Mated by Twilight (True Match)

Chapter 44

Leah

“I changed my mind. I can’t do it!”

“Nope!” Tillos and Sollit said at the same time, catching her by the arms when she attempted to flee and turning her around. Facing her right back to the stage entrance.

“You’re just nervous,” Tillos assured her. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I’m going to be sick.”

“And it will be glorious,” Sollit said grandly.

The ridiculousness of the statement made her laugh, but it was an uncomfortable sound. “Guys, seriously, I can’t do this. I’m going to mess it up. I won’t be able to sing. Let me go.”

“Nope,” they said again.

“No, really, I mean it. Let me go.”

“And we would,” Tillos smiled.

“But you told us not to,” Sollit reminded her, kissing the side of her head, on her hair so he didn't mess up her make up. “I believe your exact words were, ‘No matter what I say, don’t let me change my mind. I mean it. Don’t let me run.’”

“Yeah, but that was last night when I was being dumb and overconfident,” she protested, shaking her head as the others watched her curiously.

Leah had no idea why she thought she had the right to be confident last night. That was just her being stupid. Now that she was standing here, actually faced with the prospect of going out on the stage, she realized how foolish she had been.

Leah was going to be up there alone . She had a choir singing with her for her opening number, but the other ‘people’ on stage were all holoprops, not real. There wasn’t actually a species so big that she could be compared to their thumb. And even if there was, the stage wasn’t big enough for them. They were pulling a trick out of old cartoons and just making light props that were only feet or hands for her to move around and interact with as she sang about being tiny Thumbelina.

But until Sollit and Tillos showed up later so she could meet her fairy princes, she was going to be on her own. Singing on her own. In front of a huge crowd that was even bigger than normal, especially the streaming audience, because everyone wanted to see the first human performance. And she really thought she could be confident about that ?

Nope. Clearly, last night, she’d suffered from a brief bout of insanity brought upon her by the rehearsals and practices that had been going so well. She’d been high on the success of the last full run through of the play and that, combined with the lingering throes of ecstasy she’d enjoyed at her mates’ hands, had made her really think she could do this,

But the open maw of the stage entrance reminded her of her place, and it wasn’t too late for her understudy to get dressed and take her position. She would take the writing credit alone, and that would be good enough.

Except her mates were pushing her forward, following her first order, not this one. They continued promising her that she’d be great. That the play was going to be wonderful. To take that nervous energy and put it into her performance.

They shoved her into the tunnel. The now familiar sense of weightlessness from the anti-grav machine hit her. And it was like muscle memory took over. She pushed herself up through the darkness, making her way to her first mark. She had to hide in a giant, holo flower for her ‘birth’.

Her heart was thumping so hard, so fast, she was certain it would give up any moment now. She’d die from a nervousness induced heart attack any second now.

Flashes of her last performance kept hitting her. Hearing their jeers. Seeing their mocking faces. Her father right there up front, giving her a look that said she deserved this. That she asked for this. That she was a bad child who needed to be shamed.

But there was no bright blue sky beckoning her to flee here. There wasn’t even a dark sky to refuse to look at her as she wallowed in her shame.

There was only the promising caress of twilight and all that it promised.

The first delicate notes of the opening song began to play and one of the chorus members – the person playing her mom, the person who they would only see large feet of to put into perspective how small Leah was, began her opening narration.

And it was muscle memory.

She curled up into her fetal position, arms around her legs. The cute, flowy tea dress costume she wore was super cute and innocent, little bows on her shoulders where it had been tied on. It looked both like a pretty dress and like it had been made of flower petals.

Because she was Thumbelina, born from a flower.

Light bloomed around her as her flower blossomed. And she was well trained for this. Her body went through the motions Corvidair had made her practice again and again until she wondered what was the point of repeating something she had already done perfectly. But perfecting it wasn’t the point. The point was this moment, when it became reflexive for her to unfold herself in time with the musical cues.

And it helped that she looked up, where the legs vanished into the dark ceiling, not at the audience. She smiled, lifting her arms and standing.

The cords of her first song started

And she sang.

The first note wavered, but training, old and new, immediately corrected the sound in her throat. And she knew this song. She’d sang it again and again in preparation for this moment. It was partially based on the song in the movie that she knew from childhood, but also partially based on Corvidair’s own interpretation.

She was singing a happy song from her childhood, and a happy song from her present.

And it was easy.

It felt right.

When she began moving around, dancing on the stage, it was familiar and fun. The stage was so dark, it was like the audience wasn’t even there.

It was just her. Alone. Singing on stage. Reclaiming something that was stolen from her. A joy that she’d completely forgotten.

Because before the boos and the condemnations and her father’s self-righteous glare, there had been a moment of eager anticipation. There had been the thrill of the performance. There had been love.

Leah loved this.

And she felt tears pooling in her eyes as she came to the end of her song, because she had forgotten this feeling. She’d let her father steal this from her, and then allowed the fear he’d replaced it with keep her from feeling it again.

But it was like she’d shed it all at once. Tossing it away in her twists and turns around the stage so that when she finally came to her last mark, breathing hard from belting it out from deep in her chest, it was exhilaration that filled her even before the audience began to cheer.

Because she’d done that. She’d done this!

This was the life she’d chosen for herself. To reclaim her power. To reclaim her voice .

And for the first time since she stood in that church, shivering in a gown she hadn’t chosen, about to meet a groom she hadn’t picked and she’d looked out that door to the bright blue sky that lay beyond, beckoning her like a sign from above, she felt like herself again.

Here. In this place. On this twilight stage.