(There'll be an actual 6+ post-long ECA update soon. I just realized this would be a good time to post this XD)
This was her eternity.
Celestine Sesium sat on a cold and slippery ground, in an endless expanse shrouded in light mist. Bright lights pierced through the arena, spotlighting her every movement. She felt sadness in her heart, but a smile on her face. She stood and raised her hands. She beamed, bowed, and when she rose, the music started, a soft melody ringing of flutes and violins and bells and triangles, and led by a soprano whose voice reached the heavens.
Her dance had begun. She glided smoothly over the world tinted blue and floated easily along an imaginary line. She turned around, gliding backwards without breaking her speed. She ducked her head and leapt, suspended horizontally in the air for a moment. She spun, reveling in the speed as the world whirled around her. She was the center, and as long as she remained exactly balanced on the tip of her toes, she would remain the eye of the storm around her. If she let go, she would be a gale rushing around the ice-covered arena, leaping and twirling until she found that balance again and spun, spun, spun herself into another storm of ice and cloth.
At that moment, nothing else mattered . It didn’t matter if the entire world closed in and crumbled, because at that minute, all she needed was that point of ice so she could keep up the whirlwind. Within that whirlwind, it didn’t matter who she was, or what mistakes she’d made. In that spin, she was safe.
It was very good that she felt this way, because this ice -scape was not indeed endless. Running across half of the landscape was a river of frozen water that stretched endlessly in both directions. It was ice, like the rest of the scenery, but it was nonetheless a line. This was a line. Sanity was one side, insanity the other. Good was one side, bad was the other. Right, wrong, dark, light, strong, weak, victory, defeat. Everything could be divided across this line. She could not cross the line. She could only hope that good qualities would fall on her side.
Shadows stood on the line. Sometimes she'd see her mother, who laughed as she left Celestine behind. Celestine would see the doctors and teachers who'd said she had an attention deficiency disorder and would never succeed. She would see the district officials, who had said she was delusion and possessed by violent spirits. Over the music she heard their voices in unison: "Celestine is insane." This round, insanity was on her side. No matter how everything else was cut, she was insane. The shadows laughed and faded, leaving her alone in the mist, with a terrible spotlight following and taunting her every shiver. She would retreat into the sides, hidden in the crowd.
But, sometimes, just when she could bear no longer to live and her dance on the ice would slow, the shadows would be benign: she would see her roommates, Arlin and Elysia, cheering her on and laughing. She would see her friend Vesper, rambling on about something esoteric he'd done. She would see Epsilona, the purple pixie that visited her in her dreams. She would see her father, telling her in his deep patient voice, "We are who we believe we can be." Those were the good times, the times she treasured and held in her heart, the bulwark of hope against all the other shadows that visited. And it was these times that convinced her to tighten the laces on her skates and step back into the light again. Because as much as she hated that light following her as she breezed over the ice, she loved donning the glittery mask and costume. She adored the moment she dropped her hands and the music started and her routine began. Because once the music had started, no matter what else might happen, she always knew the next move. She always knew the next turn in her dance and when the next spin or leap was. And no one could tell if behind the mask she was utterly confused and humiliated. Once she was onstage, everything but the performance just faded away.
It was an antithesis, but it was simple. Celestine felt safest in the cold of the rink and in the heat of the battle. She liked herself best when she was behind a mask and behind the front-lines, yet ahead of the world. Only there, on the top, was she safe. Only on the stage, with everyone watching her and her life cemented in the script, was she safe.
This was the rink, where Celestine's world was a paradox, yet a paradox she loved.
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