The Academy of Magical Arts

Chapter 25: Rain

~Normal~
In the past few days, it had rained heavily over the Province of Wind. This caused Noelle, Raynor, Emily, and Eric's training to be cancelled. Despite the rain, soldiers still stayed out to guard the castle in case of surprise attacks.

Even though it rained outside, Noelle did not stop training. Even though it was hard for her to keep up with her friends when it comes to athletics, she did enjoy one thing: dancing. Ever since she was a little girl, she liked getting involved with all the dance activities in her neighbourhood. Ballet, Jazz, Western, you name it.

  Noelle was in her room, and was, as expected, dancing. She was learning the choreography of a dance from a different culture. It was pretty difficult, but she never let that stop her. No matter how hard a dance was, she always felt challenged by them and always chose them over the easier ones.

  ~Noelle~
  Sweat trickled down from my face as I once again stopped the music. The choreography to this song was very difficult, but I kept going. There was never a dance that I failed to learn. I never gave up on any of them, and I won't start by giving up with this one.

  "Hey Noel-" I heard a voice call me through the door. It surprised me and I fell onto the floor.

  "Ouch!" I murmured softly. "Shoot, I must have left the door open."

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." I looked up to see Raynor looking down at me. "Need a hand?"

  I took his hand and pulled myself up. I dropped myself onto the bed.

  "So, what exactly were you doing?" He asked.

  "I-I, uh, w-was, uh, j-just exercising." I stammered, my face turning red.

  "Didn't look like it." He said. "Dancing?"

  "Yeah."

  "I didn't know you were into that kind of thing." He said.

  "I liked to dance ever since I was little." I said. "I joined dance events in my neighbourhood back in the village I used to live in."

  "Competitions?" He asked.

  "Not very much." I said. "Most of them were just activities to learn choreographies from popular groups."

  "But you still entered contests?" He asked.

  "Just small ones in the community. I won a few times." I said.

  ~Raynor~
  "So, what's the choreography you're trying to learn right now?" I asked.

  "It's a dance from a different culture, in a different language." She said. "Here, I'll show you."

  She showed me the video of the choreography of her dance. Sure enough, it was pretty difficult.

  "The choreography's pretty hard." I said. "You're sure you're able to pull it off?"

  "I've been practicing ever since it started raining." She said. "I learned the full dance already, but I've never been able to do the dance without making mistakes."

  "Do you mind showing me?" I asked. "Don't worry, I won't force you."

  "It's fine, I'll try. But do note, I might make a few mistakes." She said, which I wasn't expecting. She stood up and began in the starting position.

*Song Plays* (insert random song xD (When I wrote this, I was thinking of "Dreamin' Chuchu" by Megurine Luka. I just started learning this dance, and it's not that difficult, but it took me a while to learn just the chorus)

  As soon as she finished, she dropped herself onto the bed.

  "That was really hard choreography," I said. "but you were able to pull it off."

  "It was the first time..." She said.

  "First time?" I asked.

  "...that I pulled it off perfectly."

  "Really?" I asked. "Good job!"

"Maybe it's because you're here." She said smiling. My face turned a faint pink. I looked away before she could notice.

"Wh-What do you mean?" I asked.

"Even I can't relax around myself." She said. "Ever since I became the princess, everyone's expecting me to do everything perfectly. And with that thought in mind, even I thought I had to do everything perfectly. It made it harder for me to relax when in my mind I know that I always had to give it my all. Even I pressure myself into doing things perfectly, that's probably why I kept making mistakes. But when a friend's around, I can focus on the dance instead of doing it perfectly."

"I know exactly what you mean." I said. "Since I'm an only child in my family, everyone expects the best from me. They say I can't relax and do things less than perfectly. It puts a lot of pressure on me."

"So I guess we're somewhat the same." She smiled.

"Yeah." I said. "I guess so."

~Raynor~
For some reason, a part of me was happy that Noelle showed this side of her to me.

I guess she's finally coming out of her shell.