July 25th 2005
After the Russian Nationals most others had spent the night still in Sochi, celebrating the end of the championships. Aglaya, however, had left the city after the official event finished, feeling not in the slightest intrigued by the idea of going out with the fellow athletes. She just wanted to get away, be able to take the potions she was craving and to rest.
It was early in the morning of the next day when Aglaya made her way to the artistic flying school. She was delighted that it was mostly deserted. Not even the investigators who had made her life hell for the past few weeks were lingering in the public area as they usually did. She warmed up in the beam room, enjoying the silence and feeling motivated to work on her programs more so there would be no shade of a doubt at the European championships that the top spot on the podium belonged to her.
She grabbed her broom and was surprised to find her coach in the arena, not having known that Aleksandra Viktorovna was back yet. It shouldn’t really surprise her, though. Her coach wasn’t young anymore and probably hadn’t felt like celebrating either. Aglaya greeted her with a small smile and a bow and her coach gave her a curt nod in return.
’At least your attitude is right.’ the older woman began,
’we’ll have to work hard so you won’t disappoint me again like you did in the technical exercise.’ Aglaya nodded although her disappointing performance in the technical exercise had had little to do with a lack of proper training. She always worked as hard as she possibly could. Her accident a few months ago had of course stalled her season preparation, but her failure was not a result of that. She had not been in the right mental state to succeed. For the free program Aglaya had taken some mood altering potions and that had definitely done the trick, helped her to perform her best, and move up several places to finish first in the segment and second overall.
’We need to get your backflip back into your routines,’ Aleksandra Viktorovna stated and Aglaya raised her eyebrows, not convinced that she could successfully execute the difficult element again. Ever since her concussion she had to fight dizziness when she did some more challenging elements and the risk of a backflip seemed too high.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Aglaya remarked but instead of discussing the matter further, she mounted her broom and began her training. Aleksandra Viktorovna watched every movement she made closely and gave her many corrections, some of which felt unnecessary to the experienced athlete.
After about an hour of training, Aleksandra Viktorovna blew the whistle to make her land on the ground next to her. Breathing heavily, Aglaya took a sip from her water bottle and listened to the feedback her coach gave her. She was momentarily distracted when she thought that she had seen a movement in the stands but her great-aunt made it clear that she was solely to focus on her and not anything else.
Ignoring the fact that Aglaya was already pretty tired by now, Aleksandra Viktorovna demanded her to do a complete run through her technical exercise. While her coach had asked her to do the initial layout with the backflip, Aglaya went for the changed one without it which she had also shown a few days ago in Sochi. She performed it cleanly but was a little slower than usual given the state of exhaustion after the competition and already an hour of practice.
'Why didn't you do as I asked you?' her coach yelled.
'I told you, I want to see the backflip. You also were slow and that last turn was sloppy.'Aglaya landed next to her great-aunt. Her heart was beating quickly, she was out of breath and sweating. While she was used to Aleksandra Viktorovna's strictness and sometimes harsh comments, she didn't want to deal with them now.
"I'll work on it, but for now I'm done." Aglaya knew quite well when it was time to take a break. Right now, she felt sure, she wasn’t able to do a backflip or another difficult element successfully anymore and so she hurried towards the private area of the school to take a shower and change into a
fresh outfit paired with comfortable sneakers. Her red curls, damp from the shower, were tied up in a messy ponytail as she made her way to the cafeteria.
When she entered, she stopped dead in her tracks. A confused frown was soon replaced by a smile.
"Mateusz! What are you doing here?" She asked, approaching her friend. It had been a long time since they had last met in person. On the one hand she was pleasantly surprised to see him now, on the other hand she felt guilty because she had failed to reply to his last letter and awkward because of all the drama surrounding her and the flying school.
@Mateusz Dabrowski I warned you... I got carried away. I hope you can work with this. If not, let me know and I'll make changes. <33
