4.2

Jewel was uncertain about how this was going to work. So far she just felt even more excluded and awkward then she had at the start.

Tsulogothulan was standing amiably in what had come to be the wizard’s preferred place in the courtyard.

That is to say directly in the seemingly bottomless pool of silty bog water that had been placed at the end of the Boar’s Festival.

Samuel had surprised Jewel in his delight over the new water feature, but apparently a never ending source of ‘good rich water’ and robust silt’ that stunk vaguely of rotten eggs and manure was precisely the best thing ever to grace Father’s Demesne in all living memory.

At least according to the Groundskeeper.

Jewel had been even more surprised when he had requested of Father that the courtyard entrance be guarded night and day from ‘thieves’ trying to make off with bucketfuls of mud.

Or when in counter to the concern Father had commanded Tsulogothulan to make similar ponds or boggy springs between the borders of every field in the immediate demesne.

Apparently going further abroad would be a more complex endeavor and for reasons unclear to anyone but the Wizard themselves could not be accomplished until the coming of the spring rainstorms and the thawing from winter ice.

But really who knew that apparently bog mud and water was so valuable that people might actually be motivated to try and steal it?!

Still the position in their own private well of swamp seemed to bring a life to Tsulogothulan that Jewel had only ever seen while they were in a torrential downpour.

It made her wonder just how much inconvenience being dry enough to converse and interact with normal people actually imposed on the Weird.

All of which was a distracted musing to try and distance herself from how she felt like a strutting goat or hungry dog circling the footmen in their far more proper carola circle.

It had been going on for almost the entirety of mid day, with only a break for a noon meal and beer. Jewel and Tsulogothulan were indefatigable. The Wyrm due to her barely slacked inner fire and the Wizard for reasons inscrutable but probably related to standing in a bottomless bog pond.

But after the first two hours of what was becoming more a kind of military drill in full kit than an actual dance for the men… it took its toll.

Bromthil, the Captain of the Guard and the Footmen, nearly put a stop to it there. Only by Jewel’s pleading and Tsulogothulan’s thankfully only figuratively penetrating stare was the exercise not canceled all together for the day.

As a compromise, he brought down the size of the circle of the dance and was running them in shifts, cycling men in from their other duties around the manor and village for a few hours and then sending them off to avoid ‘burning through all the health and vigor of the manor’.

Stil Jewel did not see how bounding like an eager dog was helping her learn to dance.

Which was frustrating for her and apparently amusing to Tsulogothulan.

Finally she had enough and came to a stop.

“This is not proper dancing!”

As one the Footmen promptly took the opportunity to settle into restful squats still in place in the circle.

They had started taking the opportunity for every scrap of rest available by the first hour under Tsulogothulan’s ‘lessons’ in dance.

“I can’t agree with you more, Lady Jewel; you aren't dancing! But it is not because of where you are positioned or because you are not taking stride or touching fingers to your fine footmen.”

A few breathless laughs of acknowledgement from the less fit of the Footmen presently gasping from their circle.

Jewel stamped a food and felt the course of her Wyrmfire building towards her throat.

Spiraling in under her scales and filling up the strange cavities up and down her neck in rhythmic pulses.

“Well then, what am I doing wrong?! I’m stepping as you said in a circle around them! We’ve tried Widdershins and Sunwise and neither was dancing! I’ve gone forward and backward but neither satisfied you! Leaping high and sweeping low! But you keep saying I’m not dancing! I don’t even think I know what dancing even is anymore, Tsulogothulan!”

Insufferably the bog wizard laughed a bit and wriggled in place poking out of the duck weed covered pool of their tiny little swamp.

The green flecks had started migrating a bit up the hem of their ‘robe’ in a manner that made the veiny diaphanous layers of almost skin like cloth appear to be more water then fabric.

“Quite right, I don’t think you do. And I don’t think I can tell you. So we must demonstrate. My Good Footmen ?”

As one they lurched back to standing from their brief respite.

A few wobbled in a way that Jewel was pretty sure Bromthil would berate them about.

Father’s Footmen were supposed to be sturdier than this!

Yes, they were not expected to be Knights but still a few hours of dancing in full kit should not have already exhausted them!

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Still, before they could get started again, Tsulogothulan held up a hand and whistled sharply and hauntingly.

It was not the sound of a human throat or lips. But more like some kind of bird if Jewel had her guess.

Probably something native to swamps and bogs considering the theme.

“No no, it’s time for you to have a break, Good Footmen. Your efforts have been most fine on my eye but I’m afraid the lady needs more direct supervision.”

With that and for the first time all afternoon, the Bog Weird stepped out of the pond, water pooling off of them with each step, leaving footprints of moist duckweed in their wake and scattered dew about before they stood before Jewel.

“Now, good Footmen, give me a round chant and a clap, something slow and steady to start.”

A few of them got started on a low rising and falling murmur, they were a bit out of sorts and Jewel was not sure of the point but Tsulogothulan soon was putting a stop to it, apparently unsatisfied.

“No! No! That is all out of rhythm. Like this. I shall Call! You will Respond.”

And then the Bog Wizard gave out a single clear and round tone in a voice that was still humbly and distinctly human.

“AeeOWH”

And then clapped twice.

It cleared the air, it felt different than before.

“AeeOWH”

And then the Wizard did it again.

And the Footmen tried to follow.

Then again.

It took twice more before they were satisfied with the chant and clap from the Footmen.

Then with a gesture Tsulogothulan turned and gestured to one half speaking along in the undercurrent.

“You lot shush it but keep the clap, You will now follow me in a new tone, the rest of you keep that pace, keep that rhythm. But only when I tell you. Now Lady Jewel Listen to them and watch me, follow as I move. Then I want you to move and sway with yourself but to the same time yes? Like a tree in the wind, like reeds in the current.”

And Tsulogothulan began to move.

In all other sudden spurts and twists the movement had felt wrong, boneless, disorienting.

But now somehow the claps and the voices made it natural.

Jewel was stunned to silence and stillness at the feat.

The hips swung in rhythm to the rise and fall of voices.

The hint of knees and feet stepped and moved with the claps beneath the sheer drapes of fabric.

The hands stayed planted on hips but the shoulders swayed in opposite and yet complement to the hips.

“Hey now Lady Jewel! With me! Swing with me! Feel the same wind, the same water and move with it! Not as I move But with the same wind and the same water! Feel it!”

And Jewel tried, it was hard, at first she could not manage.

There was not really any wind, there was not really any water.

But then again, in the way that the Bog Wizard dipped and moved with the movement, you could almost imagine there was.

It was almost like the way that the Wyrmfire coursed through Jewel herself. The way it moved with the wind when she flew. The way that Zephyrvam caught and pulled it and the two of them moved together in the sky too distant for any to see.

It was almost like that but it was happening with sound?

With clapping hands and rising voices.

Before she properly realized it Jewel found herself sweeping side to side, not precisely like the Bog Wizard was.

But she could almost see the current running off of Tsulogothulan’s hips and shoulders riding invisibly in the air and then somehow catching on her snout, running in sweeping waves down her coils.

“Ah! There! Yes, like that Jewel. Now let's try a bit more.”

Without even losing her catch on the invisible waters and wind of the music Tsulogothulan turned once more to face the footmen they had sectioned off beforehand, catching each of them in that massive wet eyed gaze.

Hands rose up wrapped in black gauzy strands and thin wet strips and sheets.

The clapping and the undercurrent of low chanting continued.

Jewel tried to focus on following that strange current that somehow Tsulogothulan had found in the sound of the Footmen’s hands and voices.

Somehow, for each double clap there was now a sway and an anticipatory void. A emptiness to the sound of the other chant. Until again Tsulogothulan’s voice rose up, but where before it was a single utterance in beat this one swayed and swung like a bird in flight.

It rippled like a fish in the waters.

And falteringly at first but then with more confidence, the Footmen’s voices rose around the Bog Wizard’s and Jewel became so caught up in it all for a moment she tried to move against the way she had been told.

But she pulled back, and yet somehow that was all wrong and the more she tried to fix it and regain the wind, the ephemeral waters the worse she became. The less she felt in line with the motions of her teacher.

Until finally Tsulogothulan’s voice cut off the chanting and the clapping with a sharp barking.

“No, No, No! Jewel! What was that?! You almost had it!”

She did?! But how?! She completely lost the wind! Even when she tried to pull herself back too it.

The Wyrmling was utterly confused!

She wanted to flare her wings in shame at the deeply weary sigh Tsulogothulan made.

“Let's take a break everyone. Jewel won’t be able to try again until she stops puffing up like an affronted cock.”

Jewel could only barely keep herself from flaring her wings and arching her neck even MORE too that.