Even through his headphones, the crowd noise is audible, and Yuri knows the structure of Eros well enough to identify from the crowd's shouts of approval how far the program has progressed. So he doesn't hang back or hesitate when Lilia draws the curtain aside so he can return to the main arena.
All the same, he doesn't have to hurry. Agape doesn't hurry. He's spent all day working on slow movements, deep breaths, graceful positions, reaching deep inside himself in search of the calm and silence at the core of his piece. It's what he has to fall back on to slow his racing heart, keep his resolve in place. One foot after the other in measured, even steps.
On the ice before him is a dark, glittering vision of passion, a whirl of playful seduction like the flash of a smile, the encouraging glance over a shoulder, the twist of a beckoning hand. Triple axel, quad salchow, all the steps and turns he remembers from that too-short time in Hasetsu -- but cleaner now, sharper now, honed to point where there is as much threat as promise in its execution.
(Lilia beside him, murmuring in his ear. This is the opposing force. Odile to your Odette. Albrecht's false promise, Siegfried's broken vow, the art of the betrayer and the deceiver. You will show them the beauty and strength of true love, Yuri -- not this temporary enchantment.)
For all that he knows she's right, as the jump combination flows into the final spins, Yuri is seeing another narrative spiralling out before him, parallel to this one: the hours and hours of work that Yuuri Katsuki and his coach must have put into this piece, pushing every bone and muscle and nerve to their limits in order to reach these heights. He's refined the program this much since the Onsen on Ice event, huh? And if the noise of the crowd is any indication, they're being completely swept away by the force of it.
no subject
All the same, he doesn't have to hurry. Agape doesn't hurry. He's spent all day working on slow movements, deep breaths, graceful positions, reaching deep inside himself in search of the calm and silence at the core of his piece. It's what he has to fall back on to slow his racing heart, keep his resolve in place. One foot after the other in measured, even steps.
On the ice before him is a dark, glittering vision of passion, a whirl of playful seduction like the flash of a smile, the encouraging glance over a shoulder, the twist of a beckoning hand. Triple axel, quad salchow, all the steps and turns he remembers from that too-short time in Hasetsu -- but cleaner now, sharper now, honed to point where there is as much threat as promise in its execution.
(Lilia beside him, murmuring in his ear. This is the opposing force. Odile to your Odette. Albrecht's false promise, Siegfried's broken vow, the art of the betrayer and the deceiver. You will show them the beauty and strength of true love, Yuri -- not this temporary enchantment.)
For all that he knows she's right, as the jump combination flows into the final spins, Yuri is seeing another narrative spiralling out before him, parallel to this one: the hours and hours of work that Yuuri Katsuki and his coach must have put into this piece, pushing every bone and muscle and nerve to their limits in order to reach these heights. He's refined the program this much since the Onsen on Ice event, huh? And if the noise of the crowd is any indication, they're being completely swept away by the force of it.