I Want To Be Strong Too
After Kairi had changed into a black dress that was slimmer and formfitting with a loose, flowing skirt, she still had nothing else to do. It only took her a few minutes to do some sketches and drawings of the Unversed and then she lost the will to do any more drawing. She still felt bad about being told off and since her coat and gloves were in the process of being washed she couldn't go outside again, so she took another walk around the castle. Having no aim or direction, she ended up back in the dance studio where she first met Monnie. This time the curtains were only open just a crack. She looked around at the spacious room and stepped inside, doing a little twirl on her toes. But dancing like Monnie was just wishful thinking for her.
The floors had already been cleaned spotless, leaving no trace of any sort of fight that had occurred. With that reminder, Kairi summoned the Keyblade. It came to her again. She held it up in front of her with both hands, lifted it and slashed downwards, making a whooshing sound. Perhaps even trying to fight was wishful thinking too. She was the only one of all six on the play island who had never learned to fight. She recalled the time and place when she had finally been reunited with both Riku and Sora. They'd grown so much while they'd been away and they were stronger than she'd ever imagined they could be. The way they commanded their Keyblades like their limbs was enviable, while Kairi was still extremely awkward with it. How could she go with them? They'd already left her far behind. Or perhaps it was her who had fallen behind and just had to catch up. She slashed horizontally. It was not as easy as this, she knew. She was even a burden on Z, a person she barely knew who'd had to help her out of a troublesome situation twice. The Keyblade disappeared of its own volition again, abandoning her a second time. She squeezed her eyes shut but the tears slipped out anyway.
"Oops! Sorry, I thought this room was empty," said a meek boy.
Kairi turned around to face the door, wiping her eyes quickly, and noticed Max peeking into the room shyly. "It's okay, I'll leave," he said.
"No, you don't have to," Kairi said hurriedly. "I'm not really doing anything here. If you need this room then I'll leave."
"Really? I don't want to force you or anything…"
"You're not forcing me."
Kairi made her way back across the room to the doors and opened them wider, finding Max to be wearing a quilted tunic with a belt around the middle. "Do you mind me asking what you're doing in here? Just out of curiosity."
"Oh, yeah, I'm just doing some drills and stuff." Max scratched the back of his head and looked away as though he was embarrassed by this.
"Drills?" Kairi asked.
"For fighting." Max jiggled the scabbard on his belt that held a wooden sword inside.
"Really? Are you any good?"
"Well, sorta… maybe… I guess… yeah… I dunno… kind of," Max answered vaguely.
An idea suddenly struck Kairi. "Do you mind training with me?"
Max blinked and jumped back. "You? I mean, are you really good?"
"Well, no," Kairi admitted. "But I realised something recently. I'm not strong enough to do anything on my own. Even Monnie could probably look after herself if she was in trouble but I'm useless. I don't know what else to do. So, can I join you?"
Max took a moment to think about it. He seemed nervous about something by the way he shuffled his feet and constantly scratched the back of his head. But eventually he replied: "Yeah, sure. If that's what you want."
Kairi smiled. "Thank-you."
Max was a boy who put a lot of effort into things and by training with him Kairi realised just how much she didn't know how to do. With her new resolve, the Keyblade returned to help her but it didn't really make things any easier. She had to hitch up her skirts and stretch out muscles that she didn't even know existed. It wasn't even hot in the room but Kairi swore that she had never sweated so much at any one time in her life.
"Come on, you're only up to eight," Max urged her while she tried to do another push-up. She felt as though her whole chest and both arms were on fire and she couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, I'll make it the last one then."
With that incentive, Kairi finally began to push herself off the floor again. Her elbows wobbled but eventually she made it and triumphantly declared in a strained voice: "Nine!" before she collapsed on the floor.
Max knelt beside her, examining her flushed, sweaty face and her body rising and falling as she panted. "You're really, really unfit."
"Thanks for noticing," she said bitterly.
Voices were approaching from the corridor behind the doors. They opened and a sizeable group wearing leotards and stockings and carrying bags entered the studio led by the largest frog Kairi had ever seen (and he was also wearing tights). While the group put their things down against the piano wall away from any mirrors or windows a penguin with a bow-tie ushered in the last few before closing the doors and going to sit down at the piano. He began to play some warm-up scales as the youngsters replaced their shoes with slippers and spread out across the room for warm-up exercises. They cast curious glances at Kairi and Max and whispered to each other indiscreetly.
"What are all these kids doing here?" Kairi asked Max in a low voice. None of the youngsters looked like they would have been older than ten or eleven and they were mostly girls.
"This is a ballet lesson," Max replied. "I'm usually gone by the time they get here, though."
"Ballet? Um… Monnie said she did ballet, right?"
"Yeah."
Kairi's face instantly brightened. She scanned the room for any sign of the black mouse and spotted her stretching her leg on the bar, wearing a blue leotard. "There she is! Monnie! Hey, Monnie."
Monnie looked up but the moment she saw Kairi approaching she looked away and seemed to be trying to make herself smaller. "Who're you?" she asked curtly.
Kairi blinked. "Uh, what do you mean by that? We were playing together this morning."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Monnie muttered, highly aware of the other students watching her. "Now stop talking to me."
Kairi huffed. "Hey! What's the big deal?"
"Don't shout."
"My, my," said a smooth, airy voice from behind them. Kairi and Monnie both turned to the girl who'd spoken. She was an elegant swan, tall and white with a long gracefully arched neck, wearing pink ballet slippers and matching leotard. She smiled at the two of them. "Is this a new friend of yours, Monica?"
"No," Monica snapped, bringing her leg down so that she could stretch the other one on the bar and turn her back to Kairi.
"Yes," Kairi said angrily, crossing her arms.
"I thought so, you look like Monica's type," the swan said. This brought giggles from the nearby students listening in, although Kairi wasn't sure why and glanced around in bemusement. "It's such a pleasure to meet a friend of the royal family. My name is Ernabella Swan, daughter of the Duchess of Merryway and fourth cousin of the Royal Court Magician." She crossed her legs and curtsied.
"Well, it's great to meet you too, I'm Kairi," Kairi replied, trying to imitate Ernabella's curtsy but just looked very awkward.
"Girls! Girls! What is all of this gaggling?" said a stern but croaky voice. The giant frog hopped towards them. He sat down between Monica and Ernabella and looked between the two. "Are you properly stretched and warmed-up? If you're not the class isn't going to wait for you. And who is this?"
Kairi went slack-jawed as the frog put his front legs behind his back and straightened out his long hind legs, suddenly towering over all of the students. He looked down at Kairi with his huge eyes and she suddenly felt as though she would like to shrink.
"This is Monica's friend," Ernabella answered the frog (Kairi guessed he must have been the teacher). "I suppose the princess must have invited her."
"This is not a spectator event, Monica," the frog said, turning his huge eyes to her. "If you insist that a guest must be present they must sit at all times at the edge of the room."
"I know that!" Monica retorted. "But she's not my friend."
Max tugged on the back of Kairi's dress to get her attention. "C'mon, we're not welcome here," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
"I'll escort them out," Monnie offered.
"You'll escort them? I'm sure they can manage to find their own way out of this room," Ernabella said. "Give their limited intelligence a little bit of respect."
"Shut up," Monnie barked, getting a gasp from the class. "They might need extra directions to find their way around the castle." She began to push Kairi towards the exit and made sure both she and Max were out the door and in the corridor before shutting the door behind her.
"Um… aren't you supposed to be in that class?" Kairi said, pointing to the double doors.
Monnie sighed. Then she suddenly turned around with a dark, narrow-eyed glare. Kairi and Max both squeaked and jumped back, not knowing what it was that they'd done to make her so livid.
"Never ever do that again!" Monnie hissed.
"Do what?" Kairi said, stamping her foot and clenching her fists. "I haven't done anything! It's not a crime to want to meet the kids in your class."
"You don't have to be so embarrassing about it, though!" Monnie yelled back. She stomped up to the redhead, grabbed the hem of that black dress and yanked upwards. The two bunches where Kairi had hitched it into the sides of her knickers came free and the skirt fluttered down like paper. Max blushed and covered his eyes. "You! Walking around and parading your underwear for everyone to see! What is wrong with you? Not to mention your offensive smell! If you're going to sweat at least have the decency to deodorise before you let yourself into the company of other people."
Kairi blinked and her face flushed, again from embarrassment and shame. She was being told off again, however, this time she hadn't realised that what she'd done was wrong. The bloomers went down to just below the knee – an extremely modest length for someone who'd spent most of her life on a tropical island – and she still didn't quite make the connection between them and underwear. Nor had she thought that other people would be so put off by something like sweat. No matter how hot it got on the islands or how much running around they did, Kairi was never offended by the smell of Sora and Riku's sweat and they were never bothered by hers. She hadn't put much thought into just how different it would be in the world of King Mickey. She hung her head.
"I'm sorry for embarrassing you," she said sincerely.
Monnie seemed to cool down after that. Unable to muster enough venom to bite out something rude, she replied calmly: "It's okay as long as it doesn't happen again. I know you're new here and all. I'll see you later."
Monnie turned around and slipped through the studio doors again. Max shrugged and gave Kairi a nudge with his elbow.
"Hey, don't worry too much about what those snooty girls say," he said, trying to cheer her up. "They're just prudes."
Kairi sighed and stared at her crinkled dress. "I just had no idea that Monnie would get so mad. I was really excited since I've never really seen ballet before. It doesn't exist where I—"
"Come from" was what she was going to say.
"—live." She wasn't sure what had stopped her from saying what she believed was truer.
"Seriously?" Max exclaimed. When Kairi gawked at him he looked away in embarrassment and rubbed his upper lip. "Uh… well… you're not missing out on much, trust me."
"Really? I saw Monnie doing some yesterday and it looked really cool. I want to see more."
"You're really determined, huh?" Max said. Kairi grinned sheepishly and nodded. "Okay, then. I'll take you somewhere cool. Follow me."
I wasn't going to update until the end of the week, but I decided to put this up early because this chapter is really boring. I needed it for character development though.