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76heart ●
arianne - sign up ●
octopus ●
ribbons and trapeze ●
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Sighing softly, she glanced down at the object held within her paws, the one thing she had been able to bring with her on this cruise, and one of her most treasured things. It was the first trapeze that she had ever used, the one that had broken beneath her weight flying onto it from the platform, sending her cascading downward into the pitiful mesh tied to the poles beneath her that the circus runners called a net. She could still remember the wind rustling through her short locks as she flew, flew into the air like a bird, then missed and landed so very wrong, and watched the rope holding her up, holding up her wings, quickly fray and then snap, and send her falling into the ground below. She could still feel the way she had bounced up from the net, and then landed painfully on the floor, smacking her shoulder into the floor of the ship where they were training her as the circus traveled to the next location, to put on another show for the next town of gullible suckers. Sometimes that night followed her into her dreams, waking her up with the phantom feeling of a wave pushing and pulling her as it waved, before the feeling of falling woke her again. They had thrown the broken trapeze out, tossing it carelessly away as this was the final time of too many they would allow it to break, but she had taken it back to her rooms, and kept it. She still didn't quite know why she had, and why she had cared for it since, but it held some meaning to her, which was why she brought it, and also now why she wanted to let it go.
Beneath her paws, the wood was still smooth, with no sign of splinters or a new dent- it was covered in hundreds already-, and she couldn't help but smile. She'd miss it. Over the years, as the circus master had given her more ribbons to dance with to replace ones they deemed boring at old with flashier, more colorful ones with glitters and diamonds- fake of course-, she had shoddily sewn the past ones together, making a patchwork rope of the ribbons she once danced with while riding the new trapeze, to form the rope for her first so it may possibly, or hopefully, someday fly again. Deep down she knew it never would; her sewing was very, very bad and she doubted that it could hold any weight but the thin wooden rod of darkened chestnut brown, but the hope had been one that remained with her. No matter how vain she could be, and she truly could be incredibly vain, she still valued the little less than glamorous things she had, like the ribbons of cotton, moving to the ones of satin and silks, with shimmering shine, and perhaps that was why she had kept it all these years, and why the hope remained.
Now, though, it was time to say goodbye, and let someone else marvel at the taste of flight, at the feeling of feeling so free while soaring through the air, like a bird with invisible wings. No one could use it, not unless the ribbons were better sewn together, but perhaps it could give someone hope too, and let them find something special, like it had been to her. It had been her start to everything, and now this was an end for it and another start for her, and hopefully some others too. She hoped that Ellys would like it, as she at last held it out to her with a bittersweet smile.
"Here you go."
