Mornië utúlië, Mornië alantië
The early morning humidity hung thick in the air, clogging lungs as unsuspecting persons stepped outside, hoping for a breath of fresh air. It was a typical summer morning in Welland, Ontario. Groups of friends walked from Wilson Rd. to the Avondale on Fitch St., hoping they had enough money for a Klondike ice-cream cone, to stem the sweltering heat of Canadian summer. Toddlers played in clusters on their new tricycles, squealing with delight when they made it as far as they dared to go down the street, while their parents watched with soft smiles on their faces. The soft snores of teenagers drifted out from open windows, mixing with the good-hearted laughs from the five adults who gathered in their neighbor's garage on Calla Terrace each morning.
The soft hum of insects' wings lazily traveled into the ears of children whizzing by on their bicycles, laughing when they passed a certain landmark and were reminded of an inside joke. Skateboard's wheels could be heard on the asphalt of the Church's empty parking lot, their owners trying out new tricks. Even at ten-o-clock in the week-day morning, the sun beat down on Wellanders foolish enough to try to brave the heat.
It was one of the hottest summers the Niagara Region had seen in many years. Even when the temperatures reached 30 degrees Celsius, it didn't feel like it. With the thick humidity clutching desperately to the air particles, the air around felt like at least 37 degrees Celsius. Almost everyone that wasn't working would soon be outside enjoying the summer heat, almost.
Natesa Batherson sat sweating and panting in the middle of the tiled floor of the studio, having finally completed her Ballet Conditioning. She had been at it for almost two hours now. The auburn-haired girl finally pushed herself off the floor and walked over to the side of the room. She grabbed her water bottle from the floor and took a large gulp. The water rushed down Natesa's throat, cooling her insides, and giving her parched mouth sharp relief. She put down her water bottle and walked over to the front of the room. Pressing play on the stereo, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Andante Cantabile filled the room.
"Okay, I can do this…" her voice mixed with the musical notes drifting through the room. Natesa placed her feet in 4th position, and her arms in 1st, preparing for her pirouettes. Her mind thought back to what she read on the computer screen, about these specific turns.
"Retiré at the front of your leg and keep it there as long as possible… keep your shoulders and hips aligned, keep your posture…and… don't forget to, uh, oh yes! Don't forget to spot! How could I forget such a thing?" Natesa laughed at her foolishness. "5, 6, 7, 8… "She said aloud the eight counts, giving her a somewhat introduction to her turns.
Finally, Natesa drew up her right leg to her knee, making sure it was turned-out. With grace, she manipulated her body to start turning. Natesa whipped her head steadily as she spotted, keeping her eyesight on a smudge on the mirrors, while also mentally keeping count of how many turn she did. 'One…tw -' In the middle of her second pirouette, she heard the bells tied on the front door of the studio jingle, and she brought her leg down.
Natesa went over to the stereo and turned it off. Her voice echoed in the empty room as she asked, "Hello? Who's there?"
"Natesa? What are you doing here? It's Friday for God's sake." Natesa heard a female voice drifting through the hallway to meet her ears.
"My Lord, Carisa? Is that you? What on earth are you doing on King St.?"
"Don't forget me!" a high pitched voice graced her ears as she realized that both her best friends, Carisa and Ghita had both come across town, to see her. Or, Natesa irrationally thought, Are they here, to yell at me some more?
No one at school appreciated Natesa's dancing. "It's stupid" she always heard, "and, it's easy! I can do anything you could!" This would usually be followed by an amateur attempt at an arabesque or a pirouette. They just couldn't or rather, wouldn't accept that Ballet was an extremely tough art form.
"I didn't know that both of you were going to come here! I didn't know that one of you was going to come here… what exactly… are you doing here, at the dance studio, anyway? Didn't you guys say that you were going for a walk to get together with Tatiana, Britannia and Alex?" Without me, Natesa added in her mind.
"We came to see if you snapped out of the silly 'Dance, dance, dance' phase." Carisa's voice reverberated inside of Natesa's head.
"Silly?" a twitch started in Natesa's left eye, "you think that my life's hobby, no, not a hobby, my life is 'silly'? How could you? I thought that… well, I just thought that my friends would support me, no matter what I chose to do, unless of course it was completely stupid."
"Like dance?"
Tears formed in Natesa's crystal blue eyes at Ghita's stinging words. "How could you? How could you even say that! I've only been ballet dancing for almost fourteen years! Longer than I've known you! Longer than I've been in school! Longer than anything I've ever done, except maybe, breathing." By now, salty tears were streaming down her face, falling into the opening where Natesa's lips parted, sliding onto her tongue and finally down her throat, landing in her rumbling stomach.
"Just, leave, you two. Leave me alone!"
Not being able to listen to Carisa and Ghita any longer, Natesa turned her back and walked back down the hall way, into the studio. She slammed the door to connecting the hallway to the actual studio, and locked it, ensuring that her so called friends wouldn't be able to get in.
Natesa opened the CD slot and took out the compact disc already in there. She replaced it with a burned CD, and closed the black slot. Natesa walked to the left corner of the rectangular room and waiting for the music to fill the studio.
Suddenly, the forlorn tones of Enya's 'May it be' floated from the stereo and filled the room. After mentally counting herself in, Natesa started her dance. Tears ran down the auburn haired girl's face as she fully surrendered to the music, permitting her body to conform into a luminous fluidity.
No one, not even her closest friends, could accept her. Dance was her life, and if you couldn't accept that, then they couldn't accept her. Often Natesa had gotten into fights with people over the subject, and they usually ended in tears rolling down her face. Even her family, who had always assured her that they would always support her choices, let her down. That's the reason why she was here right now. Natesa would have been practicing in her basement, in the comfort of her own home, but after a few weeks, her Father would yell at her to 'Take off those silly Pointe shoes! You're obsessed!' and her Mother would just scoff and walk away, silently disapproving. Not to mention the teasing by her Brother and Sister, 'You won't get into National Ballet School, you don't have the Talent!' and of course, ' You're retarded. You're a bad dancer, and you'll never become a professional, because they are actually good at dancing."
Unbeknownst to Natesa, while she was dancing, a soft glow started to fill the room, surrounding her, the soft blue tendrils wrapping themselves around her. Gleaming white particles started to swirl around the room, coming out of thin air and pushing out of the way when Natesa made another movement close to them.
The whole room seemed to be engulfed in a translucent light blue cloud, with the only thing penetrating the wispy vapor the Lilliputian Ballerina and her graceful fluidity Accidentally, and not knowing what she was doing, Natesa touched a small particle. Abruptly, a dazzling flash exploded into the room, taking Natesa off guard, and therefore causing her to fall in the middle of an assemble. Opening her eyes since the music first started, Natesa gasped at the sparkling blue veil surrounding her and engulfing the studio.
She stood up, and reached out to a white grain. As her fingers touched it however, another blinding flash went through the room. As Natesa brought down the arm that was covering her eyes and face, two other figures walked into view.
"Carisa, Ghita, I don't know what you did, but it's not funny! I told you to leave anyway, what are you still doing here, watching me?"
But, Natesa was not greeted with the familiar voices of her two 'friends'. Instead a kind male voice echoed throughout the room.
"You have danced wonderfully, and have finally brought out your true power. Congratulations."
"But, he has seen you. It is not safe for you to stay here alone, now that your powers have been released Even though he had long ago given up hope to find you, Natesa, this sudden burst will have been noticed. We are here to take you somewhere safer than this place." The first person's companion, a female this time, added.
Natesa's voice cracked as she replied to these… people, "Wh- who are you? What do you mean powers? What do you… what do you want from me?"
Just then, the mist quickly evaporated, as if it was never there, and Natesa could finally see the two people before her. Or at least, she thought they were people. One was a male, and his companion, a female. The male had chin-length wavy platinum blonde hair and bright blue eyes, the female, waist-length board-straight chestnut hair and vibrant forest green eyes. Both had flawless ivory skin. The man looked to be about six feet tall, while his female companion looked about a few inches shorter.
Their clothes seemed to be made of the finest material the world had to offer. It almost looked like a cross between silk, cotton and velvet. The man had on a plain red T-shirt, and red, baggy shorts. The woman to his left had on a full-length spaghetti-strap dress, the color of a radiant pink rose with a long slit coming up the left side, all the way to just past the knee. A small diamond hung from her neck, and diamonds graced her beautiful hair. A dainty silver bracelet encircled her wrist and a diamond ring rested upon her finger.
Then, loud cracks came from the hallway, and there was banging on the door. Shouts could be heard from the other side of the door. Then, a louder voice from the others penetrated the door.
"Incompetent fools! Did you forget that you are wizards?"
The door was blasted off of its hinges as the word "Reducto" was heard.
A man in black robes stepped into the room, as all heads flicked towards him. Bony hands as white as snow reached up and pulled the hood off of the man's face. The man's face was round, and the snow-white skin that was stretched over it looked as if it was too small to fit. He had slits where the eyes should have gone, though instead of eyes, a red glow drifted out of the slits. Like his 'eyes', where the nostrils should have been, the only thing there was two small vertical openings. His mouth was merely a gash near his chin. All-in-all, it looked as if someone had carved his facial features with a Swiss-army pocket knife.
Two other people stepped into the room with him. One had long blonde hair, and looked as if in his youth, had been handsome. But, time had stretched his features into a mask of what seemed to be the devil's assistant. To the left of Blondie, stood a woman. Again, she looked as if she had once been beautiful, and again time had taken a hold of her face and stretched it. Her face was hollow, and looked as if made of wax. Surrounding her head was a mane of curly black hair.
An air of evil surrounded the trio, and the first man that stepped into the room finally spoke, "Lucius, Bellatrix," he pointed a bony finger towards Natesa, "get her."