[They've successfully strong-armed... strong-mirrored?? Lavi into tunes, apparently. So they're good on that front. Stealing a music player is for some point if the cars are tired of radio settings and they really feel like it.
Elan will position them both in the middle of the room, where they can see themselves in the mirrors. He's pretty sure this should help.....]
You can spend the dance looking at your feet, but I don't think that would be very helpful. [it's hard to sync with your partner if you're not looking at them at all, but it's probably harder if you're stepping all over them too, so they're stuck between a rock and a hard place] ... What do you know so far?
[Thanks Lavi, you're a bro. Dehya follows Elan's guidance into position. He's taller than who she'll be dancing with, but... she can make with work.]
Um. [She looks up form their feet.] My Lady dragged me through the steps once, after I stepped on her too many times trying to lead. You know, so she could yank her feet out of the way in time.
At least you're familiar with the forms and positions, then. I'll lead until you've got some more of the steps down. You can look at your feet until then if you need to.
[He's mildly bracing himself but he's also got a good poker face as per profiles so. It probably won't be too much of an ordeal. A hand on her waist and a firm grip on their hands (they don't have as much space here as they should between the audience and the furniture despite some last-minute shifting) and he'll start with an easy box step... hopefully.
Giving it a few moments before he distracts with any other talking...]
[Dehya still glances down at their feet occasionally as they fall into an easy box step. Her toes still bump into his but after a bit she gets the rhythm, as long as it's slow.
Now she has to think about dates.] Over a month ago? Can't remember the last time I tried before that.
[He really hadn't kept track, just because nothing had really felt like -- none of it had really felt like time passing. His time had frozen, in a way. This is one of the places where it feels like it still moves; he's still not entirely sure why. One, and a two, and a three and four... Maybe because, in a way, all of them see each other to some extent. They've had to.
One and two, three, four, five. A number he's holding onto. It does mess with his rhythm a bit to be distracted, so perhaps the missteps happen a few more times, but -- it smooths out.]
[Of course Dehya can't help but wonder what's been going on back home the past few weeks. Are they worried about her? She wishes she'd known to say something.
Unfortunately Elan's stagger goes right into Dehya's and she absolutely runs into his feet. A quick glance down to right them--]
[He also takes a step or two to adjust again, bumping them up to a slightly quicker rhythm once they're able to fall into the right steps again. It's not as bad as he would have expected -- Dehya does know the concepts, so it's really just a matter of drilling it into muscle and sole.]
A get together that needed rehearsals... is it just that she wanted to dance?
[Dehya chuckles.] No, no... I mean, she is pretty high status for Sumeru, her family is wealthy merchants.
But Nilou dances for the theater. My Lady is very fond of it, and we're close friends, so she likes getting involved. She has so much energy now even I have trouble keeping up.
[Mentions of Sumeru probably aren't entirely unfamiliar by now, though for people who have lived together this long there are perhaps still some surprising gaps in knowledge when it comes to the details of everyone's backgrounds. Even if it's become somewhat more important to fill those gaps...
Well, there's only so much that you can do when you literally come from five separate worlds entirely.
There are a lot of odd coincidences, though. Nothing is likely to be as extreme as the Benerit Group, but...]
Either way, it sounds like your lady and Nilou would have liked schools like this. If it were real.
Sure, at least the big ones. They'll be involved in pretty much all of Sumeru's trade, and that means if something goes wrong on their end it's gonna affect everybody. [Nobility as defined by people's use to society. There's the prestegiuos scholar families, too, but Dehya has a lot less dealings with them.]
To be honest, it's only pretty recent that they've been able to do dancing so freely. But yeah, they probably would have liked more support before.
Then... I suppose any lessons would be useful at home, too. Going forward.
[He hasn't particularly thought beyond the end of this strange purgatory in most respects, but he is familiar with the concept of business magnates as aristocracy (or just the ruling class in general), so it's easy to extrapolate. It's a little harder to completely parse where individuals or occupations like Dehya might fit into the social strata, but--
Well, it sounds like it's probably too complicated to just guess. So he just listens.]
A society that restricts dancing...
[He's heard of those -- there's always restrictions in dance styles depending on the context, but perhaps this is not that.]
Sounds ridiculous, right? [Dehya near rolls her eyes.] But those Sages were so up their own ass about what they thought was worth learning and everything else was a waste of time. Haven't they ever heard of fun?
[Despite Dehya's general get-up and what he knows of her station and what he knows of where she comes from definitively being from further back -- from a historico-cultural perspective -- than the parallels to what he knows... She seems enough of a free spirit and to have enough standing where she comes from that it still seems ill-fitting.
Or perhaps that's just her.
He takes a moment or two to consider the still-steady steps of their dance. While it's a good cadence to accompany or serve as a pretext for conversation once they've settled in, he's not sure if the movements themselves are meant to be enjoyable, in the strict sense of the word. Maybe it's because it's half an obligation. Maybe part of their dorm just has an inexplicable penchant for dancing, at the end of the day.]
Your Sages must be old, too. [...] Would you say this is fun to learn?
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Elan will position them both in the middle of the room, where they can see themselves in the mirrors. He's pretty sure this should help.....]
You can spend the dance looking at your feet, but I don't think that would be very helpful. [it's hard to sync with your partner if you're not looking at them at all, but it's probably harder if you're stepping all over them too, so they're stuck between a rock and a hard place] ... What do you know so far?
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Um. [She looks up form their feet.] My Lady dragged me through the steps once, after I stepped on her too many times trying to lead. You know, so she could yank her feet out of the way in time.
... Let's start from the very beginning.
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At least you're familiar with the forms and positions, then. I'll lead until you've got some more of the steps down. You can look at your feet until then if you need to.
[He's mildly bracing himself but he's also got a good poker face as per profiles so. It probably won't be too much of an ordeal. A hand on her waist and a firm grip on their hands (they don't have as much space here as they should between the audience and the furniture despite some last-minute shifting) and he'll start with an easy box step... hopefully.
Giving it a few moments before he distracts with any other talking...]
Dancing with your lady... was a while ago?
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Now she has to think about dates.] Over a month ago? Can't remember the last time I tried before that.
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[He really hadn't kept track, just because nothing had really felt like -- none of it had really felt like time passing. His time had frozen, in a way. This is one of the places where it feels like it still moves; he's still not entirely sure why. One, and a two, and a three and four... Maybe because, in a way, all of them see each other to some extent. They've had to.
One and two, three, four, five. A number he's holding onto. It does mess with his rhythm a bit to be distracted, so perhaps the missteps happen a few more times, but -- it smooths out.]
Was there a special occasion?
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Unfortunately Elan's stagger goes right into Dehya's and she absolutely runs into his feet. A quick glance down to right them--]
Nah, it was just some get together.
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A get together that needed rehearsals... is it just that she wanted to dance?
Or is her station that high?
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But Nilou dances for the theater. My Lady is very fond of it, and we're close friends, so she likes getting involved. She has so much energy now even I have trouble keeping up.
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[Mentions of Sumeru probably aren't entirely unfamiliar by now, though for people who have lived together this long there are perhaps still some surprising gaps in knowledge when it comes to the details of everyone's backgrounds. Even if it's become somewhat more important to fill those gaps...
Well, there's only so much that you can do when you literally come from five separate worlds entirely.
There are a lot of odd coincidences, though. Nothing is likely to be as extreme as the Benerit Group, but...]
Either way, it sounds like your lady and Nilou would have liked schools like this. If it were real.
[And not like. A weird cult killing ritual.]
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To be honest, it's only pretty recent that they've been able to do dancing so freely. But yeah, they probably would have liked more support before.
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[He hasn't particularly thought beyond the end of this strange purgatory in most respects, but he is familiar with the concept of business magnates as aristocracy (or just the ruling class in general), so it's easy to extrapolate. It's a little harder to completely parse where individuals or occupations like Dehya might fit into the social strata, but--
Well, it sounds like it's probably too complicated to just guess. So he just listens.]
A society that restricts dancing...
[He's heard of those -- there's always restrictions in dance styles depending on the context, but perhaps this is not that.]
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[Despite Dehya's general get-up and what he knows of her station and what he knows of where she comes from definitively being from further back -- from a historico-cultural perspective -- than the parallels to what he knows... She seems enough of a free spirit and to have enough standing where she comes from that it still seems ill-fitting.
Or perhaps that's just her.
He takes a moment or two to consider the still-steady steps of their dance. While it's a good cadence to accompany or serve as a pretext for conversation once they've settled in, he's not sure if the movements themselves are meant to be enjoyable, in the strict sense of the word. Maybe it's because it's half an obligation. Maybe part of their dorm just has an inexplicable penchant for dancing, at the end of the day.]
Your Sages must be old, too. [...] Would you say this is fun to learn?