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The last thing Yelena remembers feeling before everything went dark was how cold Bob’s knuckles felt beneath her touch.
When she opens her eyes at last, all that surrounds her is nothingness — near pitch darkness. Beneath her palms, the surface is cold to the touch. She lets her hands trace over what she believes to be flooring, feeling the textured wood beneath her.
There is something awfully familiar about it. But for now, she has sufficient certainty to realize that she isn’t in the realm of reality anymore.
She’s been here before. Her mind can supply her as much.
“Bob?” she calls out, eyes searching the dark around her. Her voice returns as a resounding echo, and when she rises from where she’d been on the ground she nearly keels over in shock.
Yelena glances down, and it’s then she receives another clue as to just where she might be. Or more a reflection of what had once been a reality.
Her feet are covered, and from the ribboned patterns covering them, she backs up, feeling the snugness of the shoes on her feet.
Pointe shoes.
Fuck, it’d been almost a lifetime ago since she last had to put these on, lacing them bit by bit with no room for mistakes.
Her breathing grows shallow as she lifts up her hands. She glances at her arms, and upon glancing down she lets out a soft gasp. Not only does she have pointe shoes on, she’s in costume, too. She’s not sure how this was even possible. The last time she’d been drawn into this realm, she thought she’d looked the same.
That thing. It must be growing in strength somehow, Yelena thinks to herself with mild alarm. The fact that there wasn’t another of her standing in this very position, that she herself was standing within this memory — she feels an unsettling coldness down her spine.
The moment she looks up again, Yelena jerks backwards when she feels the burn of high beam stage lights on her eyes. She covers her face, wincing at the heat of the lights.
“Yelena!”
She spins round on her foot, towards whoever had just called her. She recognizes the shrill, strict tone. And that too, she has not heard in a long, long time.
It’s her, Yelena thinks, steeling herself for what she believes was going to prove to be a challenging memory to overcome. Her old teacher, from the early days where she knew nothing but the four walls of the Red Room.
Ballet was meant to be one of the epitomizations of beauty, however, her teacher ruled over her students with a mercurial aura about her. As much as plenty of time had passed, Yelena’s body still remembers the sensations, the feelings whenever her teacher gave instruction. She could be ruthless, callous, unforgiving, even. She never forgot when the simplest of mistakes was made.
Which was why Yelena pushed herself to succeed, all those years ago. Succeed or die trying, and she certainly did not want to be subject to this woman’s hand. Even the most mercenary of Red Room handlers was a walk in the park compared to her old teacher.
“Are you just going to stand there like a dumb plank of wood, or are you going to get on with it, Yelena?” the teacher spits, every word on the edge of an angered outburst. “The orchestra cannot wait around for one dancer.”
“Yes,” Yelena draws in a long breath, shutting her eyes to recall whatever she could about her lessons. The moment the orchestra begins to play, the frenetic notes evoke a memory.
“But I’ve never—”
“Oh, but you can, Yelena,” another voice, seemingly soothing, echoes from another corner of the stage. A sole shadow, darker than the others, emerges from behind the stage curtain. Its form shifts, taking on a specific appearance, clad in costume just as she was.
Yelena covers her mouth, eyes trembling.
“You’re not him,” she shakes her head insistently. The physical form, she knew much more than most, but the eyes told her everything, enough to know that it wasn’t exactly the Robert Reynolds she knew in the daylight.
The being — the Void, chuckles, smiling with his teeth. “Ah, but I am an integral part of him, Yelena. Even you cannot run away from that, as much as you would rather shove it down.”
Yelena draws further back the more the Void approaches. “How are you doing this,” she whispers.
He lifts a hand, the intense music playing from the orchestra now contracting towards a diminuendo. “Wouldn’t you like to know. But, Yelena, don’t you have something important to do right now?”
Yelena clenches her eyes shut, steadying her breathing. When she opens her eyes once more, it appears that everything else has slowed. Even her old teacher stayed where she was, stiff expression still as a photograph.
“Think, Lena,” she mutters to herself, looking around the stage. When she turns to face the front again, she nearly collides with the Void. He’s a lot more solid than she realizes, a hand bumping against his front.
He chuckles, tilting his head in amusement. “Shall we dance,” he murmurs, lifting a hand for her to take.
This is meant to be an enactment of the memory, she thinks to herself. But the steps didn’t seem to be coming back to her for some reason.
“Take my hand,” the Void says, authority in his tone. The sound was just like Bob’s, but there was another underlying quality there that also commanded her attention.
As much as Yelena would rather have not, one more cursory glance back at her surroundings told her that she had little choice. The set is as though made of gilded gold, with tall pillars and an elaborate set. The other dancers in their respective parts sat in the peripheries, watching them intently, though Yelena did not know how aware those projections were, in this memory.
“Very good. You listen well,” he murmurs, pulling her close. Another flourish of his hand, and the music begins to swell once more. The coda from the pas de deux continues on, the orchestra playing each note with a renewed insistence.
He takes her hand, and it’s then she realizes that he’s making some variations to the original movements. If she’s to find her way out, she thinks, she’d better keep up to step with him.
It only takes some moments before she finds the rhythm she’d been searching for. Her feet feel much lighter once her brain is up to speed with her arms and feet. Each turn, each spin returning from a long forgotten memory.
“Beautiful,” the Void whispers, and Yelena feels her throat go dry. Anywhere else, this would have been different. But she does not allow herself to be fooled, especially not now, when she has a task to accomplish. The sooner she gets out, the better.
The music swells towards the distinct chorus part, the percussion and woodwind growing intense as Yelena moves to the en pointe posture. She knows what the following part demands of her. She remembers all those years ago, when her teacher showed her and the other girls the videos. But she is no Nuñez.
And yet, this is what she must do.
She tries her best to keep her focus as central as possible, remembering her teacher’s sharp, persistent reminders on where she ought to keep her eyes. Knowing that there was much more on the line provided her enough drive for her to keep her balance, remembering the almost clinical way she made herself move as she danced.
Thirty one, thirty two. She finishes the fouettes at last, with a short breath of relief, and there’s a soft laughter from the corner of her eye as the Void reenters the scene. His role in this appears murkied, a distorted mixture of Siegfried and Rothbart’s parts, forming something new, unpredictable.
It is something else entirely to see him move. Yelena moves aside as though on instinct, the echoing applause a distant sound. The being possessed abilities beyond all their knowledge, and he made the movements look so simple, gliding smoothly round the stage. Nothing like Robert’s occasionally hesitant movements.
He moves towards her again, taking her hand as she recalls the next part, backing away from him as she tries to balance her arabesque.
The Void maintains his unsettling presence throughout, and Yelena does not smile despite the memory of what her role demanded on the stage. She only focuses on getting the movements down, stretching out her hands for him to take. The piece approaches its end, and Yelena lets him wrap his hands round her waist to spin her round a few more times, before at last they slow down to a final stop, him taking one hand to rest in his as the piece ends.
Yelena’s breathing is heavy, the physical toll of performing sinking into her muscles. She’d not done this for so long, but she can’t help the relief as well, realizing that she managed to complete the piece.
“Well done,” the Void says, his voice a resounding echo in the theatre. When Yelena blinks her eyes open again, the stage is emptied once more — the orchestra, the audience, her teacher — all vanished as though none had ever been there in the first place. “You did as I expected.”
Yelena maintains her silence, and when she glances down at herself, she’s back in her sleep clothes.
The Void glides a hand across her shoulder, moving to stand in front of her. “You are most… fascinating,” he says, eyes searching hers. “So much shadow — and so much light.” He lifts her chin with his hand, and sees the movement of her throat as she swallows. “Most interesting. I will see you again.”
“I think we might be able to have some more fun,” he murmurs cryptically, before he pulls her to him, the force strong enough to send her back.
She flinches, but she feels herself caged — this time by Robert’s warmth, she knows. He appears none the wiser, but as she wriggles it is not long after when he too stirs awake.
“‘Lena-?” he mutters, voice drowsy and weighed down by sleep. “W-wha—”
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist. “Sleep now, Bob.”
As he shifts himself, pulling her close, the echo of the orchestra does not leave Yelena’s thoughts for a while, just as sleep does not come as easily.
I will see you again, that low whisper echoes in her mind.
Yelena holds Robert close, fingers brushing through his hair while so many thoughts course through her mind. Now she wasn’t as sure how much she could predict the Void’s machinations. But she would allow herself to find out.
For both their sakes.