Flexuous: full of bends or curves; sinuous
February 27, 2009
Folds of satin skirts swirled, long silvery braids flew through the air. Slight, willowy bodies, one tall, the other small, mirrored each other in graceful arcs, leaps, and spins. Sweet music poured from the spinning golden gramophone in the corner, singing violins and laughing pianos sped the dancers on their way.
As the music wound itself down, the little girl stumbled, tumbling to the carpet as her dizzying spins caught up with her and she overbalanced. Letting out her breath in a puff of frustration that sent a few loose strawberry-blonde hairs dancing, she sat up and watched the older girl finish the dance with an expression of reverence and longing.
Her aunt swayed and spun and curled in on herself, arching her back as she threw herself into the last notes of the music. Her lithe figure seemed to mold to the melody, mimicking light and water and air, the little girl thought, as with one final, passionate twist, she folded herself to the floor in a plume of skirts and gracefully twined limbs.
There was a beat of silence in which the young woman held perfectly still in that sculpted pose, and her niece feared for a moment that without the music, she might have turned to porcelain. Then her head came up and she beamed at the little girl.
"Tres Magnifique, ma belle! You 'ave been practicing, Victoire, no?"
Victoire nodded, pushing her wayward braid out of her face as her aunt untangled herself and sprang lightly to her feet. She pulled Victoire up beside her and fondly smoothed her hair.
"Ze grace of a true ballerine, ne c'est pas? Per'aps you will go to ze academy, aussi."
But instead of glowing with pride or squealing with excitement as her aunt expected, Victoire merely turned and flopped down on the sofa with a sigh. The young woman's pretty face folded into a frown. She swooped down and gathered up Victoire in a tangle of arms and legs, tickling her until she was giggling fit to burst. But the moment she let her niece go, Victoire's gloomy mood seemed to return.
"What ees it, ma Cherie?"
Victoire rolled over and with the drama befitting her mother said, "I fell. I can't do what you did. I can't even make it through one song without messing up. I can't be a dancer like you, Aunt Gabby."
To her dismay, Victoire's aunt laughed. She covered her mouth at Victoire's nonplussed expression.
"Je m'excuse, but one fall does not stop you from being good! I 'ave been practicing at the Academy for years, now! Do you think I 'aven't fallen in all that time?"
Victoire shrugged, biting her lower lip in a sheepish smile.
"Ze trick ees seemple enough. You must just be fluid in all you do. 'Ere, come. I will show you."
Gabrielle took Victoire's hands and led her back to the middle of the living room. She guided her through the moves slowly. "Eef you are off-balanced, you mustn't fight, or gravity will pull you down. You must flow into ze next position. Work with ze fall, not against eet."
Victoire tried to heed the advice. It took some effort not to try to correct her tipping, but she managed to tumble gracefully this time, landing in a position that didn't break her dance so completely. She grinned up at Aunt Gabby, who exclaimed "Exactement!"
At that moment, loud shrill cries of "Auntie Gabby!" Came from the kitchen, and Victoire had to practice her new graceful tumble as her brother and sister came barreling into the living room, fresh from shopping for Louis's birthday dinner and not about to let Victoire hog their adored aunt.
Victoire didn't mind the interruption though. After all, it was Louis's fifth birthday, the whole reason Aunt Gabby was there in the first place. How could she resent her baby brother today? Besides, to be a good dancer you had to flow.
As it turned out, Victoire never did enroll at the Wizarding Academy for Dramatic Arts, where her aunt would one day teach ballet. But she would carry that day's lesson around with her for the rest of her life.
A/N: Alright, I'll admit I rather like this one. I dunno, something about Fleur's sister and her kids just piques my interest. The French is courtesy of Google Translator, so I hope it's all okay. I take French, but I don't pretend to be brilliant at it, so I doubled checked everything. Also, I found a reference to the Wizarding Academy for Dramatic Arts in the Tales of Beadle the Bard. I'm not sure if it's strictly theatre, but I'm going to say dance and other arts are included there as well. Right, well, hope you liked it! :D Reviews would be lovely…