Work Text:
relevé: in ballet, a movement in which the dancer rises on the tips of the toes; from French meaning "raised up"
first position
She is five years old, sitting beside an empty seat because she can only see the stage from Aunt Irene’s lap, two tiny hands clasped around the edges of Aunt Irene’s grown-up ones, trying extra hard to sit still because Aunt Irene will know for sure if she fidgets during the show. It’s just so hard to sit still. Seven had sat still throughout Aunt Irene’s insistence that Seven wear a particular dress to the theater today, do her hair a certain way in this tight bun that feels oddly tense at the sides of her face. But Seven likes Aunt Irene even though she is very different from both of Seven’s parents, and Seven is trying to get better at sitting still, because that’s what big girls do.
She has nothing to worry about though, because from the moment the curtain lifts and those first thirteen notes fill the room, Seven stays transfixed, having never sat so still in her life. She watches snowflakes and flowers come to life, people jump higher than she has ever thought possible, and just when she thinks things can’t get any better, a woman clad in rose pink and glitter twinkles across the stage to the tune of an instrument Seven’s never heard before, the epitome of poise and grace.
She also realizes, somewhere of relative unimportance (the most important thing in her whole life is this scintillating, gilded woman twirling before her – alone, alongside her Prince, seeming to soar with pure joy with him together in the air), that this is why she had to sit so long before the show, so that Aunt Irene, following a perhaps glaringly obvious hunch, could dress Seven up in a floofy pink sparkly dress and a ballerina bun, so that she too could participate in the world of magic with sits before her.
Aunt Irene’s hunch pays off. By the end of the dance, Seven has come to love ballet in the most basic way possible. When she leaves the ballet, transfixed, ready to passionately and ardently argue for the right to wear her bun and her floof for the rest of the day and also to bed, Aunt Irene is ready with an offer for Seven and her parents. Aunt Irene will take Seven to ballet classes, with Seven’s parents permission, as long as Seven commits to wearing ballet clothes during the day and not at night when she sleeps.
It is not a hard argument for Aunt Irene to make, because the sight of Seven dizzying herself in pirouette twirls around her parents’ living room is a degree of adorable that everyone has underestimated, including all three grown-ups in the room who have always asserted that Seven is a very cute kid. In fact, the only issue is the timing. Seven’s parents are due to go to deep space on an assignment soon, and they mean to take Seven along with them. That will take a few months, but when they return, Seven can begin ballet classes.
It’s good news but also the kind of news that is not quite fast enough . Seven pouts over having to wait, because yes, she doesn’t mind space. She has been there before. But also, she would, much, much rather be the Sugar Plum fairy, a snowflake, a prince soaring high, high, high in the air, unaided by a spaceship or warp of any kind.
As an act of commiseration, Aunt Irene lets Seven have her afternoon strawberry snack with a bowl of sugar.
“Is this a sugar plum?” asks Seven, waving around the crystal-looking strawberry in the air. The Land of Sweets could use a Strawberry Queen, maybe. Seven could be that queen, someday.
Ideally with less delay.
Aunt Irene chuckles and makes a little gesture to Seven that Seven knows well: Don’t play with your food.
“I’m afraid it’s not, dear. If you do want one, though, it’s kind of like candy, so I’m going to have to ask your parents.”
Seven looks at the sugar. “Isn’t sugar just candy in little little pieces?”
Aunt Irene raises an eyebrow. “Yes, and you’ve had quite a lot already.” Seven pouts again, and Aunt Irene lays a comforting hand on Seven’s shoulder. “I’ll take you to your first class when you come back from space, okay? We can even set it up to go for milkshakes after.”
“Can I bring my Sugar Plum Fairy dress to space?”
Aunt Irene chuckles. “You’ll have to ask your parents, but I can’t really think of a reason why they’d say no. You bring it back in one piece, okay?”
And that’s the last time Aunt Irene sees Seven as a child and a being who is fully human.
Actually, it’ll be years until Aunt Irene sees Seven at all.
second position
When Seven is older, during a particularly comfortable moment for her and Elnor, Seven will admit that she is happy that her story around ballet is just so… normal . It seems to provide a sense of balance for how every single other story she has to tell about herself is so decidedly different . Revolutionary. Groundbreaking.
Downright fucking weird .
She won’t remember this until many years after Voyager, but Unimatrix Zero is a realm of creativity and possibility. There, Seven and select other drones, due to some imperfection, are able to explore who they are and who they want to be.
Axum comes from a culture which practices rhythmic movement on their hands. It takes a few tries, but they have flexibility in Unimatrix Zero that they don’t have in their full drone bodies. Seven watches him lean forward, steady his center of gravity, and extend his legs up. Then, he begins to walk on his hands.
Seven watches him, sitting on a rock, and leans forward so her hands are on her knees. “How is this harder than what I’m trying to show you?”
Axum grins and, with a flourish, floats back to his feet. “Seven, has no one ever told you before that you’re kind of a natural at dancing?”
Seven shakes her head. “In my mind. None of this is real.”
Axum reaches his hands out, and Seven takes them. It feels nice to hold his hands. Drones don’t touch – there is no need for it, and even here, Seven can’t fathom the kind of purpose it would serve – but there is something gratifying about it. “If you can imagine it, it’s real,” he says. “In here, anyway.”
“So I’m good at imagining things.”
“Yeah, that’s the point! A lot of us…struggle. But you…you see what’s possible. It helps all of us move forward.”
Seven sighs, but she can’t help smiling. She squeezes Axum’s hands. “To what end?”
Axum shrugs. “I don’t know, but something feels valuable about a moment of pure creativity, even within a lifetime of being bound to something else.”
Axum doesn’t serve on the same Cube as Seven, Seven’s fairly sure of that. But he has become her friend, a very dear friend.
But now, holding his hands, Seven finds herself wanting more from him somehow. It seems a bit greedy on her part, and that thought somehow makes her flush a bit in her cheeks.
She can tell that Axum wants to ask her what’s wrong, that she’s risking letting her greed show. So she just releases his hands and turns around.
He catches her waist. “Ballet does not come naturally to me,” he says, “but with time, I will become better.”
Seven smiles, stretches out her arms, and in the secure grasp of his hands, rises on pointe and thinks of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her family, her community dancing for joy in a place where they belong.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? Clara had dreamed a dream that seemed so real. That’s all this is: a beautiful, beautiful dream. Clara would wake up, eventually, and so would Seven.
She’ll never admit it to Axum, mostly because she knows that he already knows.
It is beautiful, achingly and breathtakingly so, while it lasts.
third position
After an eternity (because it does feel this way, especially back then with all of her repressed memories turned away from her) spent existing in one mind with others, Seven doesn’t care if Janeway shares what they talk about with other people. It’s just jarring for her to realize that she has the choice to conceal information from people, that there are people who know things about her and people who don’t, and she can exert influence sometimes over who falls into which group.
So, when Seven digs down deep, deep enough to scrape her new and raw insides, to tell Commander Chakotay that she wanted to be a ballerina when she was a child, that that was the only thing she ever wanted to be, that that was the only thing she had time to consider dreaming about being, it’s not that big of a surprise when half the ship knows about it within a few days.
And Seven’s a quick learner, so she understands that, for a crew that seems to laud the value of individuality, they really tend to like participating in coordinated activities together.
Suddenly, there is a ballet class on board – one where a decent portion of the people there appeared to be there because they were told to be, not necessarily because they wanted to be.
But there were plenty of people who wanted to be there. Tom and Harry certainly wanted to be. Tom had taken ballet as a child and remembered all of the basics but would laugh when his body wouldn’t do what he told it to. Harry will try anything once.
What the crew does have going for them is that they’re all Starfleet-fit or something close, and over the next few days, the class does become fairly popular. They hold the class in the holodeck, and Naomi Wildman takes the front row.
Seven knows on some level, as a human, she had wanted ballet for the grace and the fantasy, to fulfill some kind of image she had for herself. Now, as a severed drone, she considers the mechanics of this art form that does seem to be so mechanical. The turning out of the feet, the the leg. The way that she needed to make sure her body made various lines, and learn how that line looked without being able to see it herself.
Perhaps the hardest part. As a drone, she had the benefit of visual input from every other drone. She knew what she looked like from every angle at all times, a tactical advantage. As a person without a reflective surface, she has to learn what feels right in her body, then try to replicate it over and over again in varying conditions.
The Doctor consumes several programs about ballet and comes to the conclusion that he’s a ballet master now. He comes into the class in his leotard and tights, appoints himself leader of the class, and begins to try to emulate the teaching styles of the greats.
B’Elanna, who is only in the class because she lost a bet, points out that it’s a bit strange that he only seems to want to embody the style of the harsh ones.
Seven doesn’t pay much attention to that. She understands what it’s like to be perceived as acerbic and offensive, somethow, even though she is merely clearly stating her intentions in an attempt not to be misunderstood. She has studied the same material as the Doctor, and though it earns her plenty of commentary on how passionate she seems to be about this art form – as if this is some kind of failing on a ship full of people who are supposed to live by the Starfleet culture of speaking and living their passions as loudly, if inconveniently, as possible – that does not stop her from using her biological advantage. She does not need to sleep so much, and so she trains.
Ballet is an exercise in both strength and flexibility. Seven has a lot of strength but very limited flexibility. Even the demi-plié – knee half-bent, spine straight, heels on the ground – is difficult for Seven at first. Her Achilles tendon protests the length required, and Seven sets her jaw, one arm resting on the barre beside her, one arm extended in front, and repeats the position over and over and over again, willing her tendon to lengthen, bit by bit.
She rearranges her schedule to come to the studio an hour before class and to spend an extra hour stretching when most of the human-dominant ship has turned in for their rest cycle.
When no one is looking, she even takes off her heels and stretches her feet, the implant metal making some of the movements feel stuck and piecey. But with time, she’s able to get her leg extension to a precise 91-degree angle.
She plans on not resting until she can get it to 180 degrees.
The Doctor approves Ensign Balea and Crewman Zh’zylyliss to go on pointe and that makes Seven bristle, because the Doctor is continually complimenting her alignment and strength.
When she brings it up, that earns her a stern glance from the Doctor, who does not like to have his authority questioned, especially as part of this new persona he has taken on. That doesn’t deter Seven, though. Increased aggression is often simply a reaction to one’s authority being threatened, not only in front of an individual but in front of everyone else.
It is just the way such exchanges are supposed to go. She pushes. They push back. Doesn’t mean she shouldn’t push.
“Let’s speak after class,” says the Doctor, oddly furtive for someone who otherwise exhibits the Starfleet inclination to take an extremely flexible stance on patient confidentiality.
“You don’t speak to anyone else in private,” says Seven, without missing a beat. “You discipline all of us together. State your issue. The faster you state it, the faster I can improve it.”
Saying this earns her an odd glance from B’Elanna, one that Seven identifies as…admiration? But that cannot be right. She and B’Elanna really don’t get along.
The Doctor clears his throat and settles into character.
“You will never progress further than this, Seven,” says the Doctor.
“On what grounds? I’ve progressed faster than everyone else.”
The Doctor regards Seven with something that looks like a sneer. “Your feet cannot arch. Your ankles are not formed for ballet,” he says. “Honestly, in your case, it’s a miracle I’ve let you go on as far as you can. But going on pointe would be harmful to you.”
“I’ll stretch more. That is where I am weak, but with practice–”
“Not everyone can sing opera,” says the Doctor. “You either have the voice or you don’t. For dance, you either have the body or you don’t.” Seven opens her mouth, but the Doctor is on a roll. He holds up a hand to stop her. “Even if you fixed your flexibility problem and gained the expression it takes to tell a story with your being – you cannot mechanically progress beyond this point in ballet, Seven. I mean, you don’t even dance in the correct shoes.”
Seven knows she looks stricken because she can see her face reflected in the holo-studio’s many walls. She doesn’t know why her face has contorted itself this way. There are many artistic things she may never be able to do because of her time spent in the Collective. She struggles to channel emotion in the way that seems to be necessary for all of these disciplines. It makes sense that ballet would be the same. “Ballet was invented for skin, muscle, and tendon,” she says. “I have metal in my feet.”
The Doctor’s face remains impassive, and Seven begins to think about how he may have asked to see her alone because she can see the discomfort in the expressions of her crewmates. Her deficiency makes them uneasy, apparently.
Tough. She steels herself. “If you saw deficiency in me from the beginning, then why did you let me waste my time here for so long?”
The Doctor blinks. “I thought you knew. You consumed the same material as me – and there are so many different benefits you can take away from dance. Discipline, the ability to work on a team, physical fitness.”
He has a point, but Seven tends to mark all information regarding human physiology in regards to certain activities as irrelevant subject matter. Her physiology does not act human in many ways, so why should she take it under advisement?
She turns on her heel and begins to walk away.
“I have all of those things,” she tells him. “I don’t need this at all.”
When she comes out of regeneration, her eyes are wet, and her hands are heavy, as if she’s held another’s. She touches her waist, where she can feel the grip of…something, even though the stabilizing mechanism of her alcove is several steps behind her now.
But it doesn’t pose a hindrance to any of her activities, so she proceeds with her duties and doesn’t think about it anymore. She certainly doesn’t think about the ballet class when it dissolves mere weeks after she leaves, and she doesn’t think about how, even though she knows she will never use Voyager’s precious replicator to create another pair of ballet shoes (expensive habit – she’s gone through so many), she keeps the pattern with her for years to come. Beyond Voyager, beyond Earth. If there is an opportunity for a replicator, the pattern is in there.
Stupid.
fourth position
Seven hadn’t been surprised to learn that Bjayzl had been a dancer. Many human historical figures had begun as dancers and then extended their careers into politics, business, reconnaissance. It seems that the ability to captivate an audience – to entertain, to distract, to persuade – has a place within many fields.
She’s one of the first people Seven reveals her history with ballet to, after so many years of refusing to even acknowledge it with anyone.
“Really?” says Bjayzl, one perfectly arched eyebrow begging for more, the way she always seems to be able to do without putting in very much effort at all. “I don’t believe you.”
It had been easy, back then, to get Seven to speak way more than necessary by appealing to her inability to do something. Seven would rush to defend herself, to prove herself.
Stupid girl.
It took her too long to learn what Bjayzl had known for years: real power lies within silence, within suggestion.
“Neither did my teachers,” says Seven. “I’m physiologically wrong for it.”
“I don’t believe you either,” says Bjayzl. “Like, you said you had hardware left over but it’s from a long time ago, right? You’ve been able to adapt – beautifully, may I add – in the wake of what’s left behind. A little stretch, a little strain shouldn’t be a big deal for you, huh?”
Seven stands to demonstrate – and then, when Bjayzl claims that she can’t see well enough, Seven rolls up her pants, takes off her tops until only wearing her athletic bra, and shows Bjayzl that while she has no problem supporting triple her body weight, she struggles to get her tendons to flex, even after she warms up.
While it’s nothing Bjayzl hasn’t seen before, this demonstration also gives Bjayzl great insight into Seven’s range of motion around her visible implants.
“You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met,” Bjayzl purrs, and Seven’s blood rises into her cheeks.
Seven looks down at the floor. “Because I can’t do ballet?”
Bjazyl smiles that smile that makes her seem so magnanimous –and Seven feel so small. “Because you just try so hard ,” she says.
“And you never had to try at anything, huh?”
Bjayzl fixes her gaze on Seven’s and, without moving, toes off both of her shoes and sinks down into a split on the floor. “That’s the point of ballet, to show the effect of hard work and never anything else.” When she’s given Seven enough time for her breath to catch in her throat, Bjayzl easily swivels her leg around to join the one in the front. “It’s funny, you know?”
“What?”
“Anika Hansen just sounds like a ballerina name, is all.”
It’s something Seven will learn too late that Bjayzl does best: break her down right before she builds her back up, quietly associate that reclaimed bit of joy with Bjayzl’s words, Bjayzl’s actions, Bjayzl’s body.
Bjayzl smiles, her dark eyes glittering, and Seven shivers even though it is not that cold in this room. “But I like you much, much better the way you are now.”
fifth position
Data liked dancing, so Soji tries dancing. It's the latest stop on her journey to figure out her relationship with her father, now that they all know that he’s up and walking around, yet has not reached out to her first. She’s just cycling through all of the hobbies she knows that he enjoyed, while leaving open the possibility that he actually wants to reach out to her of his own volition, that she doesn’t need to once again put herself out there to be rejected, because galaxy knows she’s had to do that in every single other arena of her known life.
Seven’s used to group dance lessons with Soji, Elnor, and Raffi. Everyone knows that Seven doesn’t really dance, so she gets to sit out most of the time, the rare exception to this thing that’s always been their thing where they try and figure out this particular tranche of their existence together. Even now, with Raffi exonerated in the public’s eyes and Seven’s newest rising star within Starfleet, the four of them fall back into their semi-regular meetups easily. It’s hard to get used to being liked. It’s easier to fall back on the feeling of solidarity they had when they were all the same.
Deep down, perhaps they all still are. Maybe that’s who one really is, the person they are when the universe has turned their back on them.
Anyway, big questions are not the point. The point is to hang out and work on their shared activity, which right now is dancing. Data had liked partner dances, which is something that they all had done before. Elnor needed to learn them in preparation for entering a Federation-type of environment and his time at Starfleet Academy. Seven had needed to practice them to be able to hold her own at diplomatic events. But Data had had a reputation for trying to see how far he could go, as a synthetic being, in the arts. So Soji goes through her jazz era, her tap era, and it’s only a matter of time before–
Seven walks in to see the holo-studio and Raffi, Elnor, and Soji all dressed in leotards, tights, and practice shoes, practicing their extensions at the barre, and she turns around and walks right out of the room.
Later that night, Raffi’s waiting at Seven’s door as Seven pushes through her Starfleet paperwork at double her normal pace.
“I’m busy,” begins Seven.
Raffi considers. “Well, yes, you usually work evenings. But you also worked through the day instead of hanging out with us, so I think you’ve done quite enough for today.”
“I’ll be more available tomorrow,” says Seven, but she pushes away her PADD all the same.
Raffi enters and sits at the chair in front of Seven’s desk. This room is set up to be a sleeping and working room, but Seven has mostly used it to work. They’re using Raffi’s LA apartment because it’s just a little less energy to transport in and out of Starfleet Headquarters if they’re needed, but both of them have been put on light duty as a result of the Battle at Spacedock, and while that doesn’t mean work has stopped for either of them, it does mean that both of them have cushy work-from-home arrangements while everyone tries to make sense of what has happened. “It’s just weird of you to come in and leave like that,” says Raffi. “You want to talk about it?”
“No,” answers Seven, because she doesn’t deserve to talk about it. “It’s not important. Or fair.”
A lot of things aren’t fair, like how she and Raffi are fully sure that Seven’s going to take to space the second things are in order, and Raffi’s probably not going to head back out there for a very, very long time. It’s part of how she’s trying to be here now for her granddaughter and reconcile with her family. It’s part of how Seven is trying to be the leader that so many people have put their faith in – Raffi and Seven’s perished crew members included.
That said, Seven also feels it’s unfair because the reason why the bed in this room is still perfectly made is because she’s been sleeping in Raffi’s since they got here.
“Interesting,” replies Raffi, “but okay.”
She’s all ready to leave Seven to her space, but Seven’s need to satisfy her curiosity wins out. “I didn’t know you’d practiced ballet before.”
Raffi turns around, mouth held open, calculating with her eyes. Finally, she speaks. “How?”
“Your leg extension, no turnout. It's like you knew what to do, had been doing it recently.”
Raffi sits back down, and they share smiles, icicles thawing in the light of the rising sun. “I didn’t know you had either.” Seven waits for her to explain, and after a while, she does. “The only way you would have held onto that information as relevant would have been if you’d spent time actually doing it after being severed. Did it go well for you?”
“No,” says Seven, and Raffi nods like this is information that makes sense to her. “You?”
Raffi shrugs. “I never really wanted to be a dancer. But it was a thing in my family, go into dance, learn how to have this path to express yourself. Learn body awareness, keep up some physical fitness, this kind of thing. But as an art form – it’s destructive, if you do it long-term. I mean today you can perform using the gravitational adjustments and get medical treatment after every rehearsal, but I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I guess I chose different ways to self-destruct.”
“Why are you still doing it with them?”
Raffi shrugs. “Sometimes it’s nice to do things you know you’re never going to be good at. It takes off the pressure of being the best when you’re expected to be the best in other kinds of Starfleet-y arenas. You know that’s why we all like our weird hobbies so much, right?” Seven shakes her head. “I guess hobbies and you have kind of a weird past.”
“They were uh, measurements of being human,” says Seven. Her time spent with the xBs on the Artifact had shown her that there are many ways to perform art – infinite ways, in fact – and limiting oneself to even humans’ seemingly infinite abilities to create may be too limiting for them. “Measurements of lots of things, really.”
Raffi nods. “You know, whole disciplines of dance rose out of a need to explore what was beyond ballet. It was a highly discriminatory art form, even for humans. But listen, I get it – the idea of excelling within a set of very narrowly defined rules – especially when the result is supposed to be the epitome of grace, control, strength, and poise – it’s really attractive. There’s this nearly tangible idea of perfection, and the idea that some people can achieve it with hard enough work? Incredible.”
“What did you want to be when you were younger?” asks Seven. “If not a dancer?”
Raffi considers. “A lot of things,” she says. “A scientist. A researcher. The kind of person who hung out in dark subspace and intersected Ferengi transactions and poured the funds into worlds they’ve robbed. A champion roller skater. A gymnast. A xenobotanist. A cafe owner on Neptune.”
“Why Neptune?”
Raffi shrugs. “It rains diamonds there. I thought it was pretty.”
“I only ever wanted to be this,” says Seven. “Like as a kid.”
“Because you were assimilated so early.” Seven nods. “It’s clearly made an impression on you up until now. What was your first ballet?”
“ The Nutcracker .”
Raffi points to herself. “ Cinderella ,” she says. “My grandmother thought a child should see something with a happy ending."
Seven smiles a little bit, remembering. "My aunt got me this Sugar Plum Fairy dress, the kind that I would never ever wear today, and I didn't even know who she was. And after, I wore that dress for weeks. We actually took it on The Raven when the Borg-"
She falls silent, and Raffi reaches out a comforting hand. "What did you like most about the ballet?”
Seven considers the Sugar Plum Fairy, with her Prince and all of the attendants. “It was magical to watch,” she says. But then she considers a place she hasn’t thought about in a really, really long time, a place where she wasn’t witnessing magic, just creating it. With the firm and devoted hands of a partner she could trust. “It was even better to believe that I could make that happen myself.”
“Well, that makes sense,” says Raffi. “That’s kind of your thing, making magic for other people, hm? You make them feel seen."
Seven thinks that it’s kind of Raffi’s thing to make people feel like they have magic within them to share, but this isn’t the time or place for that. “My body’s not right for it.”
“If it makes you feel any better, ballet, as it was created, was not really supposed to be for people who look like me either,” says Raffi.
And well, yes, Seven does know this, but it’s hard for her to put that knowledge into action, as a person who kind of considers Raffi to be the epitome of strength and – perhaps not a grace that is of ballet , but of grace in general.
“But as the world changed, and people who didn’t look the part continued to push anyway, the art form was forced to accept them. And diversity, like it does in a lot of places, made ballet better. I don’t have to tell you this, because you’re doing that with Starfleet right now.”
“You too,” says Seven, automatically, because it’s a little ridiculous how Raffi still doesn’t seem to grasp that there’s no way Starfleet would have gotten to be on the – better – path it’s on now without her.
Raffi smiles, and Seven knows that Raffi does not really believe her. “But there’s a place for that in everything.”
“Even in stupid hobbies that made an impression on you as a kid?” asks Seven.
“Yeah. Because that impression is information, something you want to live out in your own life. So maybe you don't want to be the epitome of human femme authority and beauty. What else spoke to you?”
Seven chuckles. “This isn't some weird dashed dream. I'm not going to become a dancer. I like where I am."
“Yeah, me too. But maybe it helps put something in you at rest? Because you’re very beautiful, Seven. And it is very sad that there are entire schools of thought about beauty out there that haven’t been able to consider you, because you’re just–”
Seven stands before Raffi can finish, leans over the desk, and kisses her.
It’s the first time the bed gets used, actually, since Seven’s been here.
She stays in bed while Raffi slumbers, even though she wants to shift a little bit. But Raffi has both of Seven's hands softly clasped in hers. Seven waits to move until Raffi turns away naturally in her sleep.
Then, as quietly as she can, she walks to the replicator, newfound clarity fresh and sharp in her mind.
True to her word, Seven greatly reduces her work hours the next day. Completely unobligated to do so, she also shows up to ballet rehearsal and takes Elnor’s side at the barre.
Elnor blinks. “You’re here,” he says. Soji claps her hands to her mouth in happiness, while Raffi shows no reaction beyond a slightly wider smile. She continues her warmup string of tendus . “Will you stay with us the whole time?”
Seven considers the way that she’d felt, afloat, Axum’s hands steadying her, the trust and security present there. How so much of every ballet revolves around a pas de deux , a dance between two that serves to highlight both individuals.
Together, they reach heights that alone, they just cannot.
“Of course,” says Seven. She sits down on the floor and begins to stretch, muscle memory feeding her the lines that her muscles make, the flexibility of ligament which has endured an eternity of assimilation, which has carried her through her liberation. “You and Soji dance as a unit. Raffi needs a partner, doesn’t she? And I’m appropriately strong.”
“Ballet is more than partner dancing. What about the rest of it?” asks Soji. She’s careful these days when she speaks with both Seven and Raffi, as so much of their future seems to be decided and also not.
Seven shrugs and leans to stretch her other hamstring. “Let’s see what’s out there, Soji.”