At the a academy, things of course happened. Brita wasn’t there for any of them.
The girl was 17 years old – had not transferred from another school – and still was not a member of any clubs, cliques, or friend groups. In an environment where everyone was raised thinking they were the protagonist of their own story, with the whole world in their grasp – the only daughter of the O’Cahan family was just there. A known quantity. She short one with a bum eye who ran off to some unknown foreign contortion coach after class.
Some times she even skipped class. Not for an international vacation, not for some expensive medical procedure to give her better vision, not because family business demanded her presence. Just to go show off in some peasant demonstration or something.
It might be more respectable if the family maintained a personal coach, but no.
She might have become some cliques’ pet, but again, no.
She paid attention to everybody, regardless of if it was to her benefit. That was the first betrayal, not subjecting yourself to the mutually assured destruction of companionship. The girl acted like she had nothing to lose.
It was as a stray animal that the other students occasionally saw Brita twisting in her chair. Better suited for rolling around in the grass outside, sniffing it’s own ass – though at least she knew not to do that. The rest could be ignored, but it really was pointless to try discouraging it.
~
The teachers who looked over this land of hyperbole were constantly reminded by their shrinks that every experience has to have a first time. That of course the children expected their lives to have the same dramatics that the rich and powerful are assigned on television, or some viral post.
~
It really didn’t matter what Brita did. They were a bit too well trained in the Victorian style of ignoring everything. She couldn’t make a scene happen in this dump. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was explicitly written as a student – she would so skip this place. Maybe stay locked in absolution all day at the O’Cahan McMansion, letting the constant shower wash away the blood of her experiments. Her ‘drowning’ wasn’t nearly dramatic enough yet. And trying to practice in public – well. Then she’d have to let it stick, wouldn’t she. One could not simply remake a body that the narrative recorded as dead without the narratives guidance. St least in a locked, unobserved bathroom she could practice for whatever could end this role.
Getting ready in the mornings, the servants still humored her. It was good that their characters were written to realize a reaction was wanted… though they might have been running out of written material they repeated themselves.
She really wished she could ask these other muses if there was any offstage area anywhere around – but this would completely be violating the narrative, of course. She certainly didn’t want to risk starting over again. Dealing with memories of a failed story – horrible. horrible. And that assumed it only happened once.
~
Today the diversion was wearing her uniform’s blazer backwards. Not Brita’s first time, but it had been months. The blouse would have to match it – buttoning it up behind her back was almost a non-issue, save for the top button. The arms took a moment to work out their approach there.
The leggings and skirt were fine in normal positions. Tucking in the blouse, though – She had been working on her uddiyana – stomach vacuum – during class, as a way to make her backbend look more severe instead of its usual preparation for nauli kyria. At the expense of shallow breathing, her organs pulled up under her ribcage, and twisting along her length, the remaining abdominal and back muscles starter to wrap around her spine like a maypole.
As trained, she wasn’t going all the way she could go, just far enough to bring her arse in alignment with her sternum. Now the blouse could tuck in, and now she could start to breathe a bit deeper.
Now it was just about realigning her neck – it’s own twist was noticeable, hooking her chin over her shoulder, as close to center as a skeleton could naturally manage, but still off. But this was not an exercise in going unnoticed – eventually someone had to realize her thumbs were on the wrong side of her hands, that her left and right had swapped places. This was an exercise in teenage drama.
And then it was presenting herself to Madam Clara. The woman – who knows if she was once a governess or merely a maid in charge of getting the child ready in the morning – jumped when she tried to fix the girl’s collar.
“Must you?” Clara’s voice was resigned. She didn’t need to go over penalties of class disruptions, or what Mr. or Mrs. O’Cahan might see fit to do if they received a call.
Brita’s only response was opening the the back door – with a backwards hand and an awkward elbow – for herself.
” At least you wasn’t driving like that -” and Clara drove her to the academy. At least this meant nobody had to go pick up a forgotten vehicle from the school lot, as the girl skipped off to her after school folding sessions.
~
And nobody cared enough to make a scene. There were definite test though the day – students had figured out she was twisted up – and she had pretty much confirmed it with a liquid lunch. But no questions, and only three attempts to ascertain which direction was twisting further – which of course she could twist further, turning to either side like she would normally addressing a person.
She couldn’t start the scene explicitly. The good student couldn’t. So there was no scene.
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