The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer (Rory)

[Sasha Adams]

Sasha was exhausted; if she hadn't had an essay to work on for English class she might have simply gone to bed. As it was, she needed to focus on that essay. Fortunately she enjoyed essays, and this one in particular was about parallels between Arthurian love triangles and The Scarlet Letter. 

She thought she could do that. 

She grabbed her book and notebook from her room, then collapsed onto the communal sofa without bothering to change out of her leotard and gym shorts. She groaned and stretched, then flipped open her notebook. 

She scrawled her name across the top of the page in large handwriting, and then, in smaller, tighter handwriting she added The Scarlet Letter and King Arthur Brainstorming. 

[Rory Lennox]

Rory was relieved to be moving. Her old roommates were…a bit of a handful. They were actually really great; fun, outgoing, loud. They were just like Rory, and six months ago she would have gotten along fabulously with them. She still would…but she just couldn’t live with them right now.

She’d gone to her dorm advisor several days ago, complaining that, while her roommates were welcoming, they were just too loud. Their thoughts ricocheted from all corners of their dorm, and Rory could hear them well into night. They just couldn’t control them. And so, after a few weeks of raging headaches and bloody noses, Rory had decided that enough was enough.

And thankfully, her dorm advisor agreed with her. They didn’t usually accommodate room changes unless it was a dire situation, but Rory’s newly manifested telepathy made it hard for her to live with certain types of people. So she was placed in a new room, one that she was assured would be better suited for her.

So she packed up all her things, telling her roommates she was just going to be on the opposite end of the hall. They were understanding about it, and Rory was relieved about that.

But she was left to drag all her things down the hall on her own. And man did she have a lot of stuff! She didn’t remember having this much stuff when she first moved in, though that might be because her dad had lugged around all her things for her.

“Almost thereeee….” She dragged the two hot pink suitcases, both almost as big as her down the hallway. How could something with wheels still end up being so heavy?

She opened the door, struggling to drag one of her suitcases through when she felt someone else behind her. She turned around, blowing a long strand of brown hair out of her face. Her eyes fell on another girl, sprawled out on the couch. She looked familiar; Rory was sure she’d seen her around campus, which was very probable. She had yet to actually meet her yet.

“Hi!” Rory said, finally getting both her suitcases into the room. She adjusted her old studio jacket, which had fallen off her shoulder during her struggle from one end of the hallway to the other. “I’m Rory, and I swear I’m not always this much of a mess.” She said, referring to her effort to get through the door.

[Sasha Adams]

Sasha had known, vaguely, that she had a new roommate moving in. This was not especially surprising, given that Hammel recruited year round -- as soon as someone showed hints of a power there the recruiters were, ready to take a newly manifested (and in many cases, scared and confused) teenager off to the other side of the country.

Or, in some cases, the same side of the country. So many Hammel alumni seemed to stay in state after graduation, perhaps because of the lack of protections in the rest of the country. As a result, there were a large number of meta families in Pilot Ridge, despite the fact that it was such a small town.

But she had come from the other side of the country, and she was grateful for the distance between herself and her family.

Despite the fact that she had known a new roommate was imminent, she hadn't known when the other girl was showing up, and so it was with great surprise that she looked up from her essay to the other girl.

Whom, oddly, she thought she recognized, which meant that her new roommate must have had a similar situation to Rachel's and requested a move.

On the one hand, it was reassuring to Sasha that the dorm monitors took such requests seriously.

On the other hand, it was a little concerning to her that both of her roommates had requested moves. Were there so many troubled students here that everyone needed to shuffle around to escape from them?

"Hi," She echoed, staring at the other girl with curiosity. "Moving is hard."

Jesse had helped her with her luggage, otherwise she might have been just as much of a mess as the other girl was now.

"I'm Sasha. It's nice to meet you, Rory."

She tapped at her chin with her pen. "Are you in third period math with Mr. Deulane? I think you sit a few seats away from me?"

She hoped that she was correct, and she wasn't thinking of a different brunette. That would be embarrassing.

[Rory Lennox]

From what Rory had gathered, new students moved into the dorms constantly. Perhaps not as many during the middle of the term, but when she had been moving right in after the holidays, she saw several other students coming in for their first time as well. She could tell the difference because some students only carried one suitcase, while others were clearly moving all of their possessions.

She’d met a lot of different people, from all over the country. Rory had thought her journey had been very far - and it had been - but there were others who lived farther. The girls she’d lived with in her other suite were quite scattered.

Rory nodded in agreement to her new roommate’s statement, dragging her suitcases to the side before finally shutting the door. Moving was hard. And it was stressful too. Not only did you have to move every single one of your possessions from one place to another, but having new roommates was also kind of a scary thought. Being an only child, Rory had never lived with anyone but herself, and her parents of course. But she’d never had to share anything.

Regardless, this girl seemed nice. “Sasha. That’s pretty.” She’d never met anyone named Sasha before. At home, she probably had the most exotic name out of all her friends, since her studio and her school were both filled with Emily's, Madison's, and Isabella’s. She probably knew at least three of each.

She was in Mr. Deulane’s math class. “Oh yeah! I sit in the front, towards the door.” That was probably why Sasha looked so familiar. Although, it was no wonder why she didn’t remember her at first. Rory tried to keep her focus on her assignments in all her classes, as she had been distracted lately by the other students’ thoughts that floated around the classroom. Math wasn’t her best subject to begin with, so she had to focus extra hard in that class.

Her eyes fell on Sasha’s outfit, registering the dance wear immediately. Her eyes lit up, a large smile forming on her lips. “Are you a dancer?” She asked, eagerly, pushing her long hair off her shoulders.

[Sasha Adams]

Sasha was relieved to hear that her new roommate was the girl in Mr. Deulane's math class. She would have been embarrassed to have started off by incorrectly identifying Rory as someone else. 

"The test last week was really hard, wasn't it?" 

She had heard that almost nobody had passed; she herself had only made a seventy seven, which had been a disappointment. She had resolved to study math more often, because a C was absolutely unacceptable. The fact that most of the class had failed and thus her C was on the high end for that test did not make it any more acceptable to her. 

The other girl's reaction to her outfit caused her to glance down at her leotard. 

"Oh! I am! I just got back from dance club, actually! Why, do you dance?" 

Oh, dear, had she forgotten one of the other members of the school dance club?

[Rory Lennox]

The test last week was ridiculous. “It was awful!” Rory agreed, leaning against one of her suitcases. “I barely got a B-.” Rory had scraped by that test, barely scoring 80%. She'd really only scored 77%, but had somehow managed to get the bonus question right, which bumped her up a letter grade. She probably would have cried in class if she hadn’t received those extra points. She was still pretty upset with the score she did end up getting. Just because almost everyone else failed it, didn’t mean her low scores were tolerable.

Regardless, she didn’t know if Mr. Deulane had purposefully made that test impossible or if they all were like that. If it was the latter, than Rory had her work cut out for her because she didn’t get B’s. “We should study for the next test together.” She said. Rory liked studying in groups. Especially subjects like Math, which were hard to study for in general.

But she was very excited to hear that her roommate was a dancer as well. “I do! Well, I danced competitively in Phoenix.” She hadn’t made it to Hammel’s dance club yet, having been busy adjusting to life here and trying to control her ability. Both her parents had suggested she take a break from dance until things got under control. She’d only really gotten the chance to talk to the club’s advisor a bit and had attended one practice last week to get the feel of it. It was definitely different then dancing at her studio back home, but she didn’t think it would be too hard to juggle everything.

“I’m planning on starting again and joining the dance team next week though. My parents wanted me to wait a bit until everything was all settled.” And after Rory got moved in, everything would be. Or at least, she hoped it would be.

[Sasha Adams]

Sasha was already beginning to like her new roommate. So many of the other students seemed to think that having super powers meant they didn't need to study or do homework; the fact that Rory suggested they study math together automatically gained her all of Sasha's respect. 

"We should!" She agreed eagerly. "I don't know what my parents will think if my grades start slipping, they might worry that I'm turning into a wild party animal or something." 

Or, more specifically, they might worry that Jesse was a poor influence. She didn't think her father could pull her out of Hammel, but she didn't want to risk him trying. She especially didn't want to risk him trying because she'd disappointed him. 

The fact that she was a dancer, too, further endeared Rory to Sasha. 

"Oh, wow, competitive dance? I really primarily did ballet before Hammel, so I don't know what I'll do if the dance club doesn't put on The Nutcracker in December." 

She gave the other girl a small smile, "Competitions always seemed so intense. Fun intense!" She clarified, because she found intensity to be stimulating. "Maybe the dance club could do some competitions? We could always ask." 

She didn't know what the rules were, except that none of the sports teams competed with the other local schools. She had heard rumors this was due to baseline humans considering powers cheating, and that could very well apply to dance club, too. 

Not that the ability to put someone to sleep was going to be much of an advantage unless she used it on the competition, which would be so obvious as to not be worth it even if she had wanted to cheat. 

"Have you met the other roommate, yet, Rachel? She's in dance, too!"

[Rory Lennox]

School was different now that her telepathy had manifested. Not only was it harder for her to concentrate during class, but the faculty took extra precautions to make sure she wasn’t cheating. Not that Rory would ever cheat; she was much to proud to degrade herself like that. But apparently they’d had several cases of psychics taking advantage of their abilities in the past, so they didn’t take chances anymore.

But perhaps studying with someone, a friend, would make school seem a little bit more normal. “My parents would definitely be upset about it.” Probably not as upset as Rory would be if her grades were sliding, but she knew they would be disappointed. Still, both her mom and dad weren’t nearly as hard on Rory as she was on herself.

Rory nodded, her grin broadening. Very few people really knew what the competitive dance world was like. It would be nice to talk to someone who did, or at least had an idea of it. “I did ballet back home as well, but only two or three times a week.” Ballet wasn’t her sole focus at her studio, though her teachers had always pressed that it was one of the most important forms to learn.

“Competitions are so much fun, but you’re right. They can be very stressful.” Especially when you were dancing a lot. If you only had one or two dances, than they were fine, but they could get very hectic. There had been a few times when Rory had been in four or five dances, and getting changed into her different costumes and makeup was crazy. But she liked being in a lot of dances; the more you were in, the more you could win.

“That would be awesome if we were allowed to.” She’d only been in Pilot Ridge a little over three months, and already missed competing. “We should bring it up at the next practice.” She didn’t know how well the idea would go over, but it couldn't hurt to ask, right?

“I haven’t met her yet.” Rory said, shaking her head. “Is she here?” She glanced at the bedroom doors, all of them were closed. So either they were the only two home, or someone else was locked in their room.

[Sasha Adams]

"Mmm, I think she's out right now," Sasha admitted, scratching at her bun in thought. "But we live in the same dorm, it's almost impossible to not see one another some of the time." 

Especially given that they had curfews, and they had to get up in the mornings for classes. 

"We could probably ask her to study with us, too! A dancer study group! Then we could use dance to help figure out anything we're having trouble with!" 

After all, applying coursework to topics they were interested in was a sure way to remember their lessons later, right? Of course, not everything could be applied to dance, but that didn't mean they couldn't try their best. 

"I hope they'll let us. I don't know. Mojo has super speed, though, do you think that would disqualify our team? I know my power isn't useful for dance at all, but super speed might be." 

She scrunched up her face as she considered the powers the other dancers had. "Rune's could be used for a cool special effect, but I don't think turning him into a strobe light for a dance number would be cheating. Just cool."

Unless he had some sort of side effects that made it too difficult for him to pull off for long enough to get through a routine; she hadn't ever asked such a personal question of any of the other students. 

[Rory Lennox]

Rory wasn’t worried about never running into her new roommates; Sasha was right, they were bound to see each other eventually. She was a tiny bit worried about meeting all of them, since she didn’t want to have to end up having to move again. But her dorm advisor had assured her that she’d do better in this room, and she already really liked Sasha.

“That’d be a lot of fun!” Rory agreed, already liking the idea. She wasn’t exactly sure how they could apply dancing to subjects like Math and History, but they could at least try. Regardless of how they attempted to study, the fact that they were doing it in a group all together would be fun. And it would probably help their grades.

Rory didn’t think her ability would be too useful for a dance competition either. If anything, it’d probably put her at a disadvantage because all those people’s thoughts would make it so hard to concentrate. There were usually a lot of people in the audience, so all of those thoughts - especially if they were loud ones - might also make it hard to hear her music. She’d definitely have to get control of her abilities before she went back to competing.

“Umm…maybe only if she uses it?” Rory had never competed against meta-humans before, most likely because all the adolescent meta-humans were here. But since she’d never been at a competition like that, she was unsure of what the rules would be. “Every competition has different rules, so I guess it would depend on that. But I don’t think we’d be able to use any of our abilities, since it’s like an unfair advantage to other teams.” Even something as harmless as affecting the lighting unnaturally would probably end in disqualifications, but it would depend on the competition.

[Sasha Adams]

"You're probably right," Sasha sighed. The unfortunate reality was that baseline humans tended to see all meta powers as an unfair advantage, even though they wouldn't have said anything about a baseline human having an unrelated skill. It was unfair, but changing that attitude was probably impossible. 

And anyway, even attempting to change it would involve such things as conflict. She didn't want to disadvantage herself further by getting into people's faces about it. Especially not now, when the entire United States was in a furor over basically everything. 

She wanted to keep her head down and live her life. 

"We should still ask about competitions," She decided; she didn't think that looking into that would be too confrontational, and if the answer was no then at least they would know. And if the answer was yes, then they would have something else to work towards. 

"And about The Nutcracker. I don't know if we have enough dancers to put on the whole production, but maybe if we just did a couple of scenes, so we could all have a solo part...." 

That might be more trouble than it was worth for their dance instructor, but a girl could dream, right?

[Rory Lennox]

Rory wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure that using their powers would cause a lot of problems. Maybe even just being involved in the competition might cause problems. Why else would Hammel only limit themselves to club sports and activities? She supposed the people who had involuntary abilities and couldn’t help using them would be the ones that would cause the most trouble. It wasn’t their fault, but it technically wasn’t fair to normal humans either, which sucked.

Rory supposed it wouldn’t hurt to ask at least. The answer would probably be no, but even if their instructor said yes, that didn’t mean the competitions would. She hoped it wouldn’t be too much trouble when she went back to Phoenix for break. She was planning on going back to her old studio during that month and attending a few competitions with them, so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem. She’d thought that her telepathy in general might be problematic because it made it hard to concentrate, especially with all the people that would be around. She hadn’t even thought about whether or not the competition would let her compete.

“We can ask.” She agreed. Surely it wouldn’t hurt. The worst that could happen was they said no, and they wouldn’t be any worse off than they were now.

“The Nutcracker takes a lot of people.” They definitely didn’t have enough people on the team to do it, but she supposed they could do a few scenes. Would that be confusing for the audience though? It would probably just be easier to do a variety of different dances that ere just related to each other.

“Do you only do ballet?” She asked. Rory was trained in ballet, but it wasn’t her favorite or her best genre. But based off of Sasha’s excitement for The Nutcracker, Rory thought she might be just a ballerina. Usually companies that put on those types of shows were pretty strict.

[Sasha Adams]

"I know," Sasha sighed despondently. There definitely weren't enough members of the dance club to put on the entirety of The Nutcracker. They probably didn't even have enough people to put on Babes in Toyland, the other seasonal favorite. 

That was too bad, because performances were the most exciting part of dance, and Christmas usually had a somewhat higher rate of attendance than spring performances. After all, The Nutcracker was a Christmas tradition for a lot of people, but far fewer people were interested in watching a group of amateurs put on Sleeping Beauty or Alice in Wonderland or even something more of a classic like Coppelia or Swan Lake. 

"Mmm. I primarily do ballet," She replied, swinging her legs so that her heels drummed against the couch. "Our studio offered a few other classes, and I think my favorite was modern. I liked jazz, too! But yeah, we were mostly ballet focused, so I didn't get an opportunity to do much outside of recitals. Dance club at Hammel is so different from doing ballet all the time! But I think I like it." 

[Rory Lennox]

“Maybe we could do something else?” Rory suggested. At her old studio they really only did a recital once a year, and it was at the end of the competition season, usually in like May or June. But they never put on a full performance of something like The Nutcracker. No one had ever complained though; they were way too busy with competitions to put on something as time-consuming as that.

Although she wasn’t sure what else they could do to as a type of replacement since she wasn’t sure exactly what their numbers were, or the levels of talents and strengths they were looking at. She definitely didn’t think they had enough to put on the full showcase of anything, so perhaps they were better off with just themed, choreographed dances? Rory wouldn’t be opposed to that idea.

“I like jazz a lot too. And tap.” Rory liked almost every genre that she took at home. Ballet wasn’t her favorite, but she liked the structure and the delicate moves. “We had a bunch of different classes, but you’re right. Dance Club here seems very different.” Not that different was necessarily a bad, just…different. Rory honestly hadn’t really decided on how much she liked it yet. It was better than nothing, but she doubted that a club could ever replace the teammates that she’d competed with since she was six.

[Sasha Adams]

"We probably could! Maybe if there's a talent show..." 

Jesse had never mentioned talent shows in any of his emails, but that didn't mean they didn't exist. Sasha couldn't imagine her older brother ever performing in any sort of show, and so he probably simply didn't pay attention to their existence. 

But the school probably had one; after all, she couldn't imagine a school that didn't. 

After giving that some thought it occurred to Sasha that here she had been chatting Rory's ear off when the other girl hadn't even finished moving in yet. 

"Umm....I'm not keeping you from finishing moving, am I?" She asked, gnawing her lower lip in embarrassment.