Time unwinds, as it can only do in dreams and fiction. Trees straighten as heavy coats of snow rise from their shoulders, thread by thread. Leaves take limp shape from the brown rot of decay, then solidify into orange and yellow, and finally they rise and embrace the limbs they once fell from. It unwinds and unwinds. Eik moves backwards, inhales turned to exhales and vice versa. Wounds dissolve, grief ignites from coals into flame then nothing at all-- waiting, as it was, for the next heartache.
It stops unwinding when the wedding is announced.
It is late summer, or maybe autumn-- he never understood how everyone else knew so certainly when one season ended and the other began. Love is still budding unspoken in his heart, the feeling at once painful and delightful. He does not think twice about leaving Solterra for a few days because everything is still right, everything is still normal and he has no idea how the world is about to flip itself upside down. He is just a boy who wants to learn how to dance so he may have another language with which to express that strange feeling taking root in his heart.
He leans forward uncertainly, hooves stopped neatly at the very edge of the dirt clearing as though to take that first step onto the dance floor was to hurtle himself towards a destiny that had not yet been fully considered.
"Mesnyi?" He has never said her name out loud before, had not thought to ask of its pronunciation in the few short letters they exchanged, and the letters all run together on his lips like a river. All he really knows about her is that on matters of dance, she is supposed to be one of the best.
E I K "The color of god is a stain
shaped to you like a grief not yet to come"
he time makes little difference to her when she has the freedom not to care. (Fun can be found anywhere, as can romance, and wealth, and danger, and war.) So the Mesnyi of then is hardly different from the Mesnyi of now.
(But which is which?)
(Then is now).
The glass violin peals out a long and inquiring note as the pale mare drifted back to her clearing. She was awaiting a student. On occasion, Mesnyi had taken up teaching dance and music and her host of other skills to those that could offer money and (or) influence. While she always found an enamored Someone to foot the bill, she did spend some of her time alone. And so it was her money to spend, those days. She had no proper work - never had, never would - and what could be better than being paid to have fun?
Do you truly think she would answer you that?
No, never. Not then-today or now-today. She would tell it to you on never-today.
The letters Eik had sent were approached with vague interest by Mesnyi until she starting asking who he was. She would rather teach a Somebody than a Nobody (you could feel the difference in the weight of the coin).
He was a Somebody.
Mesnyi was polite and willing as ever.
”Good morning, Eik,” she beams, with all the confidence of someone who has gossiped enough to pronounce every member of one’s bloodline four generations back. Mesnyi offers him a low bow-curtsy of some manner, ankles crossed and mane draping low and cloudlike across her face. In a moment, she is up again, the violin snapping from its discordant idling to its master’s desired sonata. She huffed and spared it a glance, ”My apologies for the abrupt change. It does not care for my choices very often. Ready to dance?”
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
tracker plotter
please tag the proper character for replies
The violin sounds a single lonely note that sinks into his skin like teeth. (shadows whisper and laugh, you don't belong here) Its master steps forward, all delicate grace and poise. She reminds him of a strangely detailed dream he once had. In it, fairies stepped from the hearts of willow trees and cupped his face with warm (too warm) hands and breathed into his nostrils the scent of good soil and fresh life. Then they leaned back and laughed until tears gathered in their wise green eyes, and the dream swept him away down a dark river.
In a few months, the war would be all over him and there would be no more peaceful dreams. Famine would carve the excess from his body. The soot of funeral pyres would line his lungs. He would no longer be a Somebody and dancing would once again belong to a world that he did not. It would astound him to learn that his instructor lives on the fringe of these things, that violence could come and go and she would remain, untouched-- a bystander on the side of the river that he bobs up and down in, sometimes breathing, sometimes drowning,
always moving downstream.
The current idles lazily now, vaguely aware of the waterfalls that lie ahead but in no particular rush to get there. "Yes," Eik says with a step forward onto the clearing, and he feels his chest tighten with uncertainty. There are a whole lot of things that make him feel like he is not ready-- the music seems too fast, his instructor too small-- like he made a rather pathetic mistake in coming here at all. But here he stands.
"I'm ready."
E I K "The color of god is a stain
shaped to you like a grief not yet to come"
A circle scarcely wider Than the trees around were tall;
A
hesitant dancer was no stranger to Mesnyi, though she could not claim to understand the behavior. She had taken to dancing like a bird to seed, and there was little of Mesnyi that did not sway like the branch of a weeping willow (branch always seemed like too harsh a word for those sorts of things, anyway, with all their curling under the weight of so many blossoms and leaves). She smiled and walked forward to meet him, doe-like and fragile in every context but the dance floor. ”I’ve spent some time learning the dances of this land, and I must say they are quite beautiful, but most are not dauntingly elaborate. Let us start with something from Denocte,” for when she grinned, rumor bled from her lips like sap from a tree, initials crudely carved into its unyielding flesh.
Though most things yield to love, she thought.
The violin sped into a downscaling of notes and Mesnyi turned on it, staring the glass creation down from across the clearing. ”Oh, don’t you scare him.” She looked back to Eik and smiled. ”It likes to play tricks when my attention wanders. We will start with something slow, worry not.” The violin fell under her command as she stepped back, inviting Eik to venture farther into the glade. ”I imagine that you will be leading in such dances, though I do not mean to assume what manner of partner you may have…” Though she knew, oh, like the eyes and the ears of the courts knew, all-seeing, all-hearing, all-witnessing.
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
tracker plotter
please tag the proper character for replies
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.
E I K "The color of god is a stain
shaped to you like a grief not yet to come"
a palace of broken glass stands within me (it is for dancing on)
M
esnyi passes over the withered attempt at gossip like a doe across a brook, thirst quenched. She already knows, she has drunk of the whispered word and swallowed, swallowed, swallowed until it filled her belly with candyfloss powder and upside-down birds, butterflies in reverse and something like a stomachache. She did not need to push him for anything more than a humph., and she is happy to oblige his request. Mesnyi’s skin does not prickle with the nearness of unfamiliar bodies, she knows this dance and it should matter little to her with whom she dances. How often did it feel - dare she say it - special?
If she were the humphing type -
The violin drawled out a thin, high note, like a stuck songbird, and Mesnyi took a step back. ”Follow me. I step back, you step forward. I step forward, you step back. That is how this song begins.” That is how she would continue, granting that there were no trips or questions. The violin would hold its note for an explanation or a mistake. The song was, of course, meant to be some beats faster, but she had endless patience for a perfectly held note.
After a good while of this back and forth, back and forth, the rhythm changed. ”This is a story,” she said. ”You take two steps forward, and I take two back. We pause - here - and do this twice, and if the room is full of my students, no one will collide.” She smiled, hoping to comfort him, but in her head she saw the rows of couples skipping backwards, glittering under light and liquor. The dream, the dream, the attainable dream. Attainable, yes. All things are within reach for Mesnyi. All things, all things, all things…
”It is a story about star-crossed lovers.”
Eik | "speaks" | notes: this is definitely not how you teach dance
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
tracker plotter
please tag the proper character for replies
At the time (and well into the future, perhaps always?) it seemed to him there was nothing more important than showing how strongly and terribly he loved Isra. There was no end to it, no single action to secure this sentiment now and forever more; it was a feeling that persisted-- no, that grew, wild and urgent, until he almost did not recognize the face behind the lovesick mask.
Little did he know, he would have no need for dancing in order to keep her attention or display the depth of his love. But he was a man of action when there was a cause worthy of rising to, and what cause is more worthy than love? On a more practical note, dance lessons seemed a better use of his time than moping around Solterra. He had nothing to lose except his pride, which he was careful to maintain and minimize wherever possible.
Mesnyi steps back, he steps forward. She steps forward, he steps back. The steps come easier than he expected. Although by no means a natural, he was a fast learner. He did not get swept away in the song, not in the way he had heard it described by others, but now and then he could feel how the music was driving the steps and the steps the music; and in those moments he saw very clearly the difference between movement and dance.
But then he would inevitably kick Mesnyi's shin or step forward with the wrong foot, and the beautiful truth would dissolve just before he could internalize it. "Sorry," he mutters after one such event. Despite the sincerity of his apology he does not have the spare focus to curl his lips up into a smile. In his mind, thanks to his magic, he can see so very clearly the dream, the dream, and it helps him to understand the movements but gods it takes a lot of concentration to dance and think. Sweat begins to break across his skin.
Eik tries to feel the story in the song and dance, the message encoded in the step to the left and the violin's mournful slide. "It's a sad ending?" This is entirely guesswork, based more on an understanding of star-crossed lovers than the dance he mimics with poor but growing skill.
E I K "The color of god is a stain
shaped to you like a grief not yet to come"
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I
t was not that she did not know what it felt like to be in love. She remembered strongly that desperate urge to cling to the side of her beloved, to sing in hymns that burst worlds like eggs, to show him and then the string of universes they traveled that she did, indeed, love him, very much, and no one could have a moment to doubt it.
But that was then.
Now, she could fake it. She could fake it for those wishing desperately that it was true, and she could fake it for those that didn’t quite believe, so that they did. Unicorns were made for making miracles, were they not? Even if such miracles were only illusions, sometimes seeing was enough to make one believe, and that was all a true artist needed. What she saw in Eik, she knew, was all truth.
He was not very good, but this was not a noteworthy thing; most people who did not know how to dance were not good at dancing. He apologized here and there, but Mesnyi hardly acknowledged it; they were not here to dwell on the mistakes of the ignorant. They were here to teach, and to learn, respectively (Mesnyi had come hoping to learn a bit about Eik, too, but that had gone nowhere).
”It’s a sad ending?”
They grew close to the heart of the song now, and Mesnyi only smiled as the violin rose up in a hollow, wailing note. ”To some,” she began, ”but not all.” She dropped her head low as the note concluded. ”She seems to die, to curl in on herself. Step left now, and now, and right now, and now. He cannot tell she is alive.” For a long moment there is silence in the clearing. ”We stay still, then. And…” The violin tore away at its strings in chattering sixteenths. Mesnyi raised her head slowly. ”She is new again. For you see…she is, or is like - it depends on who you ask - a butterfly. And when she goes away from him to grow, to become a woman, or a stronger being, to become herself, she is more beautiful than he can imagine.” She stretches out a leg, ”And stretch yours, here, so our ankles touch.” She sighs through her nostrils, tranquil, eyes closing a moment, to open and stare into him. ”You take this time to look your partner in the eye and see them for what they are…and when the moment is over, you look left, at the adjacent person’s partner, who looks right, and then switch. You all must see each other, and consider - do you understand?” There was something to the teaching of the story that made learning the dance easier, more powerful. The violin hit a sharp downward note. ”Not everyone does,” she sighs, taking a wide step forward, neck arched, ”So curl your neck, like so, two swans meeting, if it is correct,” and then, she whispered, as the violin sang its final note, falling into silence, ”In the end, they are the only ones who understand each other.”
"You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while."
tracker plotter
please tag the proper character for replies
08-07-2019, 02:34 PM - This post was last modified: 08-07-2019, 02:36 PM by Mesnyi
![[Image: 26y3cfu.png]](https://i.imgur.com/26y3cfu.png)
