48th of Searing, 120 AS
Bright morning light peaked through the shades of the window, a perfect streak of yellow-white that landed right over Bell's closed eyes. Groaning Bell rolled over and tugged the covers higher. A sudden, sharp pain in her back made her hiss and stretch. Every muscle in her body hurt, spasming and contracting for several seconds before finally subsiding enough for the Rathari to blearily blink her eyes open. The night previously she had performed like she hadn't in... perhaps three years? Not since her days with the troupe. It seemed that her body just couldn't handle that level of exertion any longer.
The drinking probably didn't help. she thought, a bit admonishingly. Now that she thought about it her head did hurt a wee bit...
With a sigh Bell rolled onto her stomach, groaning into her pillow as she pushed up onto her elbows and knees. The muscles of her back threatened to spasm again, but with a quick breath in she arched her back, stretching out the muscle before it had a chance to become tight once more. She staid in the bed for a few minutes, wiggling and flexing various parts of her body until the ache in her joints finally drove her to sit up and kick off the covers. As soon as she was free of the blankets she stretched her hands high overhead, yawning wide as her ears flicked from side to side. Her fur shimmered and changed to light pink, darkening slowly to magenta before settling somewhere in the violet range.
Shifting her weight Bell practically rolled out of bed, standing and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Yep, she was sore. There wasn't really much for it. She thought she would be able to just step back into her old routines, but it seemed there was a large gap between what she thought she could do and what her body would allow.
"Well..." her joints cracked as Bell rolled her head from side to side, "I guess it is back to basics. Now what were those stretches again..."
Long ago Reimar thought Bell a routine for the morning and evening to improve strength and flexibility, the two things that an acrobat needed in order to do their basic functions. He had been almost military in his regimen, one time throwing a bucket of cold water onto Bell's sleeping form when she overslept and missed morning stretches. Ever since that night... well, she simply hadn't kept up with the routine. That just wouldn't do any longer though.
She began in a standing position, hands-on-hips as she slowly breathed in and out, deep and even breaths. First thing in the morning, as Reimar had said, this was supposed to help with her blood. Breathing was energy, the energy was carried through the blood to her entire body, and with that energy, she could move more, stretch farther, and reacts faster. Bell wasn't really into the specifics behind her teacher's words but simply accepted them as fact until proven otherwise. Afterall she had seen the results herself, way back when. She kept the breathing going for several minutes, tightening her muscles as she breathed in and then slowly unclenched as she breathed out. After the three minute mark, Bell raised her hand's hight overhead, touching her writs together as she breathed in. Then she bent, breathing out as she slowly bent and reached down to touch her toes. As she did she felt the tightness in her lower back and the backs of her legs become more intense. As a result, she could just barely touch the tips of her toes, a fact that made the dancer frown. She repeated this motion three times more, and finally on the forth she was able to nearly lay her palm flat on the ground, a result closer to what she expected.
She remained bent with her hands touching the ground on the last bend, and instead of straightening she slowly walked her feet backward until she was holding herself up in a pushup position. Again she breathed in, imagining her breath filling her lungs, pulling energy from the air around her, and passing it to the rest of her body. On the outward breath, she lowered herself until she was flat against the floor. Here she paused, repositioning her hands before pushing up once more, but this time instead of going back to the pushup position she kept her hips on the floor and arched her back. A grimace touched her features as her back popped slightly. She held the position for a count of 20, after which she twisted first to the left and then to the right, at each new position she counted to 20 as well.
Again Bell shifted, raising her hip off the ground and walking her feet up until she was sitting on her knees. She breathed in as she straightened her back, raising hands out to her sides as she slowly twisted her spine from left to right, feeling a bit of pleasure as her back poped and some kinks began to work themselves out from her muscles. Breathing out she leaned back, still on her knees, and tried to lay her shoulders on the ground. She could not quite make it, a tightness in her hips and thighs surprising Bell as she had not realized she had allowed her flexibility to wane this much. She tried not to let it get to her, and instead lowered her palms to the floor and counted to 20 before straightening once more.
From the kneeling position, Bell placed her hands on the floor on either side of her legs, pushing and lifting herself up off the ground so that her knees no longer touched the floor. Her arms trembled and a burning sensation was beginning to build in her shoulders and upper arms. Without meaning to her breathing became labored as Bell tried shifting her weight, frowning furiously as she tried to pull her legs completely from underneath her and stretch her legs out in front of her without touching the ground. This SHOULD have been an easy motion for her. She trained for months to get it right in preparation for a particular performance with Reimar. HOW had she let herself get to this point? After several frustrating seconds Bell finally managed to move her knees up to her chest but wasn't able to hold herself any longer and plopped firmly on her backside. Grunting from the impact Bell closed her eyes, rolling backward so that she lay flat on her back.
There was an odd feeling in Bell's chest. Sort of... sharp, and unpleasant. Disappointment? Guilt? Probably a mixture of both.
"What would you think of me if you saw me now?" Bell asked to thin air. Honestly, Reimar would have rung her a new one if he saw the state she had gotten to. He would have called her lazy, a good for nothing slacker, childish, and a variety of other more colorful words. After he gave her a thorough tongue lashing he would have then proceeded to help her through the stretching exercises, giving her as much time as she needed to get through the entire routine without hurting herself. That made Bell think then. He would have been disappointed in her for how far she had let herself fall and grow complacent, but he would have been more disappointed to see her already thinking of giving up.
That feeling in her chest began to appear again, and with a sigh, Bell pushed down her annoyance and set herself to completing what she started. For the next hour, Bell when through a series of increasingly complex stretches. She sat cross-legged and tried to tuck herself into a ball, pulled her legs as high as she could until she felt like her hamstrings would snap. She bent her back into so many pretzels she felt certain that at some point she would get stuck and be unable to stand straight again. She touched her toes, bent her arms in dozens of different directions, pulled on each and every muscle and tendon no matter how small or unnoticeable it was. At the end of it all, she stood, panting as her body trembled with energy and heat from the stretching. Her body felt as if it were ready to burst, and every limb felt as if it had a weight strapped to the end of it.
Bell nodded to herself, tired but for once feeling as if she had done everything she was supposed to do. She had forgotten how that routine had made her feel. It was difficult, painful even, but in the end she felt more energized than if she had drunk some of that dirty water Reimar used to brew in the mornings. Raising a hand to her face Bell flexed each finger in turn, examining the response and the way her body felt with every command.
"It's not perfect... but at least it's a start." She was going to get it back, that level of skill from before Reimar disappeared. Then, when he found her again... Well, for now, she just wanted to be able to dance to her heart's content without feeling like complete rubbish the next day. Future goals could wait until future Bell thought them up.
