longestfall | // fic - not tonight

Title: First.
Characters: Justine, the Duke, mentions of Lilith and Jean-Paul.

Plié, she thinks. Slides slowly into fifth position and prepares herself, every muscle in her body trembling from the effort. I shall manage, she thinks. I must. If I want my knees to bend, they will bend. Face tightening from exertion, she feels sweat trickle down her brow, her hair sticking to her back through her thin, frilly nightgown. Hers. His, to be more exact. And she’s always been quite exact. Quite precise.

But when her legs begin the motion, her body ends it too quickly in a rush of pain, her stomach rolling and her focus blinking back and forth in spurs of additional darkness. The shadows stretching around her seem to swallow her up for the next thirty seconds as her knees give in, her hand closing feebly around the bar just before she falls. With her other hand, she clutches her mid-section, every muscle in her lower body screaming at her to stop, to lie down, to die. Again. And she’s screaming with it, she realises, but only too late. Only when footsteps echo across the hall, the shimmer of oil lamps slipping past her field of vision – only then does she realise how loud she's been.

She hopes fervently that the children aren’t awake. She can’t. She can’t tonight.

There’s a warm, steady hand on her shoulder and she blinks away the tears in her eyes quickly, looking up. The Duke is looking down at her, his strong eyes oddly blank in the darkness and his greying hair dishevelled from sleep. Next to him, the nurse keeps her distance. They’re intruding, of course, and no one likes to do that. Not when there’s nothing of value to come across; nothing at all except failure and agony in equal measures. Breathing out heavily, she manages a smile. “Please,” she says and struggles to her feet, feeling almost faint from the effort. “Leave me alone, darling. I’m practising, don’t you see?”

“Justine…” His voice comes too late, a second or two but all the same – the pause is there. Before this happened – before they happened – no one would have wondered. There would have been no doubts and no uncertainty. Plié, she would have thought and the rush of perfection would have left the world applauding, even at the most basic level of the art. Now, all she sees… all she gets…

“No!” She straightens, trying to ignore the stabs of pain threatening to double her over again. Her grip on the bar strengthens, skin stretched thin across her knuckles. “I need… My movements – everything has gone so stiff and – and clumsy. It’s a disgrace, I won’t have it!”

She never realises how loud her voice has become; but soon enough, surely enough, there’s the sound of babies crying from the nursing room. Instant consequence, the bond between a mother and her children almost magical in its clear-cut intensity. Mother is distraught? Mother is uncertain? Mother is afraid, unhappy? There’s no room for any of it, even though her life is little else these days; no, because they won’t let her grieve. They won’t let her do anything except suck the life out of her, one day at a time. Like tiny demons, born from an unholy, useless womb. She stares towards the room beyond the shadows, her mind alert and prepared and her heart trembling from disgust. She can’t. She won’t give herself to them like this – it’s not a possibility, not when there’s nothing left to give.

Hands clenching into fists, she shakes her head and raises her chin, ignoring the way the nurse looks towards her husband, clearly in doubt. Letting go of the bar is a battle – one finger at a time, almost, and still the draw is so great she very nearly reaches out again, just to make one more attempt. Plié, she thinks, uselessly, the crying of Lilith and Jean-Paul echoing through the darkness – screaming for her, waiting to take her apart again, the way they tore her to pieces when they came into the world. And the bar is dead wood behind her; the Duke watching her so quietly and the nurse waiting for a signal that Justine won’t be bothered to give.

Without another word to them, she leaves the room, her movements unremarkable. Ungraceful and undistinguished. There’s a feeling of blood running down her inner thighs, something she remembers – splotches of heated red, mixing with images of gold and silver, of the Palais Garnier, of days and evenings sparkling from life. She walks past the nursing room without a glance in their direction. They’ll be taken care of. But not by her. Not tonight.

~