Ava Anatalya Orlova (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2017-08-10 04:01 am
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in riverviewlogs2017-08-10 04:01 am
Entry tags:
[closed]
who: Ava Orlova & Natasha Romanoff
what: two redheads, take two
when: after the acid rain
where: the ballet theater
warnings: None?
[Most of the time when she dances it's at the gym, before dawn, alone in the dim light in front of mirrors, dancing steps ground so deep in her memory she repeats them now that she remembers them. Swan Lake is the constant, but sometimes there are whispers of others, routines and half-remembered pieces. Sometimes, she stops by the ballet theater, but it's usually to watch.
The queer way it whispers against memories she can't quite remember, things about the Bolshoi and her porcelain ballet doll Carolina that she used to carry with her everywhere until she lost it to Ivan along with everything else in her life.
It's always a little like walking among ghosts, as she watches the women in leotards and silk shoes. But she comes here with her sketchpad and she draws, sitting tucked out of the way, watching the dancers, Ava folded over her own long limbs while etching shape and contour, movement and intention onto paper. She doesn't exactly have permission, but no one's ever stopped her before, and that's just about the same thing. But sometimes, when the dancers are working out on the stage, she slips into one of the practice rooms, and she dances for a little while. Her sketchpad leaning against the wall as she moves to the music she can hear wafting on the air, the rhythm in the walls.
Later, she's gathering up her sketchpad and her charcoals and pencils, getting to ready to leave but when she steps out of the door and into the hall, she sees her. Natasha. Hair as red as her own and those clear eyes. Ava refuses to fluster, even if her fingers tighten slightly, she just takes a breath before trying to speak.]
Do they have you dancing here? [She tries to make it a casual pleasantry. She idly remembers once feeling that Natasha's curse was not being able to get rid of her. The way their lives seemed to cross, and here they were-- from different worlds, standing in a theater on the moon.]
what: two redheads, take two
when: after the acid rain
where: the ballet theater
warnings: None?
[Most of the time when she dances it's at the gym, before dawn, alone in the dim light in front of mirrors, dancing steps ground so deep in her memory she repeats them now that she remembers them. Swan Lake is the constant, but sometimes there are whispers of others, routines and half-remembered pieces. Sometimes, she stops by the ballet theater, but it's usually to watch.
The queer way it whispers against memories she can't quite remember, things about the Bolshoi and her porcelain ballet doll Carolina that she used to carry with her everywhere until she lost it to Ivan along with everything else in her life.
It's always a little like walking among ghosts, as she watches the women in leotards and silk shoes. But she comes here with her sketchpad and she draws, sitting tucked out of the way, watching the dancers, Ava folded over her own long limbs while etching shape and contour, movement and intention onto paper. She doesn't exactly have permission, but no one's ever stopped her before, and that's just about the same thing. But sometimes, when the dancers are working out on the stage, she slips into one of the practice rooms, and she dances for a little while. Her sketchpad leaning against the wall as she moves to the music she can hear wafting on the air, the rhythm in the walls.
Later, she's gathering up her sketchpad and her charcoals and pencils, getting to ready to leave but when she steps out of the door and into the hall, she sees her. Natasha. Hair as red as her own and those clear eyes. Ava refuses to fluster, even if her fingers tighten slightly, she just takes a breath before trying to speak.]
Do they have you dancing here? [She tries to make it a casual pleasantry. She idly remembers once feeling that Natasha's curse was not being able to get rid of her. The way their lives seemed to cross, and here they were-- from different worlds, standing in a theater on the moon.]
no subject
I can't promise anything. They're wary of me, too.
[ She'd been placed here by the jobs authority, on the basis of some— well, some carefully manicured truths. To the rest of the ballet corps, she hadn't earned a spot. Natasha could fit in easily enough, when she wanted to, but there was still some lingering uncertainty. ]
But you get more when you ask than when you don't.
no subject
As good as she is at fitting in, she's probably still the new girl. But then she says those words, and there's a flicker of something hot in her eyes, a tension in her hands. But it's brief, there and gone, invisible to almost anyone else as Ava chokes it down, settles for shaking her head.]
No one's ever given me anything because I asked for it. She tried to teach me that no one ever would.
[She sighs, tries to smile, even if it's a little hard to not think of the Embassies in DC, the laughter.]
no subject
Very capitalist.
no subject
Very American, I suppose.
[It was the only place that had ever been something close to home, but she never really stopped feeling like an outsider.]
no subject
[ How much does she want to say? What advice can she give? Natasha isn't well-struck for this sort of thing. She isn't the Avenger little girls hang posters of in their rooms. She's never wanted to be. ]
This is what I can tell you: [ her emphasis on the I is dripping ] you can take all you need, but it will never be all that you want.
[ "What kind of predator was she?" Natasha finds herself thinking. ]