Coach Amelia Pierce
September 06, 2011 9:37 PM
Dance Instruction for All Ages by Coach Amelia Pierce
Amelia Pierce stood in the center of MARS Room Three with John Fawcett next to her. Each of the four common room bulletin boards had boasted advertisements for Dancing Lessons for the last week and now the two instructors were waiting to see who arrived for them.That she'd been asked to lead this class came as little surprise to her. As Quidditch Coach she was the default instructor when it came to physical activities, which is what dance qualified as more so than anything any of the other professors specialized in. Plus, she'd been raised a New Hampshire Pierce which meant she'd learned to dance at about the same time she had learned to walk and ride a broom. (Back then, WAIL hadn't existed yet so it hadn't been nearly as improper for a girl to fly as it was today.) Also, she'd given the lessons four years ago, before the last dance, so it was practically a given that Sadi would ask her to reprise that role.
She wasn't quite sure what John had done to deserve this, but they'd done some practice together in preparation for today's lesson and he seemed to know what he was doing. Someday, she was sure, she'd learn that John Fawcett was complete rubbish at something, but it hadn't happened yet.
One wall of the room they stood in was lined with mirrors. Amelia took a few moments to make sure her hair and gown hadn't become mussed since the last time she checked, but they both would have met her mother's exacting standards. If she was going to teach eleven to seventeen year olds how to deport themselves at a Renaissance Ball, she was going to do it right. She'd even worn make-up.
The barre along the wall opposite the mirror would probably not be used for much other than holding the shawl she'd already draped over the far end, but it did a good job of reminding anyone who looked at it that this was a Dance Room. The great expanse of hardwood that they'd be spinning around today just wouldn't have the same intensity of purpose without it.
As the students began arriving singly, in pairs, and in groups she began sorting them. "If you already have a partner, stand on that side of the room," she pointed over near her shawl. "Otherwise, girls next to the mirror, boys next to the wall."
Once the kids stopped trickling in and it seemed they had all they would have for the optional class, Amelia glanced over the group of boys and girls, determined that they were not quite even (hardly surprising) but they had enough of each that they weren't going to need to break up couples.
"We've got an uneven distribution, so if you don't have a partner at the beginning of a dance, let the people who do have a minute to practice then you can ask to cut in. If you do have a partner and see someone not participating, I promise your current partner will not mind it if you want to step on someone else's toes for a little while." She smiled a little to show she was joking. "We want everyone to have a chance to try out the dances we'll be learning today."
"We'll start with a simple waltz," she continued, moving into the meat of the lesson. "The waltz has been referenced as early as the 16th century, which as you all know by now, is the theme for this year's ball, so it's both appropriate to the historical time period as well as being one of the most popular ballroom dances taught today."
"Waltz is a smooth graceful dance characterized by long, flowing movements, continuous turns, and a rising and falling motion. It's slow, so don't rush it. There's a couple of basic steps that you'll be using. We're going to start with the left box turn."
"But first," she moved to stand in front of John. "You need to get into hold. Like this." They clasped hands, her right in his left, as she straightened her spine and rested her left hand on his right elbow while his right hand supported her left elbow. "Now, girls, you will be stepping back with your right foot. Boys, step forward with your left. You're moving in the shape of a box, that's why its called the box step. So your next step is to the side. Girls, you go with your left foot. Boys, with your right." She and John demonstrated as she spoke.
"Now, bring your feet together. Then, girls, you step forward with your left foot, boys backwards with your right. Then another side step to return where you were; girls step with your right, boys with your left. Then close. That's six steps. We'll start spinning after you get those down. Now pair up if you didn't bring a partner with you, and let's try it."
Once everyone seemed sorted into pairs of one boy and one girl, Amelia turned on the music and started calling out, "Boys, Forward left. Side right. Side left. Back right. Side left. Side right. Girls, follow the boy's lead. Let's do it again. Boys. Forward left. Side right. Side left. Back right. Side left. Side right. One more time. Forward left. Side right. Side left. Back right. Side left. Side right. Now try it on your own."
Some of the kids were definitely getting it better than others. She decided to give them a few more measures to work it out before she started going around to tell them they were doing it wrong.
Subthreads: I'll just start out by apologizing in advance. [Marrissa] by Andrew Duell with Marissa Stephenson
And....we <i>Dance</i> by Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren with Laurie Stratford, Kitty
Waltz of the Wallflower by Cherry Bosko
Seeking Single Advanced Class Female by Daniel Nash with Alison Sinclair
Dancing for Fun by Derry Four with Jessica Applerose
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Coach Amelia Pierce
Dance Instruction for All Ages
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Coach Amelia Pierce
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Andrew Duell
September 10, 2011 1:28 PM
I'll just start out by apologizing in advance. [Marrissa] by Andrew Duell
Andrew had mixed feelings when he had heard that Coach Pierce was going to be giving dancing instructions before the big dance. He was happy because he desperately needed dance lessons, and if all went well, he could maybe talk Marissa into going with him. That means he'd get to dance with her even more. That led to the downside of the lessons though, what would happen if he stepped on her feet to much? What if he really messed up somehow and injured her? He wasn't quite sure how that would happen... but you never know. Coach was there, and she wouldn't let anything to bad happen to them, she'd saved them many times over the course of their quidditch 'career' here at the school. The other thing that bothered him a little bit was Jane. She had very kindly offered to help him learn to dance at the opening feast. Now he was just tossing that aside and learning from the coach? Maybe Jane would be here anyway and would be able to give him some good pointers and stuff while the coach was helping some of the other students.He had actually managed to ask Marissa and she, for some reason, agreed to meet him there. He made his way to the Mars room early and waited for the rest to show up. He smiled and waved when Marissa arrived. Then he figured he should listen to the coach's instructions. Hopefully this would go well.
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Andrew Duell
I'll just start out by apologizing in advance. [Marrissa]
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Andrew Duell
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Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
September 11, 2011 4:18 PM
And....we <i>Dance</i> by Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
Giddiness made each step feel light as Kitty skipped to the MARS rooms. She was wearing a long dark green dress that fell about the same way as her costum did. Because she wanted to keep it a surprise, she didn't ware it now, but this would allow her to get a feel for dancing in a long dress. The sleves weren't the same, these were short, but she didn't think that sleeves would play a big part in dancing anyway, just the skirts.Kitty had never learned how to dance for real. This was going to be so much fun! Her long black curls had been pulled up into a high playful tail to keep them out of her face. Going to a real life ball made the tiny girl feel like she'd just stepped into a fairytail. Well, this whole new world made her feel like that on a regular basis, but something aobut a ball just made the feeling all the more prominant.
So when she saw the bulitan to learn how to dance, Kitty coudln't get the image of Beauty and the Beast dancing out of her mind. I want to dance like that! Kitty thought with excitment. Moving gracefully over the dance floor in perfect harmony with her dance partner. But, she had no idea how to dance like that, and so she was determined to do well in this class, and learn the steps.
Entering the room bright blue eyes scanned the faces of the other students. Some were as excited as herself, while others looked decidedly nervous. Kitty wondered why, these were just lessons after all. It didn't seem like anything to be stressed out about to her. With a happy smile, eyes glittering with antisipation Kitty took her place by the mirror.
Watching the two professors made her sigh at their gracefullness, it was just like the movies. But, she didn't let herself get caught up in how well they danced, she focused on the instructions and the steps she'd have to perform soon. After the instructions were given and she thought she had her part memorized Kitty looked over to the boy's side for a partnerm.
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Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
And....we <i>Dance</i>
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Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
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Laurie Stratford
September 11, 2011 6:29 PM
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined. by Laurie Stratford
Laurie didn’t need the dance lessons, his grandmother had made sure he knew how to dance since he started to walk. Being a good dancer was part of the Pureblood doctrine that had been inculcated in the young Pureblood since he could remember. The Teppenpaw thought it would be fun to attend the class, he was always in for a good time, and even when he wasn’t an expert dancer, he found dancing to be fun. Laurie was always up for a good time. Plus, he had more energy than most and could use some kind of exercise to try and burn it. He was always looking for activities that could help him concentrate his energy on something positive, and dancing was definitely such an activity.The redheaded Teppenpaw was excited about the Ball at the end of the year, it would be the first time he would actually attend one. His family held parties, but he usually was confined in a room with the other children, a Ball for children had to very different from a Ball for adults. He was actually looking forward to see what this would bring. Laurie loved new experiences.
He had owled home and requested an awesome costume for the Ball. His mother had complied and got it for him. He already had it stocked away in his room. The costume consisted of tights, the dress-like shirt and a short cape, completed with a hat, all in black and gold. He grinned just thinking about all the fun he would have, he would talk all night in a fake accent and all. The only thing that was missing for the night was a date, and he already had someone in mind. Kitty would be the perfect partner to have fun with, they were so much alike, that he was sure she would dress-up as well, or he hoped she would.
Laurie was humming all the way to MARS, just in the nick of time to be on time for the class. He smiled when he saw Kitty there, he walked towards her and stayed silent while Coach Pierce and Professor Fawcett gave an explanation of what they would be learning, waltzing was easy and fun. He just sneakily stayed a little bit out of Kitty’s sight, determined to scare her as a joke. When she looked to her side, Laurie stepped into her line of sight and gave a big dramatic bow, “Me Lady,” he managed say between giggles. He straightened and offered her his arm, “Would you give me the pleasure of this piece?” his accent was fake, his tone and movements overly dramatized for the desired effect. A smile ever present on his face, this was beginning to be more fun than he had anticipated.
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Laurie Stratford
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined.
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Laurie Stratford
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Kitty
September 11, 2011 8:03 PM
Happily learning a new skill by Kitty
A tiny eeep of surprise escaped Kitty when Laurie appeared next to her like magic. The surprise gave way to a happy laugh at Laurie’s antics. Wobbling just a little at the unfamiliar move Kitty gave a deep curtsy like she’d seen in the movies. Following Laurie’s lead she took his arm and in an equally fake but playful accent Kitty said “Why it would be my pleasure good sir!” Her fake lady like look almost cracked as she stifled a giggle.Of all the boys in the school Kitty was glad it had been Laurie who decided to dance with her. Everyone else seemed so formal, and they would probably get annoyed if she made mistakes. But Laurie, she knew that he would be patient with her, and teach her what to do while keeping things fun. Yes, the purebloods were fun to talk with, but they did tend to get annoyed with her and she didn’t think they’d like teaching her something like this. Most of the time Kitty didn’t even think of Laurie as a pureblood, he was just Laurie to her, perfect fun always.
“Well, I have no idea what I’m doing but we’ll have fun doing it!” Kitty whispered with a grin, it was half apology half good humor. Her laughing blue eyes gazed up at him as she got into the starting pose, completely comfortable with the contact and exited to learn how to Waltz.
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Kitty
Happily learning a new skill
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Kitty
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Marissa Stephenson
September 16, 2011 12:28 PM
Me, too. by Marissa Stephenson
When Marissa was three, her mother had started her on gymnastics classes. Five had marked her entrance to ballet and tap. Of the three, she thought she was best at ballet, but thought she might be able to whip out a simple demonstration of any of the three if she felt like it, especially since MARS had opened up. Tap was good for stress, sometimes. The noise made the activity feel a lot more violent than it was.Eventually, she knew, if everything had not changed, she would have learned at least the basics of ballroom dancing as well. Her parents had both risen in the world through sheer determination, and now that they were up, that determination had been transferred neatly to staying up and making their two daughters seem as though they came from a doctor-lawyer family which had been a doctor-lawyer family for a lot longer than they really had been.
But when she was eleven, she had been accepted to Sonora, and everything had changed. She spent her summers – and, honestly, a lot of her free time here – doing all the math and science and humanities work that she didn’t get at Sonora, and the older she got, the more time that took up. Now, she was so swamped during the summers alone that she felt as though she were doing something horribly self-indulgent if she supplemented her morning and evening jogs with a tennis game with one of her friends in the afternoon, and dancing in any way had fallen by the wayside with the rest of her physical activities at home. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except that she was a prefect and had to go to the ball and dance in front of everyone in her entire school.
So she was grateful when Andrew suggested going to the dancing lessons first. It felt bad to admit to needing an extra lesson, to not already being prepared for everything that her badge could throw at her, but it had to be done, and being asked instead of doing the asking made things so much easier somehow.
Walking into the dance room, set up as it was, was initially a comfortable experience for her, because it mirrored the format of the ballet studio she had learned in. All it needed was the extension from the back wall that had been there for them to sit on during breaks and for the CD and tape players to be on, with the place in front of that where they got resin on their shoes. And, she added fairly, for the floor to be less shiny, but this was magic, so she could forgive that. Then, though, she saw her Head of House and began to feel very displaced.
She had heard that Coach Pierce was a pureblood – sort of – (it had sounded like one of those complicated things that only purebloods would understand), and so maybe it shouldn’t have bothered her any more to see the coach in a gown than it did when some of her fellow students didn’t seem to know what century it was, but – it did. There was nothing wrong with it, Marissa certainly agreed that she had the right to dress however she wanted to dress, or needed to as the occasion demanded, but…She had just never pictured it.
On the bright side, though, it lessened the incongruity of Professor Fawcett being Coach Pierce’s partner. There was that.
She smiled back at Andrew when he waved to her, and, at the instruction for people with partners to get together, went to join him near the piece of fabric draped over the barre.
“Hi,” she said. “Want to go ahead and agree not to hold any trampled feet against each other?”
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Marissa Stephenson
Me, too.
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Marissa Stephenson
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Cherry Bosko
September 17, 2011 11:17 PM
Waltz of the Wallflower by Cherry Bosko
Cherry never considered herself a dancer. She had never taken lessons, not even in ballet or tap or lyrical, and she was feeling a little... maybe a lot... unprepared for the upcoming ball. It would be her first dance ever. She'd never even been to a wedding. And so it was that Cherry followed the signs to the dance room for the dance lessons.When she walked in, shoes clunking on the hardwood floor, and saw the big mirrors on one side of the room with the barre like on tv dance classes, she thought maybe she should just sit on a mat and watch. It would be fun to draw the figures in her sketchbook and make diagrams of the moves.... but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. She was here, wasn't she? She had to participate.
Dancing was probably like drawing, anyway. Or painting. You had to feel it to understand it. You couldn't just draw a diagram or a picture of it and know what it was all about.
Cherry had worn a long skirt for the occasion--not that she was ever not wearing a skirt under her school robes, but she'd picked this one today specifically for its flowy-ness. Underneath it, she had knee-length leggings, just in case, and her favorite shoes--a pair of comfy red mary-janes.
Cherry wandered to the front side of the crowd since, as a first year, she was inevitably one of the shortest dancers. Coach Pierce started the lessons and Cherry looked around for someone--hopefully another first year, but maybe a second year would be okay--to pair up with. She wondered if she should learn the boy's part so she had a better chance of actually using what they learned today. No one would care if eleven year old girls danced together. She'd definitely rather dance with Jenny and Brianna than Linus. Of course, from what she heard, Linus already had a date so there was no danger of that.
But what if someone asked her? Not that she thought anyone would. Cherry didn't really hang around with any of the boys. But if someone did, she'd want to know the girl's part.
She stood with the girls and practiced the box step. She was a little relieved not to get a partner in the first go-round. It gave her more time to practice and see what to do.
1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 Cherry counted and danced around her imaginary box while the couples did their thing. Her skirt swished around her calves. She smiled at one of the other girls who didn't get a boy. "Hey," she said. "This is kind of fun."
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Cherry Bosko
Waltz of the Wallflower
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Cherry Bosko
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Laurie
September 18, 2011 4:34 PM
Happily relearning a skill by Laurie
Laurie was glad that Kitty went with his ruse, she curtsied and talked in a fake accent. Excellent, this was going to be awesome. He just hoped Professor Fawcett and Coach Pierce didn’t mind their fooling around while the rest of the students learned how to dance. The redhead didn’t mind teaching Kitty himself if he needed to, he preferred to continue with his fun, and worry (like he ever did that) about dancing later. He was more than capable of teaching the basics to Kitty it was just a matter of focusing long enough to do so. He bowed again, “Lovely, My Lady. Just lovely.” If he had tried this with any Pureblood girl, she would have scowled and told him out with his parents. Apparently Pureblood girls didn’t have a very good sense of humor, and the Teppenpaw got bored with them rather quickly.He smiled at Kitty, “It will certainly is.” His response to her statement was accompanied with his fake overdramatic accent. He was going to practice it for the length of the dancing class, practice made perfect and he was going to rock out at the Ball. He could hardly wait for it to happen. His mother had told him to owl him the next day with everything that had happened. She had been opposed to him attending a school out of State. Laurie was the oldest and his mother had anxiety issues when it came to being away from him. Lawrence didn’t think it was a big deal, he was having a blast at Sonora, and he wouldn’t change it for anything.
The Teppenpaw got into position, his left hand on Kitty’s waist and his right hand grasping her hand. “Okay, let’s commence this,” he said very formally. “A fair warning, My Lady. I know how to dance, but I am not that good at it,” he grinned. It was true; he had never been very graceful while dancing. Preston was better, but his cousin always had to be better at everything.
“Let’s commence!” Laurie stepped forward with his left foot, just like he had been instructed by Coach Pierce and the countless Dance Coaches he had known through his life. He took the step to the side and he stepped on Kitty’s foot! “Sorry!” his accent was gone for the first time during the class. “Are you okay?” his green eyes looked at her, worry clearly reflected on them.
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Laurie
Happily relearning a skill
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Laurie
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Andrew Duell
September 18, 2011 5:37 PM
Now that we have that out of the way, shall we proceed? by Andrew Duell
Andrew wondered if he'd ever get over that weak-knee feeling that he got when Marissa smiled at him. He hoped not. He would have been grinning like a fool by the time she made it over to him, if he hadn't been desperately battling his facial reactions to try and look cool and calm and all of that sort of stuff. He wasn't sure he was getting much success. He allowed his grin to slip out as he responded to her, "Sounds good to me, but I think I may benefit more from that agreement than you will." He looked down at their feet and compared his size 12 stompers to her cute, dainty feet. How much damage could they possibly do compared to his? "I won't fault you if you want to hold anything against me after this."It took just a moment for his own words to register in his ears and he realized there could be the slightest possibility of double meaning there. He flushed red and his eyes widened. What if she though... he didn't mean... that hadn't been what he... crap. He stared at Marissa for just a moment trying to figure out how to explain without making it worse, then Coach Pierce started talking again. Saved!! He turned to face the Coach and listened probably more intently than he would have needed for the occasion.
Why did talking to girls have to be so hard? If that had been some sort of Freudian slip, then fine, he'd take the Freud route for the rest of it... it was all his mother's fault. She had been the one pushing for him to be more social and especially to find himself a nice girl. The ball had just forced a deadline. Despite that he had succeeded, to some extent at least. He had found a nice girl, the nicest girl in the school by his opinion. It was just for the dance, but that was a start wasn't it? A start to what though? He stopped his mind short before it could delve into some of the familiar fantasies it has grown accustomed to since Marissa actually agreed to go to the dance with him. They weren't real... or even based on reality (the one of them fighting off the zombie apocalypse together was kinda cool though). It hit him then, they weren't real because despite going to the same school and classes for the past five and a half years, he still didn't really know her. He knew she was muggleborn, from somewhere in Georgia and was waaaaay better at magical theory and potions than he ever would be. But, what else?
Now the coach was instructing them on how to do the hold and steps. He turned back to her, his face normal if not a bit more sober than usual. He gave her a friendly, bit hesitant grin and offered up a simple, "I'm sorry. Shall we?" He tried to mimic Professor Fawcett's stance in front of her, allowing her room to move into it if she choose.
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Andrew Duell
Now that we have that out of the way, shall we proceed?
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Andrew Duell
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Daniel Nash
September 18, 2011 7:20 PM
Seeking Single Advanced Class Female by Daniel Nash
Daniel already knew how to dance. Well, he'd taken a few lessons a few years ago that he figured would work well enough to get him through the ball. The problem was that he didn't have anyone to dance with at said ball and, as Head Boy, he would be expected to be among the prefects kicking things off. Under ordinary circumstances, he probably would have asked Charlie, but Charlie was . . . well, he was just going to assume that Charlie was already spoken for without thinking too much about who had spoken for her. Daniel was not going to ask just to be turned down in favor of Him.Unfortunately, Daniel really had no idea what the dating status of the rest of his class was. Adelita had gone with her sister to the last dance but he thought there was Something Complicated going on with her and he didn't really want to get mixed up in it. Plus, she was Charlie's best friend and most likely privy to the knowledge that Daniel wasn't sure he even liked girls, and that would make things awkward and weird. On the other hand, she might be willing to take pity on him for Charlie's sake if he really got desperate and needed someone for that one first dance. He'd like to avoid that situation if at all possible, though.
Quentin had expressed an interest in Marissa last time around, and though Daniel wasn't sure if that still stood, Quentin was really the only one of his roommates who didn't seem to actively dislike him. James Anthony's hatred was open, mutual, and self-evident, but Juri's quieter dislike didn't seem any less intense at times, and Daniel honestly didn't know where it came from since it started before he'd become Head Boy. So he wouldn't ask Marissa out of respect to Quentin.
Otherwise, there was pretty much only Pippa, Alison, and Dana in the Seventh Year class, and Cassandra and Tawny in Sixth. Tawny was out. Jose had gone with her last time, and rumor had it that he'd asked her again this year. And Edmond had a Thing for Cassie, and Daniel would not be stepping on his Assistant Captain's toes there. So that eliminated the sixth year class. Juri had asked Pippa last time, and he'd been pretty quick about it, too, so she might already have a date, but he wasn't sure about that.
He figured the best way to tell was to go to the Dance lessons and see if Pippa, Dana, or Alison were also there scoping out boys.
So here he was, standing on the Boys side of the room, looking over the Girls side of the room and dearly hoping he would spot a single girl older in the RATS level here today. Marissa, he noted with a glance to the far side of the room, had come, but with Andrew, so even if she wasn't claimed by Quentin, she did already have a partner.
Please, he quietly pleaded with Law of Murphy, Just this once, prove me wrong, and let there be someone older than fourteen needing a dance partner. He turned back to the unpartnered girls again, looking past the short front lines of younger students to the taller and older girls watching Coach Pierce over the smaller heads. Once he was instructed to find a partner, he headed for the girls side and bowed politely to one of the older ones present, asking, as was proper, "May I have this dance?"
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Daniel Nash
Seeking Single Advanced Class Female
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Daniel Nash
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Kitty
September 20, 2011 7:32 PM
A few bumps along the way, but lots of laughs too by Kitty
Sparkling blue eyes gazed up at him full of fun and good humor “Let’s shall!” She said mimicking his accent playfully once they were in the proper position. And with a cry of let’s commence from Laurie he stepped forward, squarely on Kitty’s foot. “Oww!” Kitty yelped at the sudden pain. More out of surprise really, for some reason she thought that all magic kids would be aces at dancing.Laurie’s quick apology and worried gaze made Kitty squeeze his hand reassuringly. “No worries dear boy no worries.” Kitty continued in a rich old Dame voice her sky blues twinkling with suppressed laughter. Kitty wasn’t one to fear a little pain. Or even a lot of pain in the right circumstances. Like the time she carefully stitched together a parachute out of three bed sheets then climbed up the six foot fence, and from there to the roof. She still remembered that glorious moment, realizing now that it was probably magic at the time when the cloth seemed to hold for the span of half a minute before gravity won. Two sprained ankles, and being grounded for a month was totally worth those thirty breathless wonderful seconds.
While dancing probably wasn’t on par with taking a leap of faith off her roof with nothing more than bed sheets between her and the hard ground, dancing with Laurie was still great fun. Being stepped on now and again was worth their game, and she knew that odds were fair she’d end up stepping on him before the day was done. With her eyes still laughing Kitty snapped in a prim voice reminiscent of a French ballet instructor “Again!”
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Kitty
A few bumps along the way, but lots of laughs too
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Kitty
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Alison Sinclair
September 21, 2011 3:57 PM
Well, if those are your only specifications.... by Alison Sinclair
Alison had skills. She had mastered several areas of magic well enough to continue them at the RATS level. She could carry a tune, at least in a moderately-sized bucket. She could walk and talk at the same time as long as the topic wasn’t too deep. She could even usually stop herself from carrying her RATS-induced chocolate binges to the place where she got sick from them, which felt sometimes like more of an accomplishment than the rest of it all put together. She still had no idea what she was going to do for a living after school, but she thought she was doing pretty well in life so far.One skill, though, that she definitely didn’t have was dancing. It had just never been necessary for her before this point. That had been a mild concern for her. Now, though, it was, so she was just glad that it turned out some of the faculty could dance and were willing to demonstrate, possibly so prefects wouldn’t look too stupid. She took this as things looking after themselves and turned up, feeling glad that she thought she wasn’t the type to take it too personally if she stumbled around like a drunken moose on two legs for a while.
Seeing the Quidditch coach dressed up nearly unrecognizably gave her a second of pause, since she wondered if she should have worn her dress robes, but it was too late to worry about that now. She had on her school robes, which would do for any curtsying she was supposed to do, and she really would fall around like an idiot if she tried to learn the basics in a big, wide-skirted floor-length dress. Given direction, she went to the mirror side, looking over at the selection on the boys’ side. She wasn’t expecting much more variety than she had reasoned out there would be, but she wasn’t exactly the person best connected to the gossip line, so who knew.
That Andrew and Marissa were together, at least for this, was confirmed shortly after she began looking around. Affection or convenience, she wondered. Marissa seemed like enough of a prim little thing – despite actually being a bit taller than Alison, very tall for a girl, they must have been really short-handed one year for her to play Seeker – to keep a relationship very quiet, but certainly it was convenient; with the gender distribution not really that even, unattached prefects pairing up with other unattached prefects almost seemed like the fairest way to go about it. Her guess, once they had their demonstration and were ordered to pair up, was that similar thinking might have had something to do with Daniel Nash approaching her once they were told to partner up.
Or she was just the oldest girl who didn’t already know how to dance. Whatever. She wasn’t picky.
“Sure,” she said, stepping forward slightly and, since he had bowed, made an approximation of a curtsy, wondering if the whole ritual was satirical or not. “No idea what I’m doing, but I’ll get the hang of it pretty quick.”
Perhaps it would have been smarter to be a little more cautious about it, at least go through the usual disclaimer of hoping she’d make it work, but she’d known just enough people who were too literal to not bother. He was Quentin Melcher’s roommate, and for all she knew, since she didn’t really know either of them that well, it had rubbed off at some point during the likely full seven years they had spent in each other’s company. That kind of thing could happen, people getting more like people they were with a lot – though if Quentin was now more like others, she’d have hated to be in his first year group….
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Alison Sinclair
Well, if those are your only specifications....
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Alison Sinclair
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Daniel
September 22, 2011 8:03 PM
I thought I'd have to drop specifications not add them by Daniel
Alison. Thank Merlin Alison was here, too. And she apparently didn't have a date yet, so he thought he had a good chance of her saying yes, at least for the first dance if not for the whole night. She was a prefect, too, after all, so she had to be out there anyway.She returned his bow with a curtsey that had a reasonable amount of grace to it, if not well-practiced or fully committed, but executed well enough that he believed her when she claimed she would pick up dancing quickly in spite of her lack of experience. He might wait until the end of the lesson, though, to ask her to the ball, just in case she was completely hopeless, but he doubted it would come to that. (He wasn't asking for much; just a better talent than any of the Celebrities voted off the first week of Dancing with the Stars - which he would deny watching to his dying day.)
He smiled encouragingly, "I'll keep things simple for you, then. Waltzes are pretty easy as long as you don't try to make them complicated." That they would not be doing a routine fit for The Show He Disavowed Ever Seeing went without saying. Daniel did know how to waltz, at least at an intermediate level, and even he wouldn't dare try some of those moves anytime soon.
Straightening his posture, he held out his left hand towards her right, in the first step toward getting into hold, and asked, "Ready to start?" He also lifted his right arm out to side, palm up, ready to hold her elbow when she presented it to him.
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Daniel
I thought I'd have to drop specifications not add them
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Daniel
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Derry Four
September 22, 2011 10:02 PM
Dancing for Fun by Derry Four
Derry had written home at the beginning of the year to tell his mom about the dance at the end of it. She had spent most of the time between then and midterm making him a few options for what to wear to it. When he got the outfits for Christmas, he almost felt bad that he had decided to stay at school instead of going home so she could see him open them. He had immediately written her his thanks, so he hoped his excitement and appreciation had come through well enough.There had been four costumes to choose from, and he picked his second favorite to wear today for the dance lesson. It didn't quite hit the sixteenth century fashion that was the theme, but it was from the late seventeenth, early eighteenth century. It was a formal high class colonial suit, complete with a powdered white wig. It wasn't really well designed for dancing in, which was at least part of the reason why he opted against it for the actual ball, but it would work well enough for the beginning lesson he expected the Coach's dance class would prove to be.
He considered skipping it - he already knew how to dance just fine and the Coach was Evil - but dancing was fun and he wasn't going to let the fact that Amelia Pierce was running it ruin his chance to spend time dancing with his classmates. So he came to the MARS room at the appointed time and moved against the wall with the other single boys.
He hadn't quite figured out who to ask yet. He was sort of leaning toward Demetra since they'd already danced together for most of Fae's party last year, but he was also contemplating asking one of his Teppenpaw friends. His father and grandmother would obviously want him to ask a pureblood girl, but that was barely registering in his consideration of options. He just wanted to go with someone he'd have a fun time with. The difficult part was that he was friends with a lot of girls now, and he didn't want any of them to feel bad that he'd picked someone else. It was making him hesitate and hope that eventually all but one of them would all get dates and he'd ask the one who was left.
In the meantime, he could dance with somebody and help them learn how to waltz. Heading over to the girl's side of the room, he bowed to one close to his own age and asked, mostly rhetorically since this was a dance class, "Would you care to dance?"
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Derry Four
Dancing for Fun
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Jessica Applerose
September 24, 2011 2:31 PM
Dancing is pretty fun by Jessica Applerose
Jessica wasn't keen on dancing or going to the ball (unless she was asked, of course) but she thought she'd ought to learn. Her parents waltzed around the house loads of times. Since they'd grown up in a staunch pureblood household, they had gotten lessons. Her grandparents had made her siblings have lessons too. Jessica was always feeling like the odd one out. Her parents, being very liberal purebloods, didn't think that dancing lessons were really necessary anyway and Jess had agreed till now. Now, when there was a ball to go to. So dancing lessons sounded like a good idea, just in case.Jess stood by the girl's side of the room, waiting for a gentleman, hopefully her age, to ask her to dance. She was wearing a loose blue dress that made her blue eyes and a blue ribbon in her brown curls. Her slippers were black and her mother had charmed them when she'd sent them for Christmas so they wouldn't fall off her feet. She liked how they glittered in the light.
As she stared down at her flats, admiring them, someone came up to her and asked her to dance. Surprised, she saw a familiar face; a fellow Teppenpaw. "Derry? I'd be glad to dance with you." She curtsied and smiled. "I haven't seen you in awhile. How have you been?"
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Jessica Applerose
Dancing is pretty fun
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Jessica Applerose
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Alison
September 25, 2011 6:01 PM
No, no, those specifications are just fine, really! by Alison
“I would have guessed most things are,” Alison said, amused, when Daniel said waltzes were easy as long as they weren’t complicated. Then she bit her tongue in vexation with herself. That was not the way to win friends and influence people into dancing with her for at least three minutes in front of everybody and his half-brother Sal. “It’s good to hear, though,” she added with a smile.Diplomacy. Such a bothersome thing, especially with a largely unknown factor. As much as she had often gotten frustrated with and disliked the lessons Greta had termed ‘social graces,’ there were times when she wished she’d been able to carry on with them a few years – decades – millennia, whatever – longer. The promise had been that someday she’d, in her super-successful career that hadn’t even sounded appealing then, be able to read any situation and respond to it appropriately as easily as she saw color, but it had definitely not materialized before she’d ended up in a school which didn’t really have an equivalent.
“What the heck,” she said when asked if she was ready to start the stumbling process. The elbow thing looked like it was going to be the most unnatural thing to deal with, but she’d deal with it. An hour or two today, then it’s just three minutes if it really is not gonna work. Which it might after all. She wondered if the flat, anti-falling-on-her-face shoes she was wearing, in which she was at least two inches, if not a bit more, shorter than him, were going to help or hurt with this. “It can only get better from here, right?”
Or so her logic on the topic went. Maybe an Aladren would have a different view of it, but as long as something worked, she wasn’t too concerned with whether or not it was technically fallacious. She took his left hand and put the other on his right elbow, getting her elbow where it was supposed to be with a bit more effort but not real trouble. So far, so good; it was just copying what she’d been shown, after all. “Now comes the part where we chase each other around an imaginary box,” she commented, since that was the imagery she’d gotten from the description. “I’m back, side, forward.” Repeating the directions aloud to herself made them click a little better, too. “Right, back, left, side, left, forward. Got it.”
And once they mastered that, they’d get to twirl. It was like a return to early childhood, when she’d been Belle for Halloween when she was five and had spent the whole week between getting the dress and the day of the candy-fest randomly trying to drag her brothers into reenactments of the ballroom scene. And had once, though she hadn’t known it at the time and her mother had refused to see it, jinxed Michael when he told her she looked stupid, despite her now fully agreeing that she must have. Why did all those costumes have that revolting tulle top layer or flounce or whatever, if not a skirt made more completely of the stuff than it was of the almost-as-bad weird satiny stuff? It didn’t even look like what was in the movies.
But first, the box step itself. Then she’d do the Belle thing, if completely and utterly sans tulle and with a guy too dark-haired for Prince Whoever-he-was. Come to that, after she thought about a movie she hadn't seen in a while for a minute, Alison thought her hair was a little too dark for Belle's, too. She was pretty sure Beauty and the Beast was the wrong century anyway, though, so it was all just as well.
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Alison
No, no, those specifications are just fine, really!
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Alison
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Daniel Nash
October 01, 2011 5:15 PM
That's good. by Daniel Nash
Daniel blinked, and realized he had just stated something remarkably obvious in his attempt to be reassuring. This was why he liked having a script. By the time it made it to the actors, most inanities had been cut out of the conversation (unless, of course, it was a conversation that was intended to be awkward or inane; and this one wasn't intended so, as far as Daniel was concerned). Fortunately, Alison smiled, taking the sting from her observation, and Daniel smiled back self-deprecatingly, determined not to let bad phrasing lose him his best chance to secure a dance partner for the ball's kick-off dance.She moved into hold and he made a few minor adjustments to accommodate her placement but she had done a good job overall and he only needed to shift slightly to get it right. He turned the corner of his mouth upward at her optimistic statement that it could only get better. It wasn't really a smile so much as a tolerant and vaguely amused acceptance that some people thought a positive outlook would help them succeed.
Alison was successful enough in classes that maybe it did help her, or at least it didn't hurt her. So despite his knowledge that anything could get worse than its current status (he was far too devout a believer in Murphy and his Law to not make contingency plans for when such declines occurred), he did not argue the point. Neither did he acknowledge that they were already ahead of the curve simply by the fact that they'd each already found another seventh year for the day's lesson. Daniel was still basking in the pleasant surprise of not needing to ask a third year onto the floor. He wasn't quite ready yet to accept that meant the law of averages would be looking to even the score.
"Right," he agreed with her simplification of the waltz box step. She had the order of steps right in any event and that was the important part. As Coach Pierce walked them through a few iterations, Daniel did his best to match the length of her steps so they would either run away or into each other. He also completely avoided stepping on her toes, which was good, firstly because it meant that he wasn't messing up and secondly because it meant that her feet at least weren't where his were supposed to be.
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Daniel Nash
That's good.
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Daniel Nash
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Marissa
October 04, 2011 5:55 PM
If you like. by Marissa
“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Marissa said reassuringly, then wondered why Andrew suddenly looked both very red and slightly panicked. She ran back through the past minute of conversation, and…Well, she hadn’t thought of that the first time around, and never would have at all except for the Bellamy Brothers, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.Luckily, they had a moment after that to listen to the coach, and watch what she and Fawcett were doing. That time, combined with the total focus needed to commit each and every detail of what the two adults were doing to her memory, gave a space for any untoward thoughts to fade out so they could move on.
He wasn’t the first boy she’d ever agreed to a date with; at home, she knew more people than she did here, and was considered a little interesting just for going to a boarding school, so she had gotten offers, and had accepted them. Movies, that kind of thing. Maybe it was because of her knowledge of being different, of not being really part of their world anymore, or just actually being separate, but it had never made much of an impression on her, and she’d never really felt anything about it. It was just something to do to keep from being looked at askance, maybe fill up an evening that would have otherwise been spent staring at her ceiling because all her friends were out on dates. She wished now, though, that she had gotten more involved, so she would maybe have a slightly better understanding of boys. Her lack of such a knowledge was what made this whole thing hard to read at moments.
“I suppose we shall,” Marissa said, with a bit of a smile to take the edge off the formality. She found it hard to take this entirely seriously. The ballroom dancing itself wasn’t objectionable, but all the formalities, the dress the Quidditch coach was in, all of that seemed somehow bizarre, as though they were all play-acting. Was this really how a lot of adult wizards lived all the time? The anachronistic clothes on guys she had stopped really noticing, but….She stepped into hold gracefully enough, but didn’t expect that to be too much of a predictor about how the next few minutes were going to go. Learning new steps, in her old dance classes, was always a little awkward for a few minutes. “The hardest part is going to be moving at the same time, I think, without tripping over each other.”
She realized she sounded as though she had a clue what she was talking about, when really, she didn’t. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t really know anything about this. I’ve done the whole synchronized dance routine thing, you know, ballet and things, but I’ve really danced with someone, so I have no idea how it works except for what she – “ she tilted her head toward the front – “just told us.”
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Marissa
If you like.
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Andrew
October 08, 2011 11:19 AM
I definitely like by Andrew
Andrew did his best to suppress a shiver that ran through his system from head to toe when Marissa stepped into his hold. He realized this was the first time he'd actually ever officially been in contact with a Girl. Girl in his mind being any member of the female gender that he wasn't related to. He liked it, and realized how woefully unprepared he was for it. Now what? He realized that he was in fact holding his breath. A good step one, he decided, was to breathe. Exhaling, he finally became aware of the outside world again and the fact that Marissa was smiling at him. He was pretty sure that was a good sign. There was something else behind that smile though... he couldn't quite place it. He smiled back, then looked around the room to see what everyone else was doing. It looked like they were mostly practicing these beginning steps, the professors in their fancy attire were circulating around the room giving advise and instructions. At that moment he thought he grasped the meaning behind her smile.Turning back to her he leaned in even closer and spoke quietly so that it wouldn't carry terribly far, "This is all a bit..." he searched for the word he wanted for a moment, "dramatic?" He wasn't quite sure if that was the word he wanted, but it was the best his brain could conjure up under the circumstances. It was busy processing all sorts of new experiences and couldn't be bothered with vocabulary at the moment. Shifting back into the 'proper dancing posture' with perhaps a bit more emphasis than before, bordering on mockery he threw in a haughty facial expression for good measure. He could only hold it for a moment though before cracking a smile once more. "I vote we relax a bit and have some fun with this."
"You've done ballet? That's great." Now he had an image of this angel gracefully gliding across the floor as a swan princess or whatever it was that ballet dancers were when they were on stage. In his mind it fit her well, but he had to push that aside and focus. "How long have you practiced that?" He could at least attempt to make conversation, this was great he was learning about her. The only problem was that they hadn't actually started 'dancing' yet. He was fairly certain that soon one of the professors was going to see what was going on.
They were going to have to focus on the dance. The steps weren't that difficult and the pattern was locked into his head at this point from watching the professors. "I think it best if we take this nice and slow to start. You are probably right with the timing, we'll just have to count it out as we go. You start by going back and I step forward."
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Andrew
I definitely like
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Andrew
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Alison
October 12, 2011 5:14 PM
Not only merely good, but really most sincerely good? by Alison
Dancing was, as her presence at the lesson demonstrated, not something Alison really knew a lot about, but as far as it went, she didn’t think this was going all that badly. All her toes were still intact, as were all of his – as far as she knew, anyway. If some or all of them were broken or partially missing, it was because of something that had happened before the lesson, not because of her stepping on them because she hadn’t, and therefore it wasn’t her fault or in any way indicative of how this was going. All of that, she thought, was a very good sign.Still, she was guessing she was supposed to make her steps a little more…daintily, or something like that. Not such long steps. That was going to be a trick, since she was used to walking that way and it felt weird to try to take very small steps, but she reckoned she could do it if she concentrated. Which she could. Couldn’t be much harder that what they’d been doing in Transfiguration last week, or just about anything Fawcett handed them these days, and she mastered all of that well enough that the professors gave her decent grades and, if not an excess of glowing praise, at least not a lot of looks of disgust or disappointment. And since coordination was easier than keeping up with a gazillion potions steps, she reckoned this undertaking should go even better than those.
Plus, there were first years in here mastering it, not to mention Marissa Stephenson. She knew, rationally, that there was no correlation between being able to dance and being able to turn a match into a needle, but still. She was not getting completely bested by first years and Marissa Stephenson. If they could learn to waltz with a degree of grace and precision and all that…stuff, then so could she. Simple as that, no question, no arguments. By the time the day was over, she was going to be proficient, and if she wasn’t, she was going to have a backup plan in which she practiced with Dana until it looked like she had been.
They finished the first box without major incident, though, so she hoped her roommate’s toes could be spared. She bore no ill will toward her current dance partner, and had a vested interest in keeping him in one piece if she got him to go to the ball with her, but overall, she cared more about Dana’s feet than she did about Danny Boy’s. “Not that bad, right?” she asked. “Want to try it again?”
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Alison
Not only merely good, but really most sincerely good?
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Alison
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Daniel
October 13, 2011 12:21 PM
I don't venture into 'really most sincerely' anything by Daniel
Alison was doing well enough that Daniel felt reasonably sure of his assessment that she was not a hopeless lost cause. "Not that bad," he agreed, then added, "Let's," in response to her request to continue. She might not be horrible at dance, but she could definitely still use the practice. Not that he was going to say that. He knew something about tact.They took a couple more rounds of the dance floor before he decided her improvement was satisfactory indicative of a reasonably smooth Prefect Dance. So he asked, as the music stopped breifly between songs, "So, do you have a date yet for the Ball? I mean," he added quickly, because he didn't want any kind of misunderstanding and his inner-Quentin had just pointed out that his question had not asked the specific point that he wanted to know, "do you have a partner yet for the kick-off dance?"
Technically, neither did that, but he would wait until he knew the answer to that part before he moved on to asking if she would consider going with him. Otherwise, at this point, he would sound like he was assuming that she didn't have a date, and that could be taken wrong.
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Daniel
I don't venture into 'really most sincerely' anything
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Daniel
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Marissa
October 14, 2011 12:09 PM
Very good, then. by Marissa
Marissa’s smile became relieved when something of what she was thinking was agreed with. “I’ll second that,” she replied to the suggestion of just having fun with it. She didn’t know if she even could really relax and not take it seriously when the idea was that she should, but trying sounded like a decent idea, anyway. She’d much rather just have fun than worry about trying to be formal and proper and elegant enough, and whether or not the others thought she was playing at being something she wasn’t, and…She didn’t even know what, but she’d rather not worry about it. Maybe good intentions could count for something.She couldn’t help, though, but feel like she’d somehow led him into a false impression with the ballet thing. “I had lessons for…” she trailed off, trying to think. “Gosh, I know I can do basic math, really.” She wasn’t that spectacular at more advanced stuff, but could get through it, at least at a passable level if she tried hard enough and it was explained in sentences rather than examples. Maybe not with calculus, though; Marissa had never tried calculus. Addison swore it was really easier than most lower math, but Marissa had her doubts. “I guess I was…four when Mama first put me in a class. And my last recital was in…May, I think, or maybe April, right before our first year.”
She smiled self-deprecatingly. “You see, it’s been a long time. Really long time.” Her life before Sonora felt so completely distinct and distant from her life after it that she sometimes felt as though it had happened to another person entirely, instead of just to her a lot longer ago than six years. Even in the summer, sometimes, there were moments of total disconnect. “I don’t know if I can even remember the words for half the things I still remember how to do at all.”
It was about that time that she, too, noticed they weren’t dancing. Well, some people could dance and talk at the same time, but they were a little early in their waltzing careers to be able to do that easily and without stepping on each other’s feet, so she guessed it made sense that they hadn’t gotten to that part yet. “Right,” she agreed, nodding, and then added. “And one – “ and stepped back, half-expecting and half-hoping things to work out well and painlessly for them both.
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Marissa
Very good, then.
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Marissa
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Alison
October 14, 2011 12:55 PM
So...half-sincerely good, then? What's the other half? by Alison
It was a little awkward, practicing stuffy dancing with kinda-stuffy guy she didn’t know that well, but after a few minutes, her attention was distracted enough by just needing to master the steps that she mostly forgot about it and almost started to enjoy herself. It had a slight, but positive, effect on her success as a dancer, which itself made her enjoy it a bit more. It was always good to find something working out, maybe not as well as she might have hoped but still a lot better than the hypothetical worst-case scenarios she had considered.During the interval between songs after a while, she didn’t quite see the difference between the two versions of his question that he asked, but shrugged it aside as some quirk of someone else’s speech and shook her head. “Nope,” she said, without a great deal of concern in her voice. It would be bad if she ended up alone somehow, a little embarrassing, but nothing to really throw her off her stride or ruin her entire year or set summer off on a bad note or anything like that. Just one of those things that happened sometimes and kinda sucked, but ultimately didn’t mean much to her. “What about you?”
She was, after all, perfectly aware that being pretty sure Daniel didn’t have a date yet wasn’t quite the same thing as knowing for sure that he didn’t. The situation suggested he didn't and might be planning about the same thing she had been planning, but better to see what the deal was before she said anything now. If it came to that, she’d take the favor of someone bailing on his actual date for that first dance, but she’d rather not. Another thing that was a little awkward was feeling like she owed someone something.
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Alison
So...half-sincerely good, then? What's the other half?
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Alison
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Daniel
October 15, 2011 5:00 PM
Well, mostly sincere, but with room for uncertainty by Daniel
He nodded, more in approval of the fact that things were falling in his favor than anything else, as Alison admitted she did not have a dance partner. Had James not also been a Prefect, he might have begged the first dance of Charlie and James could date her the rest of the night. It was possible that even if Alison hadn't had a date, she might have already made such an arrangement, possibly with Jose who was another prefect from her House or someone equally obligated to dance but whose date was not so encumbered with public responsibility.He wasn't quite sure whether he approved of her follow-up question on his status. On the one had, it messed up what he had been planning to say, but on the other other, it did provide an opportunity to broach the subject in a way that felt rather less formal and more like he'd just thought of it now instead of it being the be-all reason for his presence at the lesson.
So he went with it, giving her a smile that was part-casual and part-The Crooked One The Fangirls Liked. "I suppose that depends on whether you want to go with me?"
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Daniel
Well, mostly sincere, but with room for uncertainty
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Daniel
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Alison
October 16, 2011 12:23 AM
That works, I guess. by Alison
Alison had guessed that he might be angling toward asking her for at least the first dance, since if he had a date it made sense that he would have come with her to dancing lessons instead of showing up alone and ending up with a random girl, but his way of doing it earned him a point with her, for whatever that was worth. Not a whole lot, she suspected, but she mentally awarded it anyway. The smile definitely helped.“Does it?” she asked. No harm in letting him hang, at least for a second or two. “I think I might be able to help you out there, yeah.”
She laughed, dropping the manner a little. “Actually, I was pretty much planning to track you down and ask you after I finished with this thing,” she admitted, gesturing to the room to indicate what it was she’d meant to finish before approaching him. “I guess it works out better this way, though, since we both get to know for comparatively sure that we’ll leave the Hall with our feet intact at the end of it.”
The idea that Daniel might not have known how to waltz without a lesson wasn’t one she had counted on; seeing him here had been something of a surprise. Though possibly it was just for practice or something, since his confidence on the matter meant he was either out-Aladren-ing the rest of Aladren (well, all right, she could also see circumstances where it would be out-Pecari-ing a Pecari, too) or that he’d done it before, but Sonora didn’t offer many chances for him to stay in practice . That she knew of, anyway. She was prepared to admit that they might be having pseudo-pureblood parties in Crotalus every night of the week, though that wouldn’t help him, either, unless there was a secret passage between the Crotalus and Aladren commons that the staff either didn’t know about or just ignored.
Whether he’d known or just learned fast, though, didn’t really matter. They were both set for the opening dance, which meant neither of them was going to look too stupid or have to kidnap a random friend, or random passerby if it got bad enough, to keep from looking that stupid. Overall, not a bad way for the day to work out. She could dance and had someone to dance with. All very good.
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Alison
That works, I guess.
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Alison
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Andrew
October 17, 2011 7:03 PM
How about you? by Andrew
As she counted and stepped, he did his best to follow the relatively simple instructions. It was nerve-wracking at first because he desperately didn't want to squash her feet under his, as a result he found himself always lagging behind and hesitating. He also quickly discovered that his legs were just a bit longer than hers and he had to keep in mind how far he needed to step. There was a lot to keep track of, luckily most of that was Marissa and he didn't mind that one bit.After a few stumbles, pauses, and near-misses on her feet, he realized he was causing all the problems with his hesitations. It was time to 'man-up' and fix that so he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, whispered a quick prayer and began stepping on the counts with her. The first two steps nearly ended in disaster, but he caught his balance and decided this would work better with his eyes open. After that it was amazing, he was fairly certain that they were doing it correctly... and it was going well!
He smiled at her, "I think we may have figured this out." An odd thought struck him as he watched their feet move around the floor. "I'm not sure if this is the right time to ask this, but do you know if we're supposed to coordinate attire and such if we're starting off the dancing?" Clothes had never been much of an issue for him in the past. He wore whatever happened to be on the top of the pile, but now they were going to be opening the dancing for an official ball. He'd given some thought to what he might wear, but now, actually dancing he thought what they ended up wearing might affect their abilities. If she was wearing a long gown... he wouldn't be able to see where her feet actually were.
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Andrew
How about you?
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Andrew
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