Swann's Song

Swann Elric Eldicott is stretching her calves against the back wall of the dance studio as Madame Michelin drums impatiently against the record player. If it had been on, it would have been skipping, a tune too tricky to dance traditionally to. But it is off, its needle hovering over the side of the plastic, a record speared by the center turner lying patiently and waiting for power. Madame Michelin clears her throat and manages to motion to the time that is passing without moving anything but an eyebrow. Swann smiles at the wall and sits on the floor to stretch her hamstrings. 

Her mother wanted to name her after a ballet, of course. Her older sister was named for one, her brother was named for one, even her mother’s name came from the Tradition. All of the other little girls in Swann’s year were named Coppelia or Belle. There were a few Odettes, one Giselle, a Carmen. Swann’s mother gave up on Jardin after her father declared that naming his youngest daughter after a garden was just not going to happen. Swann wanted to know what kept him from having a problem with the name of a big honking bird.

Madame Michelin does not even bother clearing her throat again. She drops into a deep plie and then rises to her toes. Swann is gruffly pulled to her feet and slid across the floor to stagger against the barre. Madame’s smile is a baring of teeth. She curves her fingers into position and the record player’s needle jumps, music creeping from the speakers. Swann slips her feet into the familiarity of first position and prepares. 

The magic wells up with the motion of their bodies, every drop of exertion poured out into the air around them, until the room fairly rings with light, a golden river that rises until Swann and the Madame are submerged within it. 

Swann hates this part; she always feels as if she is drowning. 

The barre exercises take them the better part of two hours; a slow layering of color added to the golden river with each new position, each different movement of their feet. Swann is exhausted by the end of it, her leotard and leg warmers sodden and gross and all she wants is to be allowed to go home. Madame looks at the bright green that has crept into their river of magic and shakes her head.

“You are not doing the grande battements correctly, Ms. Eldicott. This should be a forest green. A complementary shade. Not this…neon color.”

“Maybe the containment spell isn’t working properly,” Swann says, wiggling her toes in her pointe shoes and trying to calculate whether she has to shower at the studio or if she has enough time to do it at home.

“Nonsense,” Madame scoffs, absentmindedly standing on pointe and moving the needle to a resting position with the motion, “I danced it myself.” 

Swann takes the end of the music for the end of the class and bends at the waist to unlace her shoes. She sighs with relief as she pulls them one at a time from her feet although she takes the time to wrap them up carefully before she tosses them lightly across the room. Madame raises an eyebrow and Swann quickly flicks her hand out to slow the shoes’ flight. She straightens and pops her hip and the shoes put themselves away, her bag zipping up on its own, her street shoes aligning themselves in front of it.

“I have asked that you not practice that street magic in my domain,” Madame says from behind her with a frown. 

Swann apologizes, slipping her feet into her shoes and slinging her bag over her shoulder. She catches a look at herself in the studio’s mirrors and grimaces. She pulls her hair out of its long blond ponytail and twists it into a bun before securing it with a pencil from the outside pocket of her bag.

“Swann,” Madame says, her tone that of someone who is tired of repeating themselves. Swann turns to look at her. The Madame sighs and drops into a graceful curtsy, her feet perfectly positioned. Around them the containment spell drifts away in a twist of classical music. “Work on your turnout on those kicks, please. I fully expect forest green tomorrow.”

Swann opens the door to the studio, her entire body aching. As she closes the door behind her she can hear the Madame’s final missive through the door.

“Just ask your sister for help!”

Swann scoffs and takes the stairs down at a skip that makes the air around her ring with the clash of a gong. 

“Right,” she says as she heads for the parking garage. “Like that’s gonna happen.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Swann’s bike is waiting where she left it, and she takes the time to put her helmet on over her bun and then does a quick, exultant jump from the concrete so the bike springs to life between her knees. It’s really her brother’s bike, but she knows Orpheus won’t mind as he’s busy the entire week. And really, one of the King’s top magicians shouldn’t be riding a motorcycle to work. 

Swann’s smile is wide as she rockets into traffic and takes the turns too quickly, the fast beat of the music in her head letting her pass through cars that are in her way and make corners that a traditional magician would be terrified of taking. 

She gets home with enough time to shower and change and even knock out a quick routine that dries her hair and knots it into a complicated twist she knows her mother will appreciate. She glides down the stair to a ring of cymbals and her sister grimaces from the landing. 

“It’s ‘cause you put that hip-hop in your steps, Squab,” her sister says with a smile. Agon is a beauty in all the ways best loved by the Tradition. Her hair is long and dark and suited to a bun, her arms and legs exuding grace. When she walks, she glides and the only music that accompanies her is Tchaikovsky. From the landing, she stretches her arm up over her head and sweeps it down in a neat arc that lifts Swann’s skirts with the ripple of its passing. Swann giggles and jumps down the last step with a full body roll that upsets her sister’s magic and introduces a backbeat to the symphony.

Agon turns a quizzical eye to her sister, but smiles and locks her elbow with Swann’s as they descend the stairs to the mixed tune.

At the bottom, their butler does a pas de bourree and the doors to the dining room open. Orpheus sweeps in after them, the dark strains of a viola drifting around his head as he takes his seat with all the drama of a tortured lead. Agon laughs again and does a rond de jambe under her skirt that only Swann sees. Their brother is heaved forward in his seat and his tie lands in the soup. He looks up at his sisters and sweeps his arms through the first two positions, the viola music increasing as Agon flies backward. Swann takes a spread out stance and jumps to cross her feet then uncross them, curtailing her sister’s flight and allowing Agon to turn the fall into a cabriole that has Orpheus pinned to the far wall, soup dripping off his chin.

Of course, this is the moment their mother chooses to enter, her steps silent against the marble. Behind her, their father is buried in that morning’s paper and he fails to see the scramble as Agon, Orpheus, and Swann move to their seats, righting upset tables and dancing the soup back into the tureen. 

Their mother casts an appraising eye on her children and raises the left corner of her mouth in half a smile.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to tell you myself,” she says. In one motion she sweeps her skirts to the side and sits to the right of their father’s chair. “Now, shall we dine?”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Swann knows her family are confused by her magic. Not many understand that the street dancer’s movements are almost as powerful and certainly more versatile than the Traditional forms. Once she caught her sister attempting a simple shoulder roll and her closet exploded into a warren of rabbits. Through the cracked door, Swann had seen Agon throw up her hands in frustration and then do a series of quick fouttes to turn the rabbits back into clothes. “I don’t know how she does it,” Swann heard her sister say, and she had smiled and kept going down the stairs.

There was definitely something to the Traditional magic. The control needed to dance the Tradition was a perfect base for any other kind of magic that might need to be done. There was not magic without breath and there was no magic without quick and agile feet and the Tradition taught that surer than anything else. But the form and function of the Tradition was steeped in the mastery that came from centuries of it being used. She saw how her mother exulted in a well-turned dance, and she saw the radiant joy that beamed from Agon’s face when she could perform a jump so cohesively it righted an overturned house two miles away from their home. 

Swann thought the soul and rhythm that infused the street dances was just as useful, and it had taken her a while to convince her family, but once she had they were willing to allow her to experiment. Of course, they frowned on her doing it too often, or in public, but Swann was thinking that maybe she could change that. 

An Odile was coming to court, after all. 

The Odile’s dancing was precise and beautiful and terrible in its beauty. The rumors said she had danced an entire village to death and sent the ghosts dancing into eternity, never to lie still. Swann was thinking maybe a good pop-and-lock would throw her off balance, and a properly placed foot switch would send the sound of drums to beat back the strains of her clarinets.

There was only one way to be sure, of course. But Swann was confident in her skills. Hadn’t she found all of the lost children last Christmas with a backflip? Hadn’t she proven herself capable in her chosen field?

Swann liked her name. It made her stand out and she appreciated that. But most of all she liked her initials: S.E.E. She could see clearly enough that the dominion of the Tradition needed to come to an end. Maybe she could make the rest of them see it, too.