Born to Dance
Pria danced before she could walk. Her heart sang before she could speak. To others, they could only revere her as a ballet prodigy; to Pria herself, however, she just simply knew that she was born to dance. And so that’s what she spent her years doing, dancing to her heart’s content and honing her craft, projecting herself and latching onto those svelte and gorgeous ballerinas she’d see in person or on TV. She couldn’t bother to have anything else take up her time and thought; her system was designed to follow only the purpose it was made. And now the milestone in her life has come.
Pria inhales the breath of determination. She allows her arms to hang loose at her side, arcing like grand swan wings. All those years of waiting disappeared the moment she was instated to dance. As she flutters about the stage, her memories gather behind her, like dancing flowers accenting her role of beauty and dominance. The music takes her away, and she’s certain there was no waiting at all, just this moment and all the moments she has breathlessly offered her body up to song.
Even though Pria is just touching seven-years-old and her stature is no more imposing than a bear cub’s nor her arms and legs wider than a ballet barre, her confidence and perfect command of her footsteps immediately alerts the ballet academy owner and headmaster. Mr. Marnet had been brushing aside Asher Dalton’s insisting along with his wild declarations of Pria’s talent all this time, both out of grief and slightly out of distaste, but now the elder teacher sees that Pria’s foster dad wasn’t quite off his rocker at all. He was exactly on point.
“She’s magnificently talented,” Mr. Marnet mutters to himself, scratching the scruff on his chin.
“Now you believe me, huh?” Asher asks, much with the tone of a child.
“Well, I certainly can’t deny it, yes.”
The two men sigh to themselves, cherishing the thought of Pria’s beautiful mother, her graceful presence now just a wisp upon the air. Though it pains them to remember her brief and magical life, they both see the obvious traces of her influence are still alive in little Pria.
Asher sucks in a breath and breaks up the silence. “She’s been wanting to start lessons for a while now, you know.”
“I suppose I can’t say no, can I?” Mr. Marnet whines, clutching the middle of his eyes. “But she’ll be the youngest, so I’m warning you that she probably won’t fit in with the others.” He disciplines Ashton, as he calls him, with the authority and care of an always-worrying grandparent.
“She’s already different,” Asher shrugs, “And trust me, I won’t hear the end of it if you don’t let her in. She was already bugging me like crazy.”
As the song escapes her heart, Pria twirls one last pirouette out of her system and waves her arms about her like an egret about to take flight. “I’m ready for my debut, Mr. Marnet,” she trills, trying her best to sound much older than she really is, while still, beyond her observation, retaining the full-bodied innocence of a child.
Mr. Marnet lets out a groan and comforts his head again. “She’s going to be one of those unbearable types, isn’t she?” He drowns out the word unbearable, mulling over all the possible headaches she’s going to give him.
“Don’t worry. Once she gets to know you and you get to know her, it’ll all start to make sense.”
“I should have known that you’d make her unbearable.”
Ashton hides the grin of a mischievous boy, though his words come out sincere. “Hey, it’s not my fault.”
Sure it isn’t, the principal thinks incredulously to himself.
Pria waits, sitting at the edge of the grand elevated platform; her sneaky presence wasn’t even noticed by the floor, as it hardly creaked at all as she strode across it. Needless to say, she almost started the fuddy-duddy professor out of his thoughts.
“Hey, where’s the dressing rooms? Can I go back there?” The ballerina had already spotted the dressing rooms in glimpses from her squinted eyes as she frolicked about earlier on the stage. Though she questioned the principal as though she had no idea they even existed.
“Sure, Miss Pria, I’ll take you,” Mr. Marnet responds, trying to keep his cool.
Pria, agile as always, hops from her seat and sprints to the curtains. With her arms trailing behind her in the breeze, she jets away aerodynamically like an airplane. The two men follow gradually, of course, wishing they still retained the young ballerina’s speed and dexterity. Behind the thick velvet robe lay the backstage corridors—all cast in shadow left behind by the limelight and comfortably quiet. Pria trails her fingers along the thick walls, keeping to her own rhythm rather than that of her guides, who have already passed her in the hall.
Once in the doorway, Mr. Marnet sighs and adjusts his tiny bifocals. “So, how much did you tell her about me?”
“Not much,” Asher shrugs.
Without warning, Pria zooms into the room, darting inbetween the stationery men. “Hey, Grandpa Persnickety!” she yells out.
“OK, maybe a few stories,” the foster father hides a smile under his mouth.
“I expected as much from you, Ashton,” he replies with a tiny bit of remorse, much like a principal speaking to one of his troublesome students.
Pria’s ebony eyes wander the room curiously, picking up and sorting each and every detail while her imagination conjures silhouettes of the dancers making their brief homes here. Putting on makeup, trying on their dresses, stretching, skipping some last steps before all is finalized. Oddly, the thought of her using the room slips her mind until the second before the elder professor kneels beside her with a wide smile.
“Miss Pria, would you like a tour of the academy? I’d be happy to give you one.”
“You don’t have to kneel, Mr. Marnet. I’m not famous.”
“I… It’s just,” he stammers at her odd response. “Would you like to see where classes are held?”
“Can I see your office, too?” she asks matter-of-factly.
“Uhm. Certainly,” he responds mousily, unsure why she’d even care. “Though it’s not really that impertinent.”
As usual, Pria blurts her words factually, almost monotonously. “Good. Let’s go.” Her words come from the door, as she already makes an exit, her light footsteps trailing behind her.
They pass through the lobby, taking note of the sunlight that pools through all the windows—even among the skyscrapers of the city blocks. The crown of the arts district, Marnet’s Academy of Ballet is right at home in pristine Diamond City. Though the ballet academy only spans 10 floors of the magnificent black granite building adorned with gold, Mr. Marnet is grateful for his humble beginnings here, for now rent in this precious building is skyrocketing due to demand.
Though the outside of the building is pristine, the floors and rooms are really quite modest, comfortably set in wood with fine equipment set in place and artwork scattered throughout. And the ever-present stairs provide cushioned scaling to and from each story.
Pria tiptoes through the halls, cautious as not to rouse any slumbering spirits that take over the academy on its closing day when all is damp in lighting and stagnantly quiet. She traces her reflection in the glass door leading to one of the practice rooms. Though they all look the same, she’s drawn to this one in particular, lingering on the fact that she’s so close yet so far.
A set of keys jingles nearby. “I have the keys to the rooms, Miss Pria. I could let you in to see if you’d like.”
“No, that’s OK, Mr. Marnet. I got what I came for.” And with that, the little girl of mystery speeds off once again, motioning to the old men to hurry and get up the stairs.
“That girl,” Mr. Marnet huffs incredulously. “How do you put up with her?”
Without answers, Asher just shrugs and follows his acquired daughter’s pleas.
While Mr. Marnet explains the layout of the floors to Asher, Pria doesn’t stop at either platform and continues to plough up the stairs, making quick work of skipping two at a time to reach the next floor faster. It’s almost as if she’s playing a race against her mental self. By the time her guardians start huffing and puffing up the stairs, wondering where she’s gone, they spot her tiny frame standing exactly in the middle of the hallway. With her hands behind her back, Pria stands motionless with only a touch of a smile dangling on her mouth. When the two finally catch up to her, a wooden door with frosted glass comes into view, bearing the text of a certain principal’s name.
Pria looks to them with wide eyes, suggesting the reserved thought of I found your office.
Mr. Marnet’s face stretches wildly like putty, but he sniffles away his allergies and opens the door anyway.
With a click, the door swings open, and Pria darts inside; once comfortable with its atrium-like space, she twirls and hops about as though it were a garden made just for her.
“Are you sure it’s OK?” Asher whispers once Pria starts waltzing with the documents on the secretary desk.
“Yes, it’s fine,” Mr. Marnet digs up his patience. “We’d have to come here to discuss enrollment, anyway.”
The two gentlemen sit down at the desk, ready to exchange business chatter. The befuddled principal rearranges his papers in neat stacks, locking them in the drawers before they become backup dancers. He adjusts his reading glasses.
“I just have to get some basic information set up,” he prefaces, explaining why he’ll be submerged in paperwork and quiet for the next few minutes.
Pria skips up next to Asher. “Look, Dad, plants!”
He nods back.
“But why are there plants indoors? Is Mr. Marnet keeping them captive?”
The principal looks up from his work with an unsatisfactory glare, his glasses comically balancing on the edge of his nose. Then he resumes writing.
“No, they’re indoor plants.”
“Oh.” Pria, somehow discontented, slams to the floor beside the chair, adding in her head that it would be cooler if she had a tutu on that sprawled out like a petunia when she sat.
Mr. Marnet sighs to himself, relived that his future ballerina is sitting and behaving herself at last. With everything that his full-to-the-brim brain remembers, he passes the paper to Asher to fill in the rest that he’s foggy on.
“Still in the same house?” the elder asks.
“Yes. How could we ever move?” the foster dad comments with purpose tinted with nostalgia.
Pria cranes her neck like a heron to view the paper while still seated on the floor like a blossom.
In moments, all the boring stuff is done with, and all that’s left is to discuss the future of her predetermined study. Though it’s technically against the rules, Mr. Marnet has offered to grant a lower payment on tuition due to their comraderie and, of course, Pria’s mother’s status. And though Asher insists that’s not necessary, the grandfather figure won’t take no for an answer.
By this time, Pria has resumed tiptoeing about the room, wondering if any of the trinkets or statues would like to dance or what they would even say if she asked.
“Pria, come here,” her foster dad calls.
Pria zooms over like a bird, landing with her arms out like wings. “Yes, Daddy?”
“Tell Mr. Marnet how many years you’d like to study.”
The principal prefaces himself for anything.
“Well,” the little ballerina puts a tiny finger to her chin and reels her head to the ceiling, “I’d say I might live to be 100. What do you think, Mr. Marnet?”
“Well, what does that have to do with enrollment, Miss Pria?” the elder pushes himself back in his stretchy chair.
“Well, if that’s how long I’ll live, then that’s how long I’ll have to study!”
And despite all the precaution he prepared by lying all the way back in his seat, the professor still falls right to his desk’s hard surface.
“Pria,” her foster dad hides a laugh, “You have to choose a time between 4 and 8 years.”
“Can it be 8, then?”
“Yes, but you’re lucky because Mr. Marnet is starting you early, so it’ll actually be about 10 years for you.”
“Really, Mr. Marnet? You really are the best, aren’t you?”
The principal doesn’t attempt to form words; they’d be muffled by the wood, anyway.
“OK, Grandpa Persnickety, that’s what we’ll sign up for!” Asher announces proudly, though in a childlike tone as though he’s playing a game with Pria.
“Oh, wonderful,” Mr. Marnet mutters to himself, taking the paper and inscribing his fate.
And with that, Pria’s dream has finally come true. Once outside the academy, she does a pirouette and breathes in the cool evening air. Cast in the shadow of the magnificent building, her dark eyes strain to catch the shapes of the gold statues marking the increments of the building’s narrowings. Holding on to the image in her heart, Pria clutches her chest and stares on with pure motivation.
I’ll make the most of these years! She declares.