[Memory] What: Memory Will characters be viewing the memory or experiencing it?: Experiencing Warning, this memory contains: Childhood and yearning
You think, sometimes, that you would like to be a dancer. Long-limbed and graceful. You've seen them, on television and three times now on stage, and they look so perfect. They move like dreams, but the sound their feet make when they hit the wood of the stage is solid and real. And strong. Other people might not think so, but to you they all look so strong. Strong enough to hold up their arms and stay on their toes. Strong enough to hold still like perfect statues when they're lifted into the air. You think, sometimes, that you would like that. Strength and grace and a place within a company, with people to dance with and who might lift you into the air if the moment called for it.
But your limbs are thin and gawky, a little too long for the rest of your body and uncoordinated with your first growth spurt of your preteen years. There's nothing graceful or strong about you, but it doesn't stop you from daydreaming. It doesn't stop you from standing in the middle of your closed-door room, arms held out parallel to the floor, hands cupping around nothing as you spin. And spin. Going up onto your toes until you get dizzy and your balance wavers and then you sink back to flat feet but continue to turn. Eyes closed, you try to remember the moves you watched from your plush audience seat, and you allow your body to follow the memory of them. Point your toes and stretch out your leg. Shift your weight and raise an arm in a curve above your head. Let the other join it, a wide oval like you're trying to hold the sun above you. Bend your knees and sink toward the floor and then jump! You can't get very high, but do it again. Then lean forward, extending your leg behind you, arms down and out again, as if waiting for an embrace. A wide gesture to your left, another to your right, and leap again. Move around your room to music only you can hear.
Until footsteps stop outside your door and it opens with a jerk. Eyes open, the memory ends with a voice telling you to stop jumping around - it's like elephants on the ceiling from downstairs, and you're too old for that nonsense.