InsaneJournal

Week 2: Tuesday night
Who: Lirije and open, can be narrative. (Any takers, nice types pls? I'm trying to get a feel for her BEFORE I scare her half to death haha)
Where: The gardens at the towers
When: Tuesday night, around 9:00
What: Being conspicuous

Lirije was settling well into Seattle. She adored working with the company at the PNB, felt like she was finally a part of something instead of simply struggling to get parts. In the week since she'd been there she'd been taking classes and rehearsing for seven to eight hours a day, and she was adoring every minute of it. While she was far from the best dancer in the corps, and while the principals and soloists were far better than she was, she could tell she was already improving more than she had in years of training before now.

Even after a long day was over, Lirije hardly had anything better to do than try and improve even more. She hurried up the stairs to her room, grabbed an apple from the basket of fruit on her kitchen counter, and picked up the box containing a new pair of pointe shoes that had arrived in the mail the afternoon before. They needed to be broken in properly before she could wear them in class, and the toes of her current pair had become soft over the past couple of days. Amazing how fast a pair of the shoes could wear out, and she couldn't afford to wear too-soft shoes when they were auditioning for roles in the company's next performance the following afternoon.

She didn't want to sit in her apartment by herself, though. It felt lonelier in there than it did up in the gardens, and since she'd moved in she'd been spending a lot of time in the evenings up there. Sometimes others would wander up, and while she didn't seek their company, she still felt like she wasn't completely isolated. Before leaving, she stopped in the hallway and placed each shoe in turn in the hinge side of her door, pulling the door shut slowly and gently to flatten the box. Once that was done, she slid both back into the box and walked up the stairs to the garden, steps light and lively despite spending her entire day literally on her toes.

She found a nice spot near the door to the gardens and sat down on the floor next to a rose bush. Shoes out of the box again, she began softening the back of the shank to conform to the arch of her foot, bending it back and forth gently until it was pliable, but not too loose. Once both were pliant, she slid them on her feet over the bandages that covered a few toes on each foot. Blisters were a part of life, and she was luckier than most. Being a were, she healed quickly. She pulled the drawstring snugly, tied a knot, and cut off the loose ends of the draw string with the pocket knife she had brought along.

She sewed the satin ribbons on after that with the needle and thread she had thrown in the box that morning before rehearsal, quickly as she was used to this particular chore. In fact, breaking in the shoes in general had become almost an auto-pilot task that could be completed relatively quickly, and without much thought.

Sliding the shoes back onto her feet, she tied the ribbons around her ankles and stood at demi-pointe, on the balls of her feet rather than on her toes. The shoes were still stiff, especially down low, and it was uncomfortable and difficult as she walked around a bit, turned out – force of habit – as she wandered along the flowers. The rough footing would help give her some extra traction as well. New shoes were always slick.

Anyone who walked in on her might think it quite an odd sight – a young woman walking around in tights, sweat pants rolled up to the knee, a leotard as a top, hair in a bun that had seen better hours, strands unraveled around his face, and walking about the gardens on tip-toe. She wasn't really expecting company, though. The gardens were obviously prettier during the day, when the sun came in through the windows and lit the place up. The artificial lighting was a poor substitute.

And to tell the truth, she wasn't paying attention should anyone join her. She'd brought her iPod along with her, it was tucked between the elastic of her sweat pants and her hip bone, and music was playing through the ear-bud headphones loudly enough to drown out most of the sound around her. She was walking to the tempo of the song, stopping every so often to raise to full pointe and stretch her feet and ankles out, humming along softly as she went.