Put your best foot forward
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━sta 06|eva 05| str 03| wis 08| arc 07| acc 06━━━━━━Prodigal Astronomy Learner━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Being told she was attending a ball in the summer made her panic ever so slightly. Fawkes hadn't waltzed for almost 2 years and being the eldest sibling she would be expected to dance. Well there was still a month till they left for vacation. No better time to practice than the present!
Now why exactly did she choose to do this so late at night? Well she didn't want anyone to see her bad dancing and she didn't want to accidently bump into anyone as well. She was fairly certain she wouldn't be caught this late at night. She entered the rehearsal room silently.
She paused as she noticed another figure in the room. Was she seeing things or was there actually another person in the rehearsal room at this hour? She stood in the corner watching the person not speaking up. She didn't want to disturb them. She sat down on the floor nearby waiting to see if the person would either notice her there or leave. They seemed to be practicing their own dancing skills. It was rather grateful the way they danced in the darkness. The music was soft but still noticable as the person danced, soon entering the moonlight as well.
If you feel lost look up at the night sky. The stars will light your path!
Shop!: The Starlight Observatory
Put your best foot forward
Late nights and cool air. Amethyst considered them an apology for the long busy summer days she had to go through. Or maybe it was her guilty pleasure. She was breaking a rule by sneaking out, something she has been doing for days now. Amethyst got out of her sheets and tiptoed across the dungeons. The stairs to the fourth floor creaked under her footsteps, much to her dismay. But she wasn't really scared of getting caught. She made no effort to hide herself. She just hated the sound of the floorboard creaking. And soon, she was successful in making her way to the rehearsal room without getting caught. It was very different from the manor's ballroom. There was no river nearby either. The curtained portraits looked down on her, waiting for her to put on a performance. They always did when she came to the room. Sometimes she would do them the favour by dancing to her own beat. |
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Amethyst knew her art well, thanks to her grandmother's extensive lessons and perhaps her own interest in the grace of dance. She decided to walk around the room today, examining the architecture closely, admiring the moonlight that poured in. There was only one chandelier in the room, but she had to agree that it was prettier than the chandeliers of the ballroom back at her manor. It wasn't floating across the room, but the silver birds perched on each branch of the chandelier made it look exquisite. And her feet sprang into a foxtrot as she danced across the room without a partner, her hands gracefully behind her back. A smile had formed on the face, and she practically glowed under the moonlight. The room had an admirable ambience. Perhaps the best place at Hogwarts. Later she sat down once she had used up her will and energy to dance all alone, across from the arched windows, staring into space and waiting for one of the portraits to pass a snide comment. But instead, noticed a presence that made its way into the room. Was she going to get a detention? She cared less but waited for them to speak up. footnotes. |
Last edited by Amethyst Castillo on 13 Jul 2026, 12:34, edited 2 times in total.
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Put your best foot forward
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━sta 06|eva 05| str 03| wis 08| arc 07| acc 06━━━━━━Prodigal Astronomy Learner━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Fawkes watched with curiosity. The person danced with such grace and elegance it was mesmerizing. The way they danced, they looked so happy and carefree. It reminded her of when she herself was first learning to waltz. Excited and curious. That was before she learned how taxing it was to waltz. You had to keep in time constantly and it was practically the same set of steps over and over again. Its cause of this she would call waltz an old people's dance. Well now she had to reherse it for a ball.
She snapped out of her thoughts and looked up to see the person had stopped dancing and was now staring right at her. Shoot was she supposed to say something? It looked like the person was waiting for her to do so. Uhh Hi? She said nervously. She thought she had hidden herself well enough to not be seen. You dance really well. It's so elegant and beautiful to watch. Sorry uh if i interrupted it- She continued. She stood up and went to walk a little closer towards the person, still keeping some distance so as to not get into their space. She paused and waited watching carefully to see how they would reply.
If you feel lost look up at the night sky. The stars will light your path!
Shop!: The Starlight Observatory
Put your best foot forward
The girl lingering in the corner finally spoke up. She did not look like a prefect, nor did she sound like someone who would go off running to one. Amethyst was certain she had never seen her before. "Hello there," Amethyst greeted with a small chuckle, sensing how nervous the other girl was. The compliment that came along was, however, unexpected. That meant that the girl had likely been standing there all along. Careless. She bit the inside of her cheek, resisting the urge to curse herself for her unawareness. Instead, the young heiress smiled. The wind was cool and the moonlight bright. |
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She decided the weather was far too nice to be snide as she normally is. And a little company couldn't hurt anyone, perhaps. "Thank you, I suppose." She replied lightly, "And no, you did not interrupt it, as you see I'm merely lying on the floor, doing nothing productive." Pulling herself upright, she dusted off her pyjamas. "How long have you been standing here, though?" She studied the girl in front of her briefly before putting up more questions. "I do not believe I have seen you around before," she continued, taking a few steps closer, "This is your first time here at the rehearsal room, at this hour, isn't it?" She wasn't accusing the girl, just merely curious about her purpose. But Amethyst had long since accepted the fact that the distinction in her tone was not always obvious. "I am just curious, not trying to accuse you," she said, clearing her throat before she got misunderstood. footnotes. |
Last edited by Amethyst Castillo on 13 Jul 2026, 12:35, edited 2 times in total.
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Put your best foot forward
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━sta 06|eva 05| str 03| wis 08| arc 07| acc 06━━━━━━Prodigal Astronomy Learner━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Fawkes was finally able to see who she was talking to. She didn't recognise the girl though, most definitly someone who wasn't from her year. Fawkes was glad that she hadn't inturrupted the girl's dance from earlier. She was a bit sad it had ended so soon though since she loved watching the girl dance so freely.
Yeah this is the first time i've been here this late.... I usually don't come to the rehersal room at all. Just... needed to practice so I decided to come here at this hour. She replied fidgeting with her hands. She wasn't sure what to do next. She really needed to practice her dance but she was afraid to do it in front of another person. Perhaps she should come another night? But she wasn't sure when she'd get another opportunity to do so.
Maybe she could ask the girl for some help? She seemed to know what she was doing when it came to ask. Fawkes thought over it for a minute before she mustered up the courage. If its alright could I bother you to help me reherse my waltz? I came here to do that in the first place and uhhh im not too confident in it- Was she being too forward? Would the girl help her? She felt the nerves starting to creep back in again.
If you feel lost look up at the night sky. The stars will light your path!
Shop!: The Starlight Observatory
Put your best foot forward
Amethyst took note of how fidgety the girl in front of her was. Even before she had asked, Amethyst had deduced that she was in need of something. Perhaps the other girl would request space to dance alone. After all, the young heiress herself liked not being disturbed during her nightly routine. But the request that was uttered made Amethyst narrow her eyes. "No, you cannot bother me. No one can, in fact." Amethyst said almost quickly. And yet she did not want to scare off her company for the night right away. "If I were you, I would word my sentences carefully," Amethyst said. "It would have been better if you had started with an introduction. I am Amethyst Castillo. Second year. Slytherin," she continued, bowing a little, indicating the start of a dance. |
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She held out her left hand, palm up, her nails long and painted a shade of violet, and waited for the other girl to join. The gesture alone sent a familiar ache through her chest. Amethyst missed her mother more than she cared to admit. She missed the way they would laugh and dance through the halls of their ballroom. She missed the weekends spent learning the waltz. She missed watching her parents move along the floor, like lovebirds, like nobody else existed in the world. A month more, and she would be home finally. What a long year. Before she could stop it, a sigh escaped her lips. footnotes. |
Last edited by Amethyst Castillo on 13 Jul 2026, 12:35, edited 2 times in total.
ORDER NOW,, free if you have an AI pfp and want it redrawn, human made: smitten || Inpc: Kaiming Zhang
Put your best foot forward
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━sta 06|eva 05| str 03| wis 08| arc 07| acc 06━━━━━━Prodigal Astronomy Learner━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Oh uh sorry She mumbled when the girl mentioned that she should have introduced herself first. She seemed to be a bit displeased that Fawkes had asked her for help. Perhaps she should have just kept to herself.
She looked up as the girl, Amethyst was it? held out her hand for her to take. Tentitively, Fawkes took a bow before placing her hand on top of her's, palm down. I'm Fawkes..... Fawkes Chaos, first year Ravenclaw She replied sheepishly. A note for next time. Introduce yourself before asking for a favour.
Amethyst sighed. It seemed like she had a lot on her mind. Fawkes was going to ask but she stopped herself before she did. It wasn't her place to ask her. They had only just met after all. The older girl held herself with grace Fawkes noted. Her posture was perfect even in the resting state they were currently standing in. Fawkes unconciously straightened out her back. Bad habit of hers to constantly be slouching.
So um how do we start again? She asked moving slightly into what she remembered to be the starting position for a waltz. She was presumably going to be led which meant her hand had to be on Amethyst's shoulder. She lifted her hand but paused waiting for permission first. Or confirmation she was doing it wrong. Whichever was more relevant.
If you feel lost look up at the night sky. The stars will light your path!
Shop!: The Starlight Observatory
Put your best foot forward
Fawkes, as she had introduced herself, clearly respected Amethyst's boundaries, and that somehow made her like the girl. The younger girl was very much unlike her surname. Nothing about Fawkes screamed chaos, but nervousness. And then, Amethyst did what she always did. "Why were you named Fawkes?" she asked. Another intrusive question, down the lane of history of other such useless questions Amethyst had asked other people previously. "Chaos, your surname doesn't suit you well," she said after giving it a thought. "Or you could prove me wrong." Unconsciously or perhaps consciously, the Ravenclaw had straightened her back, and that made Amethyst chuckle. Perhaps she was finally a positive influence. The young heiress could gloat about the moment forever. |
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And it was then that it dawned upon the Slytherin: she knew how to dance but not how to teach. Perhaps she could lead the younger girl and tell her off if her steps mismatch. Amethyst could not back out now, not when she had so confidently committed to the request. "We will be dancing without the music. Try and match your pace with me," she said softly, trying to answer Fawkes' question. She adjusted the Raven's hand on her shoulder. "When I move forward, you have to move backward with the leg opposite of mine, and when I move backward, you move forward," she added, hoping the younger girl would understand without Amethyst having to go in detail. footnotes. |
Last edited by Amethyst Castillo on 13 Jul 2026, 12:36, edited 2 times in total.
ORDER NOW,, free if you have an AI pfp and want it redrawn, human made: smitten || Inpc: Kaiming Zhang
Put your best foot forward
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━sta 06|eva 05| str 03| wis 08| arc 07| acc 06━━━━━━Prodigal Astronomy Learner━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Oh that was a question she wasn't expecting. Why was she named Fawkes? Well she always thought it was because her grandmother wanted her to have a more traditional name so her parents agreed and named her Fawkes. But out of all names why Fawkes? She wasn't sure. Surely there were better names right? That didn't mean she hated her name, it was unique and something so rare there were barely any people with the name.
I guess my parents just liked the name. She replied as her hand was now resting on Amethyst's shoulder. They were going to be dancing without the music. She guessed maybe counting a beat would be easier to learn instead of music.
She listened to the Slytherin girl's instructions and looked down at her own feet. Move the opposite leg forward as she went back and then move backwards as she went forward. So when you move your right foot back I put my left forward? she asked, moving her leg back and forth a little. Wait do we start with the right or the left? She looked up confused.
Maybe it had truly been much longer than she had thought since she last waltz. The question itself was stupid especially if she had learnt before. But dancing was never a strong suit of hers, she would much prefer to read books or go star gazing instead.
If you feel lost look up at the night sky. The stars will light your path!
Shop!: The Starlight Observatory
Put your best foot forward
Her instructions had not been nearly as clear as she had imagined. Fawkes looked back at Amethyst with unmistakable confusion. Amethyst's cheeks warmed up slightly, although it was still unusual. Was she such a terrible teacher? 'Alright', she sang, drawing out the final 't' more than she should. All the mention of rights and lefts had left her confused for a brief moment of time. Perhaps she was indeed in dire need of sleep. "So", she began again, collecting her thoughts, "I will start with left and forward because I'm leading." She placed her left foot forward and quickly added "And you will place your right foot backward, doing what I do but opposite," suddenly realising what would be obvious to her wouldn't be that obvious to Fawkes. Amethyst gently let go of Fawkes' hand and shook the other from her shoulder. "It will probably be easier if I showed you first." She took her position. |
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"One." Her left foot stepped forward, her hands now crossed behind her back. "Count two." Her right foot stepped to the side. "Three." She brought her left foot beside her right neatly, completing the first half of the movement. "That would be the beginning of the box step," she explained almost mindlessly before repeating the whole sequence once again more slowly, counting each movement loud. She finished with elegance and looked back at Fawkes with a small encouraging smile on her face. "Would you like to try it on your own for the first time?" she asked. footnotes.xx Thank you to Koko/Livia for writing down Waltz's steps for us! |
Last edited by Amethyst Castillo on 13 Jul 2026, 12:37, edited 2 times in total.
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