Trevor used his tongue to moisten his dry mouth. He exhaled. He mused at how

shaken and affected he was. It was a work of art, he told himself. It was just as if I had

entered any museum and observed… some work of art. He felt emotionally drained. Grasping his beer once more, he brought it to his lips and

poured the remaining contents down his throat. As he lowered it to the table, he noticed a

particularly large droplet sliding down the glass. A tear.

He moved his hand to his eyelashes to scrape away any others that threatened to fall.

One tear is acceptable, Trevain reasoned, considering that a man just lost his life. One tear

is acceptable.

He knew quite well that Leo had not crossed his mind for what must have been

over fourteen minutes and thirty-six seconds.

Her cheek grazed her knee as she waited backstage, doing simple stretches. A woman

with large fake breasts tottered by shakily on towering heels, sending her a suspicious glare.

Aazuria was stricken by the disproportionate size of the woman’s breasts with respect to the

rest of her emaciated body; she remembered something her personal doctor had told her

about new procedures which augmented certain physical attributes. It was fascinating, but

not really of much significance to her, and she returned to pressing her forehead flush against

her leg.

The carpet under her bare legs was rough and abrasive. She imagined that it was

already leaving ugly scratches on her newly-tanned skin. As she straightened slowly from the

stretch, she stared at the unfamiliar color of her knee. She missed being underwater. More

women strolled by, sending her more distrustful and disdainful looks. Aazuria sighed to

herself, and continued to pull her muscles taut. She focused on the comforting ache in her

tendons as she tried to bury her homesickness and override the upsetting images from her

recent past which flashed just behind her eyes.

A redheaded woman burst into the room, strutting buoyantly on her six-inch pumps as

if they were springs. Her whole body was finely toned and her height was intimidating; at six

feet tall she towered over the other women in the room who barely came up to her chin. Her

pleasant laughter rang out loudly in the dressing room.

“For Sedna’s sake! Zuri, you really don’t need to stretch. Don’t bother giving this any

effort! It’s supposed to be a low-class, inferior form of entertainment.” The redhead turned to

the women who had been watching Aazuria with airs of superiority and glared at them. She

flung her hand towards the exit as she barked an order, “Skedaddle, bitches.” The women quickly complied. Aazuria smiled up gratefully at her protectress. “It is not

worth doing unless it is done properly, Violaa.”

“Then show me how it’s done, Princess,” Viola said with a wink. “Just be careful not to

overexert yourself. Those lovely legs of yours aren’t used to these ghetto conditions.”

“Are you referring to the club or the land?” Aazuria asked as used a knuckle to knead

her thigh.

“Both. I’ll be watching.”

“You have always been watching,” Aazuria said fondly. She heard the first few notes of

her song begin, and she rose to her feet nervously. She took a deep breath, feeling the

unfamiliar air fill her lungs—it felt extraordinarily empty. The muffled voice of the DJ filtered

backstage:

“Now gentlemen, get ready to be blown away by our mysterious newcomer. She’s the

girl you’ve always dreamed of, but never thought you’d actually meet in the flesh: Undina!”

Viola smiled. “Not a bad introduction. Why did you choose to use your mother’s

name?”

“It was the first thing that came to mind when they asked.” Giving her friend a gentle

shrug, Aazuria glanced at the exit with foreboding. “Well, here I go.”

“Break a le—”

“I would much rather not.” When she pushed past the beaded curtains, Aazuria

immediately felt the vibrations of music seeping into her bones. Her fingers twitched with the

desire to move before she had permitted them to do so, and she exercised discipline to quell

them. To do this correctly means moving precisely when the music commands me to—I will

not waste a single motion. Her eyes were downcast as she ascended the stairs, feeling a

strange sense of simultaneous nervousness and excitement. She had always been confident in

her dancing technique—she had studied various styles on various continents, and she had

practiced for hundreds of years. She usually trained in water, and it was far more difficult to

dance in water than it was on land. By all accounts, this should be a cinch.

The familiar vocals began, and Aazuria finally surrendered to the yearning of her limbs

and plunged them into motion. A burst of energy began in her chest, and visibly traveled

throughout her every cell. Indescribable sensations of loveliness washed over her, as they

always did when she began dancing, reaching her lips to settle there in a subtle curve of

pleasure. Once she had expertly commenced her art, she turned to gauge the reaction of her

onlookers.

The audience was a sea of eyes. Adoring eyes of those seeking something from her

dance which she would never be able to give them. They were seeking the things which they

did not really need. They sought sex and excitement or momentary stimulation, but her every gesture and expression, her every step, was dancing in homage to something transcendent

and everlasting.

Slowly, the audience was pulled out of the realm of their own expectations and into the

realm of her creation. Yes, she could hold them spellbound with a little help from the haunting

sound of her sister’s recorded voice. Aazuria was strong enough to guide them all—she had

always been in a position of leadership, and this was no different. She created the atmosphere;

she poured her personality and her principles into it, and she invited them inside for a

moment to glimpse the décor of her soul. She felt like she was challenging their roughness

with her grace, and ultimately, she was winning. She was overpowering them.

She spun, and spun, until she felt windborne. There was an impossible fire within her

which seemed to radiate forth from her center. All of the elements coalesced in her emotions,

and as always, she felt far greater than herself when she danced. Aazuria felt a memory of her

father’s face return to her, but she flung her head to the side, casting it away from her

thoughts before it could cause her harm or interrupt the flow of her kinetic thrill.

There might be other moments of her life when she was twisted into various

uncomfortable shapes by exterior forces, but for now, at least, she was in complete control.

The stage was hers, the audience was hers, and time was hers. She could bend it and make the

moment last an instant or a lifetime, depending on her whim. She could manipulate all of

their hearts like putty, just as long as she kept moving—and as long as the poignant music

played, she had no intention of stopping. Each moment was a crescendo, overpowering the

last.

She reveled in this complete control until he looked up from his drink. Aazuria paused

for a millisecond, nearly missing a beat. She felt shame at what had almost been a misstep, but

certain that no one had noticed. Turning her gaze away, she tried to focus on the perfection of

her lines. But she could feel that the dramatic expression on her face had lost some of its

conviction, having been replaced by curiosity. She hoped that the flaws in her dance were

imperceptible.

Aazuria did not mean to make eye contact again, but she could feel the force of his

scrutiny like a warm stream gushing toward her. Even from a distance, she could discern a hue

of sadness in somehow familiar jade irises. In the midst of this strange new environment, and

this even stranger establishment, something shone in that expression which she felt she knew.

She was suddenly safe in the comfort of a warm lagoon as she beheld the unmistakable

intelligence glinting at her from across the room.