Welcome to Gaia! ::

Exploring the castle had resulted in finding a magnificent looking ballroom, among other classy - super classy - rooms around the building. The ballroom had stuck out to Lovejoy in particular for one reason: space.

Actually, it had given LJ one of her best ideas (in her humble opinion, of course).

The room was huge, with wide open spaces. There were a few murals and busts scattered around the walls and edges, but the center was clear and ready for dancing. The ceiling was spectacular in its own right, glistening like the sky with an array of unpatterned stars that could take a whimsical girl's breath away.

Which is exactly what LJ used to convince Kib, when dragging the girl away from her chattering about dresses and Queens.

"You'll love it," she assured the older girl, tugging her into the large room, "It's gorgeous, Kibobaroo."

Lovejoy's eyes sparkled nearly as brightly as her best friend's did. Both girls were looking around at the room with such awe and excitement that neither would have realized if the rest of the world around them was falling to shambles.

"Isn't it amazing?" The confusion senshi was clearly proud of her find as she allowed the other girl to tug her forward, only stopping once they reached the middle of the ballroom floor. From there, they could see all the twinkling lights up above - it was brilliant. Brilliant.

The younger girl blinked, however, when her friend brought up the idea of dancing. Wait - what?

"No, doof," she laughed, shaking her head as if Kibirev had told a funny joke, "We're not here to dance, we're here to fight."

One hand motioned out to the space around them. "This is the perfect amount of room for us to get a good spar in. Y'know, just in case something screwy is going on in the castle - I want us to be ready."

Pausing, she wrinkled her nose as she realized that Kib hadn't been on the same page as her. Hm.

"Tell you what - you win and we dance. I win and.... you stop eating crystals."

One hand outstretched itself in offering. "Deal?"

LJ looked absolutely exasperated.

"And what happens if the crystal servants turn on us?"

She paused, her mind racing a mile a minute. "What if they turn on Altea?"

If Kibby wasn't going to practice for her own sake, maybe she'd practice if it meant protecting this strange, suspicious new Queen she was adoring on. Giving her dresses and crystals and stuff - the least Lovejoy could give her was a sense of self-defense, right?

"C'mon. Hit me. Just try." She argued, using both hands to beckon towards the other girl, "Whatcha gonna do if Altea gets in trouble, huh?"

"It's not crazy, it's important that you know how to fight for yourself if the time comes!"

Granted, hopefully LJ would be there to help if the time ever came... but for all she knew, she could be a ghost by the time came for Kibby to use her attack, or at the very least incapacitated.

Anyways.

She needed to learn how to fight and....

"Oh."

The glowing flower floated towards her face and by the time she flinched in instinctive response, it had disappeared. The teenager blinked, seemingly startled and glanced around her as if expecting... something else. Like a punch. Or something.

Instead, everything seemed more okay than it was only moments before. Yes. Okay. Everything was okay and suddenly the worry she had over this silly castle thing was just that - silly.

"I'm not sure that did much of anything, Kibby, but that's okay. We'll try harder next time," she offered as the most consoling soothe she could muster. Arms moved out to wrap around her friend, "It'll be okay. We don't need to fight, see? It'll all be okay."

Consoling hands patted the upset girl's head as Kibirev berated her own abilities against LJ's throat. It probably should have been more troublesome for Lovejoy to hear her friend talk so down about herself, but for some reason she simply felt far too relaxed to worry about those things right now.

Everything would be okay, she was sure of it!

At the request for a dance, the ivory haired girl nodded her head and smiled at her friend, fingers enclosing around fingers as she squeezed. "Of course we can. Whatever you'd like to do, KibKab."

Lovejoy had never properly danced before (because she considered the Chicken Dance not a proper dance) but she knew it wouldn't matter - however she danced would end up being okay, just like the rest of their stay in the castle.

It would all be wonderfully okay.

Taking her cue (or was it Kib's cue? She had no idea), she forced her feet to move as lightly as she could, just like they did in all the movies that Kelly had forced her to watch, like Anastasia and Beauty and the Beast. She wasn't sure if she was doing either movie justice, but Kib wasn't complaining, wearing a happy, excited face as the two girls glided around the ballroom floor.

Yeah, so, maybe it wasn't the spar she'd planned on them having... but it was okay.

Everything was okay.