Firefly

“ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX! AND FOUETTE! PIQUEE! FOUETTE! PIQUEE!”

There's something about it....

“KEEP YOUR LEG STRAIGHT! IN! OUT! I SAID BRING IT IN! YOU'RE NOT IN TIME!”

Dancing. Ballet....

“TURN OFF THE MUSIC! STOP!”

That can make a girl go insane.

Lucciola halted mid turn, almost tripping over her own shoes. She was breathing hard, her back dripping with sweat. The lights on the stage, after an hour of nonstop turning, leaping, and screaming, were too hot on the back of her neck. Madame Lucille scowled up at her from the front row. The woman had the temperament of nails on a chalk board, a voice that could pull teeth.

“Yes?” Lucciola asked breathlessly.

“Your posture is atrocious,” Madame Lucille snarled. “I am training ballerinas, not crippled apes. If you can't stand up straight, you don't deserve to dance.”

“Yes, Madame,” Lucciola replied. Always agree with her. A single word out of turn could cost her the solo, and her career forever.

“And fix your hair. You look trashy. You're not a whore.” It was a single wisp of hair that had fallen out of her bun. The sweat dripping down her forehead was enough to plaster it back into place.

“Should I try again?” she asked, already shifting back into proper position. She put one foot behind her in fourth position, readying her arms.

“No. No. I'm done dealing with you for the day. I want the girls from the first dance of act two out. I SAID I WANT THE GIRLS FROM ACT TWO!”Lucciola stood dumbfounded as fifty girls came wheeling onstage, giggling to themselves. “HUSH! YOU DON'T GET PAID TO TALK!” A silence fell over them. Madame Lucille raised a gnarled hand, motioning for the boys in the box to play the music, and as the first booms of trumpets swept across the stage the corps girls behind Lucciola began to run to their positions. Madam Lucille raised an eyebrow.

“Well?” she said coldly. “Miss Lucciola, do you plan to move? Or are you too incompetent to do even that?”

“But Madame-”

“Go home Miss Lucciola. I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Lucciola moved numbly to the side, brushing roughly against one of the passing girls.

“Watch it,” the girl hissed. Lucciola ignored her. She moved around two other girls in the middle of grande jetes and walked off stage.

***

“The old bat doesn't know what she's talking about,” Harper assured her. She flipped her platinum hair over her shoulder, revealing the cigarette tucked behind her ear. She plucked it out with two fingers, stopped walking to light it up, and took a drag. “Your fouettes were perfect. She couldn't even lift her stretch marked thigh that high anyway.”

“You shouldn't say things like that about Madame Lucille,” Lucciola replied, but cracked a smile. She stopped as well, waiting patiently for Harper to finish her cigarette. The girl was incapable of doing two things at once. Harper frowned at her around the cigarette, leaning against the street light as she took a second drag.

“Let me reiterate. She's OLD.” She offered the cigarette to Lucciola. “Want a taste? Just like cherries.” Lucciola waved it away.

“Those things will kill you.”

“I'm alright with dying.”

“They'll ruin your dancing too.”

“Well we can't have that now, can we?” Harper snickered, then sighed. “Alright lady, you've convinced me.” She threw the cigarette over her shoulder, then wiped her hands on her jeans. “I'm done with them, I swear.”

“Liar,” Lucciola snickered, and the two of them started walking again. It was late now, almost midnight, which wasn't at all unusual for a night of practice. It had rained yesterday. Puddles still dotted the street, reflecting the stars like mirrors. Black holes. Lucciola felt most at peace during the night, when everything was calm and still and quiet. The fresh air, away from the lights and the bodies pressed against one another, the rustle of tutus, the smell of rosin.

“You're glowing,” Harper snickered. “Eh, firefly?”

“Shut up,” Lucciola said, shooting her a rueful smile. She took a step closer to Harper so they were walking shoulder to shoulder. “Coffee?”

“You have to ask?” Harper replied. She held out her arms, doing a quick chasse, pas de bourree, glissade, grande jete routine to jump in front of Lucciola. She finished with a chaines turn to face her and presented her arms. “Prima ballerina is buying, right?”

***

Aries caught sight of them as he pulled himself from the alley. He had to clutch the wall for support for a long moment, hanging his head and waiting for the voices to fall asleep again. The migraine they'd left him with was crippling him. He hadn't eaten tonight-the girl had gotten away just as the shrill shriek of LET ME GO! had burst through his head again.

Her voice was like fireworks behind his eyelids. The stronger ones were like this, waking at random moments, still thinking they were alive, and scared. Eventually she would calm down.

“Prima ballerina is buying, right?”

He was surprised to hear a girl's voice so nearby. It was late, after all. He lifted his head towards the sound-it was like a sack of bricks sitting on top of a toothpick-and peered around the alley wall. There they were, no figments of his imagination but two girls with the figures of steel poles, their shadows almost as long and skinny and reaching towards him from across the street. The one who had spoken was laughing, her bright curls almost glaring as they caught the lamp light. She skipped backwards down the sidewalk, her hands shoved into her leather jacket. He could feel her life snapping at him even from where he stood. It was easiest to see in their shadows. Humans never paid attention to them. He raised a hand and the shadow lifted her sharp chin, jutting a spiked tongue out at him like a whip of flame. For a moment the street seared orange, hot with the burn the shadow left.

Aries stepped back, avoiding the sparks her tongue spat in his direction, and with a wave of his hand released her. She melted back into her normal, dark shape. The girl with the glaring hair stopped, side glancing at where her shadow stretched across the road.

“Harper, you okay?” the other girl asked, and Aries attention shifted to her.

She was softer than her friend, more subtle. Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun, her shirt hung loose off her shoulders, her tights were ripped, her shoes dirty. But there was something about her that sang of grace. She walked on her toes, carrying her whole body up with her and down again. Subtle, but intriguing.

Aries called her shadow.

The shadow didn't peel or stretch herself across the street the way the other girl's had. She took a long step and pulled herself up onto her toes the way a ballerina would. Her faceless silhouette stared at him for a long moment, and then she bowed. Aries bowed back. It was only polite.

The shadow stood again, shifted her feet, and then leaped into the air. As her toes left the ground a soft glow began to consume her, a greenish yellow, warm like summer. She hovered there for a moment, the light inside her rippling like waves, and then slowly, ever so slowly, landed again. The moment her feet touched the ground the light, and the shadow with it, shattered into a thousand glowing balls of light.

“See? Lucciola, you can't tell me you didn't see that!”the blonde girl was shouting frantically. She pointed towards the street.

“What did you see exactly?” the other girl, Lucciola, replied.

“I.....I don't know exactly. It looked like a light...but it was-” The blonde one looked out into the street, dumbfounded, but the fireflies the shadow had left had already faded into nothing. “I swear something was there,” she said. “I swear.”

“I believe you,” Lucciola told her. She placed a long, skinny hand on her friend's shoulder. “Come on. Let's get that coffee.”

Aries watched them go. He stared at Lucciola's back until they turned down another street, and were gone.

“Lucciola,” he tried her name on his tongue. The way it tingled across his lips was like a song. “Firefly.”
He had never seen a life strong enough to lift their shadow off the ground. “Firefly.”

He had to have her.