Chapter Text
“...no-no-no, wait.” Thrain holds her steady as she lifts her left leg off the floor, forcing her to freeze. “We step to the left now. You always start with the outer leg. Now it’s the right one. Right foot forward, left foot slides diagonally, right foot steps to the left.”
Mavuika nods shortly, pursing her lips in a displeased grin for a moment – how many times has she already mixed up her steps? Fifteen? – then lowers her left leg back onto the ground and steps forward with the right one.
And steps carefully. She swung it right at her poor teacher’s toes the last time.
She steps forward with her right foot – Thrain steps back with his left; she glides her left foot to the side – he follows her with his right; she puts her right foot to the left – he puts his left foot to his right. Then they turn slightly, and now it’s the knight’s turn to start, and now it is Mavuika who mirrors his: left foot back, right foot moves diagonally, left foot to the right. Turn slightly. Right, left, right – a turn – left, right, left – a turn – right, left, right…
“It has been a long time since I have last danced with no music,” Thrain huffs warmly, stepping forward; he doesn’t lift his eyes off the floor, controlling the woman’s steps. “Since my training, I suppose.”
“And how long has it been?” Mavuika obediently steps back – with her left foot, like intended.
“Since I was…” The man hesitates. Then hums pensively, remembering. “...seven. When my master understood that I was no longer mixing up my steps and could hold the tempo, he only taught classes with music – so that I would become accustomed to holding said tempo.”
“Since you were seven? Do you have dance classes in the school curriculum?”
Thrain only laughs gently at the other’s bewilderment.
“Only if you are a nobility. They start teaching you how to dance when you become five. You begin with stretching, with steps, ballet positions, then you learn the minuet to fix and strengthen your posture. Once you are sufficiently trained in minuet, you start learning other dances.”
“So you’re a nobility, huh?” Mavuika teases him, laughter glinting in her voice.
A ghostly mirthless smile and a shake of a head are his only response.
“A small and young nobility.” He leads her – right, left, right, a turn. “I was the fourth generation since our family had been granted its status. So we are- …were – noble enough for me to become a squire and then a knight and rich enough to be considered, more or less, but in all other matters – for the old, true nobility we were nameless nobodies from nowhere. But my father has been teaching me all of the rules of nobility and with such zeal, as if I was an heir to a clan older than the Eclipse dynasty itself; although it may be that it was precisely our namelessness that he was so adamant in teaching me… he and my mother would take any opportunity to take me out, introduce me to people, they would get invitations to balls that the most noble of families were giving, and they would give balls themselves – and of grandeur enough to make the whole capital buzz. We had such a large ballroom. When I was younger, my most favorite thing to do was to run there and dash from corner to corner, and to always stomp as loudly as I could, or even yell at the top of my lungs to hear the echo ring across the room. What a great acoustic it had…
He sighs, falling silent. Huffs quietly to his thoughts. Purses his lips in a crooked bittersweet parody of a grin.
Mavuika wordlessly squeezes his palm and shoulder tighter.
And they need not to talk at all, and the dance – it is a dialog, a confession, a tale; left foot steps back – you miss your home – immensely; right foot slides to the side – you blame yourself – if only I got there sooner, if only I led my platoon through another street, if only I were stronger, smarter; left foot to the right – I am sorry – I am too – for your losses.
“Masters of Night-Wind are under siege. I’ve assembled a squad of airborne riders; they will fly tomorrow dawn, but they won’t manage to get everyone out by air in one go.”
“We will go on foot and break through. Ayizu has shown me several underground tunnels through which it is possible to get to other tribes. Knowing the Abyss and its nonexistent strategic thinking – all it is capable of is to place its beast in key points and abandon them there; further coordinated regroupings are, from my experience, out of their scope, – all we will have to do is to clear one exit from monsters and hold it until all who were not rescued by air get out.”
Mavuika nods – thank you.
Thrain smiles bitterly – do not thank me yet.
Natlan is in safe hands, a warm dreary thought curls up in her chest like a wounded beast.
“You are doing surprisingly good for someone who has never danced a waltz before,” the knight compliments her genuinely, and the Archon flashes him a wide smile, not showing her teeth.
“You’ll teach me more when you return,” she laughs.
He nods with the simple seriousness of the most unbreakable vow:
“Certainly.”
It grips her heart.
And the dance – it is a surrender, a repentance, a forgiveness; right foot steps forward – you do know that I will die in several days, you won’t return so quickly – I know; left foot slides to the side – so why do you promise the undoable – because promises give hope, and hope, blind, false, but hope nonetheless, is all we – of us – have left; right foot steps to the left – your wait for me will never bear fruit, I will return five hundred years later, no man lives that long, no love lives that long – then I will wait for as long as I can.
They dance a little more.
Then they stand, holding each other. Mavuika listens to the measured hum of the mechanical heart. Thrain breathes soundlessly, pressing his nose to her temple.