TW: Nightmares, angst, falling

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Interacting With N/A
Mentioning: Flash Holmwood | Ruby Cazares | Willow Anderson | Rafael D'Spacito
Hex Color: #FF4080
Date:29 December 2020
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Ana wasn't looking forward to sleeping in her room in the manor. Despite the fact that it, like the rest of the Beckett properties, was technically hers, it looked exactly the same as it had when her parents had reigned over it. The same blues that Ana had hated for so long, the same elegant furnishings that were somehow never as comfortable as those of the Gryffindor dorms, the same stupid picture of some ancestor or queen that stared at Ana every moment as if waiting for her to fail.

As she lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come, thoughts flashed through her mind. The Gala was in two days and while everything she had thought of was perfectly handled, she was certain she had managed to forget something. Planning for the Gala merged with the Fall Ball and the Blossom Ball as sleep overcame her.

She stood in the center of a ballroom that was packed with people. As she tried to move through the crushes of people, she found her gown was anchoring her. Try as she might, she couldn't move an inch. When she looked up from her fruitless pursuits, the ballroom was empty, save one figure. As he turned, Ana saw her father's face as he stood shaking the same way he had so many months before. "Father!" she shouted, and his head moved slightly in her direction. "Father, please, help me!" Their eyes met, and the man wrinkled his nose in disgust and shook his head. Pulling at her dress as he began to walk away, Ana was suddenly able to move and immediately tripped. When she looked up, the ballroom was gone, as was her gown. She was now wearing a black leotard, pink tights and tutu, and pointe shoes, and stood atop a music box. A reflective surface showed the epitome of a ballerina staring back.

She pulled herself to her feet and looked around her. Far, far below, there was a crowd of people staring silently up at her. Waiting for her to do something. "This stupid music box is broken," a voice rang out. "The ballerina won't dance." Ana searched the area around her and realized the voice was talking about her. "Dance!" The crowd began to chant, and Ana, ever eager to please, rose on her toes and began. As she danced the platform of the music box shrank, leaving her less and less room until there was barely enough for one shoe on pointe. The chants didn't stop, in fact, they grew louder.

"Please, I can't, I'll fall," Ana pleaded, the platform shrinking ever smaller. The chants were deafening, drowning out her screams as her foothold disappeared and she plummeted. She landed hard on the ground of what looked like the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Her tights were torn, her perfect bun had fallen loose, and her leotard was now missing a sleeve. A shadow stood over her. She had been in this dream before, or a variation of it. She always fell off her broom and her mother was standing over her. Not that night.

As she looked up, her mother was nowhere to be found. Instead, there she stood. A version of her, anyway. This version of her seemed to glow with perfection, and her hair was still its natural dark brown rather than the newly bleached blonde the disheveled Ana sported. "Pathetic, as usual," the not-Ana said. Except it wasn't her voice. It was her mother's voice. "Even when you have a simple task" Ruby's voice. You still fail." Rafa's voice.

Trembling, Ana stood and shook her head. The cruel words continued, the voice changing from Rafa's to Flash's to Willow's to her father's to one after the other after the other until it was a cacophony of a thousand. "No, you're wrong," she protested. Silence. "We both know I'm not," Ana's own voice spat back at her. Ana opened her mouth to reply, but couldn't make a sound. "You can't do anything without failing and hurting everyone. It's shameful, really. And you hurt everyone around you as you do. Do you think that you deserve to have any of the people who care about you doing so? Because you don't, not in the slightest. You'll hurt them, all of them, one way or another. It's the only thing you're capable of not failing at. " Ana tried desperately to protest, to say anything, but she couldn't. In part at least because she knew, as much as the words hurt, they weren't wrong. "When it comes down to it, you're weak." Ana's face was centimeters from Not-Ana's as she spoke. "A coward. Insignificant. You're nothing more than a silly child playing dress-up who's gotten overwhelmed when it matters. " As she spoke, Not-Ana lunged for Ana's throat and tackled her.

Ana's eyes flew open, paralyzed in fear and gasping for breath. She sat up after a moment and raised a pale hand to her throat. Swallowing hard, she glanced at the window. The sun was beginning to rise and so Ana slipped out of her bed and began pacing. While the rays of sunlight helped push the thoughts and feelings of her dreams to the back of her mind, they nothing to truly vanquish them. Sunlight filled her room as she heard a knock on the door. She inhaled sharply and invited whoever it was in, her shaking voice the only clue as to her nightmares.