Promise to Be (Fiore's Next Top Model)

Job:

The outermost edge of Leah's mouth quirked up into a puzzled half-smile as she swept up a lone letter from inside her rusty box.  It grew to an outright baffled look of astonishment, across her entire countenance, as the lass squinted at the cursive print.  Mail in itself was nothing new (although she rarely did receive much of anything), but the return address was perplexing.


Since when had she been in any way affiliated with Fiore's Next Top Model?  As her head jerked from side to side in bewilderment, Leah endeavored to remember some sort of protocol for this situation.  Mostly, correspondence using tangible ink and paper remained only between herself and the numerous companies and individuals whom she owed money to.  It made fetching the mail a distressing thought, but this strange missive was confounding, and she did not like it.  Resolving herself to venture out to Rose Garden this evening, Leah nodded smartly and stalked back inside her lodgings.

It was only a quarter of an hour later when the mage's eyes widened with disbelief at her own senseless actions.  Stumbling up from her reclined position across a loveseat, where she had been frivolously enjoying a toffee and apple milkshake, the redhead raced across the room towards the doorway.  Her dessert treat splattered all over her hardwood floor after being haphazardly placed down on the coffee table; undoubtedly it would cause great ire later, but at the moment her attention was completely diverted from the tasty goodness.

I should open the letter, she thought.

After her mad dash to the kitchen table, Leah slit open the envelope, heeding the edges so as to preserve the address for any necessary future reference.  Her hands were not trembling, but they might as well have been, with the excitement her bones couldn't contain.  There were countless possibilities for what it might contain, so her eyes were alight with anticipation as the paper unfurled.

Upon reading it, well-- the mage was immensely relieved that she had set down her glass.  She would have exhaled milkshake all over the counter (although to have it in her sitting area made for an even more miserable situation, much to her later dismay).  Under the circumstances of having applied on a whim several weeks ago, Leah had been accepted to compete in Fiore's Top Model this season.

408 Words.

Scarcely the sun had risen on Day Two of the competition, and Leah was already ready to thoroughly wash her hands of this lunacy. Breakfast at 1:30 am and gym time from 3:00 - 5:30 had been bad enough, but now she was preparing to endure stilettos and train her catwalk strut for an additional hour. Hardly could she call this situation a nightmare, but it was truly unpleasant. Of course, she did have motivation...

Think of those jewels, Leah. So tantalizingly close... only, uh, thirty-two more days to go...

Really, the concept of a promised reward had been the only incentive to continue working for those initial few days, as it turned out. On Day Four the group had forgone a two and a half hour workout in favor of a one hour, so that they might relax in a spa to de-stress. Oddly enough, that time spent lounging around with immaculately polished nails and toenails had been one of the most hair-pulling experiences of her life. Everyone was so damn quiet ALL THE TIME. Can't a girl get a respite from all the shh'ings and warning expressions to be silent, so that she can juggle knives and spin javelins about without the other competitors screaming? ... purely hypothetical situation here, of course... but needless to say, the day of relaxation at the beauty parlor had done nothing but make Leah more high-strung than before.

Day Five was a serious affair, during which the girls weighed themselves and measured literally everything. So many numbers which the redhead had not a care in the world to remember, instead opting to scrawl them in sharpie on her forearm. Later she would transfer the graph to her calendar, probably over the top of one of the sickeningly scripted photos of models splashing each other in a pool filled with swim toys. She was so ready for the weekend.

320 Words.

Unfortunately, it only ended in the launch of Week Two, which brought with it another torturous activity: ballet. So beautiful it was, but Leah had just never seemed to quite grasp the idea of spinning in circles...

Kidding, kidding. It was her job to do so (as often as her magic permitted).

The redhead adored ballet, although it had been a severely foreign concept to her before the modeling organization had seen fit to introduce the competitors to it. Ballet. Demanding immense flexibility and control, coupled with analysis of physics and the stomach to spin endlessly-- (the last two for pirouettes, particularly) it fit her needs wonderously. Perhaps Leah's epithet would never be "The Graceful" but she certainly could give anyone who wanted it a run for their money, so to speak. With her unending determination to see this competition through to the very conclusion, she trained ballet every day that week for hours upon hours. Other leisure activities available ranged from tap-dance (pour le pep dans ton step) to jump-roping, which seemed to be a vastly popular hobby among her fellow would-be models. Our fire haired gal liked to move, and continuously hopping on one patch of tile wasn't particularly amusing, even if it did offer a helpful cardio workout.

Following the brief period of freedom from the rigid schedule the competitors maintained was a challenge in posing. Each wannabe model had snapshots taken of herself in various positions, with varying facial expressions, nevertheless carrying on with a single hairstyle and outfit throughout. Theoretically, one's modeling prowess itself might be judged by the skill of slipping into different personalities and situations with an easy deftness and solid conviction. Much easier said than done. Leah had always prided herself in her aptness to adapt to diverse situations, though not to the point of self-adulation or blind arrogance. This skill assisted her heavily in managing through the grueling photoshoot (mostly taxing on the mind, especially for the other girls) that swamped up most of the time in the final three days of the week.

With a wry smile on her face as the ratings were announced, the redhead came out with marks that were sixty-two percent more favorable than those of the other girls.

377 Words.

Week Three... brought a startling revelation. Admittedly, Leah had never been passionately gung-ho (not to the point of being overzealous, but merely determined) about modeling. Still feeling rather stiff around the idea that it was in fact an entire industry, how astonishing was it that she had no inkling of the fact that models are as frequently male as female? (Someone's never had to shop for a son or boyfriend through catalogs.) #RIPForeverAlone. Following her not-so-disastrous attempts to function during a photoshoot, the redhead and her fellow female competitors were permitted Saturday to recuperate and eliminate the constant worry of eyebag formation. Color correcting those pesky buggers and concealing them was far too much exertion for the makeup artists to go to on behalf of a wannabe supermodel.

On Sunday, the group was led to a room they had scarcely even been aware of; strange this was, really, for it was a prodigiously vast affair, complete with vaulted ceilings that shone with gold lacquer. Corinthian pillars littered the outskirts of the room. Bleached wood dining room chairs were scattered around the area. And prepossessing young men loitered in varying locations, looking extraordinarily bored with life as they sipped wine and rum and other nighttime substances from thin-stemmed wineglasses or crystalline tumblers. It seemed the stage was set for an elegant dinner party: the sort that kept the buffet-like freedom of dancing and faring according to personal desires.

Having had limited interaction with handsome men before, many of the female competitors were completely bedazzled by their allure, along with the general glamour of the ballroom itself. Rather than swooning, as some actresses are prone to do on film sets, some burst out laughing, while others sniffled back tears or brought up guarded eyes and skeptical sets to their mouths. Leah was hardly suspicious of the gig, but she wasn't interested in fraternizing with male models. (Partly because she believed them to be well-dressed waitstaff, and the girls had been scolded before for unnecessary contact with serving crews.) After just this brief interaction between the two parties, the female competitors were ushered out of the room and the rest of the week proceeded normally-- but with an occasional thought lingering on their attractive counterparts.

373 Words.

Ballet had held captive Leah's interest for the past three weeks; it remained her go-to activity during leisure time even as a new sport caught her attention.  One advisor, who was simply called Madame Z (Zed) warned the girls that although jump-roping would be a crucial asset to maintaining composure and energy through the entirety of shoots, cardio for fashion shows required a bit more physical activity.  Pilates could assist in this endeavor, but the stately platinum blonde suggested an alternative: boxing.  Plenty different versions of the hobby were available, but kick-boxing, for example, did not appeal to the redhead as much.  To be fair, the idea of boxing in general had always been a careful disinterest for Leah.  It seemed so cringey to the knife gixie and her slice and dice style of operating.

Nonetheless, it was high time she tried something new, and boxing did the trick.  Having been advised to take it up in particular for a bit of muscle rather than having simply flabby and soft (although admittedly skinny) extremities.  Leah had never quite fit under the category of soft, but she grew up thin due to being underfed and malnourished for most of her life.  Vitamins and a full diet were healthy and made her look such: a workout brought it to the next level, which was essential for any model.  So the mage went ahead and enrolled under the tutelage of J. Ha, an instructor for the sport at a gym situated near the locale where most of the training and competition took place.

Leah made hasty, if a bit awkward progress.  Newly armed with a solid punch and a tight physique, she felt honestly prepared for the final week of the competition.  With any luck, it would involve an exercise similar to the impromptu photoshoot that the girls had been put through the week before: the one that the redhaired girl had scored so well on.

324 Words.

Monday rolled around, and the competitors burst into action with a flurry full of lattes and caramelized macchiatos. Workouts intensified, walking turned into a heavy affair that wasted five minutes on striding back and forth down the hall in desperate attempts to right inconsequential flaws. Stylists were harried by frazzled wannabe models as the girls panicked over cheese in their salads and juice boxes on the side of a luncheon. Everyone prepared. Everyone rushed. Everyone made mistakes.

A few models bounced around the premises on pogo sticks, meant to lengthen and tighten areas of the body. Silly as it did seem, Leah half-wondered if she was doing her utmost to garner the best possible chance to be selected as Fiore's Next Top Model. The great majority of her hours were spent in the dance studio, both stretching and twirling, leaping in successive sequences and striving not to morph arabesques into attitudes. High concentration on specific movements kept her mind attuned to the limits of her willowy but solid frame.

In the end, all of the hasty decisions to amp up everything hardly paid off, for although there was a photoshoot, the real cincher was a formal ball held in honor of the competitors. True guests with connections in politics and various industries were present to put an anxious edge on the already nerve-wracking stabs of worry each girl felt acutely in her belly. Leah could only breathe-- and aspire to be the best, with the expectation that good designs and effort always led to happy endings. At least, here in Fiore, a quite literally magical country with boundless possibilities for the common person, the mantra seemed to have potential for being true at the very least (if it wasn't for certain). And her effort, originally and perhaps to the very end, spurned on by a greed for jewels, paid off. The vivacious redhead was named Fiore's *Next* Top Model.

321 Words.