“So, you were pretty popular out there on the dance floor tonight,” Pierce says. He sarcastically lays on his stomach and perches his head on top of his hands, kicking his feet like a girl at a sleepover gossiping about what so and so did the other day.

I role my eyes and continue to fold my suit neatly unlike Pierce who just threw it in a pile on a chair next to his bed. I oddly did have a lot of women come to me for a dance but this one girl was obsessed with me. Her peach dress looked dark on her pale skin and her brown hair pinned up. She asked for a dance and then would not leave until her friends dragged her away. I couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

“Not going to lie, I think Orien was jealous. I saw the way she was looking at you on the dance floor with those other girl,” Pierce says.

Orien, the only person I did not mind dancing with. He steps were smooth and the flow of her gown didn’t trip as we were turning. We had an entertaining conversation however short it was. She was my first dance and I wish she would have been my last, otherwise I wouldn’t have lost hope for my generation and their dancing skills.

“Dude, your face! Do you like Orien?” Pierce shouts.

“What? No, I was thinking about some other girl I was dancing with,” I try to explain.

“Sure, what you say.”

I groan and head for the door. Knocking, I wait for the door to be opened by a guard. I’m not sure if what I will ask is going to be allowed but I will do anything to get away from my goonie of a best friend right now. I need to think. I need to destress. I just need to be alone for a bit, but I can’t be alone for a few more weeks which sucks. But if only a couple silent guards have to be on the walk I want to request then I will take it.

I request to take a walk outside to clear my head and surprisingly the guard accepts my request and starts leading me to a door that leads to the garden. I don’t want to be around people so I walk along on the edge of the garden where no one seems to hang around. Looking around at all the nature, I hear a very faint water sound. Skipping rocks doesn’t sound bad right now. I used to do it all the time with my family when I was younger. It was the only thing I was better at than anyone in my family.

There is a guard at a gate where I hear the water coming from and head over there. He looks at me for a quick second and then goes back to staring ahead of him. \

Clearing my throat, I decide to speak to the guard, “Excuse me, is there pond over there? I would love to go see it.”

“Do you have an invitation?” the guard asks.

Shit.

“Uh, yes I do.”

“Who has invited you?”

“Um, one of The Magnificents,” I guess, “They said I could come here and they would show me around.”

The guard who is guarding the gate looks over at the two behind me. He looks at them for confirmation and after a few seconds of no denying, the guard opens the gate and lets me in. I walk down the stone path on the hill noticing the trees and lightning bugs around me. Behind me, I find the two guards also in awe with what they are seeing.

I reach to where I hear the running water sound and the waterfall I see is very tiny. I was kind of disappointed but the pond is big enough to skip rocks which is what I wanted to do anyways. Walking down on the path more, I notice glowing flowers I have never seen before and a statue of a woman with long hair and a beautiful body. It has to be a statue of Light because all of her statues are the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen.

When I step on a twig, I hear a gasp. There is a body in the shadows that I didn’t see before. The person seems to be kneeling on platform and it looks like they were praying to the Light statue in front of us. When will people learn that a statue is not going to help them in any way and that it is the actions they take in their own life that will determine where they go in their life.

“Um, hello?” I say.

“Who let you in here?” asks a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice that is all but too familiar.

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Orien.

“The guards let me come here and the guard at the front gate ler me through.”

“I will have a talk with them for sure,” Orien mumbles. I am assuming she is talking to herself because she says it so quiet but because there is barely anyone here, I could here it. “Guards, leave him with me. Go back up to the gate and I will come with him after we are done.”

The guards open and bow as the head back up the stone pathway that leads to the entrance gate.

“When we are done with what exactly?” I tease.

I can faintly see Orien role her eyes and then walk to me. “So, needed some air too or did you come here to judge my dancing again?”

I give a slight chuckle and then look down. Avoiding eye contact seems like the only thing I can do. I want to look at her, but for some reason my eyes will not let me. She slowly walks closer to me and then gives me her hand. Is she seriously doing this?

“Um, what are you doing?” I ask.

“Lend out your elbow for me to take. It’s only proper for you to lead a woman on a walk. It doesn’t mean we are together, it’s just a traditional gesture,” she says.

Offering my arm after some hesitation, we walk around the pond arm in arm. We stay silent for a few minutes while looking at the glowing flowers. Then I spot it, the perfectly round, flat rock. A rock that could skip a million times. The perfect rock. I pick it up and toss it across the pond, accidentally hitting the statue of Light.

“Hey, watch it,” Orien says. Her eyes are furrowed and the corners of her mouth are pointed down. I give her an apologetic look and put both of my hands up showing that I am innocent and didn’t mean to do it on purpose.

I clear my throat after some thought, “Do you believe in all this stuff?”

“Believe in what?” Orien asks.

“In all this Darkness and Light stuff. Do you think that there were actual gods and that they happen to fall in love with each other and have magical babies? I mean no one has ever seen the triplets before so how do we know they actually exist?”

“How would you explain all the evil in the world? Don’t you think that his Darkness doing his evil deeds amoung the mortals?”

“I think that people made up Light and Darkness just so they can have an excuse for the evil thoughts and praise for their good thoughts. I don’t think they actually existed because if Light and Darkness truly existed, wouldn’t Light have been powerful enough to stop Darkness? Instead her three children and had her had to come together to defeat one god. Three against one and they are all immortal beings just doesn’t add up to me.”

I see Orien’s frown grow deeper in thought. “I guess I believe because it is what keeps me going. It is what gives me the motivation to stay good and do the right thing and stop people from hurting themselves or others around them.”

“Yeah, makes sense, I guess,” I say quietly.

A few more seconds of awkward silence passes until I decide to break it. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate my dancing?”

She gives a little snort out of her nose. “A two at best.”

“How? I think I am one of the best dancers out there,” I say with a sly grin.

Orien replies with a slight chuckle and smiles while looking at the staue in front of us. “She really is pretty isn’t she?”

I look out in front of me to the statue. “Yeah, I would say she is one of the prettiest things on the planet but I have got some things in my mind that is prettier.”

Did I really just say that? What if she thinks I was flirting with her. I can’t have her thinking that. She lifts her eyes up to make eye contact with me and smiles and then looks out in front of her again. I have no idea what she is thinking in her head but I would love to know right now.

It doesn’t seem to take up the thoughts in her head for long because soon after that we are heading back to the gate to head on inside and into the castle. Orien claims she is tired and so we both head our separate ways to go to bed.