Re:Demon - Reborn as a Demon Book 1

10

The city of Lorath celebrated two major holidays and a number of smaller ones. The big two were floating holidays that occurred when the planting was done in the spring and when the harvest was finished in the fall. The others were set, with two on the solstices, two on the equinoxes and a few others that were less holidays than days of importance, such as the coming-of-age ceremony, which Nagi still didn't know much about.

The harvest celebration was the one that she most associated with a party, second only to the summer solstice for its festivity. Both were dominated by a festive air, a bonfire in the central square, which she thought was a bit dangerous considering the construction of the town, and a lot of drinking and dancing, both of which she was too young to enjoy.

Still, there was something about being able to absorb the celebratory attitude of the festival that she enjoyed. There was also the fact that she got to hear music that she didn't at any other time of the year and got to see parts of society that were usually hidden.

This year was the first time she was going to be allowed to participate in the dancing, which both excited and worried her, she'd never really done any dances, especially at school, other than a few mandatory ones that she often had to sit out of, mostly because she'd always ended up coming down with something the day of, which had always irritated her and gotten rumors to spread that she was allergic to dancing, which she had to admit was a bit funny.

In the lead up to the festival, classes shifted a bit and instead of running or other strength training, they suddenly found themselves having to learn the steps to the dance, something that a number of kids protested, but as Marux said "There's not much difference between learning this dance and learning the footwork to fighting, so this is still training and there won't be any arguments, am I clear?"

So, the protests had died down and everyone got to work trying to memorize the complicated movements involved so that they wouldn't embarrass themselves when they had to dance.

Some students learned the moves without any real difficulty, while others struggled to not trip themselves. Nagi found herself leading the first group, much to her surprise. It seemed that the instant she did the moves once, her body would remember them, leading her to wonder if she hadn't actually got some boon when being born in this world, or if it was something in her new genetics. Whatever the reason, she was always the first to learn.

On the other end, it was almost always a tie between Wreth and Moss for who learned it last, though there was a bit of competition from Lenge and Tiade. Between the four of them, they always managed to trip themselves and usually take one or two kids around them down as well, though Nagi had to wonder if Moss wasn't just doing it out of spite.

No matter the reason, Marux kept yelling that out of all the classes he'd taught, these four were by far the worst excesses for students he'd ever had, something that Nagi though was an exaggeration and probably intended as an insult to motivate them, but looking at the group of them piled on the ground, she had to wonder.

For her part, Nagi kept getting into her own trouble. Whether it was because she found learning the dance so easy, or just because there was something wrong with her, she kept adding strange flourishes and extra moves, which always got spotted and her yelled at.

The dance itself was fairly simple, everyone formed a giant ring around the fire and danced to the beat of the drums, making complex patterns with their hands and feet as they moved in a circle three times. At no point were they dancing with anyone else, nor were they supposed to touch them, that was reserved for married couples and ones that were trying to woo each other.

Only a few of the kids were exempt from having to participate and those were mostly due to the fact that they couldn't spare the time to learn, even though they were getting special lessons earlier in the day. None of the kids in this class met the other reason, though there was one a year older than them, who had a broken leg and couldn't stand, which was irritating him no end, since participating was a sign of maturity, so sitting out looked like they were a child again, something she was sure the other kids in his class were giving him a hard time about.