Soar, Part 11 - Lies

Roxie and Skye dropped back down to the ground, quiet and shocked. Ales and Olivia waited for a while for them to tell what they'd seen, but they didn't.

"Well?" Alex demanded finally. "Did it say something? What did it look like?"

"That's..." started Skye, looking at Roxie, uncertain. "It was a word. Just one."

"It said 'soar'," said Roxie. Alex's eyes widened, as did Olivia's.

"W-what?" Alex managed. "Seriously? That's... gotta be a... a coincidence, right?"

"It could be, like... a message?" suggested Olivia, her usual playfulness disappeared from her eyes.

"What, for us?" asked Roxie. "Why? And it was only the one word."

"It's probably a coincidence," said Skye, sounding much more certain than she was feeling. "It's a common enough word."

"I guess, but..." Alex started but a sudden melody interrupted her. They all jumped a bit at the music, until they realized it was Alex's cellphone.

"Hello?" she answered it after digging it from the pocket of her jeans.

"Oh, hello," came a somewhat familiar female voice. "Is this Alexandra Sherwood?"

"Yeah," she said, trying to place the voice. The other three crowded around her.

"I'm calling on behalf of the National Air Dancing Championship," said the voice and Alex realized it was the harpy from a week ago. "I'm just asking about your status... Your group was qualified for the next round, but you haven't checked in yet. Your turn isn't for another hour and a half, so there's still time if you can get here quickly."

Alex paused, looking at her friends with wide eyes. There was still time..? Her friends of course hadn't heard what the harpy had said, and were looking at Alex very confused.

"Uh..." said Alex. "Hold on a moment, please." She places her hand on her phone, addressing her friends. "It's from the championship! They're calling after us since we didn't inform them we were gonna drop out. She says... She says we can still make it!"

"But..." said Skye and paused. "We still don't have Annalise..."

Alex's face fell. It was true, nothing had changed had it. Though she felt like something had....

"Sorry about that," she said back into the phone.

"No problem," said the harpy. "So.... do you want me to check you in, or...?"

"Well, the thing is..." Alex said, feeling a terrible twisting in her heart. It wasn't fair! They should be dancing! "One of our members got hospitalized just this week... we're kinda short on dancers, so I don't know if-"

"The backup choreography!" breathed out Olivia, hand flying to her mouth. Alex snapped her head towards the succubus, eyes blown wide for probably the fifth time is as many minutes. How had they forgotten..?

"Shit you're right..." she said. She faintly registered the 'hello's that were coming from the other end of the phone line.

"But that choreography was made for the first round," said Skye, stroking her tail, but Alex could see it in her eyes that she was considering it.

"But we didn't use it on the first round," said Alex. "We didn't have to, cause Roxie wasn't sick after all!"

"I think..." said Roxie. "I think it could work. I mean, it's nowhere near as good as the one we had, but it's... it's something, right?"

"Yes, yes!" Alex cheered, turning back to the phone in her hand. "Hello, are you still there?"

"Oh! Oh, yes," came the answer. "What is going on?"

"Urgent group related discussion, sorry," said Alex, feeling the excitement wash over her. "We can be there in ten minutes, is that okay?"

"Oh, that is okay." There was a pause and Alex could hear the faint sound of scribbling in the background. "I've marked you as checked in now. Stop by the table in the lobby once you get here and I'll give you your numbers, okay?"

"Yes, okay, thank you," said Alex. The call disconnected. She grinned at her friends. "Well? Let's go! We need to go make Annalise proud!"

~x~

"I'm still not sure we should be doing this," said Skye as they waited for the previous group to finish their performance. "I mean, it's been a while since we did this choreography, and it isn't as good as the other one, and poor Annalise is still..." She was wringing her tail again. Olivia placed her hands on hers, pulling them away from the tail and placing a small kiss on her knuckles.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again," said Alex, even more determined then before. "We are doing this for Annalise. She won't even forgive us when she wakes up if we just threw away our chance like that! We have to at least try."

"I... I guess," Skye said, quietly. There were applause and soon the group that had been dancing walk off the stage, past them into the back. The girls took deep breaths and walked onto the stage.

The judges were the same as they had been last week. The woman looked up as they stopped in the middle and pushed up her glasses.

"Hello," said Alex, a bit too loudly than she had meant to. She was getting nervous all of a sudden. The auditorium was very full. "We're dance team, uh..." She hesitated. Roxie nudged her in the back. The judge raised her eyebrow, expectant. "Team Soar. And we're here to get through to the state championship."

The judge stayed quiet for a while, shuffling through her papers. Then she squinted at the stage.

"Yes, I remember you. You're the group that was on when the power outage happened," she said and then frowned. "I do seem to recall there were five of you then, though?"

"Oh, yes," said Alex. "She, uh. She had to, well."

"There was an accident and one of our members had to be taken to a hospital, so she can't dance with us today," said Skye, stepping forward a bit. The judge turned her eyes on the daemon. "Some last minute arrangements had to be made, and we're using a backup choreography, but..."

"We felt like we owed it to her at least to try," finished Alex. The judge nodded and gestured for the girls to start. Alex and Olivia hurried to climb their sashes while Skye and Roxie took flight. There was a soft 'clack' just before the music started, and Alex glanced at the dance hall door. Her mouth fell open just a crack.

Anka walked through the door, followed suit by a small girl in a frilly Lolita-style dress. She, too, had white hair, neatly braided in two braids falling over her shoulders, deep red ribbons tied at their ends. They sat down in the back row, and she leaned in to whisper something to him. He nodded, his face serious. He noticed Alex staring, he must have, because suddenly he looked away, like he was embarrassed. The girl said something else, but Anka didn't look back.

Alex had barely time to register all of that when she heard the cue in the music and her entire concentration was swept into the dance. And dance they did.

When the final beats of the music echoed though the hall the girls were out of breath, just hanging there in midair, waiting for... something. There was a pregnant silence hanging over the room.

The applause started from one person. A single clapping, soon accompanied by another, and another, and before long the entire room was clapping. The girls slowly came down from their literal and figurative high and took a bow. The judge nodded at them, a small smile on her face and they turned to walk off the stage. The judging would come later, they knew as much.

Just before they were off the stage and behind the side curtains, Alex glanced back again, only to see two white-haired figures disappear out the door.

~x~

"That went... well?" said Roxie when they sat in the room reserved for the dance groups to wait in. The final group had danced just minutes ago and the judges had went off to decide who passed and who didn't.

"I... think so?" said Skye. "They did applaud pretty enthusiastically, didn't they?"

"Well I think we did good," said Olivia, swinging her legs. "I even managed to do that really hard triple flip I've been having problems with without a hitch."

"What do you think, Alex?" asked Roxie. Alex didn't answer. She was staring at the wall, arms crossed and a frown on her face. Roxie slapped her with a wing and she let out a yelp. "Earth to Alex, what is up with you?"

"Sorry, I just..." she said, looking sheepishly at her friends. "I'm just trying to make sense of it..."

"Of what?" asked Skye.

"Anka," said Alex. Roxie groaned. "No, I mean... He was here. Just for our show."

"Just for our show?" Olivia asked. "That's nice of him."

"No, I don't think," said Alex, pushing her hands through her hair. "I mean... There was something weird. He came in with this kinda odd little girl and they sat there while we danced and then they left. There was something... unsettling about the girl and I'm still not convinced Anka isn't hiding something!"

The three other girls exchanged looks.

"You think you're... being a bit obsessive about this? You're starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist," said Roxie, looking simultaneously amused and very concerned.

"But... The bird a the alley, and then he was there just moments later, and then there's his animal form, and the word on the ground, and know he's here with this girl just for our dance-!" Alex rambled on, twisting her hair in her hands.

"I admit, there's a lot of... weird things going on, and that's a lot of coincidences, I suppose," Skye said, trying to stay reasonable. "But what exactly are you proposing it all means?"

"I-" Alex started, paused and bit her lip. "I don't know. Yet. I just... He's lying. I know it. About something. And I will find out about what."

Whatever had been coming next got interrupted when the door opened. The dozens of dancers in the room turned to where the judges stood, a silence falling over them.

"We've made our decision regarding who goes on to the next round," said the main judge, pushing her glasses up. "If you hear your number called, go to the room next door to get your instructions for the next competition. First group is number 43."

Six girls stood up, cheering, and hugged each other. There was a polite applause from the rest of the groups. They disappeared though the door.

The judge continued to call out numbers and groups of people left the room. They were much more diverse in number, race, and gender than Alex had originally realised.

"Final group..." said the judge finally and the whole atmosphere of the room tensed. Everyone wanted to be the last group. It was this, or it was over. "Number 66."

There was a pause.

"Wait that's us." It was Olivia. She pointed at the piece of paper attached to her uniform with safety pins, indeed bearing the number 66.

There was another pause.

"Well, off you go," said the judge and then her voice was drowned out by the excited yell of Roxie. She was grinning bigger then the other girls had seen her ever grin before.

The reality of what had just happened dawned on them simultaneously. They had gotten though to the state championship. They had really made it.

Alex was in a daze when she was dragged into the next room. She was in a daze when the harpy explained what happened next. She was in a daze as they went to their locker room and changed clothes.

They had just stepped into the cool, crisp autumn air when she finally got a word out of her mouth.

"Did we... win?" she said.

"Probably not 'win'," said Skye. "But we were in the top 10, and that's all that matters."

"I can't believe we almost didn't do this," said Roxie, pulling at her hair and then staring to braid it. "The state championship is in a month, we have plenty of time now."

"Right," said Alex. "One month. You guys know what we have to do, right?"

The other girls looked determined too.

"One month to figure out exactly what happened to the petrified people," Alex said. "And how to cure them."
________________________________________________________

Waaaaa.

I just couldn't accept the fact that they just... didn't so anything about the dance competition. Like just ignore it until it's too late to go. Now we have a month. And that's pretty much the time we have to finish the story anyway, so that's good, yeh?

Anyway. I wanted to make the "lies" a bit more... obvious or like... prominent or something, but I didn't feel like writing any more scenes and idk. Who is even lying? Anka probably, but why? And who is the mysterious girl? Very exciting. I think. Anyway. I have another thing I wanna write today, so I'll end this here. Your topic is "Spirit". I don't think we've used that before? Nope. That's good.

Byyye~

Pie out.