Aodan

The blushing village girl has finally worked up the courage to approach me. I can see her coming from the corner of my eye. I turn to meet her. Kitaryn is having a lover’s quarrel on the dance floor. It’s plain to see what's happening, and I’d rather not witness the rest. She'll dance with him again, and they will resolve their quarrel for all to see. It's the right thing to do.

I smile as the girl begins to speak, requesting my name. She gets no further than that when a pale white hand closes around my arm.

I jolt and turn to see who it belongs to only to find two clear blue eyes pleading with me.

“You know that break you offered me?” Kitaryn says. “I need it.”

I glance behind her and see her dead-faced suitor chasing after her, his expression finally bent in an emotion: anger. I have no desire to insert myself into their fight, but when I look into Kitaryn’s eyes and see the paleness of her cheeks, I cave. “Right.”

I send an apologetic grimace to the lady I'm abandoning. I'm sorry for her, and sorry that she won't have the courage to approach me again. Not after a Fyr-Ceann dragged me off. But when I take Kitaryn’s hands, soft despite their porcelain finish, I forget the girl's name, and her face is replaced by the distressed wrinkle on Kitaryn’s brow.

“Over here.” Kitaryn leads me to a far corner of the dance floor. If the prior dance had been a line dance, the next in the cycle will be a partner one. She is using me to absolutely snub that corpse fellow, but she at least has the decency to do it in a corner. Still, I don't like this about her.

Using me. I don’t want to think of it that way. “You know, most she-elves ask for a dance, not demand it.” I smile at her, expecting a snappy reply. She’s upset, and I hope I can lift her mood. That's what she grabbed me for, right? A break and to make that dead man stop bothering her.

Instead, she wilts. “I’m sorry. He was pushing me to offer a matronage. My athyr already approves of the match; I don’t doubt he encouraged it. But... I just...”

She seems to search the stones for words as we set our feet in the starting positions. She sighs, giving up.

Understanding, I squeeze her hand. She's a victim of the very posturing she serves. “Any reason to have the privilege of a dance with you is good enough for me.” I pose in a gracious bow, the opening of this particular style dance, and wait on the music. “You don’t have to partner with someone you dislike. Nor explain why not. That’s the entire point of the matron’s pick.” Underneath it all, she's just a person.

She poses as though flattered by my gesture and takes my outstretched hand, one of a few options the she-elf can open with. It sets the tone of our dance.

I grin. This pose allows me to take the lead. If there is one thing I can offer that the morbid mister can't, it's a real dance.

It's time to make her forget.

The band strikes its three-count and the steps begin with the melody. I pull her into a closed position, one hand locked on her elbow, the other holding her hand. I lead a sixstep, a double-time form of the dance. She yelps in surprise, but follows me into the whirling pattern. Her teeth are clenched in a panicked smile as I spin her out and back in, her feet chasing after my steps. She loses count, but I step up to rescue her and she easily falls back in time with me.

“Aodan, I’m not a very good dancer, perhaps—”

I turn our pattern in locksteps to avoid the neighboring couple as they perform their own move.

“–A three-step would be better?” She's riddled with tension. Her feet follow easily whenever I move us; it’s her mind that hesitates.

So I keep the six-step pattern steady for a moment.  “Fyr-Ceann, you are doing beautifully. You have the rhythm and the steps. You only need to relax into the song. This is not about performing, but enjoying. Improvising.” I give my most encouraging smile. “Now, how about we show that corpse of an elf what fun looks like?” I spin her out and, when she spins back, catch her delicate waist in both hands. “Because between you and I, I’m not sure he’s ever had any.”

Her hesitation melts away, a laughing twinkle sparking to life in her eyes. It’s like a dormant part of her has awakened. She nods, positioning herself for the lift I caught her for.

I raise her easily, whirling in the sixstep. She curls up her legs, sending her skirt fluttering like a great, sweeping bird’s tail. Frosts, but she is light.

Her laugh shimmers in the air as I spin her faster, breaking form.

I drop her to her feet, catching her in a closed position only to open it, leading her into footwork. She doesn’t know this step, but her hesitation only lasts a moment. As she embraces this move, the last shreds of her stiff dedication to an image fall away. She kicks her feet in a mirror of mine with heedless flare.

It should have been clumsy, but instead it's free. She giggles as I turn us to repeat the footwork in the other direction, a heady flush creeping over her cheeks. I grab both hands and pull her in and out, then into a barrel roll, and then back into closed position.

None of those moves are traditionally part of this dance, and she follows each one of them with a thrilled expression of wild exuberance.

That's it! A fire runs through me. I've found the expression most natural to her. Her thin chin and arched mouth are built to exaggerate that expression, to make it beautiful. My face must match hers, for as she watches me for the next move, her joy deepens, feeding off of mine.

I glance over her shoulder and see the gray-haired fellow glaring at us, his entire complexion turned bright with fury.

“Don’t look now, but I think your suitor will never forgive you.”

A shadow wavers over her face. “How angry is he?”

“Redder than our apples, turning towards plum-like.”

Her glee darkens. “What other moves do you know?”

 I shake my head. “Dances are not for revenge.”

She blinks, as though coming out of a trance. Her expression falls. “I’ve been cruel.”

“No, you’ve been backed into a corner, and you lash out. Your claws find their mark.”

She softens. “But I shouldn’t pounce to kill.”

I nod, pulling her into the turning sixstep. I can’t help it; the music begs for the gliding rotation, tugging me along.

I raise my arm, sending her out for a walking turn. I watch her flow through it gracefully, sending out an arm for a flourish. After this dance, she will  have to return to her life, her duties.

She circles around, meeting me at the end of the move. She gasps. When I look, her eyes are widened, glossed with fear.

“My Athyr is on the edge of the dance floor,” she whispers. “And he’s irate.”

I glance at the man, Ceann Willowbirth, and see his eyes gleaming cold from under a deep brow, like the metal of a blade in the moonlight.

Kitaryn's hand quivers in mine ever so slightly. I turn back to her. There’s something in the way she fears him that makes my skin crawl and my chest fill with anger. The look in her eye doesn’t speak of the respect an adult should have for her renowned father. No, the man holds some power over her that I don't understand.

But this I know: she is not ready to return to her duty. And I'm more than ready to help her avoid it.

The music’s cheerful sway chafes against the tension of the moment. “Have you ever been apple-bobbing?” I ask.