Challenges
A drop of sweat fell from the tip of Clarke’s nose. Her breathing was uneven and occasionally ragged. She bit her bottom lip and furrowed her brow. She had done well so far, she just needed to finish. She fiercely looked at her violin and waited for her queue to start playing the final movement in Mendelssohn’s concerto. The pianist kept playing. Everyone in the room looked at her firmly.
The pianist played the same chord. Twice. Three times. The audience began to whisper. The pianist cleared his throat and played the chord, louder this time. Someone scoffed. Clarke looked around the room and saw her parents standing up, not disappointed but smiling at her. Her mother whispered a few words, and despite the distance Clarke could hear them as if she had screamed them.
“I knew you couldn’t do it.”
Clarke jumped in bed, her pulse was racing and she was hyperventilating. She covered her mouth with her hands until she could breathe properly, sweat covering her forehead and panic tears running down her cheeks. It took her a few minutes to completely calm down and dry her tears. Then the expression on her face changed from fear to determination. She would nail that audition. She grabbed a rubber band and got her hair into a messy bun, quickly used a towel to dry the remaining sweat on her face and started tuning her violin. Her new E string kept betraying her, detuning every now and then. She angrily tuned it for the third time in less than five minutes, put some rosin (way too much) on her bow and started playing the octaves in the first movement, her anger only growing when they weren’t perfectly tuned.
After about twenty minutes of repeating them over and over until she deemed them flawless, she continued to play the arpeggios, at first slowly, then increasing the tempo until she ended up playing them at twice the real speed. Her bedroom door opened and a sleepy, half-naked Raven walked in.
“Clarke, what the fuck? It’s 5.30 am” she rubbed her eyes and yawned
Clarke clenched her jaw and quickly put on the mute to keep playing without bothering her flatmate. Raven rolled her eyes and sat by Clarke’s side.
“Raise your right elbow a bit more when you’re on the E string. You’ll have a cleaner sound”
“Rae” Clarke struggled to speak while playing “No offense, but you’re a cellist” she missed a note “Shit. What do you know about violin technique?”
“My ex, whom I dated for over 4 years happens to be a violinist, so I know a couple of things.”
Clarke half-smiled “You have an ex?”
Raven sighed. She shouldn't have said that. “Just…give me your violin”
Clarke raised an eyebrow. She never lent her violin to anyone since a kid had broken her first one in their orchestra class. Raven exasperatedly whined
“If anything happens to it, you can burn my cello” Clarke chuckled and gave it to her.
Raven held the violin and placed it on her shoulder in what was, by the horrified look on Clarke’s face, the most unorthodox position ever.
“Okay, so it’s G7 and then it keeps modulating until the cadenza, right?” Clarke nodded and Raven began playing, exaggerating the movement of her elbow. “I’m totally messing up the notes” she played at the real tempo “but this is the idea, when you change from one string to another it sounds cleaner” she gave the violin back to Clarke “you try it”
The moment Clarke tried it, she achieved the sound she’d been looking for and sighed in relief “I really am jealous of you, Rae”
She shrugged “The bow is the only thing I can do properly on the violin, seriously, I can’t even play Twinkle Twinkle” and laid on bed
Clarke smiled and kept playing, knowing someone as talented as that girl would be able to master the violin in less than a year. Hell, probably even in less than a month. This time she didn’t miss a note.
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Lexa stared at her notes and softly touched Octavia’s elbow, pointing at a word she didn't understand. Octavia looked at her after a second, then back at the paper.
*theoretically*
Lexa nodded and they kept studying. They had a huge test that day. To be exact, they had 5 hours 23 minutes left, but who was counting? Octavia placed her right hand on the corner of the page and turned it when Lexa nodded. Words weren’t needed since they’d been studying that way since middle school. Lexa took Octavia’s forearm, preventing her from biting her nails, as she always did when nervous. They should have studied the previous week and not just the night before the exam, the empty cans of Red Bull on the table proved that none of them had slept a single minute. Professor Jaha had the reputation of being the toughest teacher on campus, and he was proving it. Sociological Theory, why on Earth had she chosen that class? Even the name sounded horrible.
Time flew by as they tried to retain as much information as possible in their already swamped brains. More and more graphics and definitions that didn’t seem to make any sense until they’d spent ten or more minutes trying to figure them out kept appearing, and they relentlessly memorized them, encouraging each other by squeezing their hands or exchanging short looks whenever they got slightly distracted. They both were startled when Lexa’s phone began buzzing. They’d barely finished reading the last page a minute ago and it was already time to leave. Lexa took a deep breath
“Well, I guess alea jacta is”
“Est”
*Whatever* Lexa started putting their notes in her backpack, and Octavia did the same with their highlighters, pens and several post-its they’d left all over the table. They left the library within a few minutes, luckily their class was in the same building. They arrived just a few seconds before the bell rang and Jaha closed the door, leaving everyone who was more than a second late for the exam outside. Lexa frowned and took the exam the professor handed her, then took a seat, Octavia sitting as close to her as she could. She wrote her name on the paper and read the questions. She was good at multiple choice tests, unlike Octavia, who thought either every possible answer was the correct one or they were all wrong. Luckily, they had a system. Lexa would sit as far away from the table as possible, so that Octavia could reach her feet with her own and tell her the number of the question she needed the answer to, touching her left foot meant 10 and her right one 1, to which Lexa answered by the position of her right hand on the table. So far it had been infallible, and Octavia sure hoped it would still be, because she didn't understand a single question. If Lexa was half as confused as she was, they were screwed.
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“Clarke, I swear if we’re late again” Raven rushed through the corridors at Juilliard, her cello making it difficult for her to move quicker in the multitude
“If we are, you won’t have to do anything, Pike will kill me himself” Clarke ran behind her, her cheeks red
They entered the room, Clarke had started opening her violin case before she’d even stopped running, and hurriedly climbed onto the stage without bothering to use the stairs leading to it. Raven took her cello and got to her chair as fastly as it was humanly possible when carrying a cello with one hand and her bow and scores with the other one. The oboe played an A and the orchestra began tuning when their concertino, Roan, entered the room by Pike’s side. The cocky soloist motioned for everyone to stand up to greet the director, and as usual, was ignored by everyone. Raven had to hold back a laugh when the second chair violinist mocked the histrionical eyeroll Roan always did when he wasn't the center of attention.
Pike’s deep voice shushed the remaining chuckles “Don Quixote, da capo. Now.” he smiled to himself, they’d never read that score yet and Raven knew he was doing it on purpose because of the tough cello solos. She’d accomplished to be soloist despite being on her first year and she knew Pike didn't like her because of that. While he was a student, he’d never been the soloist, not even second chair, and because of his mediocre level as an interpreter he’d decided to become a director, and he had managed to be an excellent one, except for taking matters too personally every now and then. He raised his arms as the first notes from the winds filled the air, creating a subtle atmosphere, with more and more instruments joining while the harmony began to develop with more and more people playing, until its climax with the first cello solo. Pike had stopped conducting, expecting Raven to not be able to sight-read it, but the girl sure loved a challenge and executed the solo confidently, while she was internally panicked.
The rehearsal kept going on quite well, much to Pike’s discontent, until the bassoons didn't count properly and started playing a couple of bars before they should’ve, causing Pike to make them play that part several times while the rest of the orchestra simply stared at them. Bellamy half-smiled and waved at Monty, who tried to keep a serious expression on his face, failing to do so when Bell mimicked Pike’s angry face whenever one of the bassoons didn't play perfectly.
Raven turned around when a bow poked her leg, expecting to be asked about the bowing or digitation, only to see Jasper’s childish grin “Dude, that solo was soooo cool.”
Raven shyly smiled, not noticing when Pike motioned for them to start playing again and quickly turning around when she heard the orchestra, much to the teacher’s amusement.
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The minute Lexa and Octavia walked out of their exam, O began to nervously laugh, causing Lexa to burst into laughter as well
*I don’t think I answered any of those questions*
*I’m pretty sure none of what he asked was on your notes, what the hell?*
Octavia gave her a quick hug *Lex, you’ve saved my ass, seriously*
Lexa raised an eyebrow and bit her lip *I don't know…I think I was as clueless as you*
*Oh, come on, we both know it’s impossible to be that clueless*
Lexa opened her backpack and handed O a sandwich, getting another one for herself. O quickly unwrapped the paper it was wrapped in and hungrily began to eat
*Have I told you that I love you?*
*Not enough* Lexa mocked while she ate
*Well, I’m going to prove it to you* Lexa furrowed her brow skeptically. Octavia smiled and stopped eating to sign properly *Tonight. Party at Monty’s. We sleep all day, and celebrate that the toughest exam is over*
*We still have plenty of other exams, O*
*Yeah. We sleeping together, right?*
Lexa whined. That girl was a terrible influence. *You’re really getting attached to my bed, aren’t you?”
Octavia smiled as they kept eating and walking towards Lexa’s house. However, the more she thought about what was troubling her, the sadder her smiled turned. She really needed someone to talk to.