“I hope you enjoy it if you do come.” Jia Li’s words were honest. She wasn’t normally one to crave the spotlight, but she was proud of her abilities as a dancer. She was also proud of her team, and she didn’t mind showing it off. The competition in itself wasn’t nearly as important as the dancing in the dryad’s mind, but many of her teammates felt differently.
“You can’t live your life comparing your abilities to other people. There will probably never be a time when a person can’t look at another and think that person is above them. I’m not the best dancer in the world. I make mistakes. That’s not the point. The point is that you work hard to achieve what you want to achieve.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re talented. I think you’re a very good violinist based on what I’ve heard you play, and if you can stop thinking that you need to achieve what your siblings achieve, maybe you could feel good about your skills, too. It’s unlikely that there aren’t areas where they envy you, even if it’s not the kind of area of expertise you’d like.” Jia Li had never had siblings, so she didn’t really know what it was like to envy them, but she did have friends, and those were pretty much the next best things when it came to forming a close bond with someone in a similar age group. She’d fought with her friends, and she’d envied her friends. Wasn’t that what siblings did, too?
“I just remembered the name: the Green Bean. I’ve never had the apple Danish they make, but I have had some of their other pastries. They’re great.” Of course, she really wasn’t hungry, so she wasn’t going to be eating. The dryad did enjoy their teas, though.
Jia Li shrugged. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a rude question.” She still wasn’t used to just answering it, though. Keeping her species a secret unless it was brought up was a way for her to keep herself safe, but she was caring less and less about that. It wasn’t like she was directing someone to exactly where her tree grew, and if someone asked, she would just decline to answer. No one could really hold that against her. It was private whereas her race was public knowledge. Someone only had to find her name in the student database, and her race was there, too. With a blush at his compliment, she pulled her dark curls gently away from her ears. “I’m not an elf, no ear points. I am a dryad, though.” Jia Li sincerely doubted she could ever really be mistaken for an elf. Alyssa, her roommate, was an elf, and she was gorgeous. Her bone structure alone would give her race away if her leaf-shaped ears didn’t. She was fair and beautiful where the dryad was darker, earthier. They were both pretty in their own ways, but Jia Li would always feel that her roommate was the more attractive of the two.
“The only poetry I’ve ever written was for school assignments, but it was kind of fun at the time. It’s just not really my thing as far as writing it goes. I do love to hear or to read good poetry, though.” As a dryad, she was drawn to beauty in many forms. Poetry was one of those forms.
She suddenly remembered the night when she had been drawn to a voice speaking poetry, and she remembered who she had found. Jia Li hadn’t thought about him for a while, and she suddenly was curious how his life had progressed since she’d seen him last. Had he finally been able to get the girl to whom he’d spoken such beautiful poetry, or had he moved on?
The dryad smiled at Adrian, coming back to herself. “Well, that’s fine, too. Let’s go, then.” She had some cash on her, so she wasn’t worried about going anywhere where he had to pay or where she pretty much had to show him where she lived on campus. If he wanted to know badly enough, he could just find a way to figure it out. It wasn’t a state secret or anything, and Jia Li had already proven to herself that even secrets could be uncovered with enough determination. However, she didn’t want to think about Jack or his troubled past right at that moment, so she worked hard to keep her mind on Adrian and getting to know him.
“So what else do you do for fun, aside from writing poetry and chastising yourself about your abilities as a violinist?” She asked as they walked.