“Come on let’s dance!” Her friend’s overly enthusiastic statement causing Aleya to groan in irritation. Yet the Aelf opposite ignored her dour mood, or just didn’t seem to notice as she plowed on, “it’s Eventide, you have to dance!” She seemed to be skipping to her own tune before Aleya’s very eyes, feet swaying this way and that, a beaming smile breaking her freckled features.
“I don’t dance, Tash.” Her response was brief and to the point, ever the stern figure even off the battlefield.
“Oh, come onnn, Aleya, liven up! It’s the one day of the year that’s all about celebrating, we don’t have to worry about anything!” Tash laughed, clapping her hands hopelessly offbeat to the plethora of instruments being cheerfully played all around them.
Aleya sighed once more, rubbing her temple in consternation as she looked up at her still dancing friend, “Tash please, there’s nothing in all the Mortal Realms that’ll make me change my mi-” The soft pair of lips brushing over hers instantly making her sentence sputter in her throat as a strangled squeak, as Tash leaned in and gave the Aelf a very sharp kiss. Aleya’s once poised and calm brain suddenly exploded.
She collapsed backwards off the wooden stump she was resting on in crimson panic, limbs flailing as she blushed fiercely. The sudden commotion caused a few Kurnoth Hunters to look over in mild concern, only to chuckle warmly as they saw the Aelf lying in a tangled heap on the forest floor. Yet within moments the watch Captain was standing up hastily, loose strands of leaf-covered hair flung out in all directions like a particularly unruly bird nest. The once stony-faced warrior now looking like a flustered mess. Tash simply continued grinning at her friend’s predicament, albeit now with a slight pink coloring creeping onto her cheeks. For a few seconds the two simply stared at each other, neither quite sure what to do next. “So, about that dance?” Tash winked, breaking the silence and causing Aleya’s heart to beat a few hundred times faster.
“Ye-YES…I mean-” The embarrassed Aelf’s voice coming out in a nervous high-pitched squawk before she recomposed herself with a small smile. “Yes, I’d love too.” She gingerly reached for her friend’s now outstretched hand, face still flaring bright pink; and as they moved their way to the center of the throngs of colored lights and swaying figures they began to dance. Time sped and slowed as the noise of the instruments did, shouts of delight and festive clapping moving all around the two Aelves.
“Dance with every song. Hey!”
“Dance forever my love. Hey!”
“Dance your fear away!”
Flowing hair ran like starlight over their backs as other Aleves all around them chanted and sang. Hoarse voices joining with their kin as the night sky blazed away above them. The two became lost in the shifting rhythm, lost in the sudden joy, lost in each other. Aleya stared at Tash with a smile, her companion grinned and giggled right back. The Watch Captain allowed herself to laugh. It was a wonderful, musical sound.
The two figures embraced, and nothing else in the world mattered.
[…] A Dance of Dreams […]