RENEGADE | "You wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody." - Big Red Machine
In which Ainsley Dunbar transfers to a new school and learns secrets about her new friends, her town, and herself.
Teen Wolf
Seasons One to Six
Stiles Stilinski x O...
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"Anything could happen." ---
The white fluorescent lights at Royal Dance Studio burn into my eyes as I stand under them the night following the situation in the library, sweat pouring down my face as Ms. Kathryn calls counts and corrections from the corner of the room by the stereo.
I'm lucky to have been selected amongst many of the other girls in the company to compete a solo this competition season. However, just because I've already learned it doesn't mean I can stop practicing it, especially since we're competing this weekend, so here I am, at the tail-end of my private lesson with Ms. Kathryn, pushing my muscles and my limbs to their fullest extent, trying to forget everything that's happened to me in the last three and a half months.
"Give me something with your face, Ainsley!" Ms. Kathryn shouts as I do a switch leap. "All I see is boredom, show me your emotion!"
The dance is contemporary, one of my favorite styles, and though Ms. Kathryn hasn't given me a story, the lyrics of the song tell of a doomed relationship between two lovers. The singer realizes that their love is dangerous because although she wants her lover, she also hates them. As Ms. Kathryn shouts her corrections and demands for me to improve my emotion, I think about what this dance means to me.
I don't think about it in the way of lovers. No, this reminds me of how I feel about my father. How I want to love him because he's my father but...I also hate him for everything he's done. How he wasn't there when I needed him as a little girl, how he didn't even contact us after Bronwyn's death, after I was attacked by Peter. He doesn't care, and I sometimes worry that maybe my tendency to be unfeeling is going to lead me down a path of being just like him.
"So leave me in the cold. Wait until the snow covers me up so I cannot move. So I'm just embedded in the frost."
Standing on my right leg, I bring my hands down to grasp my left heel, bringing my leg through passe position before lifting it up straight alongside my head. I let go of my left leg, controlling the movement slowly as it nears the floor. Then, stepping forward into a lunge for a brief second facing stage right, I quickly change directions and prepare with a chasse, leaping with my hips angled toward stage left, arms straight above my head. I fold my arms to my chest, chainé turning a few times and then stop, hitting a pose with both arms slightly outstretched, as though I'm stuck in the position. I come out of the pose, sweeping through a grade plie in second position, using the momentum to hoist my left leg behind me in an arabesque, my left foot nearly colliding with my head as I lean back.
"Then leave me in the rain. Wait until my clothes cling to my frame. Wipe away your tear stains, thought you said you didn't feel pain."
I prepare for a pirouette, and after executing it, I push into an al-a-seconde turn before jumping out of it. I turn around myself, facing upstage, before completing a turn sequence of chainé turns, finishing with a calypso leap to the floor. I stand up quickly, facing downstage, pulling at my clothes, as though they were sticking to me. I turn upstage, raising my hands above my head, letting my left hand slide down my right as I let my body weight pull me toward the floor. I stand up straight again, bringing both hands to the back of my neck as I lean back, then turn to face downstage again, angled toward stage left. I bring my hands up in front of me, almost as if I'm pleading, looking down at them helplessly.
