Although she was training without a coach, Zhenya could imagine her aunt’s comments on her performance. ‘You have to go faster, make sharper turns. They way you’re doing it now any beginner can do it. Fly higher so the dive is more impressive. Your spins haven’t been centred and the rotations were too slow. Your steps looked like you don’t know what you’re doing and your jumps have no height whatsoever.’
Maybe Veronika would have chosen different words for it, probably they would have been even harsher if she had seen this practice. Zhenya jumped off her broom to have a sip of water before she’d continue to work on her technical exercise. It was bad timing that this season would be the first that the technical exercise was going to be performed to music. It was harder to train that at school anyway and without music is was sheer impossible to work on new routines. Although training conditions had improved at Durmstrang, they just didn’t have the same possibilities here as they had at the flying school in Rybinsk - yet another disadvantage for her in her first senior season. She’d also miss all the small competitions that took place in the first months of the season because she was still stuck at Durmstrang.
Not for the first time Zhenya wondered if she shouldn’t just drop out to prepare for her first senior season. It would give her a chance to actually be competitive but then again the girl feared that she’d look like a fool if she dropped out of school
and didn’t place well in the competitions. It was probably better to have school as an excuse when she didn’t live up to her family’s expectations. After all, she felt certain that she’d disappoint them.
Iroda was training now as well and Zhenya watched her with envy. Iroda looked so graceful and her training suit looked pretty on the other girl. Zhenya felt like hers constricted her. It was too tight. In fact, the girl was hesitant with some moves now, fearing that the fabric would burst. However, she could hardly write home asking to be sent a new one as she’d have to reveal that she was not as thin as a stick anymore. Her soft womanly curves were maybe something to be fond of for a normal person, for Zhenya they were a hindrance on her way to success.
As Iroda finished a sequence and landed not far away from her, Zhenya grimaced at her. They had been rivals for the past years and this season was the first one where they wouldn’t compete against each other and yet, to Zhenya, Iroda looked like she’d do better in the senior events than she expected herself to do. “That sequence looked good,” she said and then, thinking that she couldn’t just say something nice, added “you slowed down towards the end, though.”
@Iroda Alieva
