Maybe this party thing wasn’t so bad. Sure, there was drinking in which she wasn’t partaking, but she still felt sort of relaxed. Every now and then, someone would bump into her, but no one was trying to feel her up, and that was definitely a good thing.
This was probably the most relaxed Jia Li ever seemed. Most of the time, she could be pretty stiff because she was constantly on guard. It was true that even now she was a little on guard, but that guard was slowly dipping lower and lower on her priorities. Dancing was her element, and it definitely showed. She wasn’t really the sort to just sway side to side. The dryad actually had moves, and she was fantastic at improvising. After all, a dancer who couldn’t improvise couldn’t get very far.
It was very likely that, now that the upper classmen who had gotten their degrees had left Alden, Jia Li would get plenty of leads for Kemen’s dance team. Among those who had graduated had been some of the best dancers on the team, but the dryad had a lot of potential to become better than they were. It definitely helped that she wasn’t stuck in just one style of dance; she knew plenty of things from ballet to hip hop styles, and she’d been learning about them for most of her life. Plus, she had recently started learning some break dancing. She’d always loved watching it, and she’d tried a few things here and there that resembled it, but she’d never had time to really start seriously learning it until the end of her freshman year. Of course, she didn’t display those moves here.
The songs that played had great beats for dancing, and it was pretty upbeat. She had no troubles at all adjusting, but she wasn’t going to prove her potential in Kay’s dorm. She didn’t want all eyes on herself, and she wanted to dance with her friends, not show them up. Her moves were a good balance between what she knew and with whom she was dancing. People who weren’t trained dancers but had some graceful or decent casual moves would be able to keep up with her without a problem.
As she danced with Britta and Kay, she felt really good about the party, about herself, and about life in general. She would definitely be able to sleep well tonight. They weren’t very close to the door, and the music combined with the laughing and mingling of the growing populous of partiers made it pretty hard to hear anything else.
After a few songs, she excused herself from the two women to get something to drink. She wasn’t tired, but it was starting to get pretty warm with the body heat of everyone combining together and her dancing.