Work Text:
She was content.
This realization struck Odette like a bolt of lightning, sudden, jarring, and entirely life-altering. She felt Rue’s arms, which had been loosely circled around her, tense slightly.
“Are you alright?” Rue asked, concern bleeding through her voice. Odette regretted being the one to place it there.
“Yes. That’s what surprised me, actually.”
“...What?”
Odette paused for several moments, struggling to put her thoughts into words. Even with her heart restored, emotions were still so… difficult. Like any skill left to languish far too long, her ability to recognize and express emotions was quite rusty. Whatever she felt at the moment, it was a lot. It wasn’t bad, though.
“I’m okay. After everything… I’m myself, and I’m fine. Better than fine, in fact. I’m happy, for more than just a fleeting moment.” She swallowed. “I never realized I could have that.”
Rue laughed, softly. Even without looking, Odette could tell from the sound alone that her girlfriend was doing her utmost to keep from crying. She gently patted Rue’s arm, hoping it would offer comfort.
“Me neither.” Said the girl who was no longer the Raven’s daughter. No longer a helpless puppet blindly trudging along the path that had been laid out for her.
Odette tilted her head upwards from where it lay against Rue’s shoulder, giving her girlfriend a smile.
“We made it.”
“We did.” Rue tilted her head to plant an adoring kiss on Odette’s cheek. “We’re here. What’s next?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? There was a whole kingdom to rule, of course. That was quite important. Thousands of people gave Odette their unconditional support, trusting her to be a wise and just leader to bring them prosperity.
A lot of responsibility, for a woman who hardly even knew herself. Sometimes, in the dark hours of night, while she lay in bed waiting for sleep to claim her, she wondered if that was truly right. To allow a single person so much power, over so many. To treat any individual with such reverence.
Idolization can be a terribly isolating thing. The suffocating constant pressure of meeting everyone’s expectations. Never fail, never falter. You are hope incarnate, and you have to act like it. Because if you slip up, if he sees you as anything less than perfect, that image in his head will shatter and he’ll have nothing to cling onto in this raging storm of uncertainty. No shining beacon to lead him home when he most needs it.
Oh, those thoughts were Tutu’s.
Which meant they were Odette’s, also.
Right?
Tutu was her, all along. Or, at very least, a representation of everything Odette wished she had the strength to be. A woman, defined by effortless grace and tenderness and compassion. Unwavering in the quest to restore her heart. Bring life back to that hollow, empty shell that couldn’t view itself as a person.
(Even when a part of Odette didn’t want it. When she was scared, terrified. Lashing out like a cornered animal. Willing to destroy, kill the part of herself she was not yet ready to face. Unwilling to let this realization or this new wholeness be thrust upon her.)
It was quite surprising, actually. How quick her subjects had been to accept this facet of herself that had taken her countless years to embrace. She was Odette, a princess. This was a truth she’d had to fight for. To grasp, wresting it from the hands that sought to keep her confined to a much simpler box.
The perfect fairytale prince. the martyr. The docile, sacrificial lamb that met its fate with no resistance.
That's who Mytho had been.
It wasn’t Odette. She refused to let it be. She knew Rue wouldn’t let her lose herself to those tropes either.
Maybe it made more sense, that the kingdom had given her the support she’d never before realized she desperately needed. This was her fairytale ending, all sunshine and smiles with no sadistic author to twist it into tragedy.
Some part of her was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Weeks of peace, and she still felt as though she were dancing over thin ice. Liable to fracture and crumble away beneath her feet at the slightest misstep.
Odette sort of feared she’d always feel that way, even if the impending doom she dreaded was entirely non-existent.
She knew, without asking, that Rue was the same. Saw it in those dark circles beneath her pretty eyes. In the way Rue was sometimes distant, close enough for Odette to touch and yet still a million miles away. In the way Rue would so often cry Odette’s name whilst caught in the throes of nightmares, terrified and desperate and pleading.
They had their happy ending, yes. Everything was perfect.
But their minds were not untouched by the things that came before.
Odette realized she’d left Rue’s question unanswered, hanging in the air between them.
What’s next?
“Whatever we want, I suppose.”
“Want.” Rue said the word as though it were something entirely foreign. “I don’t think I’m good at that. I can’t think of anything I’ve wanted before. Other than you, of course.”
“Well, you have me.” Odette playfully booped her girlfriend’s nose. “You’re going to have to think of something else.”
She giggled. “If you insist. I want…. I want to dance with you. A pas de deux.”
Odette shifted, turning to face Rue more fully. “That’s all?”
“It’s what I want now. In this moment. And we have time to figure out the rest.”
The princess extricated herself from her lover’s arms and stretched, falling into a dancer’s poise from muscle memory alone.
“Yes.” Odette reached out, offering Rue a hand and gently pulling her up from the ornate loveseat they had been lounging on. “We have all the time in the world.”