Abily Fiona Marling (FIN)

[/i] Typical District Two civilians, so caught up in their own self-image.

The large audience faces a large, empty stage, one whose lights are just beginning to dim. As if the darkness was a shout to be quiet, the entire room falls silent. An eery muteness settles over the many people. All eyes are fixed on the stage, pupils darting back and forth across the wooden stage as they await the dancer to waltz onto the stage. The wait is filled with anxiety and eagerness, the occasional sound of someone squirming in their seat being the only audible sound in the tense crowd.

Suddenly, a sweet form of music begins to play throughout the speakers lining the stage, followed by a rather short, muscular girl who suddenly appears from the side. As the crowd watches her leap through the air with beautiful grace and elegance, it's hard to imagine that this girl dances with only her ears. Nowhere to see where her small feet are placed; no way to tell if her next roll will be off of the stage.

The audience draws in a breath as she stands on one leg, her other stretching far up to the heavens, her long arms (rather too long compared to her short legs and torso) moving to her sides. She stands there for a few seconds and leaps up into the air, both of her legs moving over her head as she jumps up into the air. The girl seems to make it look like dancing is a way of breathing, although if you look close enough, you can see the occasional muttering on her soft pink lips as she runs and leaps, as if she were counting her steps.

The dancer seems to glide across the stage like a ghost, the incredible muscles in her arms and legs rippling beneath her pale skin - almost pale enough to make her actually appear as a ghost soaring over the wooden floor. Her short, cropped brown hair does not move an inch as she intricately moves her body in unintelligible ways.

All of a sudden, the music grows into a steady, slow rhythm. As if on the cue, the pixieish dancer stretches her arms and legs into more defined movements, her toes pointed delicately as she slowly twirls. Muscles tighten in her long neck, giving the impression that there is no fat on the girl, for the hard muscles that take over her body seems to be the only thing she has. And then, as quickly as she came, she disappears behind the curtain, the music falling into a barely audible melody until it recedes all together.

As if the music put the crowd in a daze, everyone sits in the same position, jaws hanging open in awe. "Please give it up for Abily Marling!" a voice yells through the speakers, and like it was a command, everyone obeys. People are suddenly on their feet, cheering with loud roars - like the monsters they all really are. The audience seems to have no intention of leaving, for the screams continue, seeming to make a point that the dance - Abily Marling - will be remembered for a long time. The Blind Dancer will not be forgotten.
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I stand directly to the left of the stage, my hand grasped tightly on the curtain that hangs behind me, the rough fabric that rubs against my sweaty palm doing nothing to clear my tension. Thoughts run through my head, the same thoughts that seem to always slither through my mind before I dance - like a snake that spits poison into my veins -

[/i] prohibiting me from relaxing like the other dancers. I immediately envy them.

As I listen to them laughing and joking with each other, I'm jealous of the way that they do not have as much to worry about. While I'm here counting how many steps it is to the front of the stage, they simply use their eyes to make sure they don't fall off to the doom of their career (I'm told countless of times by my mother that one fall will end it all... and of course that's what she expects.)[/i] The only thing that can at least ease the tension in my prominent muscles is the thought that, unlike the other dancers, I can actually be moved by the music - not only mentally, but physically.[/i]

The moment the music starts, and the numbers rushing through my head tell me where to place my feet, I can feel the music rushing through my veins like a stream of water. The beautiful melodies seem to give me sight, ceasing the thoughts that tell me where my leap should start, and where it should end. The notes just lead me. When I was a kid, I used to think that I was actually the daughter of the Goddess of Music (Of course that was an immense hopeful thought, compared to the despicable mother I have)[/i], and my blindness was just a test of my will. Each day, when I would dance, the Goddess of Music would give me a few moments of sight, and would help me overcome my incapablities, pushing my arms and legs into beautiful moves that would leave people gasping.

But, of course, that was just hopeful thinking. As my arms and legs would dance across the floor gracefully, beauty seems to make it's way through the darkness that encloses my eyelids. I may not know what colors are, but the way they are explained to me, I know I must be close to the wonderful array of brightness they put on. When I'm dancing, I feel like a completely different person compared to the sullen, quiet girl that stumbles through the streets of District Two. On the stage, I appear almost... happy.

But alas, there's the occasional time when I get a little too lost in the music. All thoughts cease to exist when the music plays, and my moves become a little too exaggerated. A leap will go a little too far, the warning sign in my head screaming for me to stop not making it through the barrier of melodies and beauty that clouds my thoughts. The despair and disbelief that fills me when I feel myself falling and hitting the ground surprises me, the main thought in my head being that my mom is most likely sitting in her seat, smiling with her all-knowing smirk. As I hear people gasp, a low moan escapes me (there are always those times when I wonder if anyone is actually there in the crowd, or am I just dancing for the satisfaction of my own self, with no one there to see the beauty my dancing creates)[/i], for I know there are many people there to see my failure.

There's that one little urge, though, that forces me to get up, and I continue to dance. And as the music ends, sending me off to the left part of the stage, I think that the clapping that I hear is just politeness. They only pity me. I'm told otherwise, though, by the audience that congratulates the dancers after everything is over with. It's hard to convince me, though, for too many negative comments have been spit into my ear my the woman that stole me from the Goddess that lies deep within my day dreams.

All the beauty that dance gives to me soon disappears as everyone is gone, and I'm left to slowly walk down the old hallway to the person that I know will be waiting for me. The one that I dread seeing so much. My hand trails against the wall, the hard texture guiding me this time through my eternal darkness. "Right here, sweetheart," a fake sweet voice says from my left. A hand finds it's way onto my back, forcing me to give into the help and guidance that I loathe so much. Falling into the hands of others frightens me, for I no longer have control over my own self like I do when I dance. Out in the real world (I consider dancing as a fairy tale that I escape into)[/i], I fall prey to the black wall that traps me.

The hand guides me through the streets, the voice that is more prominent over the rest drifting into my sensitive ears. "You didn't do very good that time, Abily. Your feet were horrendous, do you not listen to anything I tell you? They always need to be pointed." I act like I don't hear her, though I know that the hatred painted on each feature of my pale face shows that I do hear her. But, as always, I don't say anything. Out in the world, I'm a quiet being that stays trapped in her room, not knowing anything about the outside world except for the stage that I dance on each day.

"Maybe dancing just isn't for you, honey." The words are a common one that I hear, though I can't help but feel the despair stir deep within me (I know I'll never be good enough for anyone, and my talent isn't showing the beauty that I feel when I glide across the stage)[/i]. My mother knows how sensitive I am, and she knows what to say to break me down. Each day she's a step closer to drawing me away from my love, though the feeling that I get when I dance draws me closer. For dance is in every fiber of being, and pulling me away from it would be the end of me completely.[/blockquote][/justify][/size][/color]

I was never wanted. The moment my mother found she was pregnant was the day her whole career went down the drain. Formerly a dance student on a long and successful road to performing at the Capitol (Any dancer's dream), a one night stand with the teacher ruined it all. She was only sixteen. Offers were thrown out of the window when they heard of her... inconvenience. That's what I was always called, a disgrace to the world and a shame to my mother. Back then, when I was still in my mother's womb, the pity went in a different direction. That all changed, though, when my mother found comfort in drugs and alcohol.

My mother spent most of her pregnant days in the bar and back alleys, scrounging for any left over drops of beer or any other bad substance that she could fit into her mouth. The more I think about it, the more confident I feel in the idea that she was trying to kill me before I entered the world. She loathed - still does- me. She failed in killing me, though her addictions had another effect. Beauty was stripped from the witch's face, replacing glittering white teeth with yellow strips of rotting bone that fall out one by one. Where sparkling blue eyes once sat are now covered with dark circles that should not exist on such a young face. And instead of stripping the life away from me and saving herself from a disastrous life, she stripped the sight away from my eyes.

The doctor claimed that it would be much worse (or in my mother's case, wonderful). He said I would die at the young age of one. But, of course, I was born with the rebellious attitude that I still possess, and refused to leave the world without showing what I could do. My mother barely looked after me that first year, hoping and praying that she could make me disappear from her life faster, yet days kept passing after one year hit. Another doctor appointment met me when I was just two years old. He claimed two things that time, both were lies (Or, in a way, only one was a lie. I still believe that I can see when my foot steps onto the wooden surface of the stage, so i can't possibly be blind).

He told my mother that walking and seeing would never be a possibility for me. This was both a nightmare and a dream for my mother. This would mean extreme care and nurture for a baby with such immense disabilities, yet it would mean that I would suffer more (She refused to believe that me entering this world was of her own fault and not mine.) My mother would look at me with glares of disgust, longing to just drop me on a doorstep (my father was out of our lives, yet he warned that he would cease sending money to my mother if she abandoned me.) Sometimes I look back on his decision and wish that he had allowed me to be left on the streets of District Two, yet I remember how I came to find the missing piece of my life, dancing, and know that I would not have found it living in a Community Home.

I was three, just beginning to say my first words, when I noticed that something was different about me. It was a time when my mother was easily fed up with me, her words of hatred finding their way to my young ears despite my small age. "I don't know how you're my child, you look hideous," she would spat into my face, confusion eventually finding it's way onto my innocent face. How could one look? What was the meaning of such a word? It was then that I finally began to actually notice the darkness that loomed before me like a permanent shadow.

I remember my hands going up to my eyes in an attempt to rub out the darkness, panic fluttering through my veins when nothing changed. It dawned on me that I would never be able to fully grasp the meaning of beauty, a word that is so confusing, yet sounds so wonderful. Many of my friends would attempt to explain it to me, only to fail miserably. "Beauty is... it's just... it's when someone looks-" and then it would stop, their voices fading into whispers that would soon float away in a wisp of smoke, blending in with the melancholic darkness that had always blocked the outside world from my gaze. It was torture. The thought that everyone around me could experience colors around them (another thing that could never be described to me, yet sounded so... amazing.)

Sound. That is how I describe beauty. To hear something that sends the hairs on my arms standing up, and shoots chills through my limbs, is what beauty is. Sound is what actually gave me my first steps - much to my doctor's amazement, who still believed that mobility would never be an option for me.

[/i] It was another day at the dance studio, where my mother was attempting to get back into dance, yet years of abuse to her body would not allow it. That was the first time I heard beauty; the first time something so simple had drawn me toward it. Yes, I had always been a curious child - blindness will do that to someone - yet nothing had ever been powerful enough to make me want to move toward it. It had been the sound of music, just a few notes on a piano.

I was five when I was able to slowly crawl toward the beautiful notes that were being played on the piano. My knees buckled beneath me as I moved, yet I continued on. Of course, the beautiful melody ceased when I had gained the attention of everyone in the room. I can still remember the feeling of my hands grasping the stool that sat before the instrument, my hands pulling myself into a standing position that was immensely wobbly. Just that one stance could start a whole life-style. Just the action of standing up could create a dancer that is known even in the Capital.

By the age of ten, I was sneaking out of my house to dance lessons (My mother refused to let me do something that I stripped away from her.)[/i] I had spent most of those years memorizing the steps to each side of the stage, each inch of wood permanently etched into my mind, the numbers flowing with my consent across my thoughts each time I stepped out into the spotlight. At the age of fourteen, I was performing around District Two in small shows that would only draw the attention of about two hundred people. That was completely fine with me. The idea that finally, someone wasn't pitying me and judging me on my incapability was an immense relief (my audience had no idea that I was dancing blindly), for hours of constantly being checked on at home was an annoyance that I knew I would always live with. That soon changed, though.

I was sixteen when the word about my blindness was slipped out to the public, though no one knew whom had done it - though I had my suspicions. Suddenly, huge crowds were swarming into the theatre, strangers paying huge bucks just to watch one dancer leap across the stage for a few minutes. I know that just my dancing will never be good enough, for the blindness that looms over me consistently will always be the thing that stands out to the crowd. "They only come to see you because they pity you, Abily. If you think you're such a good dancer, then why did no one come to watch you before they discovered you were blind?" my mother would continuously say, her words slipping into my mind like a snake, the question wrapping itself around my mind until eventually everything would snap. And deep down I know that her words are true, for I know that just my dancing will never be the thing that stands out to the crowds, for I am not Abily Marling... I am The Blind Dancer[/i]. [/justify][/size][/blockquote][/color]
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~ CODEWORD~ Odair

~ FACECLAIM~ Melanie Moore

~ OTHER~

Hold On To What You Believe by Mumford & Sons

MAIN ~ 2B2C3E ~
SPEECH ~ 51445F ~
OTHER'S SPEECH ~ 492D49 ~
THOUGHTS ~ 87555C ~
OTHER ~ D1B68D ~