A Dance of Souls
No different from how Liliya Starkova arced her back in her dance performances, it was ballet that was the spine of her life, the foundation that kept her tethered. What was originally forced upon her with the high demand of her past became something she claimed for herself — a passion, a talent, something that was undeniably her own. More than it being the sun her free time orbited around, more than it being her solace when was was faced with great sorrows, more than it defining her life, did Liliya take matters into her own hands, and demanded the graceful leaps and twirls of ballet to be her own.
It was for this reason that she had developed a sense of fidelity towards the rehearsal room of Durmstrang, nestled in one of its many towers, a rounded, glass-walled enclosure where the only companion was her own reflection. In a school so obsessive over the conventional ideas of strength, whether it be combat, sports, or training. In a way all of them had dismissed, wearing their steel armour both clad over their body and their hearts, dance and the toiling ballerina Liliya was, accomplished all three of their ideas.
Both raised amongst the tufts of her tutus and the swords of her households, it was not by choice but by intuition that she naturally developed a penchant to combine these two facets of her life, seemingly worlds apart yet proven to be far more similar than she would expect. She entwined one philosophy into another, and soon created some avant-garde portmanteau of art. It came to her naturally, as the way the sudden thought of a sword dance struck her for the upcoming pageant in the faraway land of the British Isles. Her first trip out of the country. She had no less intent than to shock the assembled foreigners.
Hence why practice, today, was of the essence. Light footfalls carried her up the stairs to the practice room, and with great anticipation to her morning stretches. Her body had tensed over the night of sleep, as it always did — her limbs grew taut, her nerves in particular tingled, yet when she woke up the next morning, hair in disarray, streaks down her cheeks, only to forget the contents of her nightmare entirely as the motions of her day began. Spring sunlight was already streaking through the windows, yet her mind was still enshrouded in the fog of uncertainty.
Just when she thought she would wake her dorm mate up screaming, she spirit seemed to have detached from her body. And so revealed her motives for dance. It was the fluid movements of her body, the loss in music of her mind, the utter tranquility that left her body washed over in euphoria. She was never more enthralled to have forgotten her bearings, yet she had never seemed to be so attuned with her inner callings. Even before she set foot into the room, she had lost herself in the trance of elegance, and so enamoured was she in her art that she had not realised the room was already occupied with the body of another.
Their figure small, she reckoned they ought to be a few years her junior, and casting her a glance, she offered with casual curiosity, “Привет.”
Translation: hi.
@Valeriy Viktorovna Reznikov | banner by Camille de Varenne
INPC of Archer Duncan