Anya Delachene
July 30, 2020 7:21 PM
Defying Gravity by Anya Delachene
The thing Anya probably liked best about Sonora was the MARS room. She'd waxed almost poetic about it to Philippe when he was asking all his questions about what Sonora was like. She loved swimming and diving in the water room, she loved drawing and painting and playing with modeling clay in the art room, she loved belting out her favorite show tunes in the music room, and practicing floor routines in the dance room. But the best one was the Sports room, because the sports room could give her a vault and the uneven bars whenever she wanted them. There was nothing better in the world than a perfectly executed vault jump, and if she wanted that feeling of flying to last more than a few seconds, she could spin about the uneven bars bouncing back and forth between the high bar and low bar like gravity didn't even exist.It was different at Sonora, not having a coach present, not having other girls on her team, not having competitions where she could wow the judges with how well she could all but literally fly, but it was nice too, to just have it all to herself, to just sit on the vault table without preventing anyone else from using it, to hang upside down off the top bar of the uneven bars like she was on a playground without feeling like she was being a childish hoarder of the equipment.
That's what she was doing currently. Just hanging off the top bar by her knees, her hair tied up in pigtail buns so it wouldn't get in her face when she spun around and tossed herself backwards and forwards, especially without a spotter other than the portrait who was there to offer advice and go running for the healer if she fell. She was wearing the same leotard she'd worn to the ball, and a bright fuchsia water bottle with her name on it stood on the floor next to the chalk bin.
Her palm grips lay on the floor under her as she took her break, her hands taking the chance to breath and recover from the hard usage they experienced during Anya's bar routine.
Then the door to the wider MARS complex opened, and she turned her head to look at the person joining her. She swung back and forth a few times to get momentum, then did a snap to flip down and off the top bar and land a solid landing (no bounce or step) and the mat beside her grips.
Now right side up again, she grinned at her new companion and said, "Hiya! Ever done gymnastics before?"
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Anya Delachene
Defying Gravity
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Ellie Alperton
August 06, 2020 8:14 PM
One step at a time by Ellie Alperton
Ellie had a lot of favourite places at Sonora. The library was like something straight out of a story book, and she thought she’d never tire of its beautiful towering shelves full of honest to goodness spellbooks. She loved being an Aladren, and especially liked having her room on the girls’ corridor. She also had a lot of very good memories of the MARS music room. It was where she and Jasmine came for epic, interactive Disney singalongs, which were honestly one of the best things that magic could provide, and she also spent a lot of time there by herself to practise her viola.Playing an instrument wasn’t a social thing for her. She had never performed in any of the recitals her music teacher put together. Not because she wasn’t good or because she didn’t want her playing admired but just… home had been complicated. Viola had always been an escape. It had been her voice for when she didn’t have a voice, and Mr. Brightly-Smith had always known her as Ellie. It was one of those little pockets, along with her own home, that she’d carved out for herself when she hadn’t been ready to take on the rest of the world. It stopped at his front door though.
She missed being taught by Mr. Brightly-Smith. She was pretty sure MARS couldn’t conjure up real people, and she wasn’t sure she would want it to. She sent him occasional letters (via her parents because he didn’t know about owls) and they’d gone to say ‘hello’ over Christmas break, and she had talked about how she was getting on with her music and with her Ellieing. It was nice that there was enough to talk about even when they had to leave magic out of it. He’d set her some challenges, and she was working on one of those, being tutored by one of the portraits when she needed help.
She was part way through her piece when she caught the sound of idle chatter. Another portrait seemed to have come in for a chat. She liked hearing them gossip with each other, so she played diminuendo for a while, catching snatches of their conversation…
Oh, someone’s keeping you busy too eh? ...better behaved than mine…. Dear Merlin, my nerves! Flings herself about like she’ll bounce…. Taking a break right now… Better get back in case she breaks herself.
That, she thought with a smile, gave her a fairly good idea of who might be in the sports room. Whilst playing viola was soothing, it was very solitary. Deciding it would be nice to catch up with a friend, Ellie finished up her practise and made her way to the sports room.
She was braced for finding Anya up in the air, but still flinched when she dropped to the ground, though of course she managed it perfectly.
“Um, no,” she replied, when Anya asked if she’d ever tried gymnastics. Telling Freddie had gone well, and she had been meaning to tell Anya for a while. She had told herself she’d take the next opportunity and well… “It always looked cool but,” deep breath “it was sort of hard for me to join in really gendered stuff because I’m trans.”
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Ellie Alperton
One step at a time
1456
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Anya Delachene
August 06, 2020 8:46 PM
*headlights* by Anya Delachene
She hadn't really thought about the problems involved with Ellie doing gymnastics and felt kind of bad about putting her on the spot. Of course Ellie would have had difficulty trying out gymnastics!And then . . . Ellie shared a secret Anya already knew.
Her reaction was wrong, she knew that. There was no surprise. There was perhaps just a small amount of alarm, but not for the reason Ellie would probably apply it to, and Anya couldn't let her think that.
So she took a deep breath and let it out and told Ellie the truth. That seemed only fair, since that was what she'd just done for Anya. "Don't get mad. Jasmine already told me. She made me promise not to tell anyone," which actually wasn't completely the truth, because Jasmine hadn't said anything of the sort, but Jasmine trusted Anya, and Jasmine wouldn't have said a word if she didn't trust Anya to keep that promise even without specifying it, so the sentiment behind it was still true. "But she wanted to make sure there was someone safe for you to share a tent with at the bonfire. She wouldn't have broken your confidence if she didn't think it was important."
She smiled, trying to be reassuring for Ellie. "Even so, thank you, for trusting me enough to tell me. It means a lot. I feel like I'm allowed to know now, and not like I'm cheating on a test. I'm honored, really, to be your friend and that you feel safe with me. So," Anya grinned and waved up at the uneven bars behind her, "You wanna learn to fly?"
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Anya Delachene
*headlights*
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Ellie Alperton
August 06, 2020 10:54 PM
*brakes* by Ellie Alperton
It took Ellie a moment to figure out what was wrong with Anya’s reaction, or to even label it. It wasn’t shocked, it wasn’t even really confused. It was… not anything. Anya was being not anything about something. Had she broken her? Or was she just… actually really this chill? It wasn’t normally a word Ellie associated with the bouncing ball of Pecari energy. Anya somehow could not chill but also was chill. Rules and expectations and all the rest of that stuff slid off her like water off a duck’s back. So maybe she wasn’t really reacting cos it really didn’t matter?But then she was taking a deep breath, and Ellie noticed the slightly worried look and braced herself for impact. She tried not to frown automatically at the words ‘don’t get mad’ which strongly implied that she was about to be told something worth being mad about and was also being told how to feel about it. Her brows creased a little but she tried not to be visibly mad as she waited for whatever potentially horrible thing Anya was about to say. It was… not what she was expecting. Jasmine had told?!
As Anya explained, Ellie tried to shift gears. Everything Anya was saying was, she supposed, logical. Except something about it didn’t quite add up… Something about it still made her feel all squicky. They were nice enough reasons but-
But then Anya was saying really nice things. About Ellie trusting her and them being friends. That made her heart feel squishy in a good way, even if something about this whole thing was still nagging at the back of her brain.
“I’m glad I have you as a friend too,” she confirmed, cos that definitely felt true. Anya had mentioned Ellie being able to trust her and regarding her as a safe person, and she was those things, and those were important. And Anya wanted to teach her some gymnastics. The conversation, in just one little beat, had snapped back to being perfectly normal. Ellie decided it was much safer to leave it there.
She eyed the gym equipment, trying to imagine herself spinning around like Anya did. It was a wonderful idea, but she wasn’t sure how realistic it was. Also some of it looked awfully high for something she might fall off...
“Um, maybe like… just fluttering first?” she tried tentatively, giving Anya a small smile and carefully setting her viola case down on the side.
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Ellie Alperton
*brakes*
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