CREATURE

・chapter 10・

Asya woke the following morning to the first rays of sunshine creeping through a chink in the curtains. After a few drowsy blinks into the dim light she shifted deeper under the soft covers, drawing them up to her chin to warm her shoulders. She sighed lazily and she dozed off for a second time, deciding she was going to savour whatever precious sleep she had left.

When she woke again it was to the noisy bleeping of Julian's alarm, and not long after she heard him smothering a groan into his pillow behind her.

'What's the time?' he asked groggily to one in particular, reaching dizzily to his nightstand to silence his phone.

'I think we set it for seven.' she yawned. 'Breakfast in an hour.'

'Wonderful.' Julian sighed, flopping straight back down onto the bed.

They'd received their schedules for the upcoming day the night before, and in what seemed to be the standard when it came to the tour, their day was going to be long and brutal. They kicked off with breakfast at eight in the downstairs conservatory, class at nine and then solo and trio rehearsals until twelve. Hair and makeup started at three, and the first number was due to go on stage at five.

And as if that wasn't enough, the hotel was hosting a late-night dinner party all the dancers were expected to attend, mostly because they would be hunting for prospective donors or sponsors.

'Come on, Jules.' Asya cooed, shaking his shoulder to try and get him to move. 'It's,' she yawned again, 'performance day.'

・・・

Asya hopped onto pointe, flicking her leg to attitude derrière as she threw her arms to an open fifth position and fixed her gaze dead ahead. Raw energy pulsed through her veins as she held the extension, burning through her chest and fingertips as she lowered herself to the floor and powered through the final eight counts of her solo.

Aligning her body to the centre she drew her leg up to her knee, and then with a sharp flick of her foot she extended it to a full développé. She clung to the tricky balance for a few moments, flung her leg across her vision and propped it up on the floor for her ending pose. She flashed a wicked grin to the opposite side of the room as the final notes of her solo faded off.

'Absolutely stunning, Radzevich.' Debbie said from her foldout chair. 'That ending looks marvellous on you.'

The young ballerina relaxed out of her ending pose and curtsied to her coach, holding her hands gratefully over her chest. Since learning the choreography for her solo earlier in the week she'd been working on perfecting it in her down time, knowing that when she took it on stage she wanted it to feel like second nature.

'How did you get her to hold that balance?' Bastian asked Debbie.

Debbie shook her head, flashing a sidelong grin to her student. 'That's all her.'

Asya smiled and lowered her gaze to the floor. It was an old trick she'd learnt from her mother, more of a technique really. She could still hear her mother's silvery voice echoing somewhere in her memory. Steer with your shoulders, Nastasia, and control your exhales.

'You're done for today, Radzevich.' Bastian said, nodding to her. 'Run the trio's lifts before you go.'

Asya nodded, pushing her weight into her pointe shoes to pop the bones in her feet. Before any performance with complicated partnering elements dancers usually ran the lifts earlier in the day. It helped the couple find each other's stride, readjust their centre of mass if needed, and determined how lenient the laws of physics would be with them on that particular day.