Okay, No big author note today.
Forgive me for any mistakes... I have read and re-read it, but something always escapes ^_^.
Enjoy.
"What do you want?" Yuri said lowering his voice.
"I want nothing. I just make sure the stage's wishes come true. How do you like the Dragon's Flight?"
"Challenging, but from what I've learned of it, a good manoeuvre, why?"
"Good. Your father would have liked to hear that." Fool could remember the making of that manoeuvre pretty well. It had been a breezing night too. He could remember his words: "I want him to make this true. For that, I hope you can help, Fool."
"My father? What does he have to do with all of this?" The nineteen year old enquired annoyed. First he takes his father away, and later comes with mysterious quotes. That little thing was beginning to angry him up.
"You shall find this out soon. I just have to tell you something. For the existence of the Dragon, an Angel shall subsist first. That's the main meaning of it." Saying that, the Spirit touched the lad's forehead, and with a magical move he put him to sleep. "Good Night."
"You...can't...do..." The Russian closed his eyes.
The cold breeze of the night brought a sound to the small being's ears: Thank you, Fool.
"I hope you know what you are doing." He stared at the sleeping couple. I wonder if you will be able to see me again too, Layla. "It won't take too long now."
In a manor across the city, there was one room that kept alive in the night. Flickering candles illuminated the place. A figure lay dancing inside. A choreography can make you cry, make you laugh, make you lose your breath, make you take a breath, but this one was a mixture of so many emotions that you couldn't decide what you wanted to feel. Passion becomes despair, love bursts into tears.
"Don't you think you should be sleeping, Milady?" She heard a voice from the window, which made her stop immediately. She ran to the place then.
"Is that you, Fool?" She leaned on the balcony and looked everywhere. "It seems like I can still hear you, my dear friend."
"You are really a masterpiece Svetlana Kiryanova. It is nice to see you dancing again, Shining One." The Spirit whispered in her ear. "I wonder what made you do it by your own will once more." He could see her jade pupils dilate.
"You know, small phantom of the opera, one more of the many tricks your dearest stage has played on me. I saw something a day before yesterday." She smiled. "I wish I could see you again."
"Listening is not enough dear?" She could hear his laughing. "Breezy today, isn't it?"
"And it keeps opening my windows and trying to light off my candles. Ah, and it is Kravchenkova now." She showed a ring. Emeralds, just like she had always liked. "I wanted to finish some of my paintings; it makes me nervous seeing them this way, but apparently, my old ballet shoes that I kept here called much more my attention."
"Sometimes I forget how long it has been since we last met."
"Fifteen years and ten months. Unlike you, I can't forget." She took her hand to her neck, and brought with it a silver dragon shaped pendant.
She felt the presence walk away, and a door behind her opened slowly.
"Mom?" The young woman said. "Are you alright?" She stared at her mother. She had always loved the way her pale long hair shone, contrasting with her pale green eyes with the moonlight reflecting on it since she was a child. She used to say that her mother was a moon elf because of that and because of her musical abilities.
"Yes, Yelena, you shouldn't worry so much about me." Sometimes she still stared in wonder. How much had her little girl grown. She then watched her child get close to the piano.
"Dancing without music is like a clown without a smile, isn't it?" She winked.
"It's sad to see clowns without their smiles isn't it Lana? I don't know about you, but for me is one of the saddest things in the world."
"It is. But I was going to my room now. Did I wake you up?" She flashed her daughter a gentle smile. "What is wrong? I generally don't need words to know what my daughter is feeling like, but I presume tonight I need some help."
"No...Mom, do you really think I can do that? Take care of grandpa's enterprise..." Her mother put her hand on the younger's cheek.
"So that is it? You will be fine, I am sure of it. What is mom's first rule?"
"You can do whatever you want; all you have to do is try hard. Thank you." Tears rolled down the girl's cheeks. "Sorry, good night." Svetlana hugged her daughter strongly. She hated to see those amethyst eyes crying.
"Night, my baby."
Lana once more felt the ethereal being come closer. "Why did you leave? She won't be able to see you anyway." She responded.
"Well... You never know right? I was surprised that you could still hear me." He watched the woman light off the candles and pick up her painting materials. Her paintings. For a moment he was glad she couldn't see him again.
"Fool, keep quiet! I can't portrait you if you keep moving!"
"You shouldn't be painting; you know this dye has toxic components. I'll tell him." The spirit ran all over the room.
"So what? The maximum that can happen is that our children will like to paint too. You won't tell him...oh you won't." She smiled. "Enough. I am binding you up to the wall with tape."
"Have you been to the circus already?" Her eyes darkened as she proffered those words.
"I am staying there actually, with my new protected ones."
"I see, your famous stars. Is there any new "vampire" like me?" She could hear his laughter once more.
"'Vampire'... Actually I found a better name; after all you don't get everywhere biting people, and you are nowhere near a vampire, Blood tied."
"Blood tied... So, you haven't answered my question."
"Maybe there is one, I have to wait until I confirm... probably by tomorrow I will know. She reminds me of you, except for the fact she wouldn't attach me up to a wall." He lowered his voice. "And the stage misses you."
"I see, but it amends nothing. It just reminds me once more how unfair this world that we live in is." Her face froze in a serious expression. "How it plays with our lives without our permission and we don't even get a chance for, for...Ah forget, I am not coming back."
"I never expected you to change as such. I think is time to go then. Good night, Milady."
"I agree. Good night, Fool." Although she couldn't see him, she stared to the nowhere in a way that would have captured his eyes.
"See you someday." Fool answered, disappearing through the night.
The ballerina went to her room, where her husband lay in bed reading a book. She changed herself in her sleeping clothes, and lay down at his side. She knew exactly what was coming, so she cut it quickly.
"I don't want to talk. Good night."
"Good night Lana." He said surprised. "Fool..." He laughed inside. "Oh, and there is violet dye on your hair."
She swore inside. "Tomorrow I clean it." Then, she closed her eyes, hoping that would be a night without dreams. If Fool wants it will... She thought.
Inside the building, Annika performed one of the many failed attempts to learn what her sister called the Angel Twist.
"Damn it! Why doesn't it work for me crap?" The girl shouted. She hated when she couldn't do something, and apparently, that was one of those things.
"Hey, watch out for your mouth!" Yelena reprehended her sister. "Now jump and swirl. It is simple."
"Down here it is. But up there nyet! Can't you get it?"
"Keep trying. One day you will learn it." Yuri and Yelena said calmly, at exactly the same time.
"I hate you two and your perfect synchrony, did you know that?" She pouted.
Sora gazed upon the garden. There had passed already two weeks out of the four they would stay here. Two weeks only were left to be with her friends, to be with all of them. Annika was trying hard to learn her sister's twist. She laughed to herself. It reminded her so much of her training days of the Angel's Act with Leon. Leon. She felt herself blush. She heard footsteps behind her, and turned back quickly, losing her blush.
"Oh, it's you Ms. Layla. Sorry."
"Daydreaming with whom?" The woman asked the other. "Leon?"
Sora blushed. Red .She felt her face burning.
"Ha-ha, I knew it." She smiled. "Have you ever talked to him about such?"
"No. I can't."
"You have been partnered for one year already. It's normal to speak to each other about things off-stage."
"Ah, I don't know... He is different...I mean, he is not like" The cherry haired girl stopped. She suddenly had remembered how gifted to talk with pregnant women she was.
"He is not like Yuri you were saying." Layla lowered her gaze. "Once he was just like that."Except for the fact he seemed to care from people since the beginning.
"Yuri Killian." One of the men called his name. She watched that tall, pale haired boy step onto the stage. He seemed to be the same age as she was, fourteen, but somehow he looked much older due to his rigid expression.
His performance was a perfect and clear sample of the ballet The Swan Lake. He made every previous performance appear the same as kindergarten's work. It was as if the music urged to follow his steps, not the opposite. His moves were accurate and had momentum, presence on the stage. A chill went up her spine as she watched it.
As expected, he was accepted into the circus, just well as she did. One thing she knew at that moment: That lad was her worst and only enemy on that place and she had to surpass him.
Even after they were assigned partners he would never stop challenging her abilities.
"Quicker!" He said.
"Why don't you slow down?" She confronted him.
"Because you are the one who has to go quicker, not me."
"Well, I am not doing so. Sorry if it bothers you." She answered firmly, in that way that only she could do.
"Okay." Saying that he threw himself on the net and went to the place where it was being held.
"What are you doing?" She asked as realized he was undoing the knots.
"I see you only work under pressure, don't you? Here is the thing. I won't change my pace, and unless you don't want to crush yourself onto the floor, you will go quicker. I wish I hadn't to do this."
That expression. The cold expression on his eyes that always made her shiver. All she could do was nod. How she hated to be manipulated. On that day, the famous manoeuvre The Golden Phoenix was born.
"I think we will need a full turn trapeze here." He laughed while swinging. That was the first time she had ever wanted to slap him. She had never being forced to do something. She loathed him. So much.
"In the end, I think I wouldn't be me without his harshness. I think we need to be pushed to our limit, so that we can find it or even surpass it." The blonde turned herself to watch Sora's mouth agape, her eyes widened. "What... You didn't expect that, right? Nobody does. Everybody seems to remember him either as the charming prince, either as the traitor... but there is much more than that. He is much more than that. I just regret having taken so long to comprehend it."
"I missed talking to you, Ms. Layla." The chocolate hued eyed girl said.
"Sora, I want to ask you a favour." She began, seriously. "Can you please stop calling me Ms. Layla? You could just say Layla." She grinned.
"Of course, M... Layla."
"Better now." Her blonde locks moved to the breeze.
"I forgot to ask... Have you two picked up a name for the child already?" The Japanese looked at her friend who had burst into laughing.
"Not yet. In fact...Now that you said...I assume we are a bit late... Have you got any suggestion?"
"Humm." The cherry haired thought, but nothing could come to her mind. "I guess not."
"Did you know...? Sora likes Leon?" Layla asked her former trapeze partner.
"I would be worried if she didn't...Working with someone you hate is hell."
"You reckon like has more than one meaning, don't you?" Of course he did, he just didn't want to see it, and she knew that.
"I am not a thesaurus, but I think I know that. She is in love with him? Leon?"
"Yes."
"But LEON? Couldn't it be Ken, or I don't know, anyone else?" His paternal disapproving look almost made her chuckle.
"No genius... Why, do you think of stopping her from doing so?" The previous expression gave place to a 'What if I do?' one. The room went on deadly silence.
"Do you support her choice?" He then said.
"Why should I not? Look, I know you have had problems with him before but that is no reason for preventing her from loving him." She thought having heard him whisper something to himself. "Moreover, you are not the one to decide that."
"Alright, cutting the preaching part, why did you tell me that? You are not expecting me to do something to help it, are you?"
"See, that is what I like of synchronization, you can even read my thoughts now!" The famous icy look. But now she wasn't afraid anymore. "I know you don't consent with everything, but make an exception and talk to Leon... Please, for me... for..."
"Stop it now. You are not putting Boris in the middle of this discussion." She looked at him awkwardly. "I'll never leave you again with my grandmother, never ever. She's been teaching you far more of her cute persuasion than I expected. I learned to love you the other way around."
"Aw... So you hate me now because of that? So I have news for you Yuri Killian: no way is his name going to be Boris. Looks like... A vampire... No way!" He burst into laughing, and she punched his shoulder delicately. "Sora asked me if we had thought it up already."
"You haven't, I did. Vladimir looks even more like a vampire's name. Let me think... Igor?" He asked.
"No...Isn't it Dr. Frankenstein's assistant name?" She stared at him with a serious expression. "You are aware that you can always stop teasing me whenever you want, right?"
"You realized that? Now I am surprised." He laughed out loud. The incredulous look on her face was priceless. "Alright... I'll start telling you the ones I actually thought up."
"Oh, yes..." She realized something behind his head. "Fool?"
"It's been some time Layla..." The Spirit replied.