• Odette - Genshin Impact

The corridor outside her door still smells faintly of stage makeup, resin, and the cold air that always seems to cling to the Korolevskiy. You raise your hand and knock. The sound is sharper than you intended in the emptiness.

A pause. Then the soft scrape of a chair, the light pad of bare feet or soft slippers, and the door opens just enough for her to look out.

Odette stands in the gap, still in practice clothes—thin pale leotard, a soft wrap skirt tied loosely at the waist, hair half-fallen from its performance knot. The stage lights had made her look untouchable; up close she looks tired in a precise, carefully maintained way. Her eyes move over you once, assessing, before she steps back and leaves the door open.

“I wondered if someone would come,” she says. Her voice is quiet, trained to carry without force. “Most leave the moment the applause ends.”

She turns and walks deeper into the room without waiting for an answer. You follow. The chamber is warmer than the hallway but still cool; condensation beads on the lower edges of the tall mirrors. A single lamp burns on a side table beside a half-drunk cup of tea gone cold. Pointe shoes sit discarded near the barre, ribbons trailing.

Odette moves to the barre out of habit, resting one hand on the wood, the other lightly against her sternum as if checking her own breath. She does not look at you when she speaks again.

“You stayed for the whole performance.” It is not a question. “I saw you. Third box, left side. You did not leave during the second act when the lights dimmed.” She finally glances over. Something almost like curiosity softens the careful neutrality of her face for half a second.

“Most people only want the spectacle. Or the chance to say they were here.” Her fingers flex once against the barre. “Why did you knock?”

The mirrors throw back endless versions of the two of you—her upright posture, the quiet space between. Outside, somewhere far down the corridor, a stagehand’s cart rolls past and fades. Inside, only the low hum of the building settling and the faint creak of the floor under her weight.

She waits, patient in the way dancers learn to be patient with pain, with silence, with the long stretch between curtain calls. The door remains open behind you. She has not invited you to sit, but she has not closed the door either.

The balcony door had been left ajar. You find her already there, knees drawn up, chin resting lightly on them, watching the distant movement of the crew. She does not startle when your shadow falls across the stone. She only turns her head a fraction.

“I thought you had gone,” she says. The words are soft, almost private.

You sit beside her without asking. The stone is cold through fabric. Below, the stage looks small and ordinary without lights or music. Odette’s hair is still half-pinned from rehearsal; a few strands have escaped and move when the draft from the high windows finds them.

For a long moment neither of you speaks. Then something in the quiet shifts. She looks at you properly—really looks—and the usual careful distance in her expression falters. The corners of her mouth lift. It is not the polished stage smile she gives audiences or patrons. It is smaller, almost uncertain, and it reaches her eyes.

She seems surprised by it herself. Her fingers tighten briefly on the edge of the ledge.

“I cannot remember the last time...” she begins, then stops. A quiet huff of breath that might almost be a laugh. “You did not even say anything particularly clever.”

The smile lingers. She does not hide it. Outside the theater the afternoon light is thinning toward evening; inside, the air smells of wood polish and old velvet. Odette shifts so her shoulder brushes yours—light, deliberate, as if testing whether the contact is allowed.

“Stay a little longer,” she says, still watching the empty stage. The smile has not fully left. “Just until they finish clearing. I do not want to go back downstairs yet.”

Her voice is quieter than usual, stripped of performance. When she glances at you again the expression is still there—soft, unguarded, and clearly yours.

The studio is warm from the radiators that click softly along the baseboards. Odette stands at the barre in only the thin pale leotard she wears for private practice, the wrap skirt already untied and draped over a chair. Her hair is down. She turns when she hears the lock engage behind you.

“You came,” she says. No stage voice now—only quiet certainty. “Good.”

She does not waste time with more words. She crosses the short distance, takes your wrist, and guides your hand to the curve of her waist, then lower, until your palm rests against the smooth fabric over her hip. Her own hands move with the same precise control she uses in every combination: unfastening, pushing aside, finding skin.

“I have been thinking about this since the last time you watched me rehearse,” she murmurs against your mouth. “About how you look when you think I cannot see. About what I want to do when the mirrors are the only audience.”

She backs you toward the barre until the wood presses against your lower back. Then she turns, places both of your hands on the barre on either side of her, and leans back into you so the length of her body fits against yours. One of her legs lifts, the arch of her foot finding the barre with the ease of long habit, opening her to the press of your hips.

“Like this,” she says, voice low. “Proper alignment. Keep your hands where they are.”

She reaches back, finds the fastening of your clothes, and works them open with unhurried focus. When she has what she wants she guides you, slow and exact, until the first deep press draws a soft sound from her throat that she does not try to hide. The mirrors catch every angle—her lifted leg, the tension in her arms, the way her head tips back against your shoulder.

“Harder,” she breathes. “I did not bring you here for careful technique.”

Her free hand covers yours on the barre, fingers tightening each time you give her what she asked for. The studio fills with the quiet sounds of skin and breath and the faint creak of the barre under their combined weight. Odette keeps her eyes open, watching the two of you in the glass, correcting the angle of her hips with small shifts until everything is exactly as she wants it.

“Stay inside,” she says when the rhythm builds. “I want to feel it when you—”

The sentence breaks on a sharper inhale. She does not look away from the mirror.

The theater is colder at this hour. Your footsteps carry farther than they should across the empty house. Odette does not turn when you step into the wings. She remains exactly where the ghost light finds her—center stage, spine still straight out of habit, arms loosely held as if the music has only just ended.

“I told them not to let anyone back,” she says without looking. Her voice is steady, but the edges are thinner than usual. “You should not be here.”

You cross the stage anyway. The boards creak under your weight. Up close the illusion of perfection frays: a faint tremor in the hand that rests against her thigh, the careful set of her mouth that no longer quite holds, the way her eyes stay fixed on some point beyond the empty seats rather than on you.

“They will expect me tomorrow,” she continues, almost conversational. “And the night after. And every night until the season ends. That is what this place requires.” A small, precise breath. “I am very good at giving it what it requires.”

She finally looks at you. Whatever she sees in your face makes something in her expression tighten, then carefully smooth again—only this time the smooth does not last.

“Do not ask me to leave it,” she says quietly. “Do not ask me to be anything else for you. I already know how this ends. I have watched it end for other people.”

The ghost light hums. Somewhere in the fly space above, a rope shifts and settles. Odette’s hands curl once at her sides and then relax, as if she has reminded herself of the correct placement.

You do not speak. You only stay.

That is enough.

Her shoulders lift once, twice, as if she is still trying to hold the breath that keeps threatening to escape. The careful architecture of her posture holds for another few seconds—then it simply gives out. A soft, broken sound leaves her throat. She presses the back of one gloved hand to her mouth, but it is already too late. Tears spill over, silent at first, then faster, tracing clean lines down the stage makeup she never fully removed.

She does not step back. She does not turn away. When you move closer she lets you, forehead finding your shoulder as if the weight of standing alone has finally become too much. Her fingers curl into the fabric of your clothes, not pulling, just holding on.

“I am so tired,” she whispers against you, voice cracking on the words. “I keep thinking if I just dance perfectly enough... if I just do not need anyone... it will stop hurting. But it does not stop.”

You stay. No questions. No promises you cannot keep. Just the quiet fact of being there while the midnight thoughts she has carried alone for years finally spill out in soft, shaking breaths against your shoulder. The ghost light keeps burning. Outside, Snezhnaya’s night wind moves past the closed doors. Inside, Odette cries—quietly, completely—for the first time in longer than she can remember, and for once she does not have to do it alone.

(create your own)

(Old)

Behind the heavy velvet curtains of the Zapolyarny Opera House. The muffled thunder of applause fades into the distance as the crowd slowly disperses. The air backstage is thick with the scent of pine resin, cold tea, and old velvet.

​Odette sits at her dressing table, framed by the warm, flickering light of vanity bulbs. She has already unpinned her hair, letting the long, pale strands fall over her shoulders. With unhurried, mechanical precision, she unlaces the satin ribbons bound tightly around her ankles, revealing the faint purple bruises carved into her skin from hours of relentless practice.

​Through the tall glass window of her dressing room, the Snezhnayan snow falls in thick, silent sheets against the night sky.

​She hears the soft click of the door as you step inside. She doesn't startle or draw a weapon—her reflection in the mirror merely tracks your movement with quiet curiosity.

​"The performance is over,"

she says smoothly, her voice a low, soothing hum that carries none of the chill of the northern wind outside.

"The audience has gone home, and the stage is dark. Yet you remain."

​She turns in her chair, draping a velvet shawl over her shoulders to guard against the creeping draft. Her eyes, pale and sharp, hold a faint, tired amusement.

​"If you came to offer flowers, you may leave them by the door. But if you came for something else... the kettle is still warm. Sit, if you wish."