Word Count: 72,014
Summary of Events:
Leon watched the second-last dancer — who had been something of a favourite going in — finally succeed in completing a dance before he did the same. He found himself locked out of the house when he came home, along with finding his neighbours less than helpful, but eventually he did get in, only to get brutally punished by his mom, whose foul mood continued into the next morning . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
Pain shooting through his cheek roused Leon as he quickly put his arms up to defend himself, only to have them rapidly and ferociously whacked at. Leon whimpered and tried to grab a hold of the broomstick he was being struck with.
"Stop!" he pleaded. "Let me get up!"
Mama's blows were unrelenting. Leon struggled to his feet while fending them off and was upset when they didn't even stop because he was on his feet, like they usually did.
Finally he seized hold of the broomstick and wrenched it out of Mama's grasp before tossing it at his bedroom door.
"I'm up," he spat.
"You wretched, horrible child," Mama spat back. "You are ungrateful to me."
"Why should I be grateful?" Leon asked. "You don't give me anything good."
"In your dance clothes now!" Mama shouted.
Leon wanted to point out that she'd ignored his question, but he doubted he'd get an answer, so he merely did as he was told and got into his dance clothes before following Mama downstairs to where the makeshift barre was set up.
"We will do everything twice to make up for your missed practise yesterday," Mama said.
"I did ballet class yesterday," Leon said.
"That is not good enough," Mama huffed.
Sighing, Leon put his hand lightly on the barre and worked on slowly, carefully, perfectly, executing every single exercise twice with his left hand on the barre, twice with his right hand.
As usual, Mama was eviscerating in her review; and in her corrections.
She would lance her finger into him wherever she wanted him to make an adjustment, which was most commonly at his umbilical scar where the two of them had — once upon a time — been physically connected, and she was near-constantly tightening his dance belt so that he felt like he was going to be split in half.
Whenever he would repeatedly fail to do something up to her standards she slapped him across the face or drove her heel into his toes from the top.
After some time Mama found the other half of her broomstick and used it to beat him with as she demanded the extremes, including legs staying higher than he was physically able to lift them.
Leon had never been so roughly treated by Mama in a ballet practise, and Leon wished he could just run away, except that he'd want to go back up to his room and change out of his dance clothes before he dashed out the door.
"Артемий!" Mama shouted, forcefully striking his left shoulder with the broomstick with each syllable of his name. "Pay attention."
Gripping his shoulder, Leon whimpered, then snatched his fingers away with another whimper when Mama brought her broomstick down on them.
"Battement tendu!" Mama shouted.
In spite of the pain Leon got himself into position and started doing the exercise Mama had commanded him to do, although he grimaced when her forefinger was forcefully jabbed into him or his legs, especially, were wrenched around by her to achieve what she considered perfection.
Pronunciations:
Battement: batmoh'
Tendu: tohndu
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