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"My assignment for you today is: have fun."
Wanderer raised an eyebrow. "What."
"You need a hobby," Nahida said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. She was sitting on a bench outside the Sanctuary of Surasthana, waiting for birds to perch on the surrounding branches of the divine tree, then snapping their pictures with her Kamera. Her own hobby. "It's important for your social development."
Wanderer rolled his eyes. "Those are for idle bodies who have the free time to think about such things. Do I look like I have any interest in distractions?"
Nahida fiddled with her Kamera before carefully positioning a chickadee in frame. "Does that mean you think I'm an idle body?"
Obviously not. Nahida worked incredibly hard on everything. She even worked while sleeping. That took dedication. "Fine," he snarled. "I'll waste the day away, if that makes you happy."
"It does!" She beamed. Snap. The chickadee fluttered off, startled by the Kamera's shutter.
This is how the Wanderer found himself aimlessly walking the streets of Sumeru City, trying to decide what silly pastime would satisfy Lord Kusanali's ridiculous demands. The entrance to the market caught his eye, and he remembered, during the brief period he had acted as the fruit-seller's assistant, seeing the Zubayr theater in the marketplace and wondering what went on there. Well, if he had nothing better to do, he may as well check it out.
The theater had drawn a rather large crowd, and the Wanderer had to hover slightly to see above the masses. Perks of an Anemo vision. Onstage, a woman with red twintails and a horned headdress stood, frozen in pose, hands up and legs crossed. Perfect timing–the show was about to begin.
The woman took a single breath, then began moving. A small band accompanied her, and she moved in time with the beat, perfectly in sync. She was elegant but athletic, restrained but bombastic, quiet but exuberant. The most subtle of motions would be followed by the most heart-stopping feats of flexibility, and somehow both felt equally awe-inspiring. She twisted, and whirled, and the audience cheered. The Wanderer watched, enraptured. The sight tickled a memory in the back of his brain.
"Nice job! But your form is a little wobbly," Katsuragi said, gently repositioning the Kabukimono's foot so that his stance was much more stable. "Remember, Kenbu is about power with grace. The movements are both light and strong." Katsuragi demonstrated, sword in hand, the proper sequence of steps and slashes. "If you wobble, it breaks the flow," he said, as the boy watched in awe. Katsuragi handed the blade to him. "Try again."
The Kabukimono nodded and did his best to mimic the other man. He was slightly more steady this time. "Excellent!" Katsuragi exclaimed, startling the Kabukimono. Katsuragi laughed and clapped the boy on the shoulder. "You're a natural. Wait til the others see our grand performance."
The audience burst into applause, throwing the Wanderer out of his memory. The show had concluded. The woman took a bow and descended offstage, where she was immediately swarmed by fans. The Wanderer idled, watching her speak with them. She seemed to know many by name, and chatted with them about their lives, interests, routines. How dull that must be.
Finally, the last of her patrons had departed, and she was alone. She turned to the Wanderer. "Did you enjoy the show?" she asked cheerily.
The Wanderer blinked. "I just wanted to ask…" The Wanderer cursed himself. Why was he here? Why was he bothering with this? He should just leave. "What style of dance is that? I've never seen anything like it."
The woman beamed. Clearly, she wasn't expecting this type of question, and was delighted for an opportunity to discuss her craft. "That was a modern interpretation of a traditional Sumerian court dance. The style is characterized by graceful hand motions, like so." She repeated a gesture from the performance: her arms were crossed and her palms faced away from her head as she drew her hands down and out. "I've also been experimenting with some Ballet-inspired moves and flourishes," she added, as if admitting a secret. "Are you a dancer, too?"
"No, no," he rushed. "I was just…. Curious, is all. Your performance was very different from those I've seen in Inazuma or Snezhnaya in the past. But it has similarities, too." Power with grace. "I… enjoyed it."
The woman gave him a curious look. "I don't know much about dance from places outside Sumeru. Care to chat over lunch? Puspa Café has a special on baklava right now."
***
Wanderer sipped a cup of bitter black tea as he mournfully considered how he kept getting dragged into frivolous situations by cheerful women. Café Puspa had a great view of the streets of Sumeru, and he'd normally enjoy people-watching on their sunny pavilion, except for the talkative airhead sitting opposite him. Nilou, as she has introduced herself, was jabbering about dancing in between bites of baklava.
"...And ever since lesser Lord Kusanali came into power, we don't have to worry about Zubayr Theater closing down anymore!" she babbled, voice breathy and unceasing. "Which means I have much more time to practice and perform. And learn! Did you know the House of Daena actually has a huge collection of books on the performing arts?" Nilou's eyes were wide as moons. "They were hidden in the archive, along with a ton of other transgressive texts. It's going to take ages to comb through them all. But I've read through the ones they've made available so far and I feel like I've learned a lot. But you're from Inazuma, right? What does performance look like there?"
Wanderer choked on a mouthful of tea. Her stream of consciousness had lulled him into a false sense of security. "I don't–I haven't seen much," he admitted, wondering how he could explain this part of his past to Nilou without garnering more questions. "I lived on a rural island, where the main industry was metallurgy and bladesmithing. Sword dancing was the way smiths would show off their weapon without the need for bloodshed."
Mikoshi Nagamasa held the newly completed Daitatara Nagamasa in his hands, testing its weight and balance. The steel was cracked and lined with dark violet streaks, a byproduct of Escher's crystal marrow process which doubled the strength of the product without any loss in flexibility. The process was revolutionary, and so too was the blade it produced. He smiled and passed it to his yoriki Katsuragi, who cheered. "Somebody get the drums!" he yelled, falling into a ready stance. Some of the other workers scurried to gather their instruments as Katsuragi began his dance, flowing from stance to stance as if fighting the wind itself. The drums began a rhythm and Katsuragi's movements synced to their pace, his motion both violent and beautiful, a delicate pantomime of war. The Kabukimono thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"Your turn, kiddo!" Katsuragi said, stopping before the Kabukimono and proffering the blade's hilt. The workers cheered as the Kabukimono stammered. The yoriki grinned and pressed the hilt into the boy's hands. "Don't worry about how you do. It's just for fun."
The boy took the blade in his hands and took Katsuragi's place in the center of the crowd. The cheers surged even louder as the Kabukimono copied the steps of the dance flawlessly, possibly even exceeding the original. The boy beamed with pride as he spotted Niwa clapping and laughing with delight in the audience. Not needing to sleep had its advantages–one of them being, he could stay up all night practicing the sword dance Katsuragi had taught him, so that next time he performed, it would be perfect.
And to think, the Wanderer thought, that they could cheer for someone like me pretending to be someone like them. Ridiculous.
"Dancing with a weapon is how I feel when I use my vision on the battlefield," Nilou said, flecks of phyllo pastry falling from her ponderous lower lip. "I always incorporate dance into swordplay. But it never occured to me to do the opposite. Bringing fighting forms into dance…" She shoved the last of her pastry into her mouth. "You'b goddoo shtow 'ee!"
"I've got to–hey!"
She dragged him all the way back to the theater. For someone called The Wanderer, he certainly had little agency over his life. It's like he blinked, and was in a new place he didn't want to be. "Show me!" she said, pressing her sword into his hands. "Teach me your dance and I'll teach you mine!"
"Hey, stupid, all I wanted was to compliment your performance and leave. I didn't sign up for dance lessons." He shoved her weapon back towards her. "Quit being annoying."
Nilou's eyes welled with tears. "I'm…annoying?"
Oh no. He could deal with eye rolls, he could deal with irritation, he could deal with traded insults. He could not deal with crying. As Nilou sniffled, Wanderer gingerly took her sword back. "Ok, ok! Geez, I'll show you the dumb dance."
Nilou's face brightened, a little too quickly. "You will? Great!"
Dimly, the Wanderer remembered the best actors learned to cry on command, and wondered if he had just been conned. That thought was interrupted by Nilou pushing him out onstage.
"Here, I'll lower the curtains. I don't want you to feel awkward," Nilou said, scurrying backstage to unhook the weights holding the main curtain open. The heavy fabric fell and the sounds of the market dimmed to a faraway muffle. Now, it was just him and Nilou on the curtained mainstage lit only by lamplight. The Wanderer was grateful for the privacy.
Nilou sat downstage with her legs folded to the side, eager to watch. The Wanderer sighed, testing the weight of her sword in his hands. He hadn't held one in some time. Mommy issues, the horrible part of his brain mocked. He squashed the thought like a bug. He was much weaker than he used to be, thanks to his fall from godhood. And he was out of practice. Shakily, he assumed the first stance of the sequence Katsuragi taught him. He felt an emotion, but wasn't sure what it was. It was good and bad and big. He wished he had a heart to provide the rhythm. The drums that were supposed to accompany the dance were thunderous and loud and would cover up the counts of his feet shuffling on the floor and the sounds he made with his mouth when the feelings got too big and–
Tap, tap, tap. The Wanderer looked up in shock. Nilou had pulled out a little tambourine from who knows where and was tapping out a little rhythm. She smiled encouragingly. The instrument was so different from the backdrop that usually accompanied these steps that it brought him back to the present.
That's right. The past is the past. These steps are just movements. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Wanderer drew in a breath, as he watched Nilou do before her performance earlier that day. Then, he began to dance the old steps Katsuragi had shown him 500 years ago. But at the same time, these weren't the same: those old stances and forms were burdened with heavy memories, same as everything the Wanderer carried from that time in his life. But now, his body was light. He didn't need to precisely position each limb to mimic humanity–he could simply follow the rhythm, and let each movement exist for itself. Grace and power.
He almost didn't notice when Nilou appeared next to him, mirroring his steps while playing the tambourine in her dominant hand, pretending it was the hilt of a sword. She immediately understood the momentum of the dance, hitting each step with a purpose and delicacy that underscored her years of experience as a dancer. Soon, she was leading him, instead of the other way round. The Wanderer was surprised to realize he didn't care. For the first time in a long time, he existed in the moment, the singular present. And that was good.
They reached the end of the sequence. "...and that's all I ever learned," the Wanderer said, lamely, grasping for something sardonic to say. He wasn't out of breath (he didn't need to breath) but he had expended a lot of energy. The ball joints in his arms and legs hadn't moved that way in years, and he could swear he heard them creaking. Maybe he needed an oil change.
Nilou played with a few of the new stances the Wanderer had shown her, nodding thoughtfully. "I think I've got the components down. Now, what if I do this, and swap around these parts…" The Wanderer watched as Nilou remixed the sequence, breaking it apart, moving steps around, adding new forms. It was hard not to admire someone with so much obvious skill, even for someone as grouchy as him. "Here, come up and copy this. I want to see what it looks like from the audience…"
"Well, I think I need to call it a day. I'm on cooking duty tonight, and you do not want to see Sheikh Zubayr when dinner is late," Nilou grinned and went backstage to raise the stage's curtain. "Will I see you around? Or are you just visiting Sumeru city for a short while?"
The Wanderer hadn't realized how late it had gotten. The sun was just beginning to set, and its fading ochre light spilled through the roots of the divine tree and into the marketplace, casting long rusty shadows across the dirt. "I come and go."
"Well, I'm always here! And I got so wrapped up in learning from you, I never showed you any Sumerian dance! So I owe you a lesson."
"I'll keep that in mind," the Wanderer replied.
Nilou waved as he left the market. "Bye for now! And thank you!"
Nahida was pouring over official looking documents when the Wanderer returned to the sanctuary of Surasthana. She looked up at him and rubbed her eyes. "Had fun?"
"No," he muttered.
"I'm glad," she replied, smugly returning to work. He could hear her humming to herself as Wanderer shut the door to his private chambers behind him. Somewhere in the distance, a tambourine played.