Arrogance (thoughts/comments/suggestions/advice appreciated)

I'm completely well now. No longer helping with the kachinas-in-training, though. I thought I'd be glad about that, but it turns out I miss the little cretins, even that brat who would never do anything right.

Thanks, SAge, for saying that in the comment. Do try telling that to the others. *looks grim* They seem completely irritated with my skill. Just because I dance better than they do does not mean I'm trying to make them look inferior. Even if they are.

Alright, I'll admit that last sentence might have been out of line. But one can put up with this sort of thing for only so long. Flicker has started ignoring me, and Sparkle is constantly trying to show me up. She can't, and she usually ends up looking foolish trying. Her loss.

Flare is always making snide remarks about me. Everything that comes out of her mouth is designed to bring me down. She disguises the spite by saying she's joking, but everyone knows she isn't. At first it just surprised me, then it hurt me, now it's just getting old. At the very least she needs some NEW insults. She's resulted to recycling .

Firefly is most irritating of all. She turns everything into a lesson on pride. She thinks she's being incredibly clever and subtle, but it's ridiculous. We'll walk into a room with a beautiful tapestry and she'll say things like, "Hmm, I bet this thread in the middle thinks it's better than the ones on the edges."

I like to irritate her back by missing her point: "Well, threads can't really think..."

Or make my own point: "But I guess if threads could think, the middle thread would probably think itself better. Seeing how it's in the middle, the center of the entire design, the focal point of the entire room, the most beautiful thread in the whole piece. I guess it has a right to think itself better."

Even Coal seems glad I'm getting a hard time. He inserts his own mocking comments whenever possible, and readily laughs at Flare's insults. What a traitor.

Comet is the only one who understands. She doesn't seem to think it's such a crime to be a better dancer.

If this is some stupid ploy to bring me down and make me realize my "faults", it won't work. I can swear that to you. If I'm anything at all, it's stubborn.

Now, I understand that I come across as very arrogant. I understand that. But why can't anyone under stand me? IT'S NOT ARROGANCE IF IT'S TRUE! I am a better dancer! I am better than the others! No, that doesn't give me a license to brag, but it doesn't mean I have to pretend to be on their skill level!

Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I see we have a new follower. Welcome, Cowgirls.

Coward

I know it's been another long time. I'm sorry. I'm still not sure what's going on the Palace. I've been doing too much talking and not enough doing. I've got to really start snooping.

Coal and Blaze have been back for a few weeks now. They're so different. Whatever is amiss in the Palace is making them act strangely. Coal is back, but it's almost like he's still not here. He doesn't look at us kachinas, talk to us, even smile at us anymore. And there's some new sparktress slave who's after him. I don't know what happened to him in Brightwood, but he's different and horrible. I haven't even attempted to ask him what's going on. I'm sure he wouldn't tell me, if he even answered me at all.

I got upset at a little kachina-in-training last week. She was being unbearably defiant and telling me I was dancing wrong.

Yes, she said that to me. After four hours of her rubbing on my nerves, her accusing me of dancing wrong was the last straw. I ended up yelling at her and making her stay after training to do extra conditioning. No one much cared (except her, of course), but now we're apparently mortal enemies. The little seven-year-old is making my life miserable. She talks constantly during training, refuses to do steps right, and her form is so terrible even Coal could see it! If she ever wants to get anywhere as a kachina, she had better improve awfully quickly. I'm not sure she knows what happens to unless kachinas...I'm not even sure I know...

Tensions, tensions, tensions. I'm curious, but also cowardly. I never thought of myself as being cowardly before, but the idea of actually sneaking around the Palace spying makes my stomach knot. I've no idea what would happen to me if I were caught. I'm sure I don't want to find out...

I'm such a miserable, impatient coward. As usual, any and every comment is welcome.

Determined

It's been a long time yet again. I'm sorry.

Coal and Blaze not back yet, but they should be back within the week. Hooray! I haven't gotten used to his not being around. I miss him.

There is a growing sense of discontent in the Palace. Everyone can feel it, no one can pin-point why or when it started. Executions of peasants are coming at an absolutely alarming rate. Every couple of weeks someone is executed. The spies are poking into everything, in the Palace as well as the village. I've completely given up on keeping a journal, this blog is all I have now. Nothing is secret, nothing is safe.

I can't figure it out. I haven't heard any talk against the Fire Lord lately any more than I have before. Everyone respects and fears him as always. There doesn't seem to be a reason for all the sneaking around and knotting stomachs.

I must assume then that the Fire Lord is doing a remarkable job of keeping the issue secret. Something must be wrong. Unease, executions, and unexplain arrests don't just happen, there's a reason. What's going on?

I know it isn't my business.
I know I should pry into the Fire Lord's affairs.
I know these things are best left to spies and soldiers.
I know good sparktresses don't meddle in things like this.
I know I've been raised better than this.
I know.
I know.
I KNOW.

But I'm curious. Maybe that's a bad thing, maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's just a thing. But I'm going to get to the bottom of all this ridiculous strife if it kills me.

Kachina Assisant?

I've been admitted back into kachina training to help the newbies. I am so upset. Instead of graduating out of the every day classes, now I have to go down to the lower level classes and teach little sparktresses how to do silly little things like splits and...well, let me use Earth terms for the other things, or you won't know what I'm talking about (although if you don't know much about dancing, you might not know what I'm talking about anyway).

Today, we worked on simple adagio routines, and one allegro. One poor sparktress (Scarlet) could not get her feet to land correctly in her fouette turns, and Blazette couldn't even do a proper pas de chat.

I don't know why I've been asked to help teach the younger ones, I'm certainly no more patient than the other. Actually, I'm sure I'm less patient. Firefly ought to be stuck teaching the brats, not me!

I grumbled about this to Firefly, and she huffily pointed out the I actually like being a kachina.

This is true.

I do like being a kachina. If I didn't dance, I don't know what I'd do. Dancing is the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, I suppose it's the only thing that's ever happened to me. I don't remember life before coming to the Palace hardly at all, and I've been told I started kachina training within a week of my arriving here (along with Flare and Firefly, my sparktresslings [sisters]). I suppose the Fire Lord saw a potential dancer in me and set me to learning the ropes right away.

Kachina training was hard from the beginning. Awake a 5am, begin training at 6am. Two hours of intense cardiovascular exercise (building endurance), and hour of stretching and flexibilty, two hours of toning and strength-building exercises, an hour of learning terms, break for the noon meal. Then two hours of education on fire streamers and how to get the colors and temperatures right. An hour of technique and general form, and the ten-hour day ended with a final hour of cardiovascular exercise.

Needless to say, by age seven, four years later, I could:

1. Do 1000 hundred sit-ups in a row without cramping
2. Do a 300 push-ups before I broke a sweat
3. Run around the entire Palace fifty times before I was even winded
4. Tell you how hot a fire strand needed to be for its coloring to be bluish-green
5. Walk across the training room on my hands
6. Do backflips, forward flips, dive rolls, and back hand-springs
7. Tell you precisely what an assemble croise derriere was

All of the above things were on the kachina examination I had to pass before age 8.

And I still love dancing.

Yes, I guess Firefly's right. Perhaps I am the best one for the trainer assistant job.

Chaos! Catastrophe!

This is exactly what Flame looks like, only he's obviously not in an iceland, but more like fireland and he doesn't wield a giant snow ax...

I apologize for not posting recently, but Palace life has just been one catastrophe after another.

Catastrophes:

1. Comet got very sick (she's doing alright now).
2. Three more peasants (two humans, one fire fairy) were executed.
3. The Fire Lord got sick.
4. Star Dancer got sick.
5. Flare got sick.
6. A stable sparker asked Flicker if she would court him (we had to say no on her behalf because she was speechless).
7. I got beaten twice in one day, first by the Fire Lord, then by Flame. I might have deserved Flame hurling fireballs at me, though. I did tell his sparktress-friend some things best left unsaid...*grins mischeivously*
8. Coal and Blaze got deported to Brightwood to spy for a while.
9. Life without Coal is horrible.
10. Asher got sick.

Some sort of plague is breaking lose in Furier. It's not deadly, just makes its victim bedridden for a couple of days. So far Flicker, Firefly and I are the only sparktresses in the Palace that haven't contracted it.

Having Coal gone is worse than we all thought it would be. I miss him just coming by and joking with us, and I especially missed him when Flame was chasing me through the halls of the Palace...

So, over all, life is not doing me any favors. Everyone is either in a bad mood or getting sick.

Thanks for reading, hope your lives are going better than mine.

Ideas, Please!

Things have been both usual, and unusual of late.

Sparkle has been too energetic and irritating, Flicker has been spineless and irritating, Comet has been basically invisible, Flare has been getting louder and louder, Firefly has been fine, and I've been restless and paranoid about being the perfect kachina. Basically, things have been perfectly normal.

The Fire Lord told us he fears we've been growing slack in our kachina practices and he wants to see improvement within the week. Never mind that we're the best kachinas out there (as far as we know), he wants better. How can we get better than the best? We're all in perfect shape and look it, too, except Sparkle, who always looks like she could be thinner. Just the other day we took a run around the Palace and through the village. We didn't tire out but once and that was because we were so thirsty. The weather has been unbearably hot lately.

I just don't know what the Fire Lord wants. He's been so irritable lately it doesn't seem like anything will please him! We tried making our style a little different, more like the Julese, but he didn't like that. We tried having new costumes with different colors made, he didn't like that. We tried adding a singer to the music, he didn't like that. We tried adding some new moves, he didn't like that either. He doesn't like anything, yet he insists on "better"! What *is* better? Please, share your ideas!!

Pictures of Us (captions underneath photos)

Well, it isn't us, but these pictures are pictures that look very similar to me and my fellow kachinas:

This looks remarkably like Sparkle, who's twelve.

This looks like Comet probably would have at age eight. She's thirteen now. She's Sparkle's sparktressling.

This could be Firefly, only she's more practical-looking and not as stunning.

This looks sort of like me, I supposed, only I'm not so old-looking and my cheeks are rosier. Flare says I'm much prettier than this girl, but that's just Flare.

Wow, this really looks like Flicker. Only a bit younger.

This could be Flare, but she looks much younger in real life.

Thanks for looking!