The Dance - Part 1

Hearing the voice of the tormenting demon who tortured her during their spar, Octavia looked up. While in a tangled heap on the ground, she saw her standing there, imposing as ever, even without her armour. Knight Commander Althea.

"Well come on. Get up. You can't crawl around grovelling on the floor all day."

Oh, this woman really did annoy her. Everything she said rubbed Octavia the wrong way, and she was not alone in this. Given what Sylvia had said, she had the same effect on many other knights. While she could tell Althea would be a good teacher given their battle, she had to wonder why she was now stuck with her, as surely there are others just as skilled and much less annoying.

While stuck on the floor, she didn't want her next action to be what Althea said, as she felt that if it was, she would have lost somehow. However, she did need to get up off the floor and so started to untangle herself from Sylvia. For the life of her though, she did not know how they managed to end up like this. As a human, if you bump into someone, you probably both fall to the floor in a crumpled heap, but righting yourself is easy. Yet, as a Lamia, somehow in the fall and rolling around, her tail had managed to wrap itself around Sylvia's body, and form a tight interlocking grip on her feet and legs. If that wasn't bad enough one of her arms was trapped under Sylvia, while Sylvia's were trapped by her tail. It made no sense how a simple trip had caused all of that.

"Are you ok?" Octavia quickly asked Sylvia, ignoring Althea, given she had taken the brunt of the damage since she was under her and hit the floor.

"Oww, yeah. It hurts a little, but I think I'm fine. I didn't hit my head or anything. I think your tail stopped that from happening."

As Sylvia went to rub her head, she found it impossible as her arms were trapped, and turning her head, she found that it was positioned right in front of Octavia's assets, causing a massive blush to form on her face.

"That's good, right we need to try and get out of this." Was Octavia's reply.

As Octavia started to unwind her tail, she accidentally caused the area Sylvia was in to tighten, forcing her to be pushed closer towards Octavia, sending her head into a very intimate location.

"Ah." Sylvia quickly yelped as this happened. Whether it was due to the tightening which surely caused some pain, or because she was headed headfirst into Octavia's bosoms was hard to say, but it was likely both.

"Oh sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"N-no. Its f-fine. Just don't do that again." Sylvia really had to toss and turn between the embarrassment of heading where she was heading and the thrill of what it would be like if she ended up there. But, through a good deal of ethical and moral debates in her head, she decided to not trick Octavia into basically smothering her with pleasure.

Octavia was obviously ignorant of what was happening with Sylvia and tried to move things about without hurting either of them, but everything she did manage to move something somewhere else. It was quite a pickle she was in.

So, she had to do the only thing left, which was something she really didn't want to do.

"Knight Commander Althea…can you help me and Sylvia."

"…Sure. I can help you. You will owe me a favour though."

Now that she knew there was an actual problem, gone was the annoying arrogance, being replaced by a stoic demeanour which Octavia could relate to how guards and knights normally acted. It however did not stop her from taking advantage of the situation, and Octavia owing her a favour was something she did not like the sound of.

She started to struggle again and wriggle her way out of this mess, but another yelp from Sylvia stopped her. Sighing at that and the situation, she did the only thing she could.

"Fine, I will owe you a favour if you help me."

"Ok, now just hold still why I try to untangle you."

"…"

Silence reigned as Althea knelt down and after several seconds of contemplation Octavia suddenly felt hands on her tail. After a few movements and shifting around, there was less pressure on areas of her tail. Althea even managed to do all of this without causing duress on Sylvia.

As she lay there, Octavia soon found that she had more movement in her tail now that it was free from Sylvia's leg, and after a while, Sylvia was able to see the world again. Octavia's tail and arm were still under Sylvia, but with most of the untangling done, it was a simple case of Sylvia standing that would solve that problem, of which she did in no time, moving away before Octavia could see the blush on her face.

"Now that you are off the floor, and no longer stuck together, how about joining me for another session? I've been waiting to teach you since I recovered."

"Huh, what was all that about the whole grovelling and begging for forgiveness? I heard you were fine with our spar and then you said that."

"Oh that. I was just messing with you. So will you come?"

"Wha-" Octavia tried to respond with veiled outrage but was stopped by Sylvia jumping in.

"She can't right now. She needs to practice dancing for the ball." Was Sylvia's response now that her face was back to normal.

"… I see. Well I'm disappointed, but it can't be helped. Saying that, you can't practice dancing all day every day, so I expect to see you in the courtyard tomorrow bright and early." And with that, she headed off.

"…"

"Ok, well I better learn how to dance today, because if that lesson goes anything like the last, I won't be able to learn from you anymore before the ball."

"Let's get to it then. Also, I don't think it will be like last time with Knight Commander Althea. She only does that to new recruits. From now on it should be actual training, so you shouldn't come out with…too many bruises."

Octavia rolled the phrase 'too many bruises' around in her mind and felt dread about how tomorrow would go. But putting that aside so that it was tomorrow Octavia's problem, she continued on her way as she had some dancing to do.

…

After a short walking distance, they finally entered the ballroom they had been travelling to.

"Ok, now it's time for some dancing. At the ball, three dances will happen and between each, people will eat and talk. You only need to be able to dance in one."

There was something Octavia was a little confused about now that she knew this.

"Why do I need to dance at all? Can't I just mingle about and eat."

"Wha-, no you can't. You need to dance in at least one. If not, everyone will talk about you as being 'uneducated' and that will also look badly on Lord Desmon. Plus, it would be nice to dance together." Sylvia replied. She also mumbled the last sentence, so Octavia was unable to hear it.

"Ok, that's fine. So what dance are we learning."

Sylvia stood back so she was in the middle of the room. "You will be learning the Galadro's Reconcile."

"Wait, why is reconcile in the name? That sounds like an odd name for a dance. And what does Galadro mean?"

"Well, the dance is named after a famed elven knight, Knight Commander Galadro. In his journey, while he achieved great fame for his deeds, he ended up pushing away his wife. After a while, he had an epiphany during one of his missions, and upon completing it he hung up his sword and armour and journeyed all the way back across the land to return to his wife. She was incredibly beautiful and many a man wanted her. With Knight Commander Galadro being away on missions, these people swooped in to take her for themselves. She had been having doubts about her relationship what with Galadro pushing her away in favour of fame and glory. To her, it felt like he cared more about questing than he did the woman that loved him. But, on the night of the ball in his home town, he returned a retired knight, entered the castle ballroom, strode up to her in his finest clothes and asked her to dance. He spoke of his failings and all he had done wrong. He spoke of how he would make it up to her, and that he had retired and would no longer leave her side. Seeing how he had given up it all for her, she readily agreed to the dance, and they then moved to the centre of the ballroom. Where many others danced the usual dances, Galadro took his newfound freedom and just moved with his wife how he liked, leaving it up to fate and the tune of the music to determine how they moved. Over the years, many people had taken the tale to heart and his free heartfelt dance became known as Galadro's Reconcile."

Octavia ended up thoroughly engrossed in the story. It was a heart-warming tale and she understood why people in this world would like it. Something else she did notice was that Sylvia thoroughly enjoyed telling the story, telling it with a lot of passion, leading her to believe she had a fascination for it. She went to ask her more about this but was cut off by Sylvia starting the lesson

"Now, time to try dancing," Sylvia said as she headed over to the side of the room.

Octavia was about to ask how they would do this without music, given the lack of technology for a stereo and not having a live band in the room, but the sounds of a stringed instrument being played stopped her in her place.

"How-"

"It's a recording crystal. Some people invented them a long time ago. I don't know how they work, something about absorbing sound when they spin one way and releasing it when turning them the other. Oh, but once they have something in them, that is the only thing they can play, unless you erase it with magic.

Looking over at it, she found a chunk of green crystal, with some of the stone still attached at its base, which sat on a small dish. This was also connected to a little box via a string which was turning it. She wasn't sure how that worked but expected it was either magic or some sort of windup energy system.

"I see." It wasn't much of a response, but it was the one she gave, as while intriguing, thoughts of dancing were at the forefront of her mind, currently cutting off anything else.

As she stood there just taking in the tune, it reminded her of classical music from Earth. Not that she was expecting some heavy metal to start playing, but the sounds were very reminiscent of a violin or cello being played. The instruments used probably had different names and shapes, but the tune was still similar.

"So, the dance for Galadro's Reconcile can be done to a variety of music. It's really a series of moves taken from how Galadro danced, but they can be done in any order keeping in line with the free nature of it all. Thankfully, the nobility is a bit stiffer when it comes to dancing. This means they have a couple of songs used throughout the kingdom for Galadro's Reconcile, along with a specific set of moves for it. It ruins the whole idea of the dance but, that's just how it is with nobility." Sylvia's head dropped at that.

As annoying as it was to Sylvia, it made sense that this was the case. This though also triggered a thought of how commoners did it. Do they care about dances? Well, the better question was if they performed specific dances like Galadro's Reconcile. It might be that there are some specific ones they use, or they use the same moves but actually…liberally. One place to find out would be the festival. It was a shame they couldn't go.

The tune repeated itself multiple times, where eventually it came to what Octavia could only describe as a slow, long-winded violin solo.

Sylvia had yet to start the dancing stating that she should just listen to the music first. Get a feel for it, which she had plenty of time for, as it took a while, but the song eventually ended. When it did the crystal just sat there, still spinning, but saying nothing.

"Ok, now to learn some moves," Sylvia said with what could only be described as a devilish smile.

While this may be necessary for Octavia to not make a fool of herself or affect Lord Desmon's standing, it was clear to see that Sylvia was going to enjoy this.

Octavia wasn't so sure she herself would.