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leiawritesstories · 2 years

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SURPRISE SURPRISE!!!!!! IT’S HERE!!!! honestly i’m the most surprised we actually have something to post lmao @rowanaelinn and I are SO SO EXCITED to share this with all of you!!! without further ado........here you go :D

Summary: She’s a professional figure skater headed for her second Olympics, aiming to make everyone forget what happened her first time, he’s a former pro skater coaching her through the competition. When the stress of the global competition, several familiar but unwelcome faces, and everything they’ve overcome in their pasts gets to both of them, will they work through it together? Or will it push them apart?

Word count: 2k

Warnings: language, injury, a certain redhead

ENJOYYYYYYYYY!!

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You are nothing.

Jump, spin, land. That was all she had in mind. A buzzing sound took hostage of her ears, she didn’t know if she was even on rhythm for her program. She hoped she was.

You are barely an acceptable skater. You’re only here thanks to your name. You are not allowed to be anything less than perfect.

Those words, these hateful and venomous syllables was all she could hear. All she could remember. Her dance, the movement and stunts… She relied on muscle memories for them. Secretly hoping that some part of her brain she wasn’t aware of was listening to the music.

She dared a single glance to the side of the ice skating rink, she wasn’t fazed by the thousand pairs of eyes on her, no, the only pair of eyes that bothered her, that made her swallow her throat were steely grey, and always angry

She wasn’t doing well.

You’re no good without those pills. Take them or you lose me.

And so, she took the pills. They made her sick, made her lose weight. Good. Now you can actually compete, actually look right for the cameras. But it was never enough for her coach, and soon, it became never enough for her either.

Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she didn’t want to fail. So, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius swallowed back these emotions too, and finished her first program of the day.

Your jump is weak, Galathynius. Shabby. Sloppy landing.

Shutting out every noise but her music, she launched herself into the air, locking her legs together, one ankle hooked beside the other, extending her arms over her head, and spun. Once. Twice. Three times. Uncrossing her legs in one elegant maneuver, she landed on the ice’s smooth surface, her free leg extended behind her at a perfect 120-degree angle.

The audience and announcers exploded.

Triple axel from Galathynius, and did you see that?

Stunning–perfect–brilliant–so difficult with the arms over the head–look at the score!

She tuned out the voices again, focusing only on the music and the ice. None of that mattered if she didn’t finish her program strong. Gliding powerfully into the center of the rink, she pushed herself into a spin, leaning backwards to grab her extended leg by the blade of her skate, spinning and spinning as she pulled that leg straight up above her head. The faces of the crowds blurred past as she whirled, slowing her spin in time with the ebbing music, until she released her leg, slicing the toe pick into the ice behind her, and stood with her back arched, her head tilted backwards, arms extended to the sky, and bowed to the judges’ bench.

You will make it at least past the first round or you are truly a failure.

A beat of roaring silence, and then applause crashed over Aelin like a tidal wave, the audience and even the judges clapping and cheering for her. Smiling, she skated off the ice, slipping on her skate guards and jacket embroidered with the Terrasen colors, and met Arobynn for the reveal of her score.

“You were awful,” Arobynn said.

What she always thought was awful about her coach was his voice. It wasn’t angry nor aggressive. No, it was just cold. As if throwing insults and degrading terms at her did nothing to him, spurred no emotions at all. As if every program she danced, every award she won, would never be enough to make him approve of her.

She was only sixteen years old, she shouldn’t have be so scared that her coach, a former Olympic skater himself, would push her to compete harder and harder each month, each year, until she was here at the Olympics, one of the youngest skaters to qualify this year, and she was completely terrified that she was going to make a horrid mistake in her debut program and disgrace herself in the eyes of her coach–and the world–forever.

79.25.

The score flashed across the arena’s huge screen.

79.25.

Which put her in the lead.

Aelin’s jaw dropped in shock as the crowd exploded into cheers again.

“Seventy-nine point two-five from Aelin Galathynius!” crowed the announcer, his voice rolling over the applause. “Absolutely unheard-of from such a young skater! We look forward to her next round, oh yes we do!”

Aelin beamed for the cameras, smiling and waving and, in a dramatic touch, throwing kisses into the crowd. She was still riding the high when she walked back into the hall to the locker rooms, Arobynn at her side, and her coach suddenly halted and pinched her arm.

Hard.

“You should have at least scored an 82,” he hissed, his mouth flattening into a thin, irritated line. “It’s because of your landing, Aelin. You can’t wobble on your fucking landing.”

“I’m in first place!” she snapped back, pissed and emotional from her debut program and her staggeringly high score. “Can’t you see that for an achievement?”

Arobynn pushed her against the wall, bringing his face into hers. “Don’t you dare talk back to me,” he snarled.

Then he pulled away, looped his arm through hers, leaned in towards her–but not too close– acting for the cameras. Always acting for the godsdamned cameras lest the millions of people watching the Olympics get a glimpse of how sadistic Coach Arobynn Hamel, retired Olympian himself, really and truly was.

You are nothing.

You are weak.

You will get nowhere without me.

She heard his cold anger in her dreams, the harshness she could never escape even as she slumbered creeping into her mind, destroying her peace.

Two weeks later, she stepped onto the ice for her pre-semifinals practice, shaking out her limbs, her fleece sweatshirt and fingerless gloves and legwarmers keeping her from freezing before she’d warmed up. Like a reprieve, Arobynn stayed silent for once, just folding his arms and watching her skate in broad loops around the rink, loosening her muscles and joints and warming herself up before she started her routine. She marked through some of her more difficult steps and combos, waiting until the pills she’d swallowed under her coach’s glaring eyes started to kick in, a tingle forming in her blood.

When she felt that tingling, she nodded, her signal to Arobynn to start her music.

And she launched into her routine, her skates carving fresh grooves into the pristine white ice as she jumped and spun and leapt across the rink. She breathed out deeply as she prepared for her triple axel, the jump was giving her hard times in practise, and launched herself into the air, spinning one two three times and coming back down, her leg wobbled and she had to drop her other leg instead of keeping it lifted so she didn’t fall over.

Her music stopped.

“Get up.” No emotion in Arobynn’s voice, only coldness.

She stood still, waiting for his anger.

“That was pathetic.” He glared at her. “Do it again, and try not to fail, Aelin. I don’t spend all my time here just to watch you disappoint me.”

Biting back a rude retort, she lined herself up, exhaled, leapt into the jump again. This time, her jump was off, she only managed two and a half turns before landing, but her landing was solid.

“Horrible!” her coach snapped. “Do it again.”

And again. And again.

Exhausted, but determined this time, Aelin pushed herself forwards and upwards, spinning three times in flawless form, and landed solidly on the ice, only wobbling a little bit as she stabilized herself. Although she was scared to look, she shot Arobynn a glance, waiting for his comment, feeling both fear and pride.

His face was a mask of cold indifference. “You are not even trying, Aelin.” He sighed, clicking his tongue like a disappointed parent. “Because I’m a generous coach, I will give you one more chance. Land the jump, and maybe you’ll manage to get a decent score. Don’t land it, don’t even bother dreaming about returning to the Olympics.”

This time, it was anger that fueled Aelin as she skated across the rink, anger that narrowed her eyes as she lined up her jump. Angry at her coach for being an asshole led her up into the air, into one two three perfect rotations, down in a graceful arc to the slender blade of her skate meeting the ice.

She never anticipated the bump in the otherwise flawless surface of the rink.

One second, she was beautifully landing a triple axel, and the next, she was sprawled over the freezing cold surface, a distant scream echoing in her ears and a searing white-hot blaze of pain shooting up her left leg, snaking up her left arm.

Distantly, she realized that the screaming was growing louder, closer to her. Until it clicked, and she realized that was her screaming, her voice, her pain. That the other yelling was her coach, crouched on the ice next to her, ranting and raving about how stupid she was, how she was a complete failure, never ever going to make it professionally, she should just give up, she was nothing, nothing, nothing–

Aelin jerked out of sleep drenched in sweat as frigid as the ice itself, panting, heaving for breath, her lightweight sleep shirt clinging to her back with cold sweat, gasping as she realized that it was a nightmare, only a nightmare. Not real. Not anymore.

Arobynn hadn’t been in her life since the accident. That day, just before the paramedics arrived and carried her into the ambulance, he screamed his last insults at her and stormed out of the arena. That was the last time she saw his arrogant, cruel, cold face and she wished him good riddance, he could go die for all she cared.

Until she saw the scans of her leg, until the doctors told her that she wouldn’t be able to skate for three months while her leg was in a brace, until the lack of his pills made her shake and shiver and break into cold sweat. Until she tumbled into crushing self-doubt and thought she would never skate professionally again as she worked through the long, painful process of recovery.

Hyperextension. Not as terrible as it could have been.

Nothing had torn, but the ligaments in her knee had stretched enough that her physical therapist didn’t want to risk her tearing anything as she recovered, so she was strictly forbidden from doing anything more than skating laps with a goddamn fucking trainer sled like she was five years old until she was cleared to actually skate again. She was young, she had the time to recover properly and still be able to skate, that’s what they all told her to keep her from overworking herself.

Six months after the accident, she was back on the ice. Her parents stood at the side of the rink this time, her mother’s eyes sad but proud as she watched Aelin cautiously skate in slow circles around the rink in their hometown, gradually getting more confident the more time she spent on the ice.

“Who is going to coach her?” Rhoe whispered to Evalin.

“We’ll find someone,” Evalin whispered, never looking away from Aelin. “We know lots of coaches and retired professionals, we’ll be able to find someone.”

“Aren’t they all taken?”

She frowned. “Rhoe, darling, this is why we call in favours.”

He nudged his wife affectionately. “I thought it was just Arobynn who owed you a favour, Ev.”

“You thought wrong,” she teased. “There’s another skater I knew, he’s younger than us and he’s pretty recently retired from professional competition. I agreed to partner skate with him for an exhibition when he was debuting professionally and I was a couple years away from retiring.”

Aelin’s father wrinkled his brows. “Do you mean…what’s-his-name, Ronan?”

“Rowan Whitethorn,” Evalin confirmed.

“He’s willing to coach?” Now Rhoe was surprised. “I thought he said he was done with skating after he retired. Because, well–you know.”

Evalin sighed. “I think I can convince him just this once, just to help Aelin get back where she belongs. Back to the Olympics.”

~~~

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