“My Felokyle stage dance is today. Lani Mercallahs is my name.” I write. A week had already passed in the city. I was nervous. My time had come and Lam Lathi was my tribe.

I put down my diary, next to some ink in a broken cup. I bought morning drinks for everyone and shared them all. I drank mine quickly. My fingers touch a midnight blue envelope, hidden away from the eyes. My eyes connect to the writing of the cloth letter and I tie it loosely by my bandanna. Today, I had my stage dance, but no one wanted to go with me. I look over at Atjani. He was standing next to the freelancer he rescued on his journey. She followed him around. I didn't like her.

Natives pass hastily beneath me, as the feral wind blows against my back. I adjust the cloth sheet beneath my corset. My eyes dart around. I take note of the blue stairwells and walkways spreading endlessly among the boxy homes. The natives knew most of them by heart and, in moments, they could run from one side of the Felokyle city to the other.

I grab my diary and tuck it against the inside of my tribal belt. I turn and look off toward a nearby rooftop and at my new friend. Atjani remained staring at the Neandelerian sky platform floating over us.

“The Felokyle won't last forever.” I think.

I was completing this part of my training. Lam Lathi told me I was being sent to the Felokyle, so I would learn not to rely on my tempests so much. I would be barely within the range of my protectors. It matched what Nathari had told me earlier, so it made sense. I wondered what happened to Nathari? I couldn't be so deeply attached in the future. I was learning not to be. That was the lonely journey of a messenger girl.

I run across a blue walkway and join the other two.

“You can’t hide up here forever,” I say.

I look at my new friend. Atjani was pretty sure I had forgotten how to smile and wait. I don't know why he thought that about me. Maybe, his dead friend was that way. Atjani wanted me to create Melinal in the picture and I didn't know how. I would have to possess him for that and I wasn't a tempest. I was a dancer. I couldn't compete with those who were chosen for that role. They were also trained since they were little.

Someone would have to possess both of us and transfer our memories. I didn't want to ask my tempests to do that, just yet. I liked having someone to share my journey with. It was time to head to the stages again and I felt my anxiety wrapping tighter and tighter around my body like a rope. I stare at Atjani and his pet Nelessi.

“Listen to me,” I motion angrily.

Atjani watches me narrow his eyes at him. I didn't want to go into the city streets by myself. My stage area was in the war zone. The stray bullet warnings and uprising rumors were everywhere. They passed from person to person with silent hand-signs. The Felokyle stages were volatile like an explosive. The city was tense like the air.

I brush some hair from my eyes. The wind was fierce today, making it a vain motion.

“I'll go with you, Lani. Just let me enjoy the morning,” interrupts Atjani.

“It's not morning anymore, Atjani! Morning is ending,” I say back.

“Well, I like it back here. I'm not about to be influenced to death at the stages,” he responds. Nelessi nods with him. Atjani shrugs and I dart off. I decide to go into the streets alone.

There were Neandelerians all around and they seemed as wary of me, as I was of them. Many of them knew not to murder a sacred dancer and unite the Ryoken tribes in rage. We knew not to seal the wrong envelope, locking our fate behind the seal. We respected their boundaries, check points, and random kidnappings. The unwritten rules had somehow held the area together. The thought of Atjani and Nelessi enters my mind again.

“Fine then. I'll be all alone again.”

I dart into the city streets, feeling upset with my new friends. I brush pass a mixture of tribal people and foreigners and begin to maneuver among the natives. I pass Neandelerian advertisements and neon signs, meshing tastelessly with the native homes. The two cultures didn’t fit together, but gradually it seemed as if the edges were being smoothed.

Suddenly, I stop and nearly choke on my breath. Atjani jumps down in front of me. He had taken me by surprise. He had used the walkways and knew a few shortcuts already.

“I can't stand this city,” mutters Atjani. “Everything is too connected.”

Nelessi hops down shortly after and runs up to us. I smile briefly at her. Her arm bows by her mouth and she thanks me for the drink earlier. We resume our walk when the street becomes less congested. A crowd had come rushing through making a lot of noise. We continue walking. Up ahead, was the stage I was supposed to be at.

“Mmm.”

Heavily armored Neandelerians move by us with static and entanglements of wires. I look at the sunglasses many of their people wore. Many of them had made their home in the Felokyle. They found new lives and adventures among the surrounding tribes and towns. It was safer from Lam Lathi here for them. Many were unhappy with my presence. They recognized the midnight blue of Lam Lathi. I wore into many of the places I explored and was hated for it. Clerks refused to take my coins and threw them back at me, hitting me in the face and cheeks. Here, I was an unwanted imperial dancer.

The three of us wander around getting lost among the architecture. We climb up and down. We let people by us, before cutting against the shale walls around us to get to where we wanted. I scrape against the layered wall and look at at a large structure with steps leading up to the top.

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“There's so many people at this stage. They're almost all Ryoken.”

I stumble down into the chaos. Among the noises, I make out the line of other dancers. A few look back at me, just as nervous as I was. Armored Neandelerians were censoring their dances. I watch as a dancer's cloth letter is taken. Another warrior grabs her and pins her arms behind her back. He tries his best to intimidate and humiliate her, for all to see. It would deter others from using the stage. Another armored Neandelerian, shakes his head with disapproval. He tucks away her cloth letter and calls for back up on his radio. The dancer motions silently in fear. I could see the distress on her face. The Neandelerian grabs her small ponytail and yanks her back. She stumbles to the ground, arm across her face.

“Help!” she cries out in vain. “These are my people! This is our sacred dance!”

My palms moisten with sweat. I watch as the dancer is struck multiple times with a rifle butt and taken into custody. The armored Neandelerians laugh and talk about their pay some more with each other. I could see the steam from their morning drinks rise against their faces. The dancer is struck again. I feel every bit of it, as if it were me. I watch as she is dragged passed me, bleeding from the side of her eye and in tears. People shout in anger, but she was still alive. She would be released later. Rinse and repeat.

Atjani grabs my arm to get my attention.

“That's not going to be you, Lani. I won't let them. I need you,” he mutters. Atjani looks at me and pushes me ahead. “Now, go survive this and help me get my friend back.” Atjani scoots me forward. I join the line.

I twist my arm sleeves in frustration. My eyes dart back to Atjani. I give him an angry face.

“Melinal this. Melinal that. I want to choke him with my ribbon-cords!”

Nelessi tries to stay quiet as Atjani waves me on. He was going to find a place and gun down anyone who touched me the wrong way from a distance. Atjani heads to a nearby rooftop. There were others from his tribe Mercyan in the city. Ajtani spent the whole week making the right connections to keep me safe. I refocus on the intimidating radios and armor of the Neandelerian warriors. They grip their machines guns fiercely. One motions me forward. I give him my Lam Lathi mandate. My hands tremble slightly. He holds the cloth and hands it back. I feel relieved.

Atjani had hired a freelancer to pacify the Neandelerian warriors with her energy. She was the one who danced before me. I had arrived just in time. I breathe a jittery sigh and head up the steps.

At the top, I quickly grab the trace-dust mechanism. I hold back my energy with self-control and sync with my music. The hissing of trace-dust leaves my fingers. I comb through it with my fingers. Translucent images and illusions fill the air. I feel my possessor being. It starts to form invisible tentacles, like ribbon cords, connecting me to my onlookers. The feelings rise.

I form sadness like a tearing eye with silver liquid. Sadness from wishing you were someone else and could possess them. The sadness of losing a loved one early, when they slit their own throat.

I form loneliness like a lone dancer on a stage. The frustration of having no voice against a life that wanted to keep you from finding and merging, sex with true love. The denial of a hand to hold, like someone had stomped out your rose in the desert. Rejection, and the rage needed to will yourself through the pain.

I form a set of flaming wings held in the small of my naked back. The dreamer inside me awakens. Enormous burning wings of a hellish sunset, swoop behind me with fury. I hold them like the passion of a loving friendship. A bond that can only be formed, as two wings unite and take flight against a world of suffering. One friend, who always has your back.

The vision consumes the sky. People look up. The sky seems to darken and enliven my fiery feathers. They cover their faces. The dripping fires sway my hips, with burning feathers falling onto those below my wings

My view soars in the sky. The fire from my feral wings lifts me with vibrant illusion. It ripples the air around me, until it starts to become real. I gasp as the heat becomes unbearable. My eyes dart to the Pelathi stone. The oily creases move and writhe like my sweating body with smoldering intensity.

I cover my face with my hand and arm, allowing no one to rip it away. My flowing hair whips from side to side in passion and frustration, as I smoothly dance. I feel the lowering of my body. A flashing image of people with hands above their heads appears. I see a mirage of people dancing, as their bodies grind into each other, like sexual flames, crying out for life and passion. Everything becomes sexual and raw. It becomes a moment, where, the moment unites us all.

I swallow and touch the flesh of my leg with a single and suggestive finger. I catch my breath.

Far away, I stare out above the crowds as they start to chant and become unsettled. I feel my connection to them like a thousand wires to hold onto. I pull them toward me. They resist with their willpower and pull back. I tug again and they pull back harder. Finally, I yank them with my possessor being's strength and run my energy through their souls. I merge with them on a primal and feral level. I take control of their reigns and smile.

My eyes glisten like tiger's eye.

A invisible shock wave echoes into the city from my body. My hair moves wildly like a desert wind. The shock wave consumes my being, as if it were arching my back, exposing my covered breasts, and lifting me into the sexualized air.

I see the Felokyle come slowly to life like a blooming rose. People pour into the streets like water. I see torches light up and rifles raised into the air with angry shouts. One by one, the homes connect as lights turn on all across the city. A riot forms like a growing tidal wave. It comes crashing toward my stage. The air is filled with noises. It hisses with bullets. Orange and white flashes surround me like a light show. I hear men shouting as gunshots pelt my enemies, and people start running. Violence follows. A massive battle was culminating and the flash point was my dance.

I watch as Neandelerian warriors look around, unsure of what to do. They had never seen this before. The entire Felokyle was crying out for their destruction and doing something about it. There was no silence among any of the homes or tribes.

My onlookers shout in fury. Lam Lathi! Blood for blood! Flesh for flesh! All or nothing! Suicide or everything! The entire city was going to destroy every last bit of Neandelerian occupation, like one snake eating the other.

A bullet streaks by my head and my dance stops. I collapse as the Pelathi stone behind me shatters. I hear shrieking from rockets. The Neandelerians were shooting at me. I panic and rush down the steps, tripping and falling, as I hit the bottom. I skid to the floor and cut my thigh on the step. I stumble out into the stampede. My vision darts among the passing bodies, like a shark in search of her prey. I find my escape and move rapidly toward it. Someone grabs me and pulls me closer. It was Atjani. Nelessi was with him.

“It's time to kill some Neandelerians,” Atjani grins, cocking his rifle. He was ready for war.

“No, Atjani, we have to escape!,” I yell.

I grab Atjani's hand and pull him away from the stages with all my might. He resists me several times, before I manage to convince him to leave and fight another day. When the noise grows quieter, I sigh with relief. The sweat drips off my hair and stings my eyes with joy. I smile again. I immediately run back for Nelessi, but she shows up behind us out of breath. She could resist my influence more than I thought.

I take a look back. Armored Neandelerians were being overwhelmed and carried above the crowds to be killed. Others were shouting for help, as bayonets stabbed their throats. Bodies were all around and radio calls for retreat could be heard faintly, as flying machines tried to maneuver a rescue under the threat of many tempests.

Atjani breathes heavily and rubs my back.

I smile with relief. “You did great,” echoes in my mind.