Post by Selena Frost on Nov 5, 2022 13:30:54 GMT -5
“Fright of Passage”
Selena had dealt with fear. From the people of Nome during her childhood to men/women twice her size/strength promising to ‘destroy her’ in wrestling, she fought back those feelings every day, refusing to give in to them. Even so, she could not recall a time that she felt so uneasy… and it wasn’t even for herself!
Casting sapphire eyes down, she spied the shreds of paper in her lap, the one-page program for tonight reduced to a pile of scraps. She could barely hear the murmurs of the parents around her, occupying the same cheap, black-plastic chairs that filled the gymnasium. It had been her neighbours like the Grays that had recommended the PS 290 Manhattan New School when she and Deanna had first moved to Manhattan. The Grays’ daughter, Asuna, was in the same school as Elsianna and the two were good friends. Unlike Selena, however, they showed no signs of nervousness from where they sat nearby. Rather, they seemed both calm, even if Selena needed to study their vampire-makeup to catch their expressions.
With Halloween a few days away, the parents had been asked to attend the show in costume. A variety of colors/fabrics filled the room, from pirates to princesses. As for herself, Selena gazed down at her attire: purple plaid pants, matching vest, navy dress shirt and a dark purple coat. With Deanna’s costume of a “Weeping Angel” being too cumbersome and hard to put on (not to mention a few of the families politely requesting a change in costume), the Frosts had opted for Deanna to wear Selena’s costume as the thirteenth Doctor Who, leaving Selena to provide a makeshift version of ‘The Master’. It served the purpose. Besides, Selena no longer cared what others thought of her appearance…
Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the small hand reaching out to take hers, a kind laugh whispering against her ear. “You’re more nervous than Elsianna.” Deanna murmured, giving Selena’s hand a light squeeze.
“I am.” The Snow Queen sighed, feeling her breath stagger its way out, refocusing to the blue curtains of the stage in front.
“I’m surprised they got a play together so quickly.” Deanna whispered, keeping Selena’s hand in hers.
The platinum-blonde nodded. She wasn’t sure which teacher had been put in charge of the school plays, but they had chosen ‘Frankenstein’ for the fall season. She remembered Elsianna running home that day, beyond excited. How many times had Selena read that story to her before bed, starting with the ‘Illustrated Classics/abridged’ version before Elsianna turned eight and begged her to read the full version? In fact, every year in the weeks leading to Halloween, Elsianna asked to be read the story of Frankenstein and/or Dracula. And if that had been all, then Selena would have been fine.
But Elsianna had been cast as Victor Frankenstein! Whether the teacher had made the call or the school had wanted some good PR, it had not mattered. Elsianna had immediately dived into the show with Selena, the two working on the child’s lines whenever the Frosts returned from an SCW show. Deanna had worked on the costume – something each child’s parent had been asked to do – and she couldn’t wait to see it on their daughter-
Selena’s heart leapt into her throat as the teacher/director, Mrs. Fallowfield, walked onto the stage, the large woman in her white ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ costume/wig giving a short introduction. The wrestler forced herself to inhale/exhale deeply to calm her rapidly-beating heart. It wasn’t until she heard the applause that she gazed back at the stage, seeing Fallowfield leave before the curtains opened, revealing a painted backdrop of a laboratory with test-tubes, levers and dials – it looked like a mad-scientist’s lab!
And there, standing center-stage… was her little snowflake.
“There she is!” Deanna whispered joyfully, squeezing Selena’s hand. “Look how amazing she looks.”
Biting her lower lip, Selena nodded, but her breathing didn’t relax. Her mind was already racing, reciting the very first line of this adaptation. November, 1792, 1:15 am… the first signs of animation… “Come on, sweetheart…” she whispered softly. She watched Elsianna, in her long-coat, green shirt and black pants, open her mouth but then immediately close it. The child tried again but couldn’t manage to get a sound out. She tried once more but managed only a faint squeak before suddenly running off stage, disappearing into the wings!
Immediately, a murmur came through the crowd, some parents wondering what was going on while others were already guessing.
“Oh no…” Deanna breathed, her previous joy morphed into concern for her daughter. “Poor Elsi-“
“I knew this was a mistake!” came the scoff from behind. It belonged to their most disliked neighbour, Leslie Sanderson, the only person that had not been pleased that Elsianna had been given the lead. “I told them to give the role to my Willy-bear!”
The remark burned Selena’s ears, the Snow Queen jumping up to her feet, sending her paper-scraps cascading to the floor. Spinning around to eye the woman, she was instantly grateful that she hadn’t sat behind Leslie and the massively large, flower-embroidered hat she wore.
“What did you say?” Selena asked, eyes narrowing.
Leslie stammered, not realizing who had been sitting two rows ahead. “I…I said…”
“What did you mean when you said that?” Selena pressed, Deanna moving beside her wife.
“I…” Leslie stammered. “I just called them to suggest that someone with more talent and maturity and skill – because I taught him! I did Shakespeare all through college!” she desperately tried to explain.
“And you think our daughter wasn’t good enough?” Deanna asked knowingly.
“Well…she did just bail, didn’t she?” Leslie replied with a growingly smug smirk and shrug.
Taking a slow breath, Selena pushed herself out of the row and marched out of the auditorium, hanging a left and down the hall to where she knew the ‘stage-exits’ were. She soon spotted Mrs. Fallowfield standing outside the nearby washrooms that doubled as ‘change-rooms’ for the cast. Turning her head, the large woman spied Selena. “Oh, Mrs. Frost.” She sighed in relief. “Elsianna…”
“I saw. Where is she?”
“In the bathroom…” Fallowfield gestured, allowing Selena to walk into the average-sized bathroom. She ignored the off-blue color and wall-carvings made by some troubled-youths, and instead focused on finding her daughter.
“Elsianna…” she called out. “Please come out-“ she barely got the words out when she heard a sniffle come from the change-area. And sitting on one of the long benches, her arms wrapped around her knees…
“I can’t…” she heard Elsianna whimper. “I can’t remember my lines.”
“Yes, you can.” Selena whispered, moving over to sit beside the nine-year old, wrapping her arms around her. “You’ve done it dozens of times in front of me and mom.”
The child shook her head. “Not like this. Not in front of all those people.” Selena could hear the cries in her daughter’s voice. Biting her lower lip, Selena nodded her head, slowly releasing her daughter and moving off the bench to kneel before her.
“Look at me.” She gently urged, earning Elsianna’s blue-eyed gaze. “I’m not going to say it’s going to be easy to go out there. You might mess up and, yeah, people are going to judge you one way or another. They may like you, they may not.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you like you.”
She took a slow breath. “When I started wrestling, I thought that people wouldn’t want me there. Wouldn’t hire me. Wouldn’t give me a chance. And I was so scared… There were days that I didn’t believe I could do it either. When I was in love with your mom, I thought she’d want nothing to do with me. Then when we were dating, I thought I wasn’t ever going to be good enough for her. Then when we got married, I thought I would mess up and she’d hate me. When I won the world title for the first time, I thought I didn’t deserve it. Then I thought I’d mess it up. Then when I did mess up, I thought I’d never get another chance. Do you get what I am saying?”
She saw Elsianna shake her head, eyes still releasing a few tears.
“I’m saying that time and time again, I felt that same fear. And I wanted to just run away from it all. I wanted to just hide in a room like this. But you can’t, Elsianna!” she urged. “Because then you’ll spend your whole life running from any trouble, any challenge, anything worthwhile in this world! Love, happiness, success. They have to be fought for! No one is going to hand them to you. I wish I could! Gods, I wish I could but I can’t. Neither can Deanna. You have to come out of hiding and fight for what you want. What you believe in!”
She kept her eyes on her daughter. “I spent so many years hiding from the world because I felt I wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t worth anything. And my biggest regret in life isn’t that I failed or got beat by wrestlers or lost titles. It’s that I wasted so much of my life hiding in Nome when I should have fought back, like you need to do now.”
She heard her daughter whimper a little, her small frame wracked with sobs. “Look at me, Elsianna.” The older woman encouraged once more. “November, 1792, 1:15am…” she started, seeing her daughter’s eyes widen. “The first signs of animation…” her voice trailed off.
She watched Elsianna take a shaky breath. “Pulse…weak but steady… it’s alive… it’s alive.” She finished the line, sniffling a little.
With a nod, Selena reached out, gently wiping the tears from Elsianna’s eyes with her thumbs. “You know the lines. But how much do you want this? How much are you willing to fight for it?”
She stayed there for a moment, watching her daughter until Elsianna took a deep breath and pushed herself off the bench. As if to prevent herself from changing her mind, the child marched out of the room, past Mrs. Fallowfield and through the backstage door. Selena quietly followed until she stood in the wings of the stage. Through the gaps in-between the curtains, she saw the audience suddenly grow quiet once more as Elsianna took center-stage.
“No…No…” she stammered, turning her head to the wings before seeing her mother. “November, 1792, 1:15 am… The first signs of animation…” she gulped, moving around the space. “Pulse, weak but steady…it’s alive.” She cried out, “IT’S ALIVE!”
Perhaps for support, the audience erupted into an applause, catching Elsianna off-guard, the child casting her eyes out to the crowd, but a smile forming on her face. Selena smiled, clapping with the audience. She remained there, out of the way, and watched as the play unfolded. Watched her daughter fight a monster-creature and her own demon at the same time. And when the last line was spoken, that of the Creature (played by Asuna), who carried Elsianna offstage, the crowd erupted into cheers. Immediately, Elsianna was out of Asuna’s arms and running into her mother’s embrace. “I did it!” she cried out. “I did it!”
“Yes, you did.” Selena beamed, but quickly ushered her back on stage. “But go on! They want you to take a bow!” she laughed, watching Elsianna’s nerves return as the child shyly walked towards the audience and gave a small bow with the rest of the cast. Seeing the audience, Selena saw them on their feet and applauding all their children and- she almost laughed as she watched Deanna throw something - were those the paper scraps from Selena’s program? – into the air, creating little snowflakes that fell.
“Keep fighting, snowflake.” Selena whispered proudly as she watched her daughter bow again with her fellow students. “Keep fighting…”
Selena had dealt with fear. From the people of Nome during her childhood to men/women twice her size/strength promising to ‘destroy her’ in wrestling, she fought back those feelings every day, refusing to give in to them. Even so, she could not recall a time that she felt so uneasy… and it wasn’t even for herself!
Casting sapphire eyes down, she spied the shreds of paper in her lap, the one-page program for tonight reduced to a pile of scraps. She could barely hear the murmurs of the parents around her, occupying the same cheap, black-plastic chairs that filled the gymnasium. It had been her neighbours like the Grays that had recommended the PS 290 Manhattan New School when she and Deanna had first moved to Manhattan. The Grays’ daughter, Asuna, was in the same school as Elsianna and the two were good friends. Unlike Selena, however, they showed no signs of nervousness from where they sat nearby. Rather, they seemed both calm, even if Selena needed to study their vampire-makeup to catch their expressions.
With Halloween a few days away, the parents had been asked to attend the show in costume. A variety of colors/fabrics filled the room, from pirates to princesses. As for herself, Selena gazed down at her attire: purple plaid pants, matching vest, navy dress shirt and a dark purple coat. With Deanna’s costume of a “Weeping Angel” being too cumbersome and hard to put on (not to mention a few of the families politely requesting a change in costume), the Frosts had opted for Deanna to wear Selena’s costume as the thirteenth Doctor Who, leaving Selena to provide a makeshift version of ‘The Master’. It served the purpose. Besides, Selena no longer cared what others thought of her appearance…
Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the small hand reaching out to take hers, a kind laugh whispering against her ear. “You’re more nervous than Elsianna.” Deanna murmured, giving Selena’s hand a light squeeze.
“I am.” The Snow Queen sighed, feeling her breath stagger its way out, refocusing to the blue curtains of the stage in front.
“I’m surprised they got a play together so quickly.” Deanna whispered, keeping Selena’s hand in hers.
The platinum-blonde nodded. She wasn’t sure which teacher had been put in charge of the school plays, but they had chosen ‘Frankenstein’ for the fall season. She remembered Elsianna running home that day, beyond excited. How many times had Selena read that story to her before bed, starting with the ‘Illustrated Classics/abridged’ version before Elsianna turned eight and begged her to read the full version? In fact, every year in the weeks leading to Halloween, Elsianna asked to be read the story of Frankenstein and/or Dracula. And if that had been all, then Selena would have been fine.
But Elsianna had been cast as Victor Frankenstein! Whether the teacher had made the call or the school had wanted some good PR, it had not mattered. Elsianna had immediately dived into the show with Selena, the two working on the child’s lines whenever the Frosts returned from an SCW show. Deanna had worked on the costume – something each child’s parent had been asked to do – and she couldn’t wait to see it on their daughter-
Selena’s heart leapt into her throat as the teacher/director, Mrs. Fallowfield, walked onto the stage, the large woman in her white ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ costume/wig giving a short introduction. The wrestler forced herself to inhale/exhale deeply to calm her rapidly-beating heart. It wasn’t until she heard the applause that she gazed back at the stage, seeing Fallowfield leave before the curtains opened, revealing a painted backdrop of a laboratory with test-tubes, levers and dials – it looked like a mad-scientist’s lab!
And there, standing center-stage… was her little snowflake.
“There she is!” Deanna whispered joyfully, squeezing Selena’s hand. “Look how amazing she looks.”
Biting her lower lip, Selena nodded, but her breathing didn’t relax. Her mind was already racing, reciting the very first line of this adaptation. November, 1792, 1:15 am… the first signs of animation… “Come on, sweetheart…” she whispered softly. She watched Elsianna, in her long-coat, green shirt and black pants, open her mouth but then immediately close it. The child tried again but couldn’t manage to get a sound out. She tried once more but managed only a faint squeak before suddenly running off stage, disappearing into the wings!
Immediately, a murmur came through the crowd, some parents wondering what was going on while others were already guessing.
“Oh no…” Deanna breathed, her previous joy morphed into concern for her daughter. “Poor Elsi-“
“I knew this was a mistake!” came the scoff from behind. It belonged to their most disliked neighbour, Leslie Sanderson, the only person that had not been pleased that Elsianna had been given the lead. “I told them to give the role to my Willy-bear!”
The remark burned Selena’s ears, the Snow Queen jumping up to her feet, sending her paper-scraps cascading to the floor. Spinning around to eye the woman, she was instantly grateful that she hadn’t sat behind Leslie and the massively large, flower-embroidered hat she wore.
“What did you say?” Selena asked, eyes narrowing.
Leslie stammered, not realizing who had been sitting two rows ahead. “I…I said…”
“What did you mean when you said that?” Selena pressed, Deanna moving beside her wife.
“I…” Leslie stammered. “I just called them to suggest that someone with more talent and maturity and skill – because I taught him! I did Shakespeare all through college!” she desperately tried to explain.
“And you think our daughter wasn’t good enough?” Deanna asked knowingly.
“Well…she did just bail, didn’t she?” Leslie replied with a growingly smug smirk and shrug.
Taking a slow breath, Selena pushed herself out of the row and marched out of the auditorium, hanging a left and down the hall to where she knew the ‘stage-exits’ were. She soon spotted Mrs. Fallowfield standing outside the nearby washrooms that doubled as ‘change-rooms’ for the cast. Turning her head, the large woman spied Selena. “Oh, Mrs. Frost.” She sighed in relief. “Elsianna…”
“I saw. Where is she?”
“In the bathroom…” Fallowfield gestured, allowing Selena to walk into the average-sized bathroom. She ignored the off-blue color and wall-carvings made by some troubled-youths, and instead focused on finding her daughter.
“Elsianna…” she called out. “Please come out-“ she barely got the words out when she heard a sniffle come from the change-area. And sitting on one of the long benches, her arms wrapped around her knees…
“I can’t…” she heard Elsianna whimper. “I can’t remember my lines.”
“Yes, you can.” Selena whispered, moving over to sit beside the nine-year old, wrapping her arms around her. “You’ve done it dozens of times in front of me and mom.”
The child shook her head. “Not like this. Not in front of all those people.” Selena could hear the cries in her daughter’s voice. Biting her lower lip, Selena nodded her head, slowly releasing her daughter and moving off the bench to kneel before her.
“Look at me.” She gently urged, earning Elsianna’s blue-eyed gaze. “I’m not going to say it’s going to be easy to go out there. You might mess up and, yeah, people are going to judge you one way or another. They may like you, they may not.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you like you.”
She took a slow breath. “When I started wrestling, I thought that people wouldn’t want me there. Wouldn’t hire me. Wouldn’t give me a chance. And I was so scared… There were days that I didn’t believe I could do it either. When I was in love with your mom, I thought she’d want nothing to do with me. Then when we were dating, I thought I wasn’t ever going to be good enough for her. Then when we got married, I thought I would mess up and she’d hate me. When I won the world title for the first time, I thought I didn’t deserve it. Then I thought I’d mess it up. Then when I did mess up, I thought I’d never get another chance. Do you get what I am saying?”
She saw Elsianna shake her head, eyes still releasing a few tears.
“I’m saying that time and time again, I felt that same fear. And I wanted to just run away from it all. I wanted to just hide in a room like this. But you can’t, Elsianna!” she urged. “Because then you’ll spend your whole life running from any trouble, any challenge, anything worthwhile in this world! Love, happiness, success. They have to be fought for! No one is going to hand them to you. I wish I could! Gods, I wish I could but I can’t. Neither can Deanna. You have to come out of hiding and fight for what you want. What you believe in!”
She kept her eyes on her daughter. “I spent so many years hiding from the world because I felt I wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t worth anything. And my biggest regret in life isn’t that I failed or got beat by wrestlers or lost titles. It’s that I wasted so much of my life hiding in Nome when I should have fought back, like you need to do now.”
She heard her daughter whimper a little, her small frame wracked with sobs. “Look at me, Elsianna.” The older woman encouraged once more. “November, 1792, 1:15am…” she started, seeing her daughter’s eyes widen. “The first signs of animation…” her voice trailed off.
She watched Elsianna take a shaky breath. “Pulse…weak but steady… it’s alive… it’s alive.” She finished the line, sniffling a little.
With a nod, Selena reached out, gently wiping the tears from Elsianna’s eyes with her thumbs. “You know the lines. But how much do you want this? How much are you willing to fight for it?”
She stayed there for a moment, watching her daughter until Elsianna took a deep breath and pushed herself off the bench. As if to prevent herself from changing her mind, the child marched out of the room, past Mrs. Fallowfield and through the backstage door. Selena quietly followed until she stood in the wings of the stage. Through the gaps in-between the curtains, she saw the audience suddenly grow quiet once more as Elsianna took center-stage.
“No…No…” she stammered, turning her head to the wings before seeing her mother. “November, 1792, 1:15 am… The first signs of animation…” she gulped, moving around the space. “Pulse, weak but steady…it’s alive.” She cried out, “IT’S ALIVE!”
Perhaps for support, the audience erupted into an applause, catching Elsianna off-guard, the child casting her eyes out to the crowd, but a smile forming on her face. Selena smiled, clapping with the audience. She remained there, out of the way, and watched as the play unfolded. Watched her daughter fight a monster-creature and her own demon at the same time. And when the last line was spoken, that of the Creature (played by Asuna), who carried Elsianna offstage, the crowd erupted into cheers. Immediately, Elsianna was out of Asuna’s arms and running into her mother’s embrace. “I did it!” she cried out. “I did it!”
“Yes, you did.” Selena beamed, but quickly ushered her back on stage. “But go on! They want you to take a bow!” she laughed, watching Elsianna’s nerves return as the child shyly walked towards the audience and gave a small bow with the rest of the cast. Seeing the audience, Selena saw them on their feet and applauding all their children and- she almost laughed as she watched Deanna throw something - were those the paper scraps from Selena’s program? – into the air, creating little snowflakes that fell.
“Keep fighting, snowflake.” Selena whispered proudly as she watched her daughter bow again with her fellow students. “Keep fighting…”