closed / plotted starter for @thiefofcrows
The music died down as the twilight started to fill the courtyard of the palace. Guests were beckond outside by multicolored firelights. Inej could see her father lighting torches dipped into different powders. They burned blue, green, bright white and guarded them against the shadows. Her older cousins were tumbling through the courtyard, balancing on a barrel, the two of them, doing flips and circles all while keeping them in motion. The young acrobat waited for her signal from far above. She preferred the quiet of the rooftops to the bustling crowds below, up here she didn’t feel like she had to hide, she could focus only on herself and her breathing and the thin wire below her feet. They had secured it earlier that day, high on the towers of the palace spanning diagonally across the courtyard so everyone would be able to see her. Inej wore a dark teal costume with two bands of painted fabric fluttering in the wind behind her, extending from her shoulders like wings. It gave her an ethereal look, her mother had said, but Inej knew it was to help with weight distribution and show. They made her feel like a heroine from the legends her mother used to tell her as a child.
There was a signal, a long, even tone played by flute and fiddle and drum. Her fathers voice boomed above the crowd once it was gathered. “The good Ravkan folks know the legends about the folk of air, but what if I told you, we had a member with us tonight? A young girl, defying gravity!” They started playing a tune and Inej placed her first, bare, foot against the wire. It felt good, familiar, she held a pole in her hands, walking slowly, wobbly towards the middle of the wire, then stumbled a few paces backwards, pretending to struggle with her balance. There was no net. A Ghafa never worked with a net. The crowd below gasped in shock as Inej nearly fell infront of their eyes, but of course, it was their task to put on a good show.
She dropped the pole as if by accident and let herself fall. The wind rushed up to greet her, below her family gasped and ran as if to catch her. “Don’t worry good people, she is a child of the wind. They will not fall.” Her signal. Inej leaned forward, her hand expertly catching the wire and using the velocity to propel herself back up into the air, body tensing as she elegantly twisted and easily landed on pointed feet, arm outstretched in a pose. The crowd erupted in applause. Her dark hair had started coming loose from her braid, strands gently swaying in the light wind that was blowing around her.
Inej bent backwards, slowly, until her hands touched the wire securely, then, slowly pushed off with her feet, gliding into a handstand and walking a third of the length of the wire on her hands before dropping again, hooking her leg through the wire and holding on with her free hand to strike another pose, lieing suspended in mid-air. She changed her grip, swinging back up again in a fluid motion and the second her feet touched the wire she jumped a backflip from a crouch into a standing position, then flipped forwards, her hands on the wire for support as she cartwheeled her way back. The music her family played started picking up as the show of panic passed and people were watching Inej perform. Her cousins were on their way up and would take over in a few moments but for now she enjoyed the fluid, almost dance like, movements of her body, keeping it tense, muscles aching in that satisfying way of good work.
She gently priouhetted her way to the middle of the wire again, standing on the tip of her left toe, right leg outstretched in an arabesque behind her as she slowly turned on the wire, arms gently coming down, sinking into a bow, then she whipped her leg around, turning quick once, vaulting off the wire. Then there was an eruption of light and sparks and a resounding boom and the next time people lifted her eyes. She was simply gone, vanished, like the wind she was supposed to resemble.
