Ice Dance

This is. She thought. The last performance of tonight's event. The one which will determine who will kiss or cry.

She slowly stepped out onto the ice, her heart beating heavily. The huge audience stared her down, making sure that every single detail of the upcoming performance would be remembered. Including any failures. Her outfit was a long dress, her right shoulder and arm being green and brown, her left shoulder and arm being red, yellow and orange, her stomach and back were white and grey and the bottom part of her dress was blue. The dress had long sleeves, along with a beautifully-decorated collar. Her twinkling blue eyes complimented both her flowing blonde hair and beautiful dress.

She heard her name announced:

“Ladies and gentlemen,” The presenter’s deep voice announced. “Please welcome Molly Carter of the United Kingdom.” As the announcement finished, she moved into his place in the centre of the ice rink, before looking down onto her snow-white skates, waiting for the music to come in. The music chosen for this performance was “Elements” by Lindsey Stirling. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOWVUIbl63k)

Her program began with a Straight Step Sequence, emotion was flowing out of her movements like a river. She began skating faster when the pizzicato intro came in, which made her regret having her hair loose. The steps and turns she used matched in with the music like two puzzle pieces. The audience and the judges could clearly see that she was in control of herself. Her variety of moves was astounding: twizzles, rockers, mohawks, all of them had their very specific place in the sequence, like a recipe. Her use of the ice surface was also amazing; there was not a single part of the rink that she had not covered.

Then, when the bridge slowly came on, she entered into a Camel spin, stretching her body out horizontally and keeping only one skate on the ice. She gracefully performed 5 full rotations before switching to a Layback spin. She pulled her right leg up to her back and leaned her head backwards, so that it looked as if the blade and her head were touching. She spun another 5 rotations, and moved on ahead. She turned her back on her direction of travel and prepared for the chorus.

As the powerful chorus came smashing in, she was lifted into the air from the outside edge of her blade, as if ascending into the Heavens above. In mid-air, she spun four times, before gracefully landing upon the ice surface on the same edge of blade. She smiled as the warm sensation of joy filled her, everyone in the audience cheered as she began skating forwards, preparing herself for another jump.

She threw herself up from the outside edge of her blade and, rotating three times in the air, she harmoniously glided down onto the outside edge of her other foot. However, this didn’t end there. Almost immediately after landing that jump, she thrusted herself up in the air again, this time facing backwards and from her outside edge, and performed another three rotations, before landing upon the same outside edge.

However, the chorus was still not over. She threw her arms in all different directions, bursting with emotion. Her facial expression changed as she went along, but it mostly portrayed either faked sadness, or true happiness, although fatigue could also be found in her expression.

Not soon after that, the second verse came in. She began her Spiral Sequence with Hydroblading. As she started to circle around the centre of the rink, she began closing in on it and before long, she slowly descended towards the ice, keeping one hand in the air, and one hand on the ice. She felt as the cold touch travelled through her body. Soon, she felt she was losing speed, so she instantly picked herself up and moved into an Arabesque Spiral. She lifted her left leg into the air behind her and stretched out her arms, almost as if she was a child pretending to be an airplane. She skated smoothly from one side of the rink to the other, before placing her leg back down onto the ice and moving into a Spread Eagle position. She breathed out calmly and smiled, before quickly accelerating, facing away from the direction of travel. She jumped up again into a Triple Flip and landed with as much grace as ever before. The second bridge was accompanied by a Sit spin, where she crouched down slightly and began spinning energetically. After seven full rotations, she lifted herself up and started skating backwards.

Then, the chorus came in with a bang again, she mimicked this and entered with the hardest jump in her routine: a Quadruple Salchow. She gathered all the strength she had left and launched herself into the air from inside edge of her right blade. She spun three times, before losing time and falling to the ice with a loud thud. However, she didn’t let this overpower her. She lifted herself up exactly a second after the fall and carried on the performance. She still felt her arm throbbing in pain, but she knew that she can’t turn back now. She instantly made up the loss of the last jump with a Triple Lutz, which was followed by a Triple Loop. The two jumps were about five seconds apart. Suddenly, she leaped up, not for a another jump, but for another spin. She bent her spine as far back as she could whilst spinning for five full rotations. She lifted herself up and threw her left leg into the air behind her, whilst lifting up her arms, catching the blade of her left skate in a Biellmann spin. She performed another five rotations and jumped one last time into a second Triple Axel. She landed and spun around quickly to face the judges, before throwing her arms up dramatically. That was when the performance ended.

Author’s Note:

I thought I might test the waters with this one. Feedback is more than welcome! :)