Dancing On Ice

The Dancer

Aeralie draped a shawl over her shoulders, picked up her notebook and pen and cursed the land that she had to leave her rooms that morning. She wanted to curl up in bed and stay there.

Actually, she wanted to curl up in her own bed back home under the water and sleep for a week and eat nothing but Glimmer Ice – Kazimir would never approve.

But no, she was stuck on land.

Hell, she was going to have to spend a long – long – time making this up to Kazimir when they finally went home. At least she was still interested in the lives of humans even if she didn't want to be in their world anymore.

Kazimir didn't even like humans and he's begrudgingly stayed with her. How was she ever going to make that up to him?

She wasn't sure she would have made it in the palace without him and his easy lies. Now that she thought about it, how he had so easily navigated the introductions and mannerisms and conversations, it didn't surprise her that he'd spent at least part of his childhood on land.

The human world was already engrained in him and his way of thinking.

Yet he still hated humans and, he said so himself, that was because his mother had pressed that hatred on him.

Making him learn about the world above and yet warn him off it was contradictory at best but it was good that he knew how to use his powers affectively. They'd spent most of their youth learning how to use their individual gifts.

No one could lure a ship's crew to destructions as easily as Aeralie.

No one could play with water as easily as Kazimir.

No one could sing the sea to sleep like Aeralie.

No one could sing life back into the dying like Kazimir.

And no one loved humans like Aeralie while no one hated humans like Kazimir.

"And one, two, three. And one, two, three. And one, two, three. Mind your posture, Your Highness, you're focusing too much on the routine. Don't forget yourself!"

Aeralie glanced through a partially open door she was passing at the words and stopped.

It was a ballroom.

Well, no, maybe not, it was too small for a proper ballroom, but it was something similar. Possibly where dancing lessons were held for the royal children – seeing as there was a royal child learning to dance in there at that moment.

The human Kazimir didn't hate.

Princess Mai was in there with a formidable looking woman who was dressed in a sleek gown and her hair locked in a bun so tight at the back of her head the could have been the reason behind the skin being stretched over her bones.

Mai was dressed in... what in the world was that?

She looked like she was wearing a dinner plate made out of fabric, sticking straight out from her hips. It floated around her as she stepped back, then she lifted an arm, stepped forwards and... she was dancing.

That was what she was doing right?

It was dancing but she was standing on the tips of her toes, stepping up until she stood on points, her shoes somehow supporting her as she whirled around the dance floor, turn after turn after turn in count to the other woman's voice.

It looks so... unnatural.

And yet perfectly naturally at the same time.

Maybe it was the way Mai moved, everything flowing with grace and ease.