She held on longer than anyone else I've seen. Maybe it was because she was actually that good of a dancer. Whatever it was, the shoes didn't take anything away. I stood in the blackened wings as she finished her pas. She made acrobatic ballet look like playing in a sand box, but of course as meaningful as Madam Butterfly watching the sun rise. Well, as meaningful as it was to opera addicts.

Hilde was in the arms of her partner when the curtains came to a close. Immediately she started thrashing out of Jon's grip, clawing at his hands, her dress, and anything else in the way. It must of hurt, cause Jon dropped her completely, something anyone with more than a year of pas de dux training would never think about it. Hilde, screaming fanatically, reached toward her shoes momentarily until she grabbed her face in horror. This is when I stepped out.

“Jon, get out!” I demanded, my boots creating a hallowed rhythm on the stage floor. Jon looked once more at Hilde before running past me before I could yell at him again. Hilde was now on pointe again, but without any correct body posture. Not even the best dancer could hold herself like this. Hilde finally lost any control. I held the stone at the top of my cane and twisted it, allowing me to pull out the blade.

The shoes were completely harvesting whatever energy Hilde had after her performance. The Piano in the wings was shaking, hammering a melody between dissonant notes. The audience's chattering and shuffling wasn't audible any more. I need to get those shoes off of her.

As I neared her, she leaped at me and I dodged to the side. Hilde immediately pivoted and reached at me with both of her hands. I blocked with my hands and she gripped the handle of the blade and my other forearm. I stepped back and pulled the blade with me, using her own weight to toss her to the ground. I slipped my arm out of her grip as she fell and released my hand off of the blade.

I dropped quickly to the ground and pulled a knife from my side. Holding her leg still as well as I could, I cut the laces off the side of one or her legs, just enough to pull the shoe of her leg. In a seemingly automatic response, her other leg hit me with a flexed foot. The last sound I remembered was the cracking of the wood in the toes of the shoe. Ballerina's are damned tough.

I came to, and there was the other point shoe heading straight down at me like a drill. I caught her foot with both of my legs. I felt something hit my side and realize that my knife had slid next to me. Jon ran up to Hilde and bear hugged her. “Cut it off!” he said, as Hilde once again panicked in his arms. I tried my best not to scar her legs as I went for the laces. Hilde was releasing shrills as I went to remove the last shoe. The piano was ponding all of its keys neurotically up until the she shoe came off. All the noise stopped in one cadence, and Hilde became dead weight in Jon's arms. He hurried off with her to the wings and I sat up, put my knife away and picked up my cane and the shoes.

Now, I have to get back to Russia, I thought, I'll be able to rest on the plane. God damn Russians. Only they'd be that crazy about their ballet shoes.