewd things the stagehands said about the girls in the corp de ballet, and especially this one would be prone to their barbs of lust. Skin like cream, flesh softer than a sweet, sun-ripened plum, hair like the eternal flame of temples tended by vestal virgins, lashes that swept the rose-tinged swell of her cheeks, and of course, a dancer's willowy figure, but with curves in all the right places, gently flaring hips and swelling, quivering breasts that were—Erik shook off his thoughts before the could go farther in tormenting him.
Sooner than either would have liked, they reached the stairs leading up to the dormitories. Erik held the girl's hand for a moment longer than her may have needed too, then dropped it and held the candle aloft to light her way to the stairs. Aphrodite stared at him for a moment, then she flushed slightly and untied the sash that had defined her slim waist and pulled the hem of her nightgown well above her knees, exposing her slim, curved calves and pretty little feet. She pulled the silk around her shoulders, setting off the glory of her hair as she considered her saviour.
"To whom am I indebted, monsier?" she asked softly.
Erik had been desperately hoping she would not speak again…and yet…he felt an odd kind of relief and ecstacy when she did.
"You need not concern yourself with me beyond this, mademoiselle…?"
"My name is Aphrodite. And it is not right that you should know my name and I shall not know yours…" she smiled gently.
"Aphrodite…how fitting…" he murmured. "If you wish, know me as Erik," he said quietly, his voice breaking almost inperceiptibly. Few knew him ask Erik, he thought. He should be safe enough.
"Erik," she said in her musical tones, and the man thought he would moan aloud at the sound of his name on such sweet lips. He closed his eyes and turned his head away. Before he knew what had happened, Aphrodite had stepped around in front of him and reached up her uninjured hand to push back his hood. Erik was too flabbergasted for a moment to react. Her hand stilled beside his head, then came to rest on his uncovered cheek. Her cool fingertips ran along his face for a moment—then she drew her hand back and gazed at him.
"Forgive me, Erik," she said, averting her eyes.
Erik grasped her chin gently and turned her face upwards to look at him. Aphrodite stared sadly back at him, watching as his expression changed as he gazed into her eyes. She plucked her chin from his grasp and turn away.
"Please," she said. "Do not…just…I am sorry. I was born this way," she turned back to face him, tears filling her eyes but not overspilling her lids. "I simply cannot take it anymore—every stranger's gaze lights upon my eyes and they can no longer bear to be around me…the demon's daughter…" her lower lip trembled.
"Now then," said Erik softly, his shock having abated somewhat. His hand returned to cup her cheek, if only because he felt as if she belonged there, somehow. "Do not trouble yourself about that. Each of us has something we are ashamed of."
Aphrodite sniffled delicately and glanced warily at Erik. "Is that why you wear a mask?" she asked without thinking.
Erik sighed.
"The things I am most ashamed of do not lie behind this mask," he said quietly, turning away at last. "And so, goodnight, my dear girl." He set the candle on one of the stairs, his back still to Aphrodite.
"Goodnight Erik…" Aphrodite rested her hand on his back, pressed warmly and firmly between his shoulder blades. Erik, for some reason, longed to arch his back under her electrifying touch, but resisted with the superhuman will he had cultivated over the past years. "And thank you…" she whispered, removing her hand and turning to the stairs. She gripped the candle and made her way up the stairs, shutting the door softly behind her. Erik watched her high above him until the light she carried was gone, then he slowly turned and made his way back to where he belonged.
Aphrodite returned to bed and hesitated only a moment before blowing out the candle. Lying down, she felt suddenly deliciously warm and drowsy, and she fell asleep with the silk handkerchief wrapped about her hand pressed to her cheek, where, faintly, she thought she could smell her saviour.
A/N: review rewvie review reveiw! u know u want to! XD Special thanks to my friend with the Red Silk Scarf for her help with this chappie! ;) u rock girly! lol have u told colin yet that your in mad love with him? lol (inside joke)!
and did I mention REVIEW?