voidtreckerexpress | You're the Sunflower (ota)

Entry tags:

You're the Sunflower (ota)

Who: Gwen Stacey
Where: Gym carriage
When: Month Apple, Day 2, Evening
What: Gwen is practicing ballet without music, but bother her anyway.
Warnings: Language maybe?
Notes: Spider-Teens will probably be acting adorable in here.

Gwen found the situation on the train no less stressful than it had been the first day. It was still a strange situation. It was still full of uncertainties as to where they're going, why they're there. How they got there in the first place. The first night, she'd slept okay. There was some tossing and turning. There was some waking up at strange sounds. There was worry that she'd keep her bunkmates up with all her fidgeting. But when the morning came on day two and she saw that yes, she was in fact on a train through the Void, she wasn't too impressed.

She went through her day. Helped make breakfast, took a break during lunch, helped out with dinner and got to spend time with Peter there.

And now she was off, doing her own thing, and finding certain accommodations annoying. Rather, the intense lack of much in the way of entertainment. Gwen missed, along with her brothers and her family and her god damn universe, was music. It was the ultimate way for her to relieve stress. Just dance until she could focus and think and really get a handle on things.

The first thing she did was kick her boots off, bare feet pressed to the floor as she enjoyed just that small freedom.

The weightlessness of just taking those off helped. Stretching a moment later before getting started, the first thing she did was practice some basic ballet moves.

There were then a handful of moves from old routines.

And then there was something she was humming along to, eyes closed as she focused.

But that's not gonna stop her from hearing people come into the gym, so having someone come in isn't going to stop her at all. Why would it?

She's doing what she loves, in a place that she's not too fond of. Spider in a bowler hat in a field of lavender, this is fine.

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Peter is not okay with the fact they haven't been off the train if over twenty-four hours. At least, he's pretty sure it's been over twenty-four hours. It doesn't matter too much because he wants off. He can't stand sitting in one place for too long-too long usually being about forty-five minutes so he's already slammed into 5000% done with this trip since there's just about NOTHING for him to do.

He's explored the train as best he can-always stopping before the Lavender Death Car, took a very short nap, drank more coffee, ate some egg themed food-prepped lunch ate more egg themed food just out of boredom and drank more coffee. He's even sat patiently on one of the benches for about maybe five minutes before getting bored of that and searching for something else to do-he decides on looking up information on ICP-things to see what he can find. A few hours after that, he's exploring the train again-not because he thinks he's missed something but because he's bored.

He makes his way into the gym carriage at the exact right time to see Gwen practicing her ballet-he can tell right off that she really has been doing it a long time-he doesn't know too much about ballet himself but he'd say her form is just about perfect.

He doesn't want to startle her-not that he thinks he would with their senses and moves over to lean against the wall. Is it creepy if he just stands here and watches?

Edited 2019-07-06 07:07 (UTC)

Gwen's aware Peter is in the room. Not only from the sound of footsteps, but from seeing him during one of her spins. It puts a soft smile on her face, feeling a faint sense of joy that he was there. So, no. She doesn't mind that he's there at all. Though, it does raise an important question.

"Tell me honestly," Gwen says as she finally stops dancing, a questioning look on her face.

"How ridiculous did I look, dancing to no music?"

He watches her a moment, watching as her movements seem to flow like water. It's almost mesmerizing and he's almost caught off guard when she asks him a question.

"N-no, actually, not at all.." He shakes his head vigorously. "Dancer practice without music all the time, right? I don't think it looked ridiculous at all-honest." He worries a moment that he doesn't sound honest but any more attempts to convince her might actually have the opposite effect.

“True, but I prefer music.” She is at heart very passionate about music. It’s been such an important part of her daily life that not having access to it on the stupid train through the Void is the most irritating thing. She’s found herself drumming on table tops and surfaces out of boredom, missing the light but familiar weight of drumsticks in her hands. And even though toe shoes are a fucking nightmare to wear for long?

She misses them.

Balancing on her toes for a moment, arms raised over her head in a graceful stretch, she lets herself relax, hands hanging at her sides and feet flat on the ground. Even her simple standing posture has hints of all her years training in dance. One foot slightly more forward than the other.

“So, story time. My dance instructors fiancé was a massive fan of this really old movie. Labyrinth. Started David Bowie and a ton of Jim Henson puppets. My class and I were part of this surprise for her for their wedding. We had this whole, really cool dance choreographed to one of the songs in the movie. I had to miss it because the day before, I got bit. I was so angry. I still remember every step, and can play the drum part of that song. But I always get just a tiny bit salty any time I think about it.”

She doesn’t appear too mad now. Amused is probably a better word to use.

He watches her movement more than he really means too, noting her posture and the way that even now, her movements are just... fluid. He nods in recognition-he's seen that movie-he watched it with May some time ago. He remembers he liked it okay.

"Yeah, yeah-Bowie plays the Goblin King-I've seen it." He nods before she continues on. His face falls a little at why she had to miss it. Sure you get pretty awesome super powers out of it-but those first few days.

"Man, the first few days after the bite are Hell." He states with a shake of his head. "I thought I literally thought I was dying but still refused to go to the ER because dude- ain't nobody got time for that."

If he thinks these movements are fluid, he should see her in a fight. She incorporates dancers grace with everything she’s learned from kung fu movies. She calls it Buttkick Ballet.

No she doesn’t. That’s terrible and idiotic. But there is definitely a gracefulness to her movements even then.

She shoots Peter a look that says she completely understands and thinks it’s the pits, remembering feeling like this was the end and she was gonna leave her dad all alone with her brothers. Wouldn’t that be terrible?

“It was really weird when I came out of it and kept getting stuck to things. I broke so much stuff trying to figure out suddenly being hella strong. And eventually having to fake that I wasn’t at all suddenly a superpowered teen girl was so weird. Like, I suddenly wanted to join track because I knew I could, but every else knew that I couldn’t. I was too big a music nerd and never showed much interest in sports to begin with.”

The girl was beginning to get bored. It was a strange feeling. She was very rarely bored. There was always something to do, chores to escape from, rooftops to run on, stalls to rob from. But she had explored everywhere. There was no way out, not that she wanted to go out into that swirl of colours. But she was unused to being inside for so long.

So she had wandered, opening all the doors, studying things more carefully.

She opened the door to the strange long empty room and paused when she saw it wasn't empty at all. There was a girl. The tenth person. The one she hadn't spoken to yet. Gwendolyn.

She was dancing? The girl watched. There was no music, no instruments. But still the girl was dancing, like there were musicians playing just for her. She had seen people dancing before, but not quite like this.

She was dancing, and she was feeling better about life on the train, even if she was aware it was just temporary. Gwen thought that dancing was the best way to work the stress out and as a kid with ridiculous amounts of energy that she needs an outlet for? This was the best bet.

Stopping as she spots the kid, she gives her a wave and wonders briefly if this is the kid Mr Stark told her about.

"Hi. I don't think I've met you yet. I'm Gwen."

"No we did no be meeting yet." Did this woman often forget who she had met? There were only ten of them. It wasn't difficult.

"I did be hearing about you." Gwen, that's what Tony had called her too, a short version of her name.

“From Mr Stark, right? He’s a friend of mine.”

She...might be kinda using that phrase lightly. He’s cool and all, but it’s weird considering an adult her friend. Oh, well.

“He said you were called Buttercup?”

"Yes." To both of those. "He did be dubbing me that." She guessed that meant other people could call her that too, at least it would stop them going scrunchy faced over her lack of name.

"Have you been knowing him a long time?"

"I like it. It makes me think of a princess in a book I used to read. If I ever find a copy, I'll read it to you." It's what she used to do with her little brothers. Even if the three of them could read, Gwen took over book reading when her mother passed away, and it's been part of their Friday night routine, all these years later.

"I met him here. Him and his friend, Peter. They're not from my world."

"I can be reading." She doesn't need things read to her. She's interested in a princess called Buttercup though, princesses have a lot of power and can also eat all the honey cakes they like. It makes the new name Tony had given her even better.

"So you did just be meeting him and he do be being your friend already?" Was that how friends worked? It seemed very quick.

"Oh, I didn't think you couldn't. Most kids your age can. But, sometimes it's fun to let other people do the reading for you. That way, you can imagine what they're saying."

Gwen listens to the next question and kinda shrugs a shoulder. She's not sure. Tony Stark is cool and all, but the Tony Stark in her world is kind of an asshole, so she's occasionally caught worrying they'll be more alike than she prefers. For Peter's sake, she really hopes not.

"I like him. I'm getting to know him. For now, we'll say we're casual friends. Still learning about the other person."

It was fun? Perhaps. Sometimes she had things read to her, in lessons but she didn't find it any more fun than reading things herself.

"Oh." There were levels of friendship? This is news to her. "So you will be getting to be knowing him better and then you will be being not casual friends?"

Sarai was doing her own wandering--unsurprisingly, she'd also been bitten with the boredom bug. She had her bow with her. Normally, she didn't carry it around, but all things considered, she could always practice music with it. Normally it made its own arrows, but she wasn't trusting the magic to carry through into this strange place. She'd have to find wood and glue and arrowheads to make backups just in case, when they stopped. If they stopped. She hoped they stopped, sometime.

She does pause in the doorway when she sees Gwen practicing, torn for just a moment. Does she come in and interrupt, or just find another place? The dance is a bit like ball dancing from home, but not quite, and ballet in and of itself doesn't quite exist on Hydaelyn. But that does sort of decide her.

Sarai stepped inside the door, sat down in a comfortable position, and began to play. It wasn't anything special, just something she thought she'd heard on her travels, but she hoped it wasn't too intrusive...she didn't want to interrupt the girl's practicing.

The second Gwen hears the music, she stops to listen, back towards Sarai and head tilting slightly. It's unusual and pretty, but she doesn't know it well enough to continue. Instead, she turns to find the source, grinning at Sarai.

"That's beautiful. You're really good at that."

Sarai ducked her head a little, somewhere between grinning and blushing back. "Thank you! They say practice makes perfect, and all--but I don't think I'm perfect yet! You're very good, too! I wasn't sure I wanted to interrupt. I'm sorry if I bothered you."

Not that music might be that much of a bother, but. Polite was polite.

“You’re not interrupting at all, I promise. You made my day, honest. I miss music and there’s none on the train anywhere.”

What the fuck kind of nightmare hell train is this? There’s no music. No on board entertainment except for the Gym. It’s a pretty boring, quiet situation and she kinda hates it. 0/10. Would not recommend.

"Other than harp music, but I can give you as much of that as you can handle." So long as it wasn't offensive somehow, Sarai was more than happy to provide. And the fact that she could use her nails and not her actual finger pads? Meant that she could last longer. Sure, eventually her arms would cramp up and she'd need a break, but that wasn't going to happen yet.

"Though I don't know if I know anything you know--it's probably doubtful." And Sarai actually looks pained by that thought.

"Think you can teach me?" Gwen picked up the drums pretty quick, why not the harp? It'd be something to do on the train and she didn't do all that well sitting still. She needed to keep herself entertained.

"I'd love to learn."

"I don't know if our musical notation is the same...but that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to try! Or if you can teach me yours or at least show it to me, see if something translates..."

Sarai just isn't inclined to believe that things will equal out. And the Echo helps only so much, really.

"You might end up getting a bit of history, too, but that's just how I learned--bards just blend music and war and it kind of gets blurred together sometimes! It doesn't mean you have to do that part...just listen to me blab through it!" But Sarai laughed at that.

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You're the Sunflower (ota)

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