We’ll go down in history (Anna)

Monday, 19th January 2004

Zinaida had been extremely grateful when January had come, happy to be back at Durmstrang. The holidays were more tense than usual, though perhaps she’d accidentally made them more tense than they needed to be. The first seed of mistrust in her elder sister had been sown back in November and whether Zhenya knew it or not, the elder Shishkina hadn’t managed to fix the dent in Zina’s opinion of her. In fact, the dubious feelings Zina had about her had only grown, especially after the dinner after the gala. Zina knew that perhaps she was wrong to do so, but she was beginning to wonder if every word Zhenya said to her was a lie, growing more and paranoid about her sister and rival. Of course, Zina would never dare say so to Zhenya’s face, or confront her about her feelings. She did her utmost to pretend that everything was fine in front of her, that this tiny feeling of animosity wasn’t bothering her.

But, despite this, Zina now had the urge to do the same to Zhenya. To deliberately go behind her sister’s back and do something that she knew that her sister would not approve of. She knew this perfectly well, since her sister had made that very clear in November. She had written her thoughts about it to Ilya, but had convinced herself back then that Zhenya had the best of intentions and that she only stopped her because she was worried. Now, Zinaida wasn’t so sure she should have been so dismissive, that perhaps Zhenya really had stopped her because she didn’t want her to succeed, and was just a good actress at pretending otherwise. When Ilya had written back to her and told her that she shouldn’t ask Rusya to supervise this dangerous element, she had listened to his advice and taken his words to heart. He was right. But she wouldn’t dare ask Rodya either, knowing he’d likely have the same view as Zhenya about it. The other artistic flying girls at the school, as much as Zina hated to view them as such, were too much of a threat to have them so openly know what she was aiming to do that season.

There was only one other witch that Zina could think of that she felt she could implicitly trust; Anna. She knew that the other girl was somewhat of a kindred spirit in feeling rather jaded at never winning anything, wanting to push further than others seemed to want them to, and also Anna was not the hugest fan of her sister. This wasn’t exactly something Zina was happy with, of course she wanted everyone to love Zhenya, but she figured that meant that she wouldn’t have to worry about Anna tattling about her attempt whether it went good or bad to the elder of the sisters.

She had secretly asked Anna the previous evening at dinner, pulling her aside as the meal ended into a quiet corner and asking her to meet her early in the morning before classes began. Zina would have preferred having no one there at all, no one knowing (other than Aleksandra Viktorovna, who she had already discussed the possibility with) that she was attempting to be the first junior to land Aglaya Antonovna’s signature backflip. Zina wanted to make a statement, to say ‘Hey, look at me! Don’t ignore me!’ when everyone else, to her at least, seemed to look at her other siblings. However, telling Anna did not feel like the worst possible decision she could make. After all, Zhenya had been right, she did need someone to supervise in case it went wrong, and Ilya had been right that it could not be Rusya.

Awake long before she had intended to be, it didn’t take long for Zinaida to change into a simple leggings, and a sports bra with a jumper and jacket over the top, neatly plaiting her hair down her back and out of the way, before speedily slipping out of the common room and making her way down to the Quidditch pitch. Her heart beat quickly with excitement and anticipation, and she prayed that no one would interrupt them before she had the chance to get as close as possibly could. Zina wasn't expecting to land it perfectly on the first try, she knew she'd have to work at it, but she was sure that with some grit and determination that she would eventually succeed. She quickly went to fetch her broom, laying it down on the grass as she started to run around the pitch to warm up, making good use of her time as she waited for Anna to make her appearance.

@Anna Filimonova

You want to what? Anna had said, arms crossed over her chest outside the dining hall.

Zina had doubled down. Anna looked to the ceiling and said okay.

This was crazy. This was absolutely crazy. Zina wanted to do Aglaya's backflip. The backflip. The backflip. It was insane that Zina was even thinking about it, let alone roping Anna in to supervise.

She couldn't help but be envious -- Anna knew her own limits, sort of, and knew that if she ever tried the backflip she would break her own neck. If Zina wanted a spotter to prevent the same fate, sure, Anna didn't want Zina to die, but she was impressed and a little upset that Zina even dared to think she could attempt this. It felt -- audacious, almost.

Baba Yaga, what a mess.

They were to meet at the Quidditch pitch. Anna slipped out of the Klyk common room in a sweater and close fitting sweatpants, warmup booties on her feet. Zina's broom was already gone -- Anna rolled her eyes and grabbed her own, as well as a chalk bag. As long as she was here, she should practice long end handstands.

Zina was doing runs on the grass -- Anna thought about joining her, thought better of it, and took to the sky, stretching out on the broom instead. "Ready?" she yelled down in lieu of other greeting.

Zinaida hadn’t noticed that Anna had joined her on the pitch at some point, too lost in her own thoughts as she ran around the pitch to realise she was no longer alone. It wasn’t until Anna yelled down at her that Zina figured out she had company. She gasped loudly, abruptly coming to a halt as she turned to look in the direction of the noise. “Ready as I’ll ever be?” Zina shouted back, feeling the butterflies in her stomach already making mischief.

“One second,” she added, contrary to her previous words. She realised that she should probably remove some layers, and actually attempt it on the ground first before trying it on the broom, not only for her sake of mind, but to prove that she could actually maybe do this to Anna too. “Thanks for doing this for me, by the way,” Zina smiled up at Anna as she removed her jacket and took off her jumper, throwing said jumper towards the stands and out of the way before putting her jacket back on. “I really do appreciate it.”

Zina moved a little closer to where she had left her broom, but made sure she gave herself enough room to jump and land safely. She quickly walked through the process of a backflip, doing a back handspring first to get the feeling. Satisfied with it, Zina took a deep breath in and out before jumping up and copying her idol as best as she could, tucking her legs in and landing quite solidly on the ground. Zina had watched a moving picture of Aglaya doing her backflip so much to the point that she could see it in her head. All she had to do now was visualise herself doing it instead of Aglaya.

“Okay. Now I’m ready, I think...” Zina smiled nervously, as she took to the sky like Anna, looking up at her as she stood on the platform, having not raised her broom quite so high as Anna, not wanting to have too much distance between her and the ground should anything go wrong. “I’m not sure how best to try this…”

Anna snickered, confident that high up in the air as she was that Zina wouldn't hear. Her cousin was a bit of a ditz -- well, maybe not a ditz, but just not aware of her surroundings, if she didn't notice Anna fly up up up into the sky as she ran. Silly of her. Weird warmup for a backflip, in Anna's opinion. Not that Zina would ask.

Zina wasn't ready. Anna circled lower and lower, sitting on the wide edge of her broom until he was hovering just a meter off the grass. "Sure, sure," she said fairly to the thanks, waving it away with one hand. "Not like I got much else to be doing, right?" Except her own practice or her own homework or her own... whatever. She had other things she could be doing, was the point, and Zina owed her. Not that Anna was going to say so right now.

She watched as Zina did the backflip on the ground, just on the grass, frowned as she watched. Well, it looked right. Anna punched back a feeling of acute envy, gave her cousin a thumbs up instead. Zina mounted her broom, flew up -- "Woah, that's way too high!" Anna exclaimed. "Try, like, I dunno, a foot first?" Anna dug her wand out, pointed at a patch of grass and cast a quick cushioning charm. "Like, right over there. Still, like." She didn't actually want Zina to break her neck. "Then higher."