Ballet Shoes: Encore

Embodying Odile

I had to include a chapter where Ben does Odile's variation cuz it's just *chef's kiss*

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Third Person's P.O.V.

Age: 38

"Where is he?" Camille asked impatiently.

"Cut Ben some slack," Estelle said, "He returned from an off-planet on a mission this morning."

"Pas d'excuses!"

Estelle rolled her eyes and glanced at the time. Ben was only ten minutes late. The first few minutes are used for stretching. It's not like he was missing anything important. Yes, he would cut into practice time in order to stretch sufficiently but a few minutes less of actual of practice never killed anybody.

"I think he's here," Alfie said in the midst of a stretch.

Sure enough, footstep soon approached and Ben came through the door.

"Finally!" Camille shouted, throwing her hands up in frustration, "Hurry and stretch so we don't waste anymore time."

Ben nodded and quickly fished his pointe shoes from his bag. Slipping them on in record time and starting his stretches. He waited a few minutes for Camille to step out of the room before looking at Estelle. His facial expression clearly showing his distaste with Camille's behaviour.

"Why are working with your cousin again?" he whispered.

"She cashed in her one and only favour from me," Estelle whispered back, annoyance evident in her tone.

"You need to stop giving people favours."

"I might just consider it at this point Twinkle Toes."

"You should stop with the nicknames too," Ben suggested.

"In your dreams," Estelle stated with a smile.

Ben sighed and shook his head. Also smiling. It was worth a shot.

"Are you done stretching yet?" Camille asked, "You're chatting away over there so I assume you're ready to work!"

Estelle and Ben both sighed. The latter soon standing up before heading over to where Camille and Alfie stood in the center of the room.

"Finalement," Camille muttered under her breath as Ben approached.

Ben did his best to ignore the venom in her tone.

"Today we'll focus on learning your variations," Camille said, "I doubt either of you did research about them beforehand considering neither of you did that for the adagio."

"I already know mine."

"Quoi?"

"I said I already know my variation," Ben repeated.

"No you don't," Camille stated.

"Yes I do."

"Perform it then!"

"Gladly," Ben said with a sly grin.

Alfie and Estelle both raised an eyebrow. How could Ben know Odile's variation already? Most of his week was spent preparing for the off-world mission prior to practice during the night. And as Estelle already mentioned, he returned at an ungodly hour this morning. When would he have had the time to learn Odile's variation? It wasn't long in true variation fashion, but there was no way he learned it overnight.

Right?

"Is he serious?" Alfie whispered.

"I'm not sure," Estelle replied.

Camille huffed and practically stomped over to her Bluetooth speaker. Hurriedly scrolling through her music library to find the music for Odile's variation. Estelle and Alfie soon went in her direction. That left Ben in the center of the dance floor as they stood off to side. He double checked that his pointe shoes were secured and got into his starting position.

The music soon started and Ben began the variation. From the first few moves, you could tell that he was familiar with the material. Like he had practiced it at least a few times before tonight. How that was possible given how busy Ben's been this week, no one present could say for sure. Ben executed most of the steps with relative ease. There was some refinement to be done of course, but he did well nonetheless.

Then there were Ben's facial expressions. They practically screamed Odile for the duration of the variation. The way he carried himself throughout his performance of the short piece gave radiated with Odile's energy as well. His portrayal of the character was quite impressive. Perhaps a bit frightening too given the accuracy.

And just like that, Ben struck his final pose as the music came to its end. He held it for a few seconds before taking a bow. After that, he turned to face the three other people in the room. Estelle had a smile on her face and Alfie had a small smirk. Both looked rather impressed and slightly amused. Camille on the other hand, was shocked. Her mouth hung open slightly and her face was flushed. Most likely from embarrassment.

"V-very well then," Camille said after a few moments of silence, "Spend the time refining it."

Ben didn't even try to hide his smirk. Camille grumbled something as Estelle took Ben by the arm and dragged him to the other side of the room. She then waited a couple minutes for her cousin to start teaching Alfie his variation before asking the question that was on everyone's mind.

"How did you learn that so fast?"

"I didn't go to sleep when I got back this morning," Ben explained, "I watched a video of the variation and practiced it until it was time for work. I'm running on a lot of Mr. Smoothy's and pure spite."

Estelle blinked at him incredulously.

"What?" Ben asked, "Someone had to humble your bitchy cousin."

Estelle gave him a fist bump for that as he smirked in a way that was reminiscent of Odile.

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Here's the link to Odile's variation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE7QgQVeeYs

Have a good rest of your day/night!