SHE IS A REAL DUMAS FILLE.

First day of writing. I have a lot of notes, I've approached this story from a ton of angles already, but I think I finally found the way in. I had to change PoV character (what, twice? three times?) and I had to really think about whether I wanted to try my hands on dual PoV, but in the end I decided against it. Single PoV is what I know and love - and the heroine's journey is a biiiiig part of how I write in general. I didn't wanna fuck up my already shaky attempt at romance by doing a lot of different new things.

I had actually thought I would just outline and maybe write a couple of ficlets for Margaux today, now that I have my gen prompt bingo card, but once I had outlined the full scene, I got too eager not to try writing it right away and I honestly think I did all right. I look forward to getting started on scene 2 tomorrow, though I have to settle on a starting point for it. I know exactly what it's gonna be about, though. So, that's a start.

Furthermore, I now got an approx. and very overarching timeline for Shit That Happens in this Canon.

Other things I did today in relation to the story and its characters were finding the first two songs for Margaux's playlist (Ta Reine by Angèle and Like It Or Not by Madonna). I think there'll be some Dua Lipa on there, too, but I have to listen through her stuff, because I'm just not familiar enough.

I also found visual inspo! I remembered I had a really intimate photobook of the Royal Danish Ballet anno 2009, intimate in that we see the dancers changing costumes, crying and laughing together, and looking through it, that book is my exact vibe for this story. I'll talk more about it tomorrow when I make a separate post about ballet inspiration.

Moved some old cut-outs from The Lady of the Camellias program over into the new journal. Found a novel I need to get. Made an rp journal for Margaux, though I'm not sure I'll use it. I don't have a good track record as far as rp goes.

Under any circumstances, it's nice to work on a relatively easy project again. The process does remind me a lot of writing Lest They Leave.

Different genre, different characters, but the same confidence in myself. In my writing.

Today was a productive one. Don't expect every day to be like this, I say to myself as much as to anyone reading along.

When the door to her new dressing room opened to reveal its original inhabitant, Margaux was almost done sticking her small collection of personal photos to the right one of the two mirrors, mounting putty making her fingertips feel weirdly dirty. The left spot at the dressing table, a pair of sizable pointe shoes slung over the back of the chair, standing closest to the window with its view of the waterfront, had already been claimed by the girl who had just entered, sports bag in hand and a banana halfway protruding from between her lips.

Amelia Romano, first year corps girl, American, big jumps, big kicks, but inelegant arms and nuanceless feet, hadn't been in morning class earlier. Otherwise, she never missed them, not once since her arrival six months ago at the Copenhagen Opera House where the National Ballet of Denmark had its digs. To go with the theme, what people would gossip about, when it came to Amelia, was that her ambitions were as big as her dancing.

The other girl popped the rest of the banana out of her mouth and swallowed what she'd been eating of it, before saying, "I'd hoped I could get here before you did. I bought flags." Devouring the remaining banana in one bite, she pointed very straightforwardly at a couple of Danish paper flags, left on her side of the table.

Surprised, Margaux looked at her for a while, without quite knowing what to say. Amelia's black hair was only done up in a messy ponytail and she was wearing a pair of leather bootlets under her training pants. Even in heels, she wasn't a tall ballerina, unlike Margaux.

That was what the panel had told her, when she had auditioned for the French National Ballet at age eighteen. Her home company. Whose school she had spent six years getting through - cutthroat exam after cutthroat exam. Only for the artistic director to tell her, at the end of her final try-out, too tall, we don't have enough tall men in our ranks right now.

Finding a partner for her will be difficult bordering on impossible.

Margaux blinked herself out of it, straightening up after the last photo in her pile had gone up in the upper-right corner of her new mirror, it was a polaroid of the French Opera's stage decked up for the opening scene of Neumeier's The Lady of the Camellias and she proceeded to ignore Amelia's no doubt deceptively kind gesture long enough afterwards to begin stripping out of her clothes, preparing herself for the sacred initiation rite of ballet that was getting in the foot torture chambers so casually called pointes.

Studio rehearsal for the choreographic workshop that would be filmed over the weekend was in twenty minutes. Amelia was in that, too, though they danced for different choreographers. She'd cut it close.

"If you want to apologise, do it to Nicolas. I don't care that much about the Danish flag," Margaux finally replied. She moved over to the bed, that had been installed along the opposite wall. When she'd let herself inside, it had been completely tidied. By contrast, Anna, her previous dressing roomie, had been an utter slob.

This, like the view from the window, was an obvious upgrade.

"I'll buy you a French one later, if it means so much to you," Amelia said, taking a seat in front of the mirror and binning the banana peel, before loosening her hair, in order to begin fixing it up in a bun. Looking over at her, Margaux caught her eyes in the reflective surface. There was no scolding. No defensive snubs. Anna, on the other hand, would have told her to go dance in France, if she were so dissatisfied with the workings of the Danish company. The Danish ways.

Frowning, she started taping in her toes with the familiarity of routine. Despite what people associated with it, ballet was sixty percent monotony and repetition. At least, that was how it felt to her these days.

All art needed a canvas, her mom would say. Once, Margaux had believed that.

"You didn't miss a single morning class during December, that was with two Nutcracker performances a day." Margaux's fingers kept wrapping tape around her feet, little toe, lots of it, keep the middle toe free, big toe, another harness. She didn't look up at the other girl, she was just coming to conclusions. "Were you hospitalized this morning or something, since you didn't show?"

A long moment, quiet aside from the rustle of tulle, tape, a hairbrush, hairpins getting dropped, and Amelia finally answered, "you sure know a lot about my comings and goings, huh?"

"You haven't been with the NBD long enough yet to have learned, the comings and goings of people are the only interesting things happening around here." Margaux would maybe have smiled, if there was anything to smile about.

"How long have you been dancing with the company?" Amelia stood up, walked over to the cloud of romantic tutus bound together and hanging off a hook in the ceiling in the far corner of the dressing room. It was an extremely organized way of keeping them. So big jumps and clean habits. She'd be a more engaging dancer, if she swapped them. Clean jumps and big, big habits. Margaux followed her with her gaze, as she pulled down a light pink tutu from the arrangement.

"Third year now."

"And you've already been cast as the Walking Girl in Emeralds?" Amelia sounded shocked which was kinda offensive, honestly, but Margaux could pretend it was more of a comment on the very limited talent pool of the NBD than on her specifically. Currently, they were making ready for the opening night of Balanchine's Jewels, alongside a grueling Nutcracker schedule in December, they'd rehearsed for it and the premiere would be in a couple of weeks. Nicolas Dam, their artistic director, had made Margaux the secondary lead of the program's first ballet, in the second cast. People had complained about it, but Nicolas rarely gave a shit about what his dancers said. In all things.

This time, Margaux raised her head and looked over at Amelia, back in her chair, padding her shoes. The other girl met her eyes, it seemed to mostly be by accident.

"What can I say, I'm a giant among ants."

Laughing somewhat disbelieving, Amelia shook her head and wriggled her toes, sticking her foot in her Freed of London to feel for the cushioning, and murmured, good-humouredly, "no wonder you and Anna had to split up. Do you actually say stuff like that to the Danes?"

Although the NBD was a big, international ballet company, more than half the corps was made out of Danish dancers and the divide between them and the foreign dancers was noticeable on the best of days. Separate parties, separate groupings in the cafeteria, casts of all-Danish dancers versus second casts of foreign ones. No one really addressed it, but everyone knew.

Aside from Margaux who wasn't going to lower herself to standards like that.

"Not my problem that they don't like the truth," she huffed and finally mirrored Amelia, sliding first one foot, then the other into her pointes.

"Well, it became your problem when you had to get a new dressing roomie," Amelia pointed out. It was clever. Witty. Wasn't it? Cute.

Margaux rolled her eyes and crossed her right leg over her left to tie up the ribbons of her shoes, tightening around the ankle for proper support. "You're more talented and more beautiful than Anna, even in her dreams. It's no problem."

"Really?" Amelia stopped working on her other foot, although they were down to ten minutes until rehearsal started and they still had a good run down the hallways of the building to level two.

"You jump big and lose a lot of elegance on it, but yes." Margaux smiled slightly, stood up, swan feet pointing to either side in a very, very lazy first position. It was, however, the beginning of that distinctive ballerina waddle.

When she turned her head to check on the other girl, how far she was - she could buy Danish flags, but could she be on time for something that would be on film in a few months, was the important question - Amelia was staring at her. She looked flabbergasted. Margaux had no idea what she had expected.

Mollycoddling? Margaux was French.

"Oh my God," the other girl burst out, then laughed in an almost hysterical manner, "I so don't have time to listen to this."

"Do what you always do, then." Margaux moved over to the door, slowly enough that Amelia could catch up if she really wanted to. "And don't be late."

"Just get out, will you?" Within the count of five, a hand was pressing none-too-gently against the small of her back, forcing her out the door and into the hallway, deserted and silent, except for the scraping of shanks and boxes as the two of them shuffled in the direction of the elevator together. At the lowest level, it opened directly out into the backstage area, but the studios were littered all over levels one-to-three as well as the top level for the smaller spaces.

Out, Margaux thought briefly while they half-ran side by side, ma gonzesse, do you even know what you're saying?