Once Upon a Dream (A Marisette Fanfiction)

Chapter 2

The cold air hits Cosette as she slumps out the building. She sighs as she walks away from yet another audition. Since moving to New York, she has been to more auditions than one would be able to count on the fingers and toes of all of their distant relatives. Very rarely, she would land a job. Nothing of grand importance. A small theatre production in Hoboken, or a class teaching snotty rich girls who cared more about their tu-tus than actual dancing. These things do not irk her one bit though. She is spending this time doing what she loves. However, in the city that was built upon dreams, she is hoping that her dreams would come true. Her one dream, of course, is to be a dancer on Broadway.

This dream, of course, is very hard to obtain. Not being an Equity Member, Cosette struggles even more with getting an audition than getting a job. Her days are typically spent in the city, praying that there will be a spot open for her to take, and occasionally hoping that the audition that she does not mess up her one chance. She goes in optimistic, believing that she can truly do it. She auditions, the casting directors either giving encouraging smiles or ice cold glares. She thanks them for their time, then exits, with the realist thoughts that they are most likely looking for someone taller with darker hair than she.

Today is another uneventful day for her. She waits in cramped room with the group of girls with the same thoughts as she. She twiddles her thumbs, until she hears the disappointing words of the casting director that she is now very used to hearing, “I apologize, but there will be no spots available for today’s audition.” Disheartened, yet still filled with hope, Cosette leaves the building. She heads towards her second home in the city: Central Park.

            When she finds the time, Cosette likes to pass through the park, viewing all of the interesting characters that roam its grounds. The tourists trading maps, hoping to find ever spot of this alternate universe before their time there ends. The homeless man, who still possesses a kind heart, and feeds the pigeons from the home he has made on the bench. The children, dragging their parents through the park, desperately hoping to find their friends there to play. However, this is not the only reason she enjoys the lively tourist attraction. In her time here, she has managed to find herself a tiny oasis. In a part of the park no one particularly goes to, the dancer has found a pathway sturdy enough to claim as impromptu dance floor.

She has not been here in a while, perhaps two weeks. Life has been dragging her in a thousand different directions. She takes the scenery surrounding her in. The trees covering her, and slight mummers of the city streets behind her. She makes no haste in her intentions, for she has to go across the city in order to make it to a private lesson she needs to make. She sets herself into position, and prepares for her escape.

She closes her eyes, imagining that it is a stage she is dancing upon, instead of old concrete. Her feet move as gracefully as they can, maneuvering their way through the cracks. Her moves are precise, and elegant. They are much different than the fumbling moments she had once had as a toddler. She feels a drumming in her heart, rattling her with the passion that always develops when she dances. The only noise that touches her ears is the imaginary orchestra that she has conjured in her mind. She can forget about not being able to audition today, or the fact that she had not been to an audition in two months. She can forget about Grantaire moving in with Enjolras, and the possibility that she might have to return to a home she is not welcome to. She does not have to think of anything. She is alone. She is free.  

Click! The sound nearly makes Cosette stumble to the ground. She is snapped back into reality, determined to find out where that noise had come from. She appears to be alone, but that sound was too loud to have been drifted to her from a distance. “It’s all in your mind Cosette,” she thinks to herself, believing she has indeed gone mad. Slowly, she starts back into her routine, almost returning to her internal paradise.