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 Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2015 11:53 pm
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Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2015 11:59 pm
Title: Mending
Starring Characters: Zurine, Cesc, Vivi, Shepard
Summary: Zuri is blooming again -- and gets to taste many new things as she shows off her new growth.
Zurine's Opinion: I'm myself again, but better, stronger. It was worth the wait.
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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:21 pm
Title: IN PROGRESS
Starring Characters: Zurine, Cesc
Summary: It's not a date! Best friends take each other out for sushi in the evening alone at a table while staring longingly at each other all the time. Right?
Zurine's Opinion: [ IN PROGRESS ]
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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:26 pm
[October/November - Dance]
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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:28 pm
Title: Snow + Gold
Starring Characters: Everyone!
Summary: Happy New Year, Labbies!
Zurine's Opinion: Joy, champagne, and kisses. heart
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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:32 pm
[12/31/15 - 1/1/16]
The snow was falling around the car and Phiel sat back heavily against the heated seat, sinking down and losing three inches of height, his coat’s hood scrunching defeatedly. Zuri wasn’t on the outs with her friends anymore. That meant that he didn’t have to feel bad about leaving her to the New Year’s Eve party -- she could enjoy her season, her time with her friends, and he could do what he had to do. Leaving Nara in his own car at home with his eyes wide and his lips kissed roughly pink and the embarrassed hope of new-relationship tingling between them had been hard. Leaving his girl, still so freshly grown from child into young-woman, inside with her peers had been hard, too. But in the falling snow, sitting alone in the dark with his headlights off and his eyes on the house in front of him, everything seemed insulated, cushioned, oddly faraway. His emotions and his awareness of the world seemed blunted tonight, rounded, softened by the late hour and the thick snow blanketing the edges of everything with a smooth coat of powder white.
He was so tired, his eyes heavy, the lids burning and his gaze hang-dog weary, his shoulders strung tight and his body listing slightly to one side. Phiel’s head fell back slow and his eyes closed without being bidden. Two seconds, and he’d be fine. The shitty gas-station coffee in the styrofoam cup was cold as ice, bitter black acid, and made him feel worse rather than better. He yearned for good rich coffee, smooth, the flavor round in his mouth and sweet with spoons of sugar. He wanted, more than he wanted coffee, the deep heavy featherbed, the warm weight of down comforter, the long leanness of Nara against his side, the relationship as bright as any champagne and as new as the year that must surely have turned by now.
He wanted the comfortable, cozy quiet with Zuri sitting in the couch with her phone, curled against the arm opposite him, a movie playing on the screen too quiet and familiar for him to bother listening to the words, the night deep enough to blunt the desire to look for new things in a movie he’d watched a hundred times. Phiel would even have settled for being alone in his armchair with the bubble and thrum of the fishtanks.
Instead, the heavy dreaming silence was rudely broken by the click of the car door opening. Phiel was too far gone in his unintentional nap to resist when a big hand reached in, grabbed his leather-coated arm, and pulled, spilling him out into the snow. The cold was enough to stir his senses and make his eyes pop open wide, wrestling him out of his daydreams. The snow was not nearly as soft as it looked, not even right outside the car. As he fell into it, it was suddenly and acutely aware of the thick icy crust scraping one cheek, setting it to stinging. He was aware of the solid crunch as he sank in three inches, but not for long. A boot to the belly came next, an explosive thunder of yellow-red-orange, of nausea that set him retching, scrambling to his feet as fast as he could manage, though it looked more like wallowing in the snow as his hands came up to try and protect the back of his head on reflex --
-- laughter, sharp-edged and so cold, so familiar?
-- the snow again beneath him, its edges swallowing him, blunting his movements until the flat of another fist came down on the side of his head, heavy and dizzying, half-blinding him with pain. His teeth sliced across his lower lip, and of everything that was happening right now, the blood that dripped onto the churned snow seemed most vivid of all. The beating lasted longer than that, but all he could see, all he could think of, was that first bloody patch on the snow, and how the world was even smaller than before, how it shrank down from round snowy edges to sharp-bright-sick explosions of pain like a strobe light, like seeing the world in firework blasts of sensation, then darkness.
There was nothing on him, nothing much of value. His phone didn’t contain his home address and besides it was hidden firmly next to his skin; they didn’t bother looking for it. He drove an old car, and they didn’t bother to wreck or take it. The keys were snatched out of the ignition, thrown as far as the laughing man could get them. Phiel had enough sense to know, his head swimming and his mouth bleeding and his stomach twisting with agonized nausea, to stay down. He’d been caught unawares, and he knew when he’d been beat. Three sets of boots, stark black leather against the snow, and that voice hissing orders as soft and low as a snake’s, so ******** familiar it felt like his blood would boil over. It felt like what had happened before -- the betrayal that had left his body scarred -- was still fresh, and that this atrocity wasn’t brand new but an extension of that.
“You,” Phiel croaked, surprise registering in his tone despite himself, and his eyes rose, pupils pinpricks lost in the grey, one cheek scraped bloody. But by the time he managed to say it, they’d gone, boots crunching through the snow toward the house down below them, the one with all the merry-twinkling Christmas lights still aglow in the windows, the one that was flooding its golden-honey light out into the blue-white night. He had a firm enough grasp on consciousness to get his phone out, to dial Adrian’s number.
Phiel had some questions to ask of his employer, and he struggled upright to lean against the silent hulk of his car, aching to his bones. He’d call Zuri and Nara next, he thought hazily as he spat blood from his lip to one side. First, he had to call in reinforcements.
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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:33 pm
[12/31/15 - 1/1/16]
The Cereus residence was dark and quiet when Zuri finally breezed inside, bringing with her a swirl of cold. She was filled with giddy joy, bubbling up through her; her mouth tasted of champagne and grape and she felt the night’s happiness swirling around inside her like new snow, fresh and sweet and luminous. He had kissed her, not just a light peck, but a real kiss, that warm hand resting at her waist. She could still feel it there, along with the returned hug in the car, her lips warm with memory. If she could have, she’d have gone home with him, followed that sweetness as far as it could take her, however far that was. She had never been confused as to what she wanted, and now that Zuri had grown, that desire had only become clearer, brighter, tucked away behind her ribs and lingering there like a spark, keeping her heart warm.
She shed her bag, and went through the house like a cool ghost, humming to herself, singing as she twirled past the tanks of fish, pirouetting effortlessly along the hallway, her party dress’s edges swirling along the walls and her heart light. Zurine felt giddy, joyful, bright, drifting like a feather on a breeze, as if nothing could weigh her down.
The sounds of her shower filled the house with music and noise, the splatter-splash of cool water, her phone playing music loudly into the empty rooms, and all Zuri could do was sing along, hair tucked into a blue showercap with a snowflake bead on the drawstrings. She was so sleepy that she leaned against the wall, and when she was clean to her standards and had downed her glass of water, Zurine crawled into bed, wrapping herself cozily up with her favorite plush.
Her last thought before sliding happily into dreams was how much she wished Cesc was there, warm arms and a cozy shoulder to drift off on.
Her phone, still on silent, laid face-down on the dresser, hiding the third missed call from Adrian.
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 11:28 am
[1/1/16]
"If you could not just hover quite that much," Phiel said, shaking his head as the nurse leaned in, checking his eyes for dilation with her penlight. She was a short woman, no-nonsense, with brown hair cut in a prim bob and a face like she had just sucked on a lemon.
"Hold still, Mr. Cereus," the woman said briskly. "You got quite a knock to the head. We take that quite seriously here." She reclined his bed further, and through a wave of frustrated dizziness, Phiel subsided back against the pillow, suddenly pale as milk. The monitors beeped softly with satisfaction, even though now he was itching at the tape holding the IV at the crook of his arm.
"Stop fussing," came the low baritone rumble, and there was a creak of protest from the chair beside the bed. Adrian St. Clair was an enormous man, tall and broad-chested, surfer-blond in a profusion of perfect waves. His features should have been amiable and pleasant in combination, but his lips were pinched and his brows drawn seriously together now, a permanent line of stress and foreboding between them trailing down into a long nose. "You better be still or I'll whop you myself. No sense in fretting yet. The cops are gonna be all over those assholes."
"But those people!" Phiel said, and the monitors beeped again, louder than before, in a plaintive tone. There was frustrated anguish in his voice, trying hard to drown out the guilt. The inside of the house had been a horror show. The pictures that the cops had taken were nauseatingly vivid. Blood still made Phiel queasy, even after all these years, or maybe it was the narcotics in his system, because his stomach lurched again, and he swallowed in a hurry. Right. Head wound. "I was supposed to protect them!"
"The ******** did you plan to do, concussed in the snow? Get your a** handed to you and die right alongside them?" Adrian looked up at the scandalized nurse, and held up one big hand as he stood, looking at Phiel warningly. "Sorry, ma'am. This hard-headed b*****d just narrowly escaped death and he's acting like it's his fault." The nurse put up her hands as if to wash them of the situation.
"I get that," she said acerbically, "but if you can't stop riling up my patient, I'm going to have to ask you to leave, sir." She looked up at Adrian, who was easily a foot and a half taller than she was, and pursed her lips, utterly unfazed by the fact that he could probably bench press her. He stared down at her, boggled in the way that a large dog is when it gets its nose clawed by a cat, and then the staring match was broken by a soft huff.
"Please don't." Phiel's voice was quiet, a little defeated. It sounded as if all the edge had been knocked off him, leaving him brittle. He wasn't looking at either of them, but both of them were suddenly looking at him. "Oh don't look at me like that!" Irritation crept into his voice, and he itched at one of the scars that littered his arm, a nervous little gesture that Adrian recognized. Phiel went quiet. "Look, Adrian, if they're here, it's just something that we're going to have to deal with. And if that scene in that house was done by them, then we're in the s**t up to our eyeballs. Remember, I know that firsthand." His smile was brief and grim.
The nurse had gone. The old scar he was itching had gone hot and red now, and Adrian nudged his hand. Phiel stopped scratching with a start, and then he sighed, his shoulders sagging. "This time it's not just me and you, Adrian. If it was, I'd be out of here faster than you could get my discharge papers. I have -- look, I have people I need to protect. I can't just pull up and relocate this time." He set his jaw.
"So we fight. We help the cops on this one," Adrian said, spreading a hand. "You act like we haven't beat them before. Have some courage!" That hand thumped down on the hospital bed, since he couldn't thump Phiel on the shoulder bracingly. Adrian was grinning, and Phiel had to look away. Sure, they had beaten that man and his group before, but Phiel had paid a high price in flesh and blood for a rather hollow victory in the end. Could he pay it again if he needed to? And could he protect Zuri and Nara against them, if it came to it?
He didn't have the answer to that.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:12 pm
[Things happened. Previous plot discontinued.]
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:14 pm
It was almost midnight when she finally got home, a cool late October night with a full moon hanging heavy over the water, round as a coin and twice as bright, throwing blue light everywhere. The beach house had never seemed so small or so quiet, even with the soft endless susurrus of the sea close at hand. The lights were all off in the house when she arrived home, and when she unlocked the door, she was greeted by smells that were no longer entirely familiar. Zurine had been gone for a long while, and as she hefted her suitcase in through the door she looked up, her eyes excellent even in the dark.
The house hadn't changed. Nothing was any different than it had been when she left. The faint smell of Phiel's aftershave, the wet smell of well-maintained fish tanks, the lemon bleach wipes he used to clean up the kitchen, Phiel's beloved coffee, strong and rich and dark; everything was where it had been when Zurine left. It looked as if the house had barely been lived in, as if everything had been picked up neat and tidy, and then just left that way. It was as if nothing had been touched in nine months, as if Phiel had barely lived there himself, other than the fact that there was a fresh, lovely bouquet of blue roses sitting on the coffee table. There were nine roses, blossoms dyed a soft pastel blue, crowded into a slim vase with sprigs of soft white baby's breath and a frond or two of fern, and a pretty white card propped up beside it. In Phiel's neat hand was written "Welcome Home Zurine", and a little smile had been drawn underneath. She set her luggage down, lowering her backpack onto the sofa with a soft thump, and then she joined it, sitting down on the soft, familiar fabric, running an absent hand along it, and then she reached for the card. The fine, heavy cardstock felt good and familiar in her hands, too, and then she opened it.
Welcome home, my girl, Phiel had written, his writing more simple inside the card. I'm sorry I had to go in to work tonight, but I figured you'd be so exhausted you would probably sleep almost immediately. I'll be home in the morning. And then underneath it, as if he'd meant to leave the note there, but thought better of it, written a little messier. I missed you. Love you, Zurine.
Zuri was exhausted. Her plane had left in the late morning, flying out of a grey, misty, sullen fall gloom that had progressed into a heavier rain as the plane had taxied out away from the terminal. She had not watched the airport fall away behind her, and she had not cried. She had thought that she would cry -- believed it firmly --but her chest felt full of new memories, and there was no room for tears when she remembered the awe of moving down a hall full of centuries-old paintings, of staring up in wonder at statues so old the paint had worn or washed away to leave them snow-bright white, of touching marble worn smooth by hundreds of thousands of hands. She could not cry when she thought of the hours she had spent in the ballet class, learning the rhythms and motions of ballet, feeling the music resonate in her chest and move her as if she'd been born to it, and perhaps she had.
There was no sadness, but perhaps there was a wistfulness to leaving behind rainy summer evenings, the windows of the rented cottage open to let in the soft music of raindrops on the ivy and in the garden, the dreamy sweetness of a body asleep behind her and one mostly awake in front, a mouth that tasted vaguely and sweetly of almond-flavored lip balm and earl grey tea, long red hair in tangled curls trapped beneath them as they talked, and kissed, and then talked some more while the evening's lavender faded slowly into a star-spangled darkness.
The cottage was hers, the redhead with the almond lip balm and the sparkling, snapping grey eyes and the long dancer's limbs, so clever and light and effortlessly graceful, bequeathed to her by a deceased maiden aunt who had put it in her will that the ivy was to be left. Zuri had been fascinated watching her in lessons. He belonged to her, to the girl with the ivy cottage, the boy with the blond hair and the shy smile, and he liked to sleep in soft piles of person like an oversized puppy longing for a litter; he liked his romance in piles, too. He liked to make tea at three AM and sit awake with them, and Zurine would leave her tea until it was cold, and the three of them would talk until the sky began its slow creep toward predawn greyness, and fall back into bed to sleep until the alarm inevitably rang.
She would miss that, but it had never been for forever. There had been some unspoken understanding -- never discussed openly, never even mentioned -- that when it was time to part, it would be over; there would be no pining, no long-distance stress, no worrying. They had both kissed her goodbye in the airport, chaste little presses to her cheek, and they had not waited at the concourse until she got to her gate. When she had turned her head, despite her resolute determination not to, they had been gone. Not everything good was hers to keep, and that was all right, too. Zuri could bring the knowledge with her that somewhere in the world was an ivy cottage with a garden perfect for painting in and a tea kettle that sang softly at three AM and a bed that was just right for two and a half people, and that would be enough.
Still, now that she had returned to her home, quiet by the sea, filled with her things and her memories, it all felt like a dream. The moonlight was spilling in through the windows and the roses were gently perfuming the air and Phiel had drawn a smiling face inside the card, and Zurine had not slept in eighteen hours. She had not cried on the plane ride home, hours and hours of it, but now she felt wetness on her face and she thought of the rain, and she felt the card crumple just slightly in her hand and she smelled roses, and she realized that although she was smiling, her chest full, she was crying a little, too.
Nothing had changed here. Perhaps nothing would change, at least not for awhile. And maybe that was good. She had come home, and she was still Zurine -- a Zurine who had seen museums and art galleries, who had studied art history and ballet, who had kissed and loved (for a moment) a redheaded dancer with an ivy cottage, who had dreamed in the wee hours of the morning with a boy over endless cups of tea and biscuits. She was herself, but she had changed -- and home felt the same as it ever did.
She didn't even make it to her bed, once she had cried herself out, but fell asleep curled on the couch with tears dried on her cheeks and a smile still playing at the corners of her lips.
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:49 pm
The next day was a haze of napping and unpacking, hazy and fuzzy, of in and out of naps, jet-lagged and thick-headed. Her phone was still dead, not plugged in overnight, and through several trips it migrated slowly from the foyer to the sofa, from the sofa to the hall bathroom, from the hall bathroom to her bed, and somewhere around four in the afternoon it finally found its way onto a charger, the screen lighting dimly with the dead-battery symbol, power trickling to fill it again. The habit of looking at it had passed, the hope that when she checked it, there would be a message, the breathless fear that there would or wouldn't, the knotting twist in her stomach and the memory of old worry -- and Zurine let it lay, listening to the sounds of the sea. It wasn't so different from the sounds of the rain, if you weren't paying attention, a soothing backdrop for the quiet of the house and the mellow ever-present hum of the fish tank filters.
Phiel had come home sometime in the morning, an exhausted smile on his lips. He spent most of his time at Nara's these days, he told her, and that made her happy; he wasn't alone. It was what everyone wanted, after all. Someone to be together with in the wee hours of the morning, when sleep hung over the world like a pall -- it was the goal, the dream. She had hugged him, her cold slim arms wrapped around his neck, and laughed. If he wanted to go be with Nara, it was okay, and he laughed and told her how much she'd grown up. Zurine was of two minds about it, but in this mood, it felt easy to let go, as if she wasn't anchored quite so firmly to the earth.
Her sleep schedule was irretrievably ruined by the time she finally felt functional, somewhere around sunset, with the long rays of the late fall sun reached scarlet fingers out over the waves, topping each one with rubies and gold. Zurine had fallen asleep, propped up in her bed with her arm draped over her belly, her fingers loose and limp against her side, her hair rumpled. Her sweatshirt was a wrinkled mess, and her ribbon lay in a pretty blue river along the quilt. She didn't move immediately, only let her head fall softly to the side and watched the water move in the distance, slightly sweaty in the stuffy stillness of the room.
Zurine was home. And if home hadn't changed, but she had, then that meant things needed to change, maybe. Somewhere across the world, the little bed in the ivy cottage had more room in it, she thought, and luxuriated a little in the resulting pang of sweet, lush emotion that came with it, a sorrow and a longing distant enough that she could see the sides of it, judge the size and the shape of the feeling and worry it gently, like prodding at a bruise to remind yourself where it came from. Somewhere across the world, museums were opening and bakeries were already half-full of bleary-eyed patrons looking for coffee and pastries; somewhere, the first ballet class of the day was filing in, girls and boys with well-turned ankles and elegant posture straggling slowly in off the street to warm up, stomachs gnawing with black coffee, looking close at themselves in the mirror to pick at their own flaws until they turned out perfection.
And here -- here, Zurine lay as if the world had stopped spinning, savoring the ache of memory as the sun sank into the sea, alone and adrift, unscheduled, unplanned, as if nothing on earth could anchor her. She wasn't depressed, not really; the feeling was too light to be called depression, but it was too dark to be called happiness -- a strange, neutral, too-open feeling, like a balloon half-filled with helium. After a moment, her gaze fell on her phone. It was fully charged by now, screen dim and displaying the time and date, white letters on a black background, ticking slowly by. It took a force of will to reach out for it, as if her hand was glued down, but it felt good to touch something, to cradle the warm, fresh-from-the-charger heaviness of it in her hand. Her fingers slid over the screen, and she unlocked it.
She had changed the picture that made up her background so many times over the last months. When Zuri had left, it had been an old picture of -- well, of her and Cesc, smiling, younger, lighter, before everything that had gone before. Before growths and sorrow and loss and anger and heartbreak. Both of them smiling, untroubled, blissfully unaware of the hounds at the gate -- as if nothing could ever change.
It was that image she expected -- after all this time -- and instead, the image that greeted her was a little frog she'd photographed in the garden of the ivy cottage, its silly googly eyes round as buttons and its spotted back dappled with raindrops. Zurine had gotten the picture the day she arrived. She'd taken the photograph and it had promptly jumped up, attaching its sticky limbs to her phone while Zuri cackled with delight, giddy with a freedom that felt bright and new. Now, she unlocked her phone with a quick swipe, and looked down at it for a long few moments, staring at her home screen. There were no new messages, nothing at all -- and for a moment, the sensation of being cut loose from all her ties felt dizzying, wide, yawning open in her chest. She flicked open her messages, and sat thinking for a moment. Who could she text? After all this time --
After all this time, after Zurine had gone, after her desperate grab for freedom and independence and learning to be alone, learning to be okay with being self-sufficient --
She clicked on his name. Somewhere along the way she'd taken most of the emoji string off the end of it, and it now read simply, "Cesc". Perhaps it had been when she thought he was gone forever; Zurine couldn't remember anymore, most of that time lost in a haze of fear and emotion and working until she couldn't think straight, only move forward. After a moment, she clicked on the typing box. She could have mulled over it for hours, trying to think of the right thing to say, afraid to say the wrong one, afraid to lose the perspective she'd gained, as if she could ever be fully objective when it came to him, to her best friend --
'Hello', she typed. She thought, then added a smiling emoji -- deleted it -- added a sunshine emoji, and then deleted that too. Then she erased the text entirely, and replaced it, and hit send quickly, before she could rethink it, and locked her phone, laying it facedown on her bedside table as she quickly levered himself up out of the pillows, not thinking of the way her cheeks flushed with color or the way, just like that, she had found a connection to the world again, even if he never responded, even if he never saw it. She wouldn't check her phone for another hour while she set about finishing up unpacking her things, ready to occupy the world again with one simple text.
Hi. I'm home
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 12:36 pm
The studio smelled of wood, of lemon-scented floor-polish, of fresh-laundered costumes and of the girls and boys and women and men who were wearing them or trying them on for size; it smelled of satin and tulle and just a little of antiseptic and bandages. It was a familiar scent to Zurine, after the time she'd spent in Europe. The smell and feel of ballet in a space was exciting, provocative -- the push and pull of tension and frustration, of freedom and lightness and grace expressed through precision and effort and pain -- it was like a drug, Zurine thought. Heady, like some indefinable cologne clinging to someone you'd met only in passing on a train. Addictive.
It had taken several calls to find a studio in the area that was taking new students, and only one of the three she'd found would accept her non-human anatomy, her lack of legs. As if it was impossible to dance expressively without them, she had thought, and tried not to let her spirits dip too low. The letter of recommendation from her previous teacher had helped, explaining what she knew already, whom she'd trained with, and how enthusiastic a student she was. Zurine was grateful for the chance.
Madame Elenore was an imposing woman, despite being petite. She stood barely five feet tall -- Zurine could look down at her, a fact that made her duly uncomfortable -- but she felt much taller, with her elegantly upright carriage and the way she held herself, as if she could have held snow in her mouth without it melting. Her skin was fair, unblemished, although if you looked closely enough you could see the hair-fine net of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and her dark hair was long, pulled back in a severe French braid that fell to her hips. She had an air of elegant restraint, of calm certainty, that meant her class listened to her every word, though her softly French-accented words were quiet, measured, clear. Zurine stood next to her, with the entire class's eyes on her; Zuri's hands worried the strap of her bag, and the tip of her ribbon slowly twitched back and forth, the only outward sign of the nervousness she felt.
"Bonjour, students," Madame Elenore murmured softly, and the class stopped pretending not to stare. Their gaze was weighty, and yet Zurine didn't falter, drawing herself up, her chin tilting delicately upward and returning their look with quiet surety. It was a familiar feeling. "Please welcome Zurine Cereus. She will be joining us from now on in our classes."
There was a general murmur of assent. Most of the other dancers were familiar with the routine; with the diversity in species that was present in Gaia, most folks did not get overly bothered about physical differences. Still, Zurine was not entirely surprised when a young woman's face turned mulish and displeased.
"Madame Elenore, how can Miss Cereus dance when she has no legs?" the girl asked, her tone full of sweet reason. Zuri felt her cheeks flush, though she did not break composure, only tipped up her chin just slightly, a subtle defiance. The girl was the epitome of the word 'dancer' -- she was lithe, graceful, with long legs made of sleek muscle beneath baby-pink tights; her hair was straight and white-blond, pulled back into a bun with not even one hair out of place. With this girl's gaze on her, Zuri felt strange, small. The ribbon she had always considered lovely and graceful was not, in fact, the pair of legs that would have made her normal and human; her hair had once been long and sleek and straight like that, but she had cut it over the summer, in a cute, dainty, becoming style that framed her face with soft layers, and of course the fine feathers at her hairline. She was not human, not even strictly human-shaped like the dark elves, and a little nibble of doubt began at the bottom of her chest. She opened her mouth to respond, trying to put her best chilly, calm confidence in her voice, but then --
"Miss Arden," said the teacher, quietly. "Although there is a traditional way to dance ballet, it is not all in the legs. You of all people should know that there is more to dancing with precision and expressiveness than moving your legs. Anyone, given the correct training and practice, can move correctly. And it is my understanding that Miss Cereus will, with time, come into her legs. And then we shall train those as well." Madame Elenore's expression was calm, but even Zurine could see the steel beneath those pale eyes, and she couldn't help admiring it. "Are there any other questions from anyone else?"
There were not.
"Please, Miss Cereus," Madame Elenore murmured politely, "take your place at the barre behind Miss Arden. Perhaps she can learn some decorum and grace." Zuri's mouth closed, and flushed with embarrassment, she moved to set down her bag and take her place behind the dainty blond dancer, while the teacher turned away and strode delicately over to the piano, where she sat neatly.
"Let us begin," she intoned, and Zurine was glad enough to lose her self-consciousness again in the effort and focus of lessons.
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