#AURORA DAWSON ° ᴛʜᴇ ɢƦᴀᴠᴇʏᴀƦᴅ ᴡʜᴇƦᴇ Ɪ ᴅᴏ ᴍʏ ᴅƦᴇᴀᴍꞮɴ'

[sliceofsky]

starter for @honeyedblossom​ , pick recipient !

"I’m not mad, I just... it just sucks that they moved my class location at the rec center for that... like, if it was a weekend class for adults that taught them real skills, I might be a bit more amenable, but them moving me to a side room so they can make space for baton twirling? For kids? I just think that’s fucked. Don’t you?”

[sliceofsky]

Aurora gave her hair a proud little flip, and then gave Mia a soft little smile. "I bet you inspire them all the time too. I just inspired them really loudly... but seriously. I couldn't handle all of this." They gestured to the high school around them. "Did you know that I never went to, like, a one-building high school? I did all of that on the road, touring with my dad. I was basically home schooled. I couldn't do it every day when I was their age, let alone now. You're filling a really important role for these kids."

That was definitely an understatement, Mia thought with a smile. They were pretty certain that there were several kids that were never, ever going to be the same...for the better. They were glad that some of those kids found something that they were passionate about. It'd made them proud just watching the lesson-- and prouder still to know that it was Aurora doing it. "I think they'll be asking for you every day for the rest of the year," she told Aurora earnestly, knowing that she would do whatever needed to be done to get her back into the classroom if that's what she wanted. "And I will never be able to follow that kind of performance," they continued with a grin. "They really loved you."

[sliceofsky]

starter for @prcttyvxnom​ , pick recipient !

"Okay... before I send you this poem, I want you to remember that this isn’t like my usual stuff... I’m sending this one in for publication, so I don’t want you looking at this as a friend. I want to professional eyes here. Do you think you can handle that? Because if you can’t be impartial, I’ll send it somewhere else... I don’t want you pulling punches on your critique because you want to sleep with me and leaving a negative review will ruin your shot. No bias here, okay?” 

[sliceofsky]

starter for @ccmpletemess​ , pick recipient !

"You know... I don’t think it counts as enabling if I’m encouraging you. Yeah, it’s subversive, but do you think that all of the great artists’ fans were enablers? The great revolutionaries? I think you’re just accusing me of enabling because you don’t want to do the brave thing,” Aurora said, more than happy to egg someone on.

[sliceofsky]

surprise kiss (rory and mia)

Aurora was more than happy to make her 67 year old student's dream come true by producing his one act play, even if it was on a skeleton budget without much of an audition. What she hadn't expected was the fact that putting on a small play was apparently one of the most difficult tasks in the world- they had encountered more pitfalls and dramas in this than any project they'd done before.

The show was five minutes away from starting. The audience was audible from their meager "backstage" area, and that rumble of quiet discussion seemed to only scare her more. They had lost a pivotal prop, even though Aurora couldn't understand how someone could lose an entire lawn chair. She had to place not one, not two, but three emergency calls until she found the person who came to her rescue: Mia. Beautiful, sweet, helpful Mia.

Despite ostensibly being in a relationship with them, Aurora hesitated to call them, since in their poly arrangement, she wasn't paired to Mia. She certainly enjoyed their company and friendship, but she wasn't dating them... despite this, Mia was the one to come to the rescue, and when they arrived, lawn chair in hand, Aurora felt like they could finally breathe again.

They expressed this, without much thought, by rushing to Mia. With a breathless "Thank you, thank you," she pressed forward for a quick kiss, right on the lips, before taking hold of the chair. "You're a lifesaver, Mia. Thank you so much."

[sliceofsky]

"I'm not mad at the kids," Aurora said, feigning offense at the concept. She let out an aggrieved sigh. "Whatever. It's not like convincing you will convince them, unless you somehow have the rec center admin in your pocket." They paused. "You don't, right?"

“While I don’t disagree, my point was simply that perhaps your anger towards the kids is not where it should be directed at. Once again, you continue to judge a group of kids for something they didn’t do. They just showed up where they were told to, to enjoy their hobby.” Truthfully, Minnie couldn’t pinpoint why she was debating this so hard, she had places to be and her lessons for the day had come to an end. But, perhaps it was the stress and concerns elsewhere that had her arguing over something so mundane. “It is Canada toward the end of winter, and the kids would have to come dressed properly for that. Both things can have substance, but again, you should be taking it out on the rec center not the kids. But the library has group rooms have a decent size that you can book and I imagine the library would go for poetry over baton twirling.”

[sliceofsky]

starter for : @ofcelestiials 

“Here’s how I see it...” Aurora began, keen to begin their girls night out with something fun. “We can go dish about our current lives and situations in a froyo shop, where we run the risk of being overheard, or we can do something a little more... interesting. I know it’s the winter, but I think that if we went to the park with, like, a thermos of hot chocolate, we can not only dish, but also do some stuff in the snow. We could do the axe-throwing thing at some trees? I can get us axes easily.”

[sliceofsky]

🌪 ― a scary memory.

aurora and her family used to travel a lot, especially when her parents were on tour in their jazz band. one time, during a very ill-advised road trip in the winter, their van broke down in the middle of a snowy nowhere, and her and her whole family were stranded, not knowing when they would get out. this scared the shit out of everyone involved, especially when the car heating was shut down as well. they were stuck out there for a few hours, before another road tripper found them and helped them out. they had to get a whole new van after.

[sliceofsky]

Aurora nodded, pondering his feedback. Was he letting her down softly? Or genuinely impressed? "So... poetry's not your thing? Or just not into the experimental stuff?"

uziel looked down at the paper in his hands before he unfolded the paper and read through the words, keeping his expression neutral as he read through it. “it’s good.” he said. “not really my thing, but still really good.” he said. uziel could appreciate things even if he didn’t think it was his thing, this was one of those moments.

[sliceofsky]

"Alright, alright, fine... I'll let you continue being Martha Stewart without commentary or pressure to spice up your space. But Sofia..." Aurora's face went serious, searching carefully for her answer. "How are you spicing up your life?"

“I have absolutely no intention of ever having a stop light. Or possibly going to prison, because your luck in not getting caught is bound to run out one day,” Sofia rolled her eyes, “I honestly can’t, it would throw off the entire decor.”

[sliceofsky]

With these new (incredibly valid) points, Aurora felt herself get a touch more defensive. "But it's about the principle of the thing. Not only did we have the space first, but even if baton twirling is cool and great for surgeons, it's also totally unfair to move a bunch of people re-discovering their artistic spark just so kids can twirl a stick around. Like... they can totally twirl that stick, but why can't they do it outside? They're kids! They aren't going to notice or care about the room, and prioritizing them over poetry really shows that this rec center isn't prioritizing substance."

Whilst Minnie understood the other’s point, she couldn’t help but counter it with one of her own. Her work and art relied a lot on hand-eye coordination. “As a violinist, I’d have to disagree with that statement, plenty of art requires hand-eye coordination. I’d also not be too fond of having a surgeon that didn’t have the skill. Either way, art is subjective. I get being upset over not being able to have the room, but I don’t think the baton twirlers are at fault?”

She shook her head, “No, my parents would’ve laughed if I ever considered something that wasn’t a classical instrument outside of my academics. But I think your enemy is the administration, not a group of kids having fun.” Truth be told, Minnie wasn’t entirely sure why she was getting so defensive over a curricular she had no attachment to, but perhaps it was the fact that she wished she had a hobby growing up that was just that and not something her parents picked for her.

[sliceofsky]

"Perfect," Aurora said, before passing the folded paper over to his waiting palm. "For reference, I wrote this about two weeks ago, and I've been tweaking it, especially after giving some lessons that made me think about how I could apply all of that to my own poetry, if that makes any sense." She could feel the beginnings of embarrassment hitting her, something that seemed to only come when she shared her work with friends. Strangers and students were easy, but something felt weirdly intimate about offering it to someone who knew her before they knew her poetry.

“okay, okay i got it.” uziel said, looking almost annoyed but more so playfully that someone would say something like that. “i will honestly and truly give you my one hundred percent honest and truthful opinion.” he said, holding out his hand and doing a grabby hand so he could read the poem.

[sliceofsky]

Aurora rolled her eyes, making a flippant gesture. "I wouldn't call stealing stoplights a terrible idea. Nobody gets caught in that kind of thing anyway... I know so many people with a stoplight collection, Sofia. You can get away with just one." She gave the one across the street a cursory look, already considering how she would help if Sofia decided to go along with it. "I can picture that thing in your living room so clearly."

“It’s absolutely enabling, especially when the idea is as terrible as this one is,” Sofia scoffed, shaking her head. “Also, don’t think that’s the exact same thing, honestly? Like I’m pretty sure they’re completely different scenarios.”

[sliceofsky]

Aurora was on cloud nine: she had just inspired the youth. The next generation of America (or at least 20 members of that generation) had spunk, emotional honesty, and a new artistic tool to express it with. Sure, some of the performance art had gotten a bit raucous, but that was only to be expected from a horde of energetic teens.

"I think... I think some lives were changed today," Aurora said, nodding with pride as she took a seat on one of the desks that had been pulled close to the front whiteboard. "At the very least, huge strides were made." She couldn't help but feel a glow with pride as she remembered how Aisha, a shy girl who had lingered at the back of the classroom, had gone from mumbling her introduction to screaming 'FUCK ADMIN' at the top of her lungs.

open: mia's classroom

The kids had finally left the classroom (the desks all askew, wads of paper left behind as remembrance of the lesson) and Mia exhaled slowly, watching the door as if they believed that any moment the horde would come right back into the space. After a beat, she moved to close the classroom door, quieting the dull roar of the teenagers heading out for the day. They leaned back against the wall next to the door for a moment, looking back at Aurora with an expression that could only be shared between two people that had the shared experience of dealing with twenty riled-up teenagers. "So..." they began, and perhaps it was a result of everything from the afternoon, but she laughed. "How do you think that went?"

@sliceofsky