Aru Shah One-Shots

I Can't Dance (ARIDEN)

Hi! I'm the newest (as far as I know) member of this group. You'll probably know who I am sooner or later, but for the time being, I think I'll keep my identity in the dark.

I'm not part of the roleplay, I'm just a community contributor.

And an avid writer though, so enjoy this little oneshot ;)

Also, there's no official ship name for Aru and Aiden, so let's go with Ariden

Post-writing edit: who am I kidding, this ain't little. It's 1900-ish words composed over less than 42 hours, for Parvati's sake.

Maybe I should do more of these...

-𓃰𓃰𓃰-

"Oh, c'mon, Aru, pleaaaseee?" Mini begged her soul sister.

Beg about what, you ask? Well, the Otherworld was hosting a formal for its trainees, which was basically a school dance, but a bit fancier. Like, this time the decorators night actually care about making the colors of the streamers and tablecloths match, for once.

All the Potatoes, minus Aiden, who was helping his mom with something, were all currently hanging out in the front of the museum, and five of them were preoccupied trying to convince the remaining one to attend the dance with them.

"Yeah!" Sheela said from across the room, where she was playing with a small doll Nikita had made her for her birthday. "It'll be fun!"

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but yeah, you should come," Brynne said. "Of course, if they're gonna force me to come, Im'ma force you to come."

Aru rolled her eyes. Oh, joy, she thought.

"And I'll make you all some new and stylish outfits!" Nikita said excitedly.

"What's the worst that could happen, Shah?" Rudy asked.

Aru bit her lip. It was a quiet but persistent memory of the last time she'd attended a school dance that kept resurfacing in her mind's eye, over and over again. She didn't exactly want to go, but how could she explain that?

"Uhhhh," was her brilliant response.

-𓃰-

And so here was the reincarnation of the great and fearsome warrior demigod Arjuna the Triumphant a week and a half later... awkwardly standing in the corner of the huge ballroom where the dance was being hosted.

The music was so loud that Aru could barely hear herself think, let alone hold a conversation. If a song with a drumming part came on, she was almost certain that some traces of the noise would get through to the normal world and people would think it was thunder.

Aru remembered when she was a kid standing at the windowsill as a summer thunderstorm raged over Atlanta. Bright lightning would arc through the grey sky as raindrops made a rhythmic pitter-patter-pitter-patter-pitter-patter noise on the glass. And then, the entire world, it seemed like, would shake with a mighty BOOM!

Most kids would've probably hidden under their blankets and covered their heads with their pillow, but not Aru. She'd always liked thunder and lightning, for some reason. To her, it was like the gods were holding a rock concert. At the time she had come up with that as a little girl, it had seemed cool, but now she decided that she'd rather not envision Indra with an electrical guitar sliding across the stage. Or any other god, for that matter.

She was startled out of her thoughts by Brynne walking up to her and nudging her shoulder with hers. "Aren't you gonna dance, Shah?"

Aru blinked and looked at the dance floor, which was filled with a mob of teens.