The Magic

The Dance

The paths to and from the dorms to the school were lightly illuminated by the warm orange flickering flames of the paper lanterns.
Leon walked along the path to the Gold dorm on his own; he had left Collin back at the school when passing by.
The path Leon had taken led him back into the forest. The quiet chirps of crickets kept him company in the soft orange light of the lanterns.

Eventually the trees separated and Leon found himself on the beach staring out over the ocean with the moon casting light over the small waves.
It was so peaceful, the gentle rippling of the waves against the shore, the soothing sounds of the ocean calmed Leon’s ears. It was so quiet and calm that it almost made Leon forget all the bad things that had happened to him since he had boarded the boat to Magic Academy.
The fights before and at the school with Edward, the fight with Malqua all seemed insignificant in comparison to the calm beauty of the ocean and the full moon.
‘Wait where is the Gold dorm?’ Leon asked allowed as he realised the path had just taken him to the beach.
‘It has to be around here some place…’

Leon scanned his surroundings, the path he had come from, the trees the beach but he couldn’t find anything until out of the corner of his eye he spotted a small cave entrance.
He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before and thought he must be silly for not noticing it because there was a pathway of paper lanterns leading to the entrance.
Leon followed the path to the entrance and when he looked inside he found that the lanterns were hanging from the ceiling instead of posts in the ground.
He glanced around the walls, ceiling and floor of the tunnel. All of them seemed to be carved out by man, they were shaped to perfectly to be a natural formation. The next thing that Leon noticed was that there were no bats inside the cave and no sounds of water dropping from the ceiling.

It was a few minutes before he exited the tunnel and when he finally did Leon found himself standing in a huge cavern.
The wall adjacent to him had a large circular opening. The opening led to the ocean and water flooded in, covering roughly seventy five percent of the cave floor.
Leon’s eyes were fixed on the middle of the lake where the middle of the cave was because it was brighter than most of the cavern.
Leon glanced up to find there was a large hole in the roof of the cavern. Moonlight flooded in from the top and illuminated the lake.
‘Great the gold dorm isn’t here that’s for su-‘ Leon paused at the end of his own sentence when his yes stoped scanning the cave and became fixed on a large golden Mansion sitting on the sand of the caverns shore.
‘I guess I’ve been wrong before…’ He spoke.

The Mansion wasn’t just painted gold as Leon soon found out, its bricks were made of solid gold slabs and the only things that weren’t gold were the clear polished windows.
Leon almost felt like he was committing some crime when he stepped onto the porch in front of the door, it was as if the sand and gravel on the bottom of his shoes was ruining an artwork.
Still Leon pushed on to the door and knocked loudly enough so that he thought someone inside the reception hall would be able to hear him.

After a few moments the door slowly opened up. To his surprise there was a young maid with golden hair tied up in a bun on the back of her hair. Her eyes were a pale gold and her maid outfit was gold too but had white areas on it.
‘Can I help you sir?’ She sounded young and had an upper class British accent, it made Leon wonder why someone who sounded upper class was a maid at a school dorm.
‘Oh I’m Leon and I’m looking for Alexandra.’ He answered politely.
‘Miss Alexandra is in her room, I can call her down if you would like to come in and wait for her, Mister Leon?’
‘Of course, oh and it’s just Leon.’ Leon smiled as he whipped his feet and stepped through the doorway.
The place looked spotless; there wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt in sight.
Leon surveyed the entrance room; there were portraits and golden images engraved onto the walls. There were people and what looked like gods and angels. The floor was made of white marble tiles and apart from the gold and white there was only one other thing of a different colouring that caught Leon’s attention, a red carpet leading up to the stairs and up them onto the second floor balcony. The carpet looked almost out of place but Leon couldn’t help but think that it made a good contrast with the rest of the enormous room.

‘Miss Alexandra you have a visitor!’ The maid shouted.
Leon found himself suddenly snapped out of his daydreaming and surveying and paying attention when he heard Alexandra shout back ‘Thank you Sadie I’m on my way down now!’
Alexandra stepped out from behind the right hand corridor on the upper balcony.
‘Hey down there Leon!’ Alexandra called out as she walked to the stairs.
Leon could was stunned by how beautiful she looked. He had always thought she was beautiful but she looked especially beautiful tonight. Her long golden hair was let down and her golden eyes sparkled with life in the light. Alexandra’s dress was long and golden; it went from her shoulders down to her ankles. Her shoes were gold too and had small heels.

‘You look beautiful Miss Alexandra.’ Sadie complemented her.
‘Thank you Sadie.’ Alexandra said as she walked down the stairs to Leon.
‘What’s wrong?’ She asked Leon who was just staring at her.
‘I-um. I…’
‘What is it silly.’ She giggled.
‘It’s just you look beautiful.’ Leon said smiling.
Alexandra blushed.
‘Well all the girls will be jealous of my handsome date’ she said winking at him to embarrass him back.
Alexandra grabbed Leon’s hand.
‘Well come one them let’s get going.’ She smiled ‘I’ll catch you later Sadie!’ she said as she and Leon walked out the front door.
‘Good evening Miss Alexandra and Leon, please do enjoy your self’s.’ Sadie replied taking a bow.

‘I had no clue that the Gold Dorm would be in a place like this.’ Leon said
‘Well it wasn’t. They move it each year with magic apparently and they moved it down here to keep it safe from Malqua’s attack.’
Leon couldn’t help but wish they had bothered to move the Blank dorm to somewhere safe instead of keeping it on the cliff it fell off of.

It took less time to make it back to the school than getting to the dorm.
When they got there they found allot of students and a few teachers in the courtyard.
The entrance doors were open and there was loud music coming from inside that Alexandra and Leon could hear before even reaching the school.
Everyone was happy inside. There were smiles and laughter but the most noticeable was the dancing and loud music.
It took Leon and Alexandra a while before they found their friends.
Collin was on his own at the food table, Kelly and Blaine were dancing together and then Leon saw something he never thought he would see. Of to the side was Erikson dancing with a young Brown Magic woman. Leon had seen her around the school every now and again smiling or saying hello to be polite but never actually engaging in actual conversation.
Leon struggled not to laugh at Erikson’s dancing, it wasn’t the worst he had ever seen but it definitely was not the best either.
‘Come on let’s dance!’ Alexandra shouted excitedly.
She ripped Leon almost off of the ground and dragged him onto the dance floor.

Leon all too quickly remembered that Erikson wasn’t the only bad dancer and he felt a bit guilty for nearly laughing at him. But Leon quickly found that his dancing wasn’t so bad either, or perhaps Alexandra was holding back her dancing skills so he wouldn’t look totally ridiculous.
After a few hours people had begun to leave and go back to their dorms or into the courtyard but still Leon and Alexandra remained.
The music now slow and lights dim the atmosphere was significantly calmer than what it had been. Leon had his hands resting on Alexandra’s hips and she on his shoulders as they slowly swayed back and forth.
Leon suddenly felt warm when Alexandra wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.
‘Leon I…’ Alexandra said cutting herself off.
‘What is it?’ Leon replied gently.
‘It’s just well when you were fighting Edward and Malqua I was so worried that you were going to get killed and well, it’s just… if you got badly hurt I’m not sure what I would do because I..’
Suddenly Blaine interrupted the conversation.
‘Hey you two were all going down to the port. Their holding a ceremony where they float off some of the lanterns into the sea for all the people that were lost in the attack. I figure we should go down and pay our respects.’
Leon glanced back at Alexandra who seemed a little grateful for the interruption but also upset with it.
‘Are you ok if we go?’ Leon asked.
‘Sure.’ She replied.

The group going down to the village consisted of Leon, Alexandra, Blaine, Kelly and Collin.
There was a mournful silence as the group ventured to the village and when they finally arrived they witnessed the true damage to all of the buildings. There was cement littered throughout the road and broken wood from trees.
‘This is horrible.’ Collin muttered. ‘How can one person possible cause so much destruction?’ He asked aloud.
‘Because they could. Malqua didn’t really have a reason he just wanted a fight. That was it.’ Leon replied. His fist clenched and he could feel a lump rising in his throat until he swallowed to talk again. ‘It’s sick. So many innocent people murdered because of one person’s thirst for a pointless battle.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, you can’t save everyone.’ Alexandra said comfortingly.
‘I guess. But I have to try..’

The group of friends wandered down to the shore where they saw the remainder of the villages population at the water’s edge, each placing a small lantern on top of the calm seas surface.
Leon picked up one of the small lanterns and walked to the water’s edge. For a few minutes he seemed to just stare at the water’s surface before placing the lantern on the surface and watching it float away.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save you all.’ He whispered.

When Leon got back to the group Alexandra asked him to go with her.
She led him down the beach further.
‘I need to finish what I was going to say.’ She said holding Leon’s hands.
‘What is it?’
‘The reason why I got so worried about you, the reason why I would be so hurt if you got yourself killed is because I wouldn’t know how to cope with losing someone who I care about as much as I care about you because you see I like you, allot.’
Alexandra wrapped her arms around Leon holding him tight, then he returned the gesture, holding her in his arms.
‘It’s ok.’ Leon reassured her. ‘I’ll never let myself get killed; I’ll always be here, for you because I have strong feelings for you too.’
Alexandra looked into Leon’s eyes and both noticed that the other has tears beginning to form.
‘You promise me that?’ She asked him.
‘I promise.’
Alexandra smiled and so did Leon then the two moved closer to each other and kissed.