They gave me until late morning before they made me start paying attention again.

It might not have been entirely fair to feel that way—but feel that way it did at the time, if only briefly. The sun had sunk into my very bones, and a drowsy lassitude had consumed my consciousness; what use had I for listening to the words people were saying, rather than soaking in the friendly, intimate tones of voice and luxuriating in Kelly’s touch?

But of course, just as all backrubs and head-scritches must end come the appointed time, so too did the neck massage I was getting—and the very careful tugging on my hair, and the clever fingers digging into the tense muscles of my palm, and exactly once the mistake of tickling me. And it wasn’t exactly untrue that I was ill-prepared for the afternoon’s festivities in one critical regard.

Dancing. My—one of my lifelong nemeses.

“Ready again? Slowly, we try once more.”

“I still don’t see why it couldn’t be Kelly teaching me,” I grumbled.

Tayir laughed, hands coming up to his waist level. Given the height difference, that was at the upper slopes of my tits, and I actually had those in this outfit. That made it genuinely a little uncomfortable to bring my palms up to meet his, mine face-up and his resting lightly on mine.

“It would teach you habits ill-serving, should a woman of stature take you in hand,” he eventually said, eyes moving between my shoulders, my elbows, and my hands.

I raised my eyebrows at him, and he smiled, tilting his head down in exaggerated mock-eye-contact. I flushed after a second, getting it—yes, Ketka was a woman of stature, and yes, I was hoping she’d ask me to dance, but I was determined not to make assumptions.

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “Yes, practicing dancing with a woman a bit shorter than me wouldn’t be the same geometries as dancing with a woman who’s a foot taller.”

He moved my hands fractionally, placing them at some precise angle whose nature eluded me but which felt related to the way his eyes had rested on my shoulders. “As well, such a woman would be broader, and her strength—even gentled—will shift you with each motion.”

I couldn’t ignore the certainty of his phrasing, but I kept my voice mostly level anyway. “So I’m going to practice with you, big guy? At least we both know the other doesn’t mean anything by it.”

He didn’t dignify that with any more of a response than a smile. It really was a good thing, though; forget whether they intended it or not, forget whether they were a threat or not, dancing with a straight guy was always fraught for the same reason I didn’t dance with straight women or women who mistook attraction as romance. Best case scenario, neither person would be all that into it—more likely, if you were having proper fun, one of the two was leaving the floor with regrets over a might-have-been that never could have.

Well, that’s what I’d used as an excuse for a solid decade, at least. I knew full well that the real answer was that I couldn’t dance worth shit, and learning how was right at the intersection of incompetence and joint pain. But I can’t dance was seen as a challenge by a lot of people, and they didn’t tend to take my joints veto this expedition all that seriously.

“Ready?” Tayir’s voice rumbled across where our palms were touching.

“Ready,” I said nodding.

Shuli started up the beat on a hand drum—nothing fancy, just a steady tapping on a stretched shoatskin—and I took a deep, centering breath.

Two beats of waiting, and then three beats to take three small steps back so that my hands were fully outstretched, with Tayir’s being almost as extended.

Three beats, three steps forwards—slightly larger ones this time. We stopped with our elbows tucked precisely under our shoulders, upper arms perpendicular to the ground.

Two beats of pause, and then Tayir’s hands lifted and we both moved our arms. My left hand rose to meet his right, fingers interlaced at my head height; my right hand went to the waist of his—snow-white and loosely billowing—robes, and his left wrist snaked under my armpit so that his hand could cradle my shoulder blade.

Step to the left, first sequence with the right. My right foot came to my left and then forward, the outside of my right boot tapping lightly against the inside of his left shoe. I toe tapped next to my left foot, then stepped back with my right foot as my left hand let go of his hand and his hand slid from behind my shoulder to meet my right hand, sliding along the silky fabric that caressed my arm. One toe tap, this time with my left foot next to my right foot; a sidestep to the left as he moved with me, and right foot followed with a step—no, wait, that should have been a tap—

—and Tayir caught me as I stumbled, trying to convert the step into a tap and windmilling wildly.

“Fuck.” I dangled limply for a moment, then took a deep breath and got my legs stably under myself. Restraining the urge to scream, I nodded my thanks at him and barely caught myself before I ran my hands through my hair in frustration.

Magic might have made it easier to rebuild a hairdo, but there was no reason to spend that effort. Especially when I needed to learn this stupid Godsforsaken fucking dance…

“I’m tempted,” I said bitterly, “to see if Spark can do a better job. I bet it can.”

“It might,” Kelly said quietly. “But then—”

“—then Spark would be dancing with Ketka,” I finished for her. “And I want me to be dancing with Ketka. Assuming she asks.”

Four people stared at me for that last, with even Shuli and Shafta glancing over to join Tayir and my First Friend. “Sophie,” Tayir rumbled after a moment, visibly suppressing laughter. “Please. The sun will travel as the world spins. The moon rises soon over the horizon. Each shall be at their appointed time—and Ketka will ask you to dance.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I don’t want to assume,” I protested feebly, blushing fiercely. “It’s not polite to assume. She gets to choose if she wants to ask me.”

“Indeed she does.” He smiled at me, extending a palm. “And should she do so, perhaps you should prefer to know the steps of your first dance.”

“Hmph.” I stood straighter, cheeks still flaming, and stepped up into position. “Let’s take it step by step. Half speed, and call each sub-sequence before we take it.”

“As you say,” my dance instructor acceded with a graceful sweep of the arms that was the equivalent of a let’s dance bow. “Shuli?”

Kartom’s apprentice tapped out the introduction again, and we stepped into the pattern again.

And again.

My feet tripped over each other, slipped on the grass despite the grip on the boots, and twisted despite the ankle support. I tangled myself in that spinniest of skirts, fouled my arm movements on the sleeves, and snarled the illusion-fine fabric of my gloves on every bit of my dance partner’s outfit. Tayir just quietly arrested my every fall and set to rights my every error, dismissing it as easier than catching a falling paintbrush.

And we stepped into the pattern again.

I stepped when I should tap, tapped when I should step. I stepped short or long, I drifted forward or back. I botched the salutation and the close, he caught an elbow in the side a few times and—memorably, mortifyingly—the face once, and I made an utter hash of weight management on the supported twirls and the dip.

And I gritted my teeth, glaring off their concerns and their suggestions that we stop; and we stepped into the pattern again. Making fewer mistakes, making them less often—iterating on how my body was moving, which movements followed which.

I almost wasn’t paying attention the first time I got it right. The sun was high in the air, and if the day had been a typical one, first seating would have come and gone. Instead, the tables were being set up in the grassy opens, as they were called, and food was starting to get laid out in a grand buffet.

I was hungry and somewhere past pissed off, well into grudge-match territory. Step, anchor, tap, tap, step. My head had started to hurt well before, and my muscles were aching, because apparently dancing was exertion and I was woefully out of shape. Tap, step, tap, step, anchor, tap, tap, step. And who had come up with this dance, anyway, with its bizarre just-slightly-curved travel?

Tap, step, tap, tap, step, tap, forward, turn, turn, twirl.

Not that I’d had all that much experience to judge with. While I might not have lacked for prospective dance partners, even taller women who would have been delighted to dance lead, between my reluctance to showcase my own incompetence and my joint problems…

Step, step, turn, turn, lean, half-twirl, circle, mutual turn, step in, tap, tap, tap, step out.

And it was about then that I realized that it was, the dance was, my movements were… not flowing smoothly, but functioning. I was in the right place at the right time, even if how I got there was jerky and uncoordinated.

Palms together, back, forward, forward, clasp forearms, step, half turn, stay rigid in these ways for the lift, legs like so and arms like so, take the weight back up, circle, arm and hand moves like so as your partner circles.

I was dancing. Dancing this bizarre, arbitrary dance that was both like and unlike anything I’d seen or tried to copy before, dancing the pattern now that I’d be dancing later with Ketka. Dancing the pattern now which was my excuse and reason to dance with Ketka.

Step, step, tap, tap, tap, step, tap, step, tap, step. Step in, arms like so, lean, lean, half-spin, reverse for the twirl, lift. Half-spin, reverse for the twirl, out with arms like so and like so, in with the pull, turning like so. Lean back, and trust, and the leg like so, and arms like so.

And when I danced it with Ketka, I was pretty sure that I’d be able to replicate this. I could feel it in my Skills and in my muscle memory, could feel it in the burgeoning confidence of my steps. It wasn’t smooth and it wasn’t fluid, but I was hitting the mark on every step, whatever lack of elegance I was going through to get there.

“Again?” Tayir’s voice rumbled through me, more felt than heard.

“Again,” I breathed. “Once is an accident.”

“Twice is a skill,” he agreed.

I felt it clicking into place as I stepped into my marks. I wasn’t striving for perfection—I was striving for a bulleted checklist, and I leaned deliberately into Meticulous as the Attribute thrummed deep inside me and also so very far away.

The pressure I hadn’t even noticed building from my Iterate skill faded, taking most of the headache with it. It left me just familiar enough to the steps with mechanical precision and no sense of flair, and no more familiarity than that.

It was enough. It would be enough, and I told myself that as I danced the last pattern and again as Tayir dipped me low. I reached for the final pose, tried to settle into the fullest expression of it that my body could comfortably hold for the frieze, and was surprised to find myself… exultant.

My left knee reached up to the sky and my left toes rested against my right inner thigh as my right knee formed a ninety-degree angle—that was fine, even if it wouldn’t have been three weeks ago. My back was forming as much of an arc backwards over his arm as I could manage, and that was a careful balance given the gravity of the situation. Left hand tucked behind my lower back, I made myself trust completely in Tayir’s support of me, and rested my right fingers on the underside of his upper arm.

Shuli’s drum picked up the beat again, faster and more complex as she showed off an impressive skill at the instrument. That was the outro, and the end of the frieze, and I staggered a little as I got my feet under me, but I was stable enough after a moment.

“Fortune’s favor, Sophie, you did it!” Kelly practically tackled me, shattering my momentary stability and sending me staggering backwards as she hugged me.

“Yeah.” I grinned down at her, managing to mostly keep my eyes on her face as she practically danced a jig of her own in excitement. “I did do it, in the end.”

“I didn’t even help you,” she lied. “Much,” she added after a moment, more truthfully.

“Yeah, I know.” I was still grinning. “If you’d cheated in my favor, Spark would totally have told on you.”

The Flame is enriched by striving towards one’s Path. Chemical Alchemies and divine moments unrelated to the Divine may yet qualify, but surely to hold one’s hand must not. And so, in striving, we become one with the future we choose—is that not growth?

“Growth,” I murmured softly, suddenly distracted. It was nudging at me, the feeling, a sort of tickling feeling. “Spark, did something happen?”

A limit is transcended. Should the question not be…

The thought trailed off, somehow both mine and Spark’s at the same time, the same joke in too much of a mental fusion to deliver the punchline.

My eyes flickered over to Shuli as, ever Kartom’s apprentice, she pulled out a notepad and started writing rapidly on it. Shafta’s arm slipped around her shoulders, Tayir’s smile threatened to become a grin, and Kelly started to practically vibrate in anticipation.

“Alright. Spark, what happened?”

In lieu of answering with its usual subtle-and-also-unsubtle extrusively intrusive thought, it flashed me something that still hadn’t gotten any less weird and silly to me in the last fortnight.

Your Divine Flame Crackles With Life!

Sweet Are The Fruits Of Labor, Earned By Sweat And Tears: Dancing (Novice)

One Step, And Then Another. So Shall We Thrive.