be steadfast tin soldier (p)

Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:10 pm

It had been two weeks since Delaney had danced with Aidan in the middle of the forest. It was hard to forget, especially when she had to go back to Skylar and his claw hands. It was like he was trying to leave bruises. Saturday was one of her two days off and, of course, she had to be rehearsing. Sunday was reserved for doing absolutely nothing in hopes that her muscles would survive Monday. Even though the Studio Company wasn't even part of the main ABT theatre, they still practiced like they were full-time ballerinas. She didn't have a problem with that, she liked being away from camp. She preferred the city and its beautiful buildings and lights to the forest and rustic cabins.

She wore one of her basic rehearsal outfits, a long sleeved red leotard with a black rehearsal skirt, plus the usual tights. She had already put on her pointe shoes, carefully tucking the knot from the ribbons underneath the wrap, even though nobody was there to chastise her if she didn't. She had set up a speaker and her phone, listening as it cycled through her warm up music. She had already done barre, using an old garment rack that was missing the wheels.

Peter Pan was done, and this week they had moved onto original choreography, all being done by guest instructors. This instructor was a fan of the russian ballet, so she had been living and breathing classical ballet all week. They each had been assigned a variation. Delaney's was the Black Swan Variation, which the 11 other dancers in her studio company had found hilarious. Delaney ignored them.

The music for her variation started, and she found herself lost in the steps, spinning until she felt dizzy. Still, she continued.

Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:46 pm

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be steadfast tin soldier (p) Tumblr_oyv8kkfVfo1qb0jsbo2_250

Aidan had spent the past two weeks thinking about dancing with Delaney in the woods. It had felt so different than his dancing had felt in so long and he was itching to feel it again. He may have gone back out to the woods everyday at the same time in hopes that maybe they'd cross paths again. Aidan even used his powers to make the music much louder than the speaker could go. He may have also asked Morgana and the other Apollo kids to keep out for a dancer almost as good as him and Morgana. The son of Apollo was a bit too excited when Morgana told her that Mikaela had told her that Jarek had seen a girl dancing in the observatory and that she was there often.

Aidan kicked on a pair of flip-flops with his grey joggers and ombre red tshirt. He ran out of the Apollo cabin and hurried over to the observatory. He hurried inside and then stopped himself, not wanting to seem to excited. He had a tendency of acting in extremes. Aidan looked around and saw the stairs to the control booth for the observatory. He hurried up the stairs, hurling the chain blocking the steps. The O'Kearney boy opened the door slowly and walked into the booth.

Aidan could see Delaney dancing from the booth. On the actual ground, in her actual point shoes, the son of Apollo was blown away. He knew that she was probably better than him. He couldn't lie, that scared him. Aidan slid the glass in the booth open. "Hey, I heard there was a bunhead in here." The son of Apollo laughed.

Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:43 pm

Delaney was in her second run through of the variation, and once again in the middle of the spinning. She was in the middle of a quadruple pirouette, watching the world around her blur. That is, until she saw a flash of red, and heard someone call out to her. She had been caught off guard and jumped at the sound. Her balance was thrown off and she found herself falling. She was able to stop herself from falling on her knees, taking the brunt of the weight in her hands. Her palms stung from hitting the ground so hard, but she saved herself from bruised knees, or worse.

Delaney transitioned to a sitting position, her eyes shooting up to where her distraction came from. That's when she saw Aidan. She had to admit, she was happy he was here, even if she almost broke her knees.

"A little warning next time," She called up to him, although she gave him a smile. Aidan was probably her only friend at camp, if she could even call him that. It wasn't hard, since she spent all of her time in rehearsals or arguing with her cabin mates. She shook out her hands, smiling through the pain. Hey, it's not like that's the only thing that hurt at the moment. Besides, it would probably subside soon.

Delaney waved at him to come down to the ground floor.

Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:51 am

Aidan cringed a little bit as he watched Delaney hit the floor. He was really thankful that it hadn't looked like it hurt too bad. If she got injured because of him, there was no way they would ever become friends. It wasn't that Aidan particularly needed more friends. He was charismatic and easy to like. He had plenty of friends at camp. It was rather odd when he walked through the Great Hall with less than a dozen waves to people. Aidan wanted to be friends with Delaney, though. A lot. It was kind of dumb for him to risk that for something as dumb as a little jump scare from the booth window. His shoulders relaxed when he saw the smile on her face.

Aidan hurried down the stairs from the booth opposite the ones that he had gone up. These stairs led directly into the observatory, instead of back down into the lobby. Aidan's hands slid into the pockets of his grey joggers as he hit the floor level of the observatory.

"I didn't mean to scare you. Well, I guess that might not be true. I meant to scare you, I didn't mean for you to fall. I know how much of a risk an injury is for you." Aidan said with a small, nervous laugh. "You don't have to stop on my behalf. I'm sure whatever you were doing was important." Aidan said with an encouraging smile.

Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:34 pm

Delaney shrugged, "It's no big deal. Believe it or not, it is possible to be sick of Tchaikovsky." She reached over and paused her music. Even when the music had stopped the song kept playing in her head, thanks to the fact she had listened to this song about a thousand times in the past week. It was a short variation, which made it so much worse.

"We're doing a collection of variations for our next performance. I'm doing Odile's variation. I'm trying to figure out if Natalie Portman should be an inspiration here." She shot him a grin. She didn't expect to go full black swan on anyone. At least not at this point. If they tried to put her on wires and hoist her up in the air again, she would consider it. But playing a diva when she wasn't even in the actual company seemed pointless. Maybe she could pull it off if she became a principal some day.

Fri Jan 19, 2018 11:35 am

Aidan shook his head and laughed. "Oh, I definitely believe it. I totally respect what you do, but let me tell you, I don't miss studio and company dance. The assignments, the copying style, it was never really my thing. I was so much better at improv." The son of Apollo sat in the second row of observatory and put his feet up on the seat in front of him, leaning back.

Aidan broke into a hard laugh when Delaney made her Natalie Portman joke. "I don't think that's your type of black swan, not even a little bit." Aidan's hands went back behind his head. He was a naturally really relaxed person, so this was a usual pose for him. What was less than usual was his foot, that was rapidly tapping.

"I only caught a little bit of your variation. You can show me if you'd like." Aidan suggested. He didn't have much to show her. Almost every real routine that he had done was all but washed from his brain. He could watch her dance something real. She was a real dancer.

Fri Jan 19, 2018 7:10 pm

Delaney stood up, "Sure," she said,"but only once, after that I'm taking a break." She started the music again and focused on the tempo running through her head. She did the grande jetes, the bourrée en couru, and then got to the spinning once more, this time successfully finishing her quadruple pirouette. Her arms were outstretched gracefully, gently waving like the wings of a swan. All the while she was focusing on her posture, and the little mistakes she noticed she was making. She knew she wasn't performance ready yet, they were only in the early rehearsals. She needed to travel less on the jetes, travel more on the bourrée en couru, and see if she could add another two rotations into her pirouettes. It was good though, she was happy with her work so far.

Delaney gave Aiden a short bow and walked back over to turn off her music. She turned to him, giving him a sly smile.

"Okay, your turn now. I showed you mine, you show me yours." If he thought he could get away with chilling in the observatory seats, he was thoroughly mistaken. Besides, she liked watching him dance, but she wasn't exactly going to tell him that outright. She couldn't seem humble, it would be completely unlike her.

Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:38 pm

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Aidan had lost a lot of the technical jargon that went along with dancing, even if he could still do the moves. Even though he couldn't remember all the names of what Delaney was doing, he knew that what she was doing was impressive. The son of Apollo started bumping the rings that he always wore on his pointer and middle finger on his right hand together. Morgana had the same rings and wore them on the same fingers. He really missed having Morg around. He had a tendency of doing that when he was nervous or uncomfortable. He'd been wearing the rings on his fingers for a long time. They got them from their maternal grandmother when they were little and were getting them resized to keep fitting for a long time.

When Delaney finished her dance, Aidan stood up and gave Delaney a round of applause. "I mean, I've seen better." Aidan teased, walking down the steps to the main level of the observatory where Delaney was, walking up to her. "I tease, I tease. That was phenomenal."

Aidan's wide smile fell when Delaney suggested that he dance next. It was one thing when she came up and saw him dancing when he didn't know that she was there or who she was. Now that he did know her and knew how good she was, there was no way that he could do the worm-flailing that he called dancing in front of her. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm not a real dancer. I don't want to embarrass myself." Aidan said with a small, forced laugh.

Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:29 pm

Delaney rolled her eyes at his excuses. She didn't realize what the big deal was, sure he wasn't some fantastic ballet dancer, but he was still a dancer. He was good at the modern alternative stuff, something Delaney just couldn't do. Everything she tried to do turned into ballet. She literally couldn't do anything else. People didn't appreciate classical ballet as much as they used to, nowadays the most popular dancers were people like Aiden. People were more familiar with the girls from dance moms over Sarah Lamb or Svetlana Zakharova.

"You are a real dancer, you're a good dancer," she crossed her arms and gave him a look that Madame Melikova would be proud of, "you can either dance or just watch me sit. Up to you." She strode over to one of the observatory chairs and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. It would be boring just to watch her sit, all she was probably going to do was drink some water. So it was up to him to make sure neither of them got bored. She had already done her part.

Wed Jan 24, 2018 10:16 pm

Aidan crossed his arms and looked at Delaney as she sat down in front of him. "I can do this all day. I have a whole lot of practice, cailín álainn." Aidan said slowly, his Irish accent exceptionally strong on his slow words, culminating in a common Irish phrase. This exact thing was Morgana's tactic to getting what she wanted. Back when they lived at home in Ireland, she would lock herself in their room. Their mom had to make a bunch of copies of the key to their room because Morgana would bury them in the yard if she found them. Aidan could do this all day.

Or, at least, he thought that he could. The way that Delaney looked back at him cut into him in a way Morgana never could. Maybe it was because he didn't have almost 17 years of experience, but his foot started tapping and the rings on his fingers started clanking together louder than they had before. Aidan sighed and rolled his eyes. He covered his eyes and spun around dramatically. "Okay. Okay. Fine." Aidan groaned.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hooked it up to the speaker that Delaney had been using. He started an upbeat song and took a deep breath, slipping his phone back into his pocket. Aidan shook his hands a little nervously and then started freestyling to the music. That was the benefit that Delaney had had to start: her routine was choreographed. What Aidan was doing was completely made up. He had the benefit of being a son of Apollo. He could physically feel the music. It allowed him to move with it, flow with it. The routine that he was making up was upbeat and excited. He had a lot of tricks and flips and things that showed off his balance and strength.

Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:09 pm

Delaney smiled as she watched Aidan dance. It was nothing like she did, which made it fun and exciting. Sometimes it was hard for her to watch other people dance. She got too focused on their technique and their skills. Aidan's dancing was so different she could actually just sit back and enjoy watching. Her eyes kept going back to his face,
watching his almost carefree expression. She was almost jealous of him.

She applauded when he finished, standing up and giving him a smile, "See?" she said as she approached, "You're good. If I tried what you just did, I'd be a laughing stock." She had tried doing more modern hip-hop and things like that, but she fell flat. She was okay at lyrical though, but she never really got to do that sort of thing unless they happened to have a younger and more modern guest choreographer. Most of the time they stayed somewhere between Russian and modern ballet. It gave them the flexibility to go to companies that preferred either. Even though they were a studio company, they were just an in-between before they went off auditioning before real companies. Some stayed and went into the actual company, others traveled the world. There were people in her class that were thinking of auditioning for the Bolshoi. Not her though, it wasn't her speed.

be steadfast tin soldier (p)

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