#int.link

[skyandwave-blog]

Louvre | Just before her performance | @ofhercs

Hate.

It is burning through her shoulders, frustration grinding her teeth together even as she tries to breath out, even as she tries to rationalise it all to herself. She’s been practising for this endlessly, it would be useless to cop out at the last second. To make a final statement of irritation and rebellion when there is no one who would be at her back.

But the flower behind her ear is irritating her skin, so she pulls it out, drops it to the floor, grinds it with her heel, a sharp smile painting her face. She’s tempted to continue, to change from the mockery of an outfit, to her practise clothes, to wipe her face clean of makeup, to try and find some way to corrupt the audio, when she spots Lincoln looking at her.

She looks away, stops grinding her heel to the floor, and kicks the sad collection of plastic petals to the corner, before crossing her arms defensively.

[skyandwave-blog]

In the mouth of lions | Ata & Link

January 28 - 11:00

@ofhercs

She’d managed to go six months without running into the lions, outside of the dress rehearsals and the ilk, but they always brought out more fear than excitement, some touch of the horse recognising their mortality. It didn’t help that she’d never seen one in real life before, and while new things typically brought anticipation, the lions were one of the few things not on that list.

But today was a day for testing out boundaries, and she had explored the rest of the cage of a carnival they had put her in. Yesterday she has slipped those bonds, but she wanted to tread new paths here. 

So she found herself walking towards the lion cages, to look at them from a safe distance away (and she wasn’t going to go anyway near that conversation), when she walked past the area that they normally trained. Atarangi’s heart stopped in her chest for a moment, the possibility of the lions having escaped and putting her in the line of escape, when she saw what they were really doing.

Well, she would if she knew what they were doing, but Lincoln was there, training them, so she wouldn’t be dying today. She watched for a moment, wondering whether she should leave, before deciding to take a risk. After all, her whole life was about risks.

“Do you mind if I try something? Like the, putting your head inside the lion’s mouth, kind of thing? Or would they just bite it off because they don’t know me? Could you do it?” Ata found herself rambling slightly, pink on her cheeks with the unfamiliar sense of nervousness, as she rounded the corner properly.