The promise I had just made to myself.
I didn’t think I could have this much fun. Not in a faerie camp. Especially not in a drake’s camp, where I had initially started my visit as their captive. But the fire was burning, hearts were ablaze, and I had no choice but to follow their calling.
Once the procession of farewells filled the sea with an army of hopes, we moved over to the other side of the beach, further away from where we’d made our wishes, where a campfire was in full bloom. A feast awaited our arrival, where over a hundred suckling pigs were roasting by the fire, filling the air with their delicious crunchy aroma, as well as hundreds of other large plates, resting on the table like a party buffet.
Led by the tribe lord and lady, with Dahr in tow, we arrived at the party scene and took the opportunity to occupy one of the smaller side tables. Karisha and I started chatting about the festivities, while the men made a point to grab as much food as they possibly could and fill the entire surface of the table with delicious spreads for us to enjoy.
And once I tasted everything and filled my belly with various types of meats, roasted vegetables and cherry cakes, the musicstarted, the beat of the drums slowly building up to invite us for a spin. Various couples and groups of people walked into the circle made around the large campfire and started dancing and chanting, their bodies swaying to the rhythm of the music that started drumming towards the stars.
“Join me for a spin, mate of mine?” Markos finished his drink in a few gulps and reached his hand to find Karisha’s, who replied with a wide smile before they both stood and stared walking towards the gathering crowd of dancing silhouettes, both of them already swaying to the rhythm.
“This is amazing, thank you for inviting me,” I felt the need to fill the silence and told Dahr, whose attention moved from me to his cousin and his mate, who must have reached the dance floor by now. He followed them with a soft, proud smile, the kind of feeling one shares towards beloved members in their life.
“I truly hope to keep them alive past April,” he said out loud, though I suspected those words echoed so deeply in his mind that his lips formed them on their own accord.
“You will,” I reached across the table to find Dahr’s hand and squeezed it slightly, trying to be encouraging.
I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to think about what was coming at the end of the month. And how I had lost over three weeks here without doing my best to save my town, without doing anything useful. Apart from befriending the drakes and starting to get butterflies in my stomach whenever their leader was nearby.
In a way, Dahr’s battle was my own, but what he had to fight for, I had to stop. This man was my enemy, along with all the people around that danced and let themselves enjoy their lives before they went to perdition.
Instead of using my analytic abilities and threading the path of the conversation towards what I most had an interest in, Ifound myself encouraging the man that would lead us all to destruction.
“You are a good man, Dahr,” I told him what I knew he needed to hear the most. What he must have been doubting while watching these people… his people.
The warrior scoffed, his full attention turning to me, eyes lowering to the drink I was holding. Karisha’s remedy worked fast, I had to give her that. “How much did you have today?” he pointed with his chin towards my mug, which was still half-full.
“Enough to drag your ass to the dance floor,” I replied with a challenging smile, which Dahr immediately mimicked. I didn’t have time to put on my bravado and gulp down the liquid courage as Markos had just done minutes before, because Dahr circled the table in less than a second and almost dragged me to the dance floor, his hand grabbing my hips and making me fly through the crowd until we reached a space that was wide enough for us to fill with our swaying.
“I don’t really know how to dance,” I admitted when I found myself in the middle of the crowd, with the drums dictating a rhythm I hadn’t heard before. A nice one. A passionate one. But one I did not know how to follow.
“Stay close,” Dahr took a step closer, shortening the distance in between us to the point that I inhaled his breaths. “And follow me,” he urged, as he relaxed his hands on my hips and started swaying with the crowd.
“You are being incredibly weird right now. Did you have too much to drink last night?” I looked over at Karisha, who kept smudging the same piece of paper and then erasing her words to only write the exact same thing again.
“No,” she scowled, pulling the paper away from me to hide it from view. “I can control my alcohol intake, unlike some,” she shook her head.
“May I remind you that I only had one cup last night?” it was my turn to retort the personal attack. Fine, she could play it further and remind me how I’d gotten drunk and made a fool of myself two days prior, at dinner, but something told me she wouldn’t want to bring up those memories.
“That’s ‘cause you were too busy dancing with your man all night,” the tribe lady giggled, her expression changing into a smirk. “You know, I’ve been trying to remember and… I don’t think I have ever seen Dahr dance. Like… ever,” she leaned in, knowing that my attention would be captivated by her story. She was right.
“But he’s such a good dancer!” I exclaimed, remembering all the ways he’d swirled me last night. How his arms and hips followed the rhythm of the drums to perfection and how he’d pulled me by his side, pressing his body tightly to mine and not losing our connection for the long hours we spent dancing, long after the majority of the other couples had stopped.
“Markos and I were more than surprised, believe me. I think everyone was,” Karisha confessed.
“What does he do then?” I expected Dahr to have a line of women fighting to get a piece of his time. I even worried about what would have happened to my heart if he’d suddenly decided to change dance partners and invite one of the other women that were dancing in a group. Fortunately, the warrior’s attention remained fixed on me for the entire celebration. And long into the night, when we returned to the tent.
“He generally drinks and watches the dancing, brooding in a dark corner somewhere,” Karisha said with a smile, her brows slowly raised in question.
“Maybe no one asked him,” I shrugged.
“You asked him?” Karisha looked at me as though I had suddenly started speaking another language. She took a breath and looked confused, so she needed to say the words again. “You. Asked. Him?”
“What do you mean?” I looked at her. It was my turn to frown. Weren’t we at a party? With music playing? Wasn’t I being intimate with the man? “Who else was I supposed to invite?”
I did remember several couples dancing, including Karisha and Markos, as well as several groups of men and several groups of women, who, for some reason, chose not to mix.
“You actually said: Dahrrian, will you dance with me this solstice? And he said yes?” Karisha looked at me pointedly, acting like a kindergarten teacher who needed to make sure her pupils understood the major difference between red and blue.
