Donkeyskin - ON HOLD

Of Hatred

*Of Hatred*

        The years passed, and Elodie grew, not much, but she grew. Her short frame put on muscle and turned stocky, no longer the gangly dancer's body, her legs too short, her torso too long, but none of that affected her grace.

        She was not conventionally beautiful, but her skin was so pale, her hair so dark, her eyes so colorless yet silvery and shimmering, her features at once harsh and delicate, innocent and stubborn, that she attracted attention and held it.

        Her thirteenth name-day passed without fanfare, and her fourteenth, and her fifteenth in kind. She remained tucked away in her suite of rooms, attended only by a minor noblewoman and her daughter. No one thought to assign her more important attendants, and for the Elodie was grateful.

        Adrienne accompanied her wherever she went, and attracted attention, being slightly taller than normal, willowy, blonde, and fairly glowing with health. In her shadow, Elodie was eclipsed like the moon by the sun, and yet, was the moon less beautiful than the sun, or was it just not as brilliant?

        As the summer of their fifteenth year came upon the two, a summer hotter than any in living memory, they began taking long walks each evening as the sun set over the castle grounds. These walks passed mostly in silence, the girls, arms linked, comfortable only in each other's presence, with no need to put into to words how they felt, for the other knew instinctively.

        Adrienne had settled down a bit, but still had found no focused passion, while Elodie was as determined and grave as she'd ever been. The two seemed to clash, and yet fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but Adrienne, for all she knew her friend's mind like her own, was guarded around Elodie, who never seemed to realize it, yet felt it very deeply but could not articulate the separation, even in her own thoughts.

        M. Beaufort, after six years at court, declared he had no more to teach her, and left the princess's service to rejoin the traveling troupe whose manager he had been before. Elodie mourned the loss of her teacher and mentors deeply, and vowed to keep dancing, no matter what adversities that life might set in her path.

        She spent nearly every waking hour in the empty ballroom rehearsing each choreography she'd ever learned, despite the heat, feeling instinctively the exact moment her body performed each step to perfection, and knowing, by some slight difference in balance, or muscular tension, when she needed to improve a certain turn or leap or step.

        Her father of found her there one day, as he came to inspect the ballroom for the annual Midsummer's masquerade, him and six of his ministers. Elodie had just landed a perfectly executed swan leap when the heavy doors at the far end of the room seemed to explode open on its hinges. She stood frozen, arms stretched behind her, standing en pointe, hesitating.

        The king froze in his tracks, and one of his ministers–the squat, frog-faced one–had to stop dead to avoid colliding with the sovereign's back. Elodie carefully lowered herself until she stood on the balls of her feet, curtsied, and straightened, keeping her eyes on the ground, rather than risk looking at her father.

        The king blinked, seeming not to recognize her, and Elodie realized that she hadn't come face to face with her own father since that day in the throne room three-nearly four-years prior. And then he checked himself, nodded, and frowned.

        "Ah, Elodie," he said, and paused. Then, "Yes. I'd heard you danced. Yes." Elodie curtsied again, and he cleared his throat. One of his ministers scurried forward and whispered something in his ear. Elodie recoiled as the king's eyes lit up.