On Love: Agape!!!

Chapter 42

Hi everyone! Just a quick preface, I don't really know all that much about figure skating terms of choreographing routines and such, so if I mess that up, please forgive me. Also, I don't own the song I have to go along with the program, so please please please please please please please don't hate me. Thank you all so much for reading I love you all!!!

7:00 pm (19:00)
Urmanov Ice Rink, St.Petersburg Russia
December 9th, 2023

The second Maira woke up on December 9th, 2023, she could feel the electricity in the air. Although at first, it was only a small hum, a murmur just loud enough to let her know that today was going to be extra special, but not loud enough to distract her from her chocolate chip pancakes with a smiley face out of syrup. The hum grew louder though, and as Maira put on her red sparkly dress with a full skirt and long sleeves, she could almost feel the energy caught up in her hair. The electrically exploded, however, when she was bundled up in about 15 layers of coats and such. Somehow, the electricity today was different than the one of last night, where she had seen Uncle Hamilton and Uncle Phichit did their own short programs. Currently, Uncle Hamilton was in first place, only 2 points ahead of Uncle Phichit. While she obviously wants Uncle Hamilton to win his 5th consecutive gold medal, a small voice inside her told her to root for Uncle Phichit. After all, he had never won, and even though he kept insisting he didn't care if he won, Maria couldn't imagine that Uncle Phichit was REALLY ok with just silver.
The Surge of electricity followed Maria to her seat. The stadium rink was nothing like Ice Castle, it had stadium seats that seemed to scrape the sky, and could seat the entire town of Hasestu. Thankfully, her seat was the same as last night, at the very tippy top, giving her the perfect view of the ice, and the giant jumbotron in the middle of the arena. There were royal blue billboards everywhere, all of with reading the name of Ice Rink, and the fact that it was St.Petersburg. All of the advertisements were in Russian, but Maria could hear dozens of different languages all around her.

"Up First is Mila Babicheva, age 25, from Russia." A male voice over the loudspeaker announced, taking Maira's ears off of the languages and putting her eyes on the ice. "She is skating to On the Floor. Her theme this year is 'Celebration'. This season marks her 6th since she Hired her coach, Danica Slavik, who she hired immediately after the Plisetsky controversy, and Moved her home rink to the Czech Republic, refusing to go back to Russia until, in her words, the RSA allows her former rink mate back where he belongs.

"What does Controversy mean?" Maria quickly asked Uncle Hamilton. "And what does it have to do with you?"

"A bunch of people was stupid before you were born." Unche hamilton huffed, and Maria knew she shouldn't press the issue further right now. After all, Mila skated out to the middle of the rink, as people started to hold up Russian flags and posters they had made. Mila herself was wearing a short Silver Skater dress costume, with a simple short skater skirt, sheer sleeves with an ombre of sparkling sequins, and lines of more sequin creating a necklace-looking effect.
The music started off some slow electric piano, a woman's voice sang some English lyrics that Maria couldn't quite make out over the loudspeaker, with a male's voice interjecting a bit at the beginning. While the woman sang the first lines of the song, Mila did a corkscrew spin that started off slow, like the singing but got increasing fast as she went on, as if she was charging herself up.

The spin stopped 16 seconds later when the music reached its peak speed, the beat dropped, and the man's voice took over and began doing the kinds-singing thing that the people did in Hamilton. Mila however, was doing a perfectly executed step sequence. Although it wasn't like any step sequence Maria Had ever seen. Most of the skaters she had watched, including Uncle Hamilton, seemed to be taking their inspiration directly from Ballet. But Mila, on the other hand, seemed to be taking her step sequence from another style of dance, one that was very fast and seemed to have been made for the song. Although she seemed to care more about getting every single move perfect rather than jamming moves into the song to match the speed, which was absolutely the right call.

The re-entry of the woman's voice caused Mila to do jump right from her sequence into a double Axel, then go straight into a flying sit spin. The light reflecting off of her glittering costume seemed to act as a disco ball, which perfectly reflected Maria's fixed gaze on the female skater. Once Mila had finished her spin, she popped up right to triple loop. Her transitions were flawless, after all, Maira knew Mila was known for putting jumps about .0358237 seconds after spins and NOT falling. After that jump, she went back to more choreography, and Maira couldn't blame her. Even though she isn't showing any outward signs of fatigue, Mila had to be tired after all that, right?

But somehow, miraculously, against all logic, when the Man's voice came back in, and they sang about different cities around the world, Mila went from her sequence into a double Salchow-double luz combination, which like the rest of her program, was performed absolutely perfectly. Unlike Uncle Hamilton, Mila took thing a bit simple, but everything she did was at such a level of perfection that nobody could take their eyes off her.
As the Man's voice faded away, and the woman's voice got slower, Mila went into her combination spin. From what Maria could tell, it went from a corkscrew to a Biellmann spin, to a death drop spin, and ending the whole thing with a sit spin.

Maria would never know how the heck Mila was able to summon up the energy to complete the rest of her program, which consisted of a short choreographic sequence, but she did know one thing for certain. Something about Miley's performance had lit a spark inside her, a spark she had never before felt. A spark that provoked an impulsive thought that screamed GET ON THE ICE RIGHT NOW AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT.

And Mila Babovich would never know that it was her gold medal-winning performance that lit the competitive fire inside Maria Nikiforova, a fire that would eventually come to change the world.