Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from Ashita no Nadja.
In a Forgotten Attic
Nadja danced. Her dance was wild and passionate; not because it had to be, or even because she wanted it to be, but because she needed it to be. She needed to be able to dance with an abandon that would toss all other thoughts out of the window.
These days, she needed to dance like this, because she felt that if she didn't she would go mad. It had started out simply as more dancing: extra practice in the mornings, then a extra practice in the afternoons, and finally extra practice in the evenings as well. When she no longer had any more time to fill with dancing, she danced increasingly vigorously.
At performances, of course, she tempered herself. She had choreographed a dance that would work for her current temperment: one that was wild and passionate to begin with. Still, it needed some amount of tempering before an audience. When she practiced, however, she let all of her flaming emotions shoot into her movements, and refused to stop until she felt her body approaching its limit.
She practiced like a woman possessed, despite Thomas, Arvell, Kennosuke, Rita, and the Leader's collective efforts to coax her out of it. They told her that she could tell them if there was something making her frustrated, or angry. But this simply was not the case. Silvy was the single one who did not tell her to stop. Instead, Silvy pulled her aside one day, on the guise that they were going to shop for food to cook dinner that evening.
"Nadja, is there a reason behind this craziness?" Nadja opened her mouth to insist that there was not, certain that she was to receive the same lecture from Silvy that she had received from everyone else.
"No, of course n-" But as she began her denial, she looked up and saw the twinkling in the older woman's eyes. Of course there was no use for denials here. Silvy was a woman too—she already knew. So Nadja just sighed and looked away.
Silvy chuckled. "I'm sure most people go through this at one time or another, Nadja."
"That doesn't help it!" Nadja whispered, looking around nervously. She didn't like to say anything particularly...condemning out loud, but it was definitely getting to the point where she would burst if she could not at least discuss the problem at hand, if not do something about it. "He's always been such a lawless, careless cad, and now he insists on being honorable! He bearly..." She flushed.
"Honorable men are certainly frustrating when they're attractive," Silvy sighed sympathetically. "It's not a matter of attractiveness," Nadja explained. "It's more...well, he's Keith. And when I'm with him, I just..."
She was starting to resemble a tomato, Silvy registered with amusement.
"He wants to get married first, but I don't want to get married, not yet at least, because it would mean that I'd have to leave the Troupe, but-"
"But you need to bed him?" "The other way around would be preferable. And it's not really a need..."
"Judging by your daily routines as of late, I would say that it is."
Strange that this was a mere discussion of her daily routine.
Silvy sighed and stopped. "Nadja, we're in London."
Nadja blinked, baffled by this sudden change of topic. "So we are."
"As of now, you have a week off. Go explain to our young chivalrous young knight how essential it is that he bed you. I'm sure he'd be happy to comply."
Surprisingly, Nadja only declined the suggestion once before spinning around and rushing off.