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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2020 10:31:08 GMT -7
Trigger warning: Eating Disorder, Body Image, Injury
The term had ended and the next day Claudia was awake at 5 am. She did her normal daily routine - a short run, just to get her blood pumping. Then shower and tea before she packed her bag and headed to the ballet studio. It was a school and the dancers in the company were charged, along with rehearsing everyday, with teaching classes. Being that Claudia was gone for most of the year at her ‘fancy boarding school in the north’ as the muggles she worked for knew it as. It didn’t make her a very important or valued member of the company, since she was gone for a majority of the shows they’d put on and she could only teach during the summer months. It meant that she would teach the seasonal classes. And the only people who took the seasonal classes were children whose parents needed something to do with them during the day while they were at work.
She usually got the youngest group - and she knew that was because she wasn’t putting in the same amount of time and commitment to the company that everyone else was. She only got the part because of her persistence and she knew that. She was talented, but not enough to get parts if she hadn’t already put in the time every summer and done the leg work. Even if it was the same, the grunt work. Claudia was extremely hard working and if she got the 4-6 year olds again, she’d make the best of it. And of course, she walked into the studio, was given her class roster, and saw that she had been given the same age group.
So she spent the first hour of the day in warm ups with the company, and then they dispersed to their classes for the next 6 hours. The next 6 hours were spent teaching little girls in full tutus (tutus annoyed Claudia more than anything), how to stand in the correct positions. Literally, 6 hours of standing. That was day 1. More likely, that would be the whole of week 1. Just how to stand. It was a technical school, so they did put a lot of detail into their classes, meaning after they had learned it, they had drilled it, and then they assessed each student for their competency. Which was wonderful in terms of really building a solid technique, but it was very annoying when you were teaching standing.
But once those dreaded 6 hours were over and the students went home, the company finally rehearsed. They had an hour for a meal and then they were expected to be back and ready to begin. While everyone else put on real shoes and grabbed their wallets to go out into London, Claudia pulled out her pointe shoes. “Claudia, we’re going down to Pret, do you want to come?” the girl who played Anastasia offered upon seeing her. Claudia shook her head, “I’ve brought food, thanks. I’m just going to prep my shoes while I eat here.” her co-dancer nodded and the group left the studio. Claudia laced up her already perfectly prepped and beaten shoes, and went into the empty practice room with absolutely no intention to eat. She’d eat when she got home. She wouldn’t be able to dance on a full stomach, she told herself, and she needed not to look or feel bloated. She knew she was already on thin ice.
Rehearsal that first night wasn’t great. She felt super off, continued to bump into her fellow corp-de-ballet members, and just couldn’t get the spacing right. She blamed that fully on herself. They had all practiced with people before. But she hadn’t yet. She had only practiced in the dusty old classroom hidden in the back of Hogwarts that she had claimed as a decent practice spot. And she had allowed herself to be so distracted. After a day or two, she knew she’d get it right.
When it came to her solo, she could tell the director was frustrated with her, but he was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She started off strong, but midway through she saw the director approach the stage and stand right at the edge, looking up at her. She had seen that before. He did that when he wanted to get a closer look at the dancers technical form. He did it a lot with the Prima’s and she knew that it would prompt some criticism at the end of the rehearsal. So she stiffened up, she focused more on her technique, and sucked in her stomach to keep a smooth line. She was so focused on having a perfect technique that she got in her head about it and lost her spot coming out of a triple periotte. Her food slipped out from under her and she heard her ankle crack as she fell straight down to the floor, landing in an almost sitting position. “Better call her an ambulance.” she heard the director sigh as he came up onto the stage and over to her. The girl playing Anastasia came over as well.
Claudia didn’t cry, but she was in intense pain. However, as bad as the pain coming from her ankle was, the pain coming from her chest was worse. She felt heartbroken at that moment. More so than she had ever been before. The dancer playing Prince charming picked her up and carried her out to the lobby where a production assistant helped her to ice it and elevate it. It was swollen and a bruise was already forming all around her ankle.
The medics arrived and confirmed that it had snapped, They loaded her up and took her to a muggle hospital. She hated that she was surrounded by muggles when this happened. They were making such a big deal out of it. They took her in for x-rays and told her that it was a clean break, as well as a torn muscle in her arch, likely from hyper-extension, they explained. She had spent too long on pointe. They finally released her, in a cast and with crutches, to her mother, who had rushed over to the hospital as soon as Claudia called her. Her mother, being a healer, knew also that the muggles were treating it a lot more drastically than it needed to be. She could mend the bone and muscle in about a week using potions and spells, but they couldn’t very well tell that to the muggles tending her.
Her mother told her that she’d take her into St. Mungos in the morning and they’d get her all taken care of. And they’d go back to the ballet studio to collect her things. Regardless of how quickly she’d actually heal. Everyone there knew that she had been injured. For some people that was an endgame injury. Claudia knew that even after it was healed, she’d have to work on it to get it to bend in the same ways and be able to dance on pointe again. She was done dancing with her company, at least for this summer.
