"No."

"Yes."

"Absolutely not."

"You don't have a choice."

"You are not getting me into that thing." Aoife stood in the middle of her room, staring at a sparkling, purple ball gown draped over her bed. "You know, I'm not completely sure where all these clothes keep coming from, but I am not putting that on." She looked at the frilly, purple concoction with an expression of sheer distaste. The design had been out of style for many years, but was now beginning to cycle back around in the way fashion tended to do. Low neck, long sleeves, and extremely full skirts supported by a hoop skirt underneath. Court fashion for Enchanters favored lighter, Fae style garments, but Aoife didn't need to know that yet. If she had grace in a dress like this, she could be graceful in a burlap sack.

"Most of them are leftovers from better days," he said sadly, but his tone quickly changed to steely resolve, "but you will wear this. Court events require attending balls, which require dancing, and if you can dance in that, you can dance in anything."

"You're making me learn to dance," Aoife deadpanned.

"Yes."

"I thought we agreed that you weren't going to torture me any longer." She put her hands on her hips, waiting for a response. The Enchanter fought back a smile; at least she had some life in her now.

"Unfortunately, being an apprentice also means that you have to know how to survive at Court, which means you need to know how to dance."

"How am I supposed to dance if I can't actually touch you?" Aoife held up her hands, wiggling her fingers in the air in a ridiculous impression of an Enchanter casting a spell.

"Well, we're staying away from the waltz, first off," he said firmly. That was one thing they definitely could not handle.

"I tripped walking in one of those things the first night here, remember?"

"Yes, it was quite a lovely display," he said sarcastically. "I'd prefer if you had the ability to maintain your poise at Court."

"Why do you care? I'm only here temporarily, anyway!"

" You are here because you are a target, Aoife." The Enchanter looked her head in the eye, hoping that the seriousness of the matter came across. "The more people see you at Court, see you looking strong, the less will bother with trying to cross you or use you for their own gains. A strong power in a weak personality is a weak power."

"You realize that there is no way I can get into that, right? I'd need extra hands." She seemed to have relented at this, turning the dress over and examining it as if it might bite her.

"I've got two," he said with a shrug. Aoife looked caught somewhere between anger and utter disbelief.

"You're kidding."

"Unfortunately, no." There was no one else here, after all, and there was room under the dress for a chemise. It wasn't as though she'd be completely naked. Then again, sometimes his concept of modesty did seem a bit off from human conventions after being raised among the Fae. After growing up there he had no qualms about nudity and very little notion of privacy, though as an older man he'd grown to value both his privacy and his clothing... but she didn't need to know that.

"Get out," she said, pointing at the door.

"Wha—"

"If I have to do this, then I'll manage it myself, now get out!" Aoife shoved him backwards with both hands until he stumbled out the door and into the hallway. He fought back a chuckle, leaning against the wall and resigning himself to waiting.

He didn't tell her that the dress she was wearing belonged to her grandmother, once.

The door opened with a click, interrupting his thoughts, and Aoife stepped out.

The Enchanter had to take a moment to remind himself that it was, indeed, Aoife, and not Elina. She looked exactly like her grandmother in that dress, a relic of when this place was a part of Fae territory. He blinked, attempting to find the proper words to say, though he knew he was just standing there with his mouth open in an extremely undignified manner. However, Aoife was the first to speak.

"I hate you," she grumbled, trudging down the hall as the lilac skirts swished around her. "I feel like an overfed cow and I look like a pastry and I hate you." She didn't look at him as she passed by, and just like that the illusion cracked.

The Enchanter watched her walk towards the staircase, too stunned to move for a moment, until a strange tightness in his throat bubbled over into a soft laugh. There was nothing in the world that could have reminded him more that Aoife was not her grandmother. Wonderful though Elina was, her granddaughter possessed a fiery spirit that was the antithesis to Elina's calm, soothing presence. Aoife stopped abruptly, turning to stare with her mouth open.

"You just laughed," she breathed.

"Is that a problem?" he raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused.

"You're awful!" she cried, but there was no malice in it, as she was laughing, too. "I've barely even seen you smile in almost a month, and you decide to laugh at the sight of me telling you I hate you for dressing me up as an oversized wedding cake!"

"Perhaps my sense of humor is a little off," he admitted, walking towards her, "but I do believe that's the first laugh I've heard from you, too. Hold on a moment."

The Enchanter caught up to Aoife and walked around to the back of her dress, where she hadn't quite managed to tighten the laces correctly. He felt her jump as his hands worked on the lacing, tightening and straightening, though they never made direct contact with her skin.

"Better," he said with a nod. "I would offer you my arm, but somehow I doubt you'd take it, so I'll simply warn you to be careful going down the stairs."

They took the stairs slowly, Aoife's knuckles white from gripping the rail with one hand. He couldn't help but think that she looked a little seasick, and wondered if he should have gone easier on her. However, they only had a limited amount of time before the mandatory Court appearance for all Enchanter apprentices. It was either push her to the absolute limit or risk being unprepared.

Aoife grumbled her way down to the disused ballroom on the first floor. The chandeliers were full of dust, but lit up as soon as the doors clicked open. This was the one room that wasn't regularly kept clean, as there was absolutely no way he would be using it. It was cold and there was an unfortunate amount of dust on the floor, but opening the windows would help with both those problems. The Enchanter dropped Aoife's arm to walk to one of the large windows, pulling back the filthy curtains to let light shine in.

"When was the last time this place saw sunlight?" Aoife asked, coughing from the dust. She tottered over to another tall window and pulled the curtains back.

"Oh... two hundred and fifty years ago?" The Enchanter guessed. He wasn't completely sure, but it had to be around that time.

"That was before the Fae Wars."

"Yes." He did not elaborate.

There was no point in attempting to explain the curse to her now, nor in dwelling on life before the wars. This place was a shadow of everything it had once been, just like the Fae people. It was best to focus on the present for the time being rather than delusions of the past, and in the present, there was a lot of dust to deal with.

"You know, did it occur to you that it might have been easier to do this before putting me in a frilly gown?" Aoife said as she threw open a window, allowing the cool morning breeze to air out the stuffy room.

"It did, right about the time we opened the doors. I underestimated the dust," he admitted. With just half the windows with the curtains tied back and opened, it was already brighter, and easier to assess the damage. It didn't even seem like that long ago when there were parties here, dancers whirling around the ballroom. Now the cobwebs on the chandeliers looked like the silhouettes of long dead ghosts, and the dust was thick enough that they left footprints as they passed through. Back then he'd thought the formalities and celebrations inane and pointless, and in many ways they were. However, no one ever understands the blessings of peaceful times until the peace is gone, and he wished he'd understood the blessing then.

"You underestimated two hundred and fifty years of dust?" Aoife raised an eyebrow. "How do you— wait. You're not two hundred and fifty years old, are you?"

"No," he said curtly. Not technically a lie.

"Are you more than two hundred and fifty years old?"

"Come over here and we'll start the lesson," he said quickly, moving to the middle of the still dusty, but now brightly lit ballroom.

"You're more than two hundred and fifty years old." Aoife's jaw hung slack. "I knew you had to be old since you knew my grandmother, but—"

"Didn't anyone teach you to respect your elders? Come here," he said through gritted teeth. He could see that she was still biting back a wide grin, but chose to ignore it. Frankly, he didn't understand why human mortals were so obsessed with Fae age differences, but they never failed to fawn over him when he admitted his age. Not to mention it made him think about how he was old enough to be her great, great, great... his thoughts trailed off, suddenly feeling a bit nauseous at the direction this was taking. Suffice to say, he'd been on this green earth for far, far too long.

"Bend your arm like this, at a right angle— no, your right arm. Palm facing me."

Aoife mirrored his motion, and the Enchanter moved so that he stood slightly to the left of her, their palms nearly touching, but not quite.

"Now, keep your hand where it is, and we're going to walk in a circle. Imagine the place where our hands meet is the pivot point. Good." The Enchanter spun clockwise in place so he faced the opposite direction, and Aoife automatically mirrored him. The traced back through the pattern of the spinning circle until they arrived at their previous positions.

"Do we stay this far apart the whole time?" she asked. "Not that my dress would allow me to get any closer."

"This far or farther. There are some jumping and spinning steps involved later, but I believe it would be best to add those once the room has been properly freed of dust." He glanced at the circular space on the floor already traced out by their steps. Most of the dust appeared to be clinging to the hem of the dress Aoife wore, but a fair amount of it was on his shoes as well. Do any jumping and they'd be kicking up clouds in no time.

"So that's all for today?" she asked hopefully, already backing away like a child ready to leave school.

"Oh, no. We need to teach you the basic dancer's step, the rest of the pattern for the dance without the jumping and spinning, and acquaint you with the structure of Court balls."

Aoife visibly slumped.

It would be a very long day for her, but the Enchanter thought that he might have a good bit of fun.