Prisma Glitterdust's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

The pups came each morning now. The pool held still. The gnats stayed at the window bowl. Prisma's six students sat on the mud-and-glitter bench and kept their hands open. They had learned stillness. They had learned gentleness. But when Prisma tried to teach a curtsy, the small troll copied her wrong. She dipped and toppled. The others laughed. Prisma saw the trouble at last. She could tell them what grace was. She could not show them what it looked like when it was finished. "Watch me," she said. She lifted her skirt and sank into a slow curtsy. Her tiara caught the light. But the trolls looked at her the way they had on the first day. She was still the sparkly outsider. She did not look like them. A troll could not see itself in her. Mossback slept by the pool. Mushrooms rose and fell on his back. Prisma studied him. He was the muddiest of them all. He was the largest, the slowest, the least likely troll to bow. If she could make him graceful, the others would believe. "Mossback." She shook his shoulder. "I need you to stand." He opened one eye. "I'm resting." "I need to show them a finished curtsy. On a troll. On you." "No." He shut the eye. Prisma did not leave. She sat on the floor beside him and waited. "You dug the pool with me. You gave me the swarm trick. You live here now. You are my partner, not just my student." She paused. "Show them once. Then sleep all week." Mossback grunted. He rolled up slow, careful of the mushrooms. He stood. He was enormous and filthy and glaring. "Now," Prisma said. "Feet together. Bend the knees. Lower yourself. Keep your back straight." She moved his heavy hands to rest at his sides. She touched his knee to guide the bend. He was clumsy. He wobbled. She steadied him. "Slower," she said. "Grace is slow." He sank down. He held the pose. A mud troll, dipping in a bow, as still as the pool. A striped pup buzzed past his ear. He did not flinch. He rose again, smooth this time. The schoolroom went quiet. The small troll leaned forward. The six of them stared at Mossback, not at Prisma. They had seen it. Grace, on a body like their own. "Again," the small troll said. Mossback did it again. Then the small troll stood and copied him. She dipped. She held. She did not topple. She smiled. Prisma pressed her hands to her mouth. She had her model now. Not the princess. The muddiest troll in the swamp. "You'll do this tomorrow too," she told Mossback. He lay back down by the pool. "Once," he said. "I said once." Prisma looked at the six trolls, all rising to try the bow. She would need him again. And he would say no again. That fight was tomorrow's.