Where he was born and raised, there was no such thing as dancing. They raced and played in the snow and fought, this last one seemingly without end, but the concept of dancing (and magic, and prayer by means that did not involve a closed fist) was completely foreign to him before Novus. So he was not a natural dancer and could not be, because he was thrust into a world he found completely unnatural.
But he does have a trick that may help. There is a network of thought, realized or not, that drives the body's motion. He dives beneath the surface thoughts (moods, feelings, plain old thoughts as we know the word) and keeps going until he reaches something deeper and stranger, something without words. It is the core of motion and music and poetry, it is the pattern in her mind from which movement is born. What he sees (feels? tastes?) there reminds him of fighting-- which is just a dance with higher stakes-- and even before he takes the first step he thinks he begins to understand.
Then the violin slides rapidly down the scale and he nearly chokes on his own breath. His instructor must see the look of panic in his eyes, for she is quick to scold the thing and it is quick (ish) to respond. He had never thought of a piece of glass as cheeky before, and yet he does not feel entirely surprised... even now, after years living here among the dunes and desert people, the magical world of Novus is full of firsts but awe has lost its edge, wonder has lost its charm. He regards the violin with mild interest and certain distrust.
She seems to prod at his romantic interests, and in response he humphs a soft sound, noncommittal. Eik was not the sort to shout his love from the mountaintops. He was always very private by nature, and as the stakes grew he kept his cards closer and closer to his breast. Love, of course, was held closest to his heart, where he let it fester like the most delightful of wounds. Oh, he loved his lady openly (it was beyond his choice-- anyone could see it in his eyes when he looked at her) but only in her presence. When she was gone his heart went with her.
If there was, for a moment, a faraway look in his eyes, it is gone now. "Show me," he asks politely, taking another step to stand behind the nymphlike creature, not quite touching but close enough to feel the heat that rises from her satin skin. It was the stance he'd seen dancers take before, although he had no idea before whether the dances he had seen were from Denocte or Delumine or Terrastella. Solterran folk dances were the only style he had an eye for, although it was more of an ear-- the music rose, drumming, snakelike and ancient, like waves of heat, like a prayer from the lips of the very sand itself. It filled him with a sense of being born in the wrong place and time. A sense of loss for something that was never his.
"The color of god is a stain
shaped to you like a grief not yet to come"
art by Pherigo
@Mesnyi
Time makes fools of us all
