the applicant is MAE EUNMI, aged TWENTY-THREE. elemental assessment confirms that she has a strong innate affinity with LIGHT. applicant has passed all other physical and mental assessments and is deemed suitable for training at the academy.
WELCOME, WINX. PLEASE FIND YOUR DORM IN EAST WING ROOM 2A.
Light. The source of life for plants, earth, people. Without light scientifically there wouldn't be life like there is if at all.
This is what Eunmi was taught growing up. Science was something that came naturally to all of her family. It just made sense didn't it? Why not look at things logically? Using your emotions just made things harder on you so Eunmi shut out her emotions at a young age opting for the logic side of her brain as she would sit and do math for fun a choice that would cause issues as she grew with dealing with her emotions on a healthy level. Getting perfect grades and GPA growing up was all that Eunmi wanted. Being the top of the class had been easy and something she wasn't giving up to anyone, studying to make sure that she was always 100% on everything. Some would think her parents pushed her to be this way, a stereotype of the light winx and the science world that her parents thrived, wanting her to be the best, however they would be guessing wrong. they never pushed or cared if Eunmi was the best at everything, they just saw a pattern and accepted that was how she was. Eunmi wanted things perfect not for her parents or anyone else but for her self, her own sanity. If things weren't perfect then what was the point? If she wasn't the best what was the point? Even if it was a false sense of perfection to others that she had manipulated them all see in her, it was a perfect image that she had always wanted. Who else would be better at smoke and mirrors than someone that could control the light you saw, the way the mirror could reflect, using it to project an image of who she wanted to be. What she felt she deserved to be seen as for all her hard work.
This was also the cause of her most visible flaw. once connected to the emotions she had spent years keeping down. An eye twitch. A small flaw she tried to rid of but would flare up when things didn't play out like she had planned in her mind, when she wasn't seen as the best which Eunmi would ignore in return. the anger and anxiety that would flow through her small body as she feared the act would falter, people would see her for who she was behind the mirror image of perfection that she had worked so hard tokeep up. Nothing mattered if she wasn't seen as perfect.
What may have placated to this perfectionist behavior was the tactics her mother taught her from a young age. That with the right logic and using others emotions against them, she could always get what she wanted. She just had to keep her own emotions in check. Stay logical and seem like you have emotions so no one questions you. Simple, manipulation at its finest, seeming pure while you're behind the scenes with psychopathic behavior. As long you got what you wanted it was fine, and what would be a finer use of that then to be the one everyone saw as the best? Smart, pure, logical, and just... perfect. Nothing wrong with pulling strings if it made you the top right? A lesson that Eunmi saw in play almost daily growing up. her mother was the prefect scientist, mother, wife, her father not being of light linage but fire was tricked by her perfection. As someone of fire he deserved a perfect woman to carry on children even if she wasn't fire linage like him so their child would be light, he still had the perfect wife. Or so he thought. Wrapped around her mothers finger her father was a stay at home father and Eunmi saw a toxic relationship that her mother made her strive for. He treated her like a goddess, like someone who could do no wrong and Eunmi knew that was what she wanted as well and to be able to do so, she became like her mother, made of smoke and mirrors, full of manipulation and and an air of entitlement.
It hadn't been hard to get a science engineering degree after high school. However after finishing her degree with boredom and a perfect GPA it was then that Eunmi decided that she would attend Seohae Magic Academy, with full approval of her parents, and learn more on her Light abilities. She was perfect at everything else so she needed to be perfect at this too, and having not done any real work on her abilities it may take more that Eunmi thinks to keep up her perfect image when she at 25 can't even do the basic of tasks with her element. Reading books on something won't make you good at it, but that's all Eunmi knows how to do. She must now master her element while in her mind she must as well be seen as the best, something that may not actually be possible even with her smoke and mirrors this time.
the applicant is SONG BITNA, aged TWENTY-TWO. elemental assessment confirms that she has a strong innate affinity with LIGHT. applicant has passed all other physical and mental assessments and is deemed suitable for training at the academy.
WELCOME, WINX. PLEASE FIND YOUR DORM IN EAST WING ROOM 1A.
tw: vomiting
BALLET TITLE —— MEMOIRS OF THE BLACK SWAN
SCORE: TCHAIKOVSKY’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1, OP. 23
CAST OF CHARACTERS
MOTHER SWAN otherwise known as song boram, the lauded matriarch of the song ballerinas as was her mother before her, and her mother’s mother before that. in her prime, she was crowned the prima ballerina of seohae’s prestigious ballet company.
FATHER COB otherwise known as yoo sanghyun, the accomplished cavalier of mother swan. the chemistry they displayed in their first pas de deux, from whence they first interacted, is said to be a duet for the ages. it was to ballet enthusiasts’ greatest delight when news broke of their anticipated relationship and subsequent marriage.
WHITE SWAN otherwise known as song byeol, first daughter of mother swan and the succeeding prima ballerina of seohae’s prestigious ballet company. currently at her prime, she is regarded by ballet enthusiasts as a future prima ballerina assoluta, a feat that escaped even mother swan. it is perhaps an ode to her name that she has become, very simply, the brightest star against a moonlit backdrop.
BLACK SWAN otherwise known as song bitna, second daughter of mother swan and a member of the corps de ballet of seohae’s prestigious ballet company. her name begs her to shine, but many wonder if it had been foreshadowed by mother swan, that she would be the remnants of light shed off the white swan’s back.
ADDITIONAL CASTS include the remaining corps de ballet of the prestigious ballet academy.
ACT I —— within seohae’s prestigious ballet company, a passage of time
I. ALLEGRO NON TROPPO E MOLTO MAESTOSO – ALLEGRO CON SPIRITO ( B♭ minor – B♭ major )
[scené: allegro giusto] the scene opens to the innards of the prestigious ballet company akin to the unravelling of citrus fruit to reveal ripened flesh. within it, one may glance upon the sorts of complexities to accompany the clashing of contrasting temperaments, of cattiness and scheming so ample, it dribbles down one’s chin at the bite [waltz]. its fruit, the embodiment of muted chaos, all contained within the fragility that is the blood orange peel of fame and worship. and if it is worship that contains them, then it is mother swan who holds them together, for there is none to welcome venerance quite like the graceful sway of her hands into the second position [scené: allegro assai]. it is her appearance that humbles them to fall cross-legged past the edges of her spotlight, not unlike children who settle at the promise of a riveting performance, or mayhap, an important instruction [pas seul]. it is in this way that life is unfair, for there are levels of giftedness that would offer one immunity from the sorts of dramatics that would remain a consuming obstacle to others. water off a swan’s back, mother swan quips, though it is obvious she speaks from a place of privilege. that is to say, mother swan has never strayed far from its comforting nest [exit corps de ballet].
[scené: andante moderato] and in this nest, there were two. they say it was serendipity that orchestrated the injury of her former cavalier, for it was in this way that father cob was first presented to her—merely a name, merely a face, merely a stage [pas de deux]. and yet, it was here that they were swept into a timeless duet, where they knew not where one ended and the other began, simply that they could dance a lifetime in each other’s arms. [scené: tempo di valse] the audience fashioned their union into a song, bracketed by a myriad of adjectives, of synonyms and similes that could never quite encapsulate all that they had. it was only at the birth of the white swan that they found, in her very essence, their most fitting definition. for her existence, a divine miracle—not in a sense that she was difficult to conceive, for there was certainly nothing difficult about her, but simply that she was the most quintessential union of light and fire [pas de trois].
a pity, then, that when it came time for the black swan’s birth, the audience had since run out of words.
ACT II —— within the swan’s nest, a melancholic midnight
II. ANDANTE SEMPLICE – PRESTISSIMO – TEMPO I ( D♭ major )
[scené: andante moderato] there is a specific way in which the white swan and black swan are positioned with respect to each other. as she stands ahead, the audience sees the white swan first, and the white crystals that adorn her alabaster skin reflect the glare of the spotlight in a way that blinds. the black swan, in contrast, stands behind and just left of centre, right shoulder kissing the left of the white swan’s back [pas de deux]. the sequence of their dance is near identical save an important point: the white swan leads, the black swan follows. so it is in this way that the black swan remains permanently left of centre and a half beat behind the white swan’s movements. [scené: larghetto] it is a true misfortune that the black swan is bestowed her name, of any other name, for black is coincidentally the colour of shadows, and so this is how the audience begins to perceive her.
of course, this is not to say that the black swan has never once attempted to escape this hold [scené: vivace]. her strongest attempt comes on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, when she surprises those at the swan nest with her control of light [pas de quatre]. she thinks it sufficient to banish the shadows that bracket her name, and for a moment, amidst their praises, she nearly believes it. but there is a point where the cheering subsides, where the white swan is once again brought into the conversation as the swan nest’s pièce de résistance, like the blinding glare of her white crystals to reflect the kinds of light to outshine all others. how foolish of the black swan, to think that her light, some mere child’s play, could ever come close. [scené: grave] one day, the black swan jests that the white swan must have inherited all of mother swan’s flair, and she had left her dearest shadow no crumbs for the nibble [grand pas de deux]. she does not receive her reply until when the moonlight trickles in past their bedside window. and in this wintry midnight, just before sleep takes her, she hears the white swan utter:
must you always be so bitter?
ACT III —— the grand ballet theatre, a moonlit evening
III. ALLEGRO CON FUOCO – MOLTO MENO MOSSO – ALLEGRO VIVO ( D♭ major )
[scené: moderato quasi allegretto] when she sleeps, she dreams. she hears the cheering first—the thunderous percussion of clapping, the shrill woodwind of whistling. and there is this point she cannot seem to place, somewhere between being robbed of her sight to the overstimulation of light, only that the transition happens suddenly, almost instantaneously. [pas seul] she forges her shade by cutting an open palm through the biting air, and it is here that she notices the tinkling white crystals that litter the expanse of her pale forearm. the speed in which she glances down adopts a conflicting tempo—the sharpness of curiosity, the hesitance of fear—but it happens all the same, and the sight conjures something acidic to roil at the base of her throat.
the black swan wears white.
she wakes to the striking of mother swan’s erratic footfalls, the peculiar look of disbelief and delirium by the arch of her bedroom door, and in her hand, there is a letter [scené: allegro moderato]. mother swan announces that she is to be promoted to the position of a soloist—that is, the company—with her first principal dance due in exactly twenty-six days. the black swan does not hesitate, does not think to linger on the significance of last night’s dream or the unease it stirs at the back of her throat. simply, she balls it in her fists and tosses it out of the recesses of her mind. but the letter… the letter, she holds protectively against her chest.
[scené: allegro moderato] and so begins the first of the twenty-six days to change her life. a metamorphosis, she deems it—unpretty, excruciating, and all the more necessary—as she perfects her pirouettes, her double cabrioles, her grand battements. importantly, she practices the art of falling, as though one extra fall now is one less at a time where it matters. day twenty-four, the white swan sends her flowers—a dozen white roses—and the black swan fights the unsettling churn in her stomach. day twenty-five, she slips her pointe shoes off, winces at the patches of tender skin and blisters that gather at her toes. she slips her shoes back on.
[scené: larghetto] day twenty-six. the black swan wears white [pas seul]. there is this way in which the spotlight hits her—for real and, for the first time, unobstructed by a body ahead of her—where she becomes the spitting image of the white swan. seconds tick at a minute’s pace, and then the music cues, and the seconds speed past all at once [scené: allegro]. the black swan begins her first scene, simply, perfectly, and just as she had practised countless of times before. she notes the parts that are difficult—parts that caused her to stumble during practice—and expertly evades the anticipated fall. somewhere between her first and second scene, she finds her confidence, gains momentum, and the smile that pulls at her painted lips no longer hurts to carry. [scené: allegro assai] then comes the impossible series of pirouettes, of double cabrioles, of grand battements, and she executes them perfectly too. she hears the audience gasp, recognises this sound as the one reserved exclusively for the white swan in memories past, and she laughs. it’s magic, the way she laughs, and she laughs, and she laughs, and she—
[scené: grave] it’s strange. she’s never fallen at this part before. but her white tights are torn at the knees and blood colours them crimson. she’s practised the art of falling, but she realises now that she had never thought to practice the art of picking herself back up. she tries, though, for the first time, feet plastered on polished floorboard, but she miscalculates and mistakenly places her weight at the core of a large blister. so she falls again. she doesn’t yet look at the audience, only hears their gasps, the blanket of murmurs and confusion. she closes her eyes and counts the dozen of white roses plastered in her mind’s eye, the ones that sit in the pink vase of her bedside table. when she finally looks up, it is at the white swan’s direction. but she doesn’t see her—no, the spotlight blinds, something about the overstimulation of light, and she raises her open palm as a makeshift shade. here, she notices the absence of white crystals that once existed in her dream, the ones that sit permanently on the white swan’s frame, and it is with this reminder that she hurls. the audience gasps and there’s the overstimulation of light again, this time paired with the sound of clicking cameras. and there’s this point, a transition of sorts that occurs suddenly, almost instantaneously, between falling and getting up— and the black swan is gone.
FOOTNOTES
“i’m thinking of joining the academy,” bitna wants to say she’s prepared for this moment, but she’s learnt by now that preparation can mean shit all when it matters—that being here, that being now. mother clears her throat, and the smile that grows on her lips is off-beat. it is in this way that bitna understands it as fake.
“i think it’ll do you good, bitna. you’ve always been really great with light,” mother comments.
“i mean i’ve already enrolled. i got the acceptance letter yesterday.”
“oh… well, that’s wonderful, sweetheart. i’m so proud of you.”
in this way, mother is always saccharine. an extra spoonful of sugar in her words, so sweet, it’s sickening. bitna holds back the snort, transitions it into the chuckle she’s familiar with. the chuckle everyone’s comfortable with.
“ballet’s gonna miss me, huh?” bitna catches the words she wishes to hear roll off mother’s tongue, reinvents them instead into a stupid joke. mother doesn’t quite catch it, simply smiles with her mouth closed. the silence grows between them. “…well, too bad, because i’m on to better things.” because where mother adds a tad too much sugar, bitna does the same with salt.
“you’re gonna do amazing, dear.”
her eyeballs prickle and she looks momentarily up, learns this as the most effective way to stop the tears from falling. “okay.”
“okay.”
“well uh, great talk. i’m gonna go pack now.”
mother lets out a single chuckle. “okay, dear. let me know if you need any help.”
