❝show me your thorns and
I'll show you my hands,
ready to bleed❞
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
paris, 1951
Violet slicked back her hair into the tight braid her mother had woven her charcoal hair into a few moments earlier. Not a hair out of place. Perfect. Perfectly perfect.
Tonight was her first show as Briar Rose in her company's production of Sleeping Beauty and she could faintly hear the audience seating themselves outside of her dressing room.
But, God, did they feel far away in that moment.
Violet could feel a crushing weight on her chest and her ears were ringing softly as she breathed deeply. She could not afford tears that night, her makeup was already done.
Too much weighed on this performance, on every performance. Her mother had made that clear.
"You are the youngest prima ballerina in the world, Violet." Maria said to her daughter that evening as did her hair. Violet never could tell her that the braid hurt, that her mother hurt her. "What would happen if you failed? Then all my hard work would be for nothing. You don't want to disappoint me, do you?"
Your hard work? Yours? Violet wanted to scream but instead she had simply said, "No, I don't mother."
Her mother gave her a tight smile and kissed her head in acknowledgment and then she made her way to the door of her daughters dressing room. Violet knew it was foolish to do so but she still waited for a good luck to escape her mothers lips but all she was met with was the click of the door as it shut behind her.
Foolish, foolish little doe, always vying for her mothers approval.
She could hear the thirty minute call through the speakers as she slipped her pink tulle skirt over her legs and onto her waist. It had beautiful golden flowers stitched all over with tiny pearls sewn into the hem.
Violet loved flowers. An ironic love affair due to her name but she was helpless. Nature was her closest companion, her dearest and only confident in the hand that life had dealt her. Even now she had her potted white rose upon her vanity, something that was hers in a world where she belonged to everyone else.
"Ma Chérie." A knock came from the now open door and a man with a handlebar moustache and a cologne that could only have been named 'Paris smog' for how it smelled greeted Violet. "Are you excited."
"I am." Violet said with a weak smile as her long time instructor, Paul Dire, strode towards and took her face in his hands.
Paul watched her face with a look Violet could not place. She had never truly liked the man, ever uncomfortable in his presence. But she could never complain when his hands wandered. No, mother wouldn't like that.
"You're going to be wonderful." Paul murmured, holding her face tighter but Violet did not dare herself to wince. "Parfait."
All Violet could do was nod.
Nod and take it.
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
"I don't see why we must go to the ballet of all places." Rosalie grumbled as she followed the pixie like vampire through crowds of humans in their finest clothes. "It's not really the safest place for our condition."
"You said how much you missed live performance." Alice said with a smile, looking over her purple silk clad shoulder to the blonde. "And I couldn't pass up the chance to bond with my new sister."
Rosalie was silent at that.
Alice and her mate Jasper had joined the Cullen coven a year earlier. Alice had had a vision of joining the vampiric family years earlier and she and Jasper had been searching all over America for them since 1948. Luckily they caught them before they boarded the ship for Europe. Ever since then, their makeshift family had grown slightly bigger.
Rosalie would never admit it but she was fond of the future seeing vampire and they had become friends in one form or the other.
Alice, however, was adamant the two would become as close as sisters by the end of the year and had dragged her all of over France on 'girls only' excursions that Esme would sometimes come along on. But she hadn't tonight and Rosalie had no buffer from the easily excitable brunette.
"Apparently Violet Dubois is in this performance." Alice gushed happily as she handed their tickets to the man dressed in blue in the box office.
"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Rosalie grumbled, fiddling with the pendant around her neck.
Alice spun, mouth falling into a small 'o' of shock as she looked at the blonde.
"The prima ballerina?" Rosalie continued to look blankly at her and Alice let out a small huff of indignation and began to walk further through the hall. "Well that simply won't do."
Rosalie merely sighed and followed after her, the blue velvet of her skirt swishing lightly against her calves as she walked.
The hall was ornate, a oak panelled stage to the front and red painted walls surrounding it. Golden cherubs were at every corner, watching the audience as they took their places. Everything was a performance in a room like this, everything was watched by something or another.
Alice was right, Rosalie had dearly missed live performance. She loved the simmering anticipation that flowed through the air as the audience took their seats and how the dimming of the lights seemed to bubble through the very blood of any onlooker lucky enough to be entranced by them.
She loved the escape.
Taking her seat beside Alice and attempting to ignore the delectable smell of human blood that pumped hurriedly through the veins of their neighbours.
"This is Violet Dubois." Alice said with excitement as she thrust the playbill into Rosalie's gloved hands. "She's playing Briar Rose."
Rosalie sighed lightly but gave in to temptation, bringing the picture closer to her gaze. A photo looked back at her and no matter how proud she was, Rosalie was not too proud to admit that this woman's beauty was undeniable. Her dark hair and doe eyes rivalled the immortal beauty that was her own.
But there was a look in her eyes, reminiscent of some Shakespearean tragedy. An emptiness only Rosalie could see, a look she remembered all too well from the mirrors that haunted her.
She didn't notice Alice watching her with a slight glint in her amber eyes as Rosalie scanned the page. Alice had deeper motivations for desperately wanting to come to the ballet that night, especially if it meant her sister and this deeply sad and beautiful girl could find some peace in this eternity that she knew they would spend together.
"Alice-" Rosalie began but just as she spoke, the audience's voices fell to a hush and the lights dimmed.
"Shh." Alice hushed her, grinning at her in excitement as silenced echoed throughout the hall. "The show's about to begin."
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
