Fate is against mein healthand virtue,driven onand weighted down,always enslaved.So at this hourwithout delaypluck the vibrating strings;since Fatestrikes down the strong,everyone weep with me!-O Fortuna
Otabek watched the Grand Prix Final from underneath a mound of blankets in his dorm room, his laptop casting a flickering glow against the yellow-ish walls. Across the world in Fukuoka, the best skaters were warming up for the free skate while Otabek debated whether to drag himself out of bed to adjust the thermostat.
The announcers voice cut in and Otabek pulled the duvet up to the top of his head, cocooning himself against the chill of Canada's winter nights - the thirteen hour time difference meant he didn't have to skip school to watch, but the next day would be a haze of exhaustion.
Five bucks says Nikiforov sets a new record, texted Leo. He hadn't managed to skate his way into the final six, and would be watching from Colorado instead of in from the arena seating, like JJ and his bronze medal were.
Otabek narrowed his eyes and thought back to the short program scores. Six that he sets a new combined record, he replied. Oda for silver?
I'm calling Giacometti, Leo countered. That butt don't lose, bro.
Onscreen, Cao Bin dropped his final pose and bowed. A Russian skater, Popovich, took the ice behind him. Otabek bit his lip, inspecting the scrapes left on his palm by that afternoon's practice, as the announcers talked about themes and inspiration.
He spoke silently to the tiny figures dancing across the ice, begging for an answer no one had been able to give him.
What makes you special, he demanded, what makes you different?
Skill, no, not exactly - so many of them had skill and talent and perseverance, but their impression faded almost before the last strains of music faded away.
What made people want to watch JJ and let their eyes slip away from Otabek, what weight did Chulanont's presence have that outweighed JJ's quad Salchow?
His thoughts shifted once more to the memory-fogged image of Yuri Plisetsky, standing by the barre with steel in his spine and granite eyes. Yuri, who danced like he knew what the world was offering him and was determined to wring out more than it promised, who skated with a fire that demanded the stars.
Yuri, Otabek thought, made his own luck no matter what was offered to him.
It was time for him to do the same. The universe might not be inclined to hand him much, but that didn't stop Otabek from taking it anyway.
That was the difference, he decided.
Viktor Nikiforov skated his routine with eerie perfection. In the kiss and cry, he flashed a tranquil smile at the cameras after a mere glance at his score, which was probably being entered into the record books at that very moment. It was a fraction of a point below his combined world record.
A wave of melancholy washed through Otabek as their eyes met for a startling instant, passed from person to camera to screen across an ocean and eleven thousand kilometers. Instead of the hunger for more that adorned the faces of his competitors, there was a blankness in the blue gaze.
Maybe Viktor had reached the limits of what could be yanked from life's grip, and his hands found only empty space when he reached for more.
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O Fortune
FanfictionOtabek Altin was lucky. He always had been. He was, he reflected (with some bitterness), lucky in the same way that a rabbit foot was lucky - it never did the rabbit any good.
