Chapter 6
ZARA
After an intense hour of learning how to fire dance, the squad seems full of life. Or maybe that's because they're disbanding and no longer have to listen to me. As much as I don't want to admit it, everything that both Blaze and Yuri have said to me has gotten into my head and I'm starting to doubt myself.
The fire dancers have packed up, and all but Blaze make their way off the practice pitch. I take a deep breath and head over to him, a little bit nervous about the interaction after reinforcing his idea of me by ordering the squad around. I think the feelings are especially strong after seeing him interact with members of his team. I know it's a completely different situation, but I can't help but feel self-conscious about it. But I also need to check that the payment has gone through right. I can deal with having a reputation for being a hard captain, but I don't want to get one for not paying the Sapphire Sparks bills.
"Did you get the money?" I ask him, pushing some hair out of my face from where it's fallen out of my ponytail.
He nods. "Before we came here. Thanks."
"It's me who should be thanking you," I respond earnestly. "You didn't have to come and teach."
"You paid us," he reminds me.
"I know. But still, thank you." I resist the urge to shuffle my feet. Even if the squad has already dispersed and all that's left for me to do is pack up, I don't want anyone to see me being so insecure.
He raises an eyebrow. "Even if you didn't get a chance to try fire dancing yourself?"
"It was more important for the squad to try it," I say. "And for me to get ideas about how I can use it in the routine, I can do that better by watching." Though I have to admit, there's a little part of me that's disappointed that I haven't had a chance to play with some fire. But that's just the dragon part.
"Do you need to be anywhere now?" he asks.
"No," I respond slowly, not entirely clear why he's asking that.
"Okay, then take this." He holds out one of the batons he hasn't put away yet.
"What?"
"You didn't get a chance to try it yourself, so now you can. And none of the squad are around to see if you fail."
"That's not why I didn't do it..."
"So you say." He nods to the space in front of me.
I'm intrigued enough to step into position and twirl the baton around. It's heavier than I expect it to be and it kind of hurts my wrist.
"You need to hold it differently," Blaze says. "May I?"
I nod and hold the baton out to him, but he has something different in mind. Carefully, he reaches out and puts his hand over mine, moving it into a different position. He's so close that I can hear his heart beating and I can smell the detergent he uses for his washing along with the fresh sweat from working constantly for the past hour. It's not an unpleasant smell, in fact, I kind of like it. I just hope he feels the same about me now that we're so close.
"All right, now try," he says, his breath brushing against my cheek.
I clear my throat and step away. I swing the baton around, finding that he's right and it's a lot easier to do now that he's helped me with the position of my hand.
"Want it lighting?" he asks.
"I can do it," I respond, stopping the twirl and holding the baton to my mouth. I call forth my dragon magic and breathe out some flames, lighting the top of it a cold blue. They flicker over Blaze's face, casting shadows and making his features sharper.
Surprise fills his eyes. " You're a dragon."
"Mmhmm." I start twirling the baton again, enjoying how the flames dance through the air while I do.
"And a powerful one if you can breathe fire in human form."
"Like you can talk, you can change your eyes," I point out.
"Fair. Why don't you try throwing it to me?" he suggests.
"Sure." I take a step back and give myself a moment to make sure I know what I'm trying to aim for. I count to five and throw it through the air.
Blaze reaches out with a slow confidence that I'm not sure I can have when it comes to throwing fire around, even if I am a dragon. He catches it with ease, spinning it around far faster than I can. "Want me to throw it back?"
"You can try." I'm a bit worried about what will happen if I don't catch it, but I suppose he'll have thought of that.
He throws it towards me and I reach out, catching hold of the baton near the end. It nearly slips through my fingers and falls to the ground, but I manage to stop it at the last moment.
"Impressive considering you've had about two minutes of practice."
I snort. "It helps when you're not scared of getting burned." I flip the baton around in my hand. "Not to mention years of cheer practice, gymnastics, and dance lessons. It makes it easier to pick up stuff like this."
He lights a second baton and hands it to me. "Try two."
"You're just asking for trouble."
Blaze raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying the formidable cheer captain isn't confident enough to deal with two flaming batons at once?"
"Oh, she is." I take it from him and start swinging them both around. It's awkward at first, but that's mostly because I'm holding it wrong. Once I fix that, it's much easier to move them.
"You're good at this. if you ever move on from the Sapphire Sparks, the Flame Tumblers could use you."
I snort. "I doubt I'm that good."
"Maybe not yet, but a bit more practice and I bet you'd be running circles around me," he jokes.
"Mmm." I extinguish the batons in the sand like he did earlier and hand them back to him. "I think I'm happy being a cheerleader." I grab my bottle of water and take a few sips, studying the practice ground and working out what needs tidying away. Technically, this is our assigned space and I could leave it between practices, but I know what students are like and there's always a chance that things will go missing if I leave them here.
I go get some of the cones that have been used as markers and start stacking them over the metal holder. To my surprise, Blaze goes to the other side of the practice area and starts picking them up too.
"So, what made you become a cheerleader?" he asks, sliding some of his cones onto the holder.
"My mum," I respond. "She was the captain of the Sapphire Sparks when she was here at the academy, and she was always my hero. Apparently, I used to go into her boxes and take out her pom-poms to shake them." I smile at the memory of being told that, wishing I remembered it myself. I do have memories of Mum, but not as many as I'd like.
"Did she push you towards it?" he asks as he collects more cones.
"No. But she was happy that I was interested and encouraged me. What about you? How did you get into fire dancing?"
"My dad," he responds. "He wanted me to join at least one team while I was here. I think he expected me to join rugby or cricket, something like that. So I found the thing I thought he'd disapprove of the most and joined that. Maybe I should have tried out for the Sapphire Sparks, he'd have really hated me being a cheerleader."
"It's a serious sport," I say defensively.
"I know," he assures me. "And the Sapphire Sparks are known to be good."
"We are. Most of the time." There are some exceptions, like the last round of our competition. And last year's final when I fell. Most of the squad don't remember that, but I do and I hate knowing how much I let the team down with that one mistake. I think that might be one of the reasons I'm so hard on the squad about mistakes.
"Competition blues got you down?" he asks.
I pick up the last of the cones and finish stacking them up. "I shouldn't really be talking about this."
He shrugs. "I get it. I've competed, so why don't you try telling me?"
I suppose it isn't exactly a secret how we did in the last round of the competition, it was printed in the academy newsletter for everyone to see. "We nearly failed the last round."
"Nearly isn't failing though," he points out.
"No, I suppose not."
"And you can't get better if you never fail." He finishes packing away the last of his stuff.
"True. But now I only have one round to go before my chances of lifting the trophy as the cheer captain disappear."
"Except that was always true," he points out. "You'd never have been happy if you didn't win the final round. Or I know that's how I'd feel."
"That might be a fair point." I put the tower of cones into the storage box full of gear for the squad and lock it. "Anyway, thank you for coming today."
"You're welcome." Blaze pauses as if he wants to say more, but doesn't. "I'll see you around, Zara."
"See you." I wave at him, trying not to feel too much like something is escaping from us.
I grab my gym bag and throw it over my shoulder and head in the direction of my dorm, hopefully full of ideas for how to make our routine for finals a winning one.