10
Dancing With The Wind
Elsa
"One, two, three. One, two, three - eyes foward - and one, two, three. One, two, three." Freya - my governess - firmly instructed of me when next I glanced at my feet. I looked away from the floor and to the emptiness ahead as I clumsily waltzed to the music that wasn't playing in the vacant ballroom.
"One, two, three. One, two, three - mind your posture!" She then dug the end of her staff rather aggressively into my lower back, which twisted a grimace into my features but almost immediately resulted in my straightening my back. "One, two, three. One, two, three - stop, stop, stop!"
My hands dropped to my sides as did my eyes to the floor almost instantly. You see, the thing about Freya was that she had a habit of unnecessarily repeating herself and I hadn't yet determined if she did so to be heard so much as to hear herself talk. Her heels clicked against the floorboards when she took the two steps she needed to square my shoulders and lift my chin.
"With all due respect your Highness, we've been practicing these steps for quite awhile now. So I would hope that all our deserving effort has resulted in at least a little progress from you." Her words were like nails against a chalkboard and I could tell by the venom poisoning her tone that she was just barely enduring. However, it was something I just couldn't blame her for. In fact, I rather admired her display of restraint - because, even I wouldn't have the patience to tolerate me.
"I hope so too." I said, (more to myself than to her), as I adopted position once more. Lessons were more fun with Anna around to make me laugh whenever I forgot to...
Taking the steps on at a time, I resisted the urge to watch my feet while they moved. But gradually did my confidence rise when I counted beneath my breath along with Freya without having to think of the numbers. That is, until the lesson was interrupted by the bitter gust of wind that burst in from the window.
Its shutters flapped noisily against the frame but weren't quite loud enough to overwhelm the stomp Freya walked with in her step when she hobbled her plump little body out the room to fetch the nearest hallboy on duty to come and mend the damaged hinges.
It seemed a a breath I hadn't known I was holding fled my lips the moment she slipped out the door and suddenly the room felt bigger than it had a moment ago - almost as if there was more room to breathe when no one else was around to occupy it. I sat down when my head became too light to handle with all this extra air to breathe, whereupon I removed my shoes and massaged the welts I already felt beneath my stockings.
I brushed the hair from my face when it fluttered in the wind that was still drifting in and had no problem meddling in the affairs of others when it wished. It cared not if it were a nuisance, especially in the eyes of Freya who believed it to be only a minor fluctuation in the weather. But I knew better, and it was by no accident that this wind, which so mercilessly blew against the window until it had yielded to its strength, made its way into this particular room at this particular time.
"Alright Jack, you can come out now. She's gone," for awhile he left me listening to my voice resonate off the bare walls around me (even when I knew he was there - even when he knew I knew he was there) until his boyish laughter betrayed him.
"And that, folks, is how you make an entrance," he said, bowing at the waist as he floated down from the ceiling.
"Bravo!" I applauded. "However do you do it?"
"Ah, ah,ah, dear child," he chided with a swish of his finger. "-a magician never reveals his secrets."
"Then I confess them very enticing secrets and the stunt a remarkable one but not one you will be pulling again."
"Aw don't be such a spoilsport Elsa," he said with a lopsided grin and an even more crooked brow, both of which fit so perfectly upon his face that it was practically adorable.
"I mean it Jack, you can't just swoop in and interfere with my lessons whenever you please."
"But I saved you didn't I? And even earned you a decent laugh from the sight of Freya's immense irritation,"
What I didn't tell him was that I didn't need his assistance to test Freya's limited patience, but, rather, that is was no laughing matter.
"If you're suggesting that the sight of her hobbling out the room in a cloud of fumes so thick it was nearly visible wasn't funny, then I'll have to teach you a thing or two about a decent sense of humor my Princess." He so cheekily remarked, which left me at a loss for a retort equally as snarky as I endeavored to gnaw away the grin threatening to curl in my lips.
But he saw it. He saw it before it even unfurled in the corners of my mouth, and, with a little wheedling from the almost impish wiggle in his crooked brow, did it break free upon my face. And for awhile we laughed together like two little school children snickering in a broom cupboard.
When we'd laughed our sides sore, he offered me his hand with a bow. "May I have the pleasure of this dance Milady." He asked when I flashed him a sidewards glance, which only made me laugh. That is, until I realized he was serious.
"Jack..." I responded, holding my hands in one another as if they might escape if I didn't hold onto them tight enough. "There's no music."
"Ah, who needs music?" He said, pulling me nearer to him with the crook of his staff hooked around my waist as if I was the coin wasted on a wish among many that he didn't want to slip from his grasp.
"I can't," I said, blushing slightly when I realized my hands were against his chest and it was there that I felt his heart beat just underneath his skin. It was fast and unlike anything I'd ever felt before, as if it was alive inside him and could swallow me whole if I wanted it to - and I did. I really, really did. "That is, my feet hurt too much from my lessons."
A wicked smile curled in the corner of his lips on one side of his face, as if he was smiling with half his body - and it was one that, even after these ten years of knowing him, I didn't think I'd ever get used to seeing without melting on the inside. "I can fix that." He said, and never before had I heard him sound so sure of his words.
He beckoned to the window, through which a gentle wind drifted in and swept us up when it swirled about the room. Upon the wind we danced like the little dolls in a music box to music that wasn't playing and to an audience that wasn't watching - and even if they were, even if the whole world was watching us now, they wouldn't know where to look; for we were hiding all too well.
It didn't surprise me in the least that he knew how to dance, (he always had a trick or two up his sleeves), but that his body seemed to read mine with every movement. And I trusted him, not with every step, but with every stumble: because dancing was never about staying on your feet, but learning to get back up after the fall.
