Dance of The Wild Hunt (Self Mod Basic Dance, Pre-Veil & GF'd)

[Quenthalus]

TS: Immanis 2nd; Early Evening/Dusk

Quenthalus had the last few bites of a quick mushroom and sprout lunch while Aravanya gazed at the clouds for a while, her head resting in the crook of a fallen bough. She scrunched her toes between the soil, laughing as she noted how clusters of mushrooms growing over the branch framed the cradle in which Quenthalus lay his head.

"Like a halo, or a pillow of purple, white, and orange poofs." Aravanya sat proper and upright, her voice bent to mock the snobbish tongue used by coittish and courtly Syl'rosyan women. Her wilder features and feral smile made Quenthalus feel at home. She seemed to carry on in the presence of this Combine elf with a knowing sense of self, quite assured they could be pleased with each other after having shared a dance not so long ago. The rhythms coming from the woods had grown in volume, joined by spatters of laughter as if chorus accompanied the instruments. Quenthalus felt himself slouch a little more, turning toward the forest to conceal a darkening expression.

"Come, walk the woods with me Quenthalus, brother to Wisteria. I will show you the dance of the Wild Hunt, for while you do not know it, the spirits tell me that the dance knows you." Aravanya rose and unslung her quiver of throwing spears, then snatched up a long bolt of cloth that was quickly folded, twisted and wrapped within minutes around her strong, shapely figure. Her bright orange gaze fell onto the thick of the woods, where paths became shrouded in mist-filled corridoors. Looking back to Quenthalus, she grinned, then dashed off with a sprites fury. Quenthalus, surprised, was quick to follow, bounding into the brush with a gazelles unflinching speed.

The somber elf ran as swift as the winds did blow, but he never got close enough to see Aravanya's face. The wild elf could blink in and out of the brush, and float as fleet as a dancing leaf if she chose. Her nimble acrobatics were a marvel to behold, vaulting the she elf from one fluting branch to the next. Dashing over one fallen log to the next, Quenthalus could only hope to navigate so long as Aravanya's laughter led the way. When their paths were joined, she fell from the treetops and he lunged for the oncoming ridgeline, and like eagles they leapt up for the great cloudy fathoms; two perfect paragons, distinct only outside the shadow of the sunlight, and by the unique difference in their beautiful laughter and ephemeral sommersaults.

Aravanya led them toward a clearing she had scouted days before her tribes planned celebration. When the tell tale signs of forest life grew, she knew the edge was near. Quenthalus too, could sense a meadow was not far off. Together they exploded out of the trees in a flash of emerald that merrily showered down upon them long after they hand descended to the earth. They approached a pristine circle of sparse wheats, and mid-length gold and green grasses that kissed the flats of their palms as they strode out of the forest border, to where Aravanya found an arrangement of rocks that had come to rest-- in no particularly special way-- at the command of fate.

Dancing effigies played behind the eyes of Aravanya, who whispered tender birdsong words and began a powerful series of movements in the meadow center. Quenthalus watched, feeling the warmth around him; anticipating the spark. When Aravanya spun around to face her pupil the index finger of the wild elf's right hand was beaming with radiant energy, crackling into a slow burning flame that did not seem to harm her. She raised her arm up to the sky, then with a deliberate sweeping gesture brought the finger down to touch some of the grass circled by rocks. Quenthalus watched with silent awe, then quietly slank away to gather wood around their immediate vicinity, just enough to feed their small fire. When he returned with a bundle of branches Aravanya was dutifully staring into the growing flames with a meditators focus. Quenthalus felt something growing in the space between them, and wanting to be a part of that energy he lingered at the foot of the fire, feeding branches in one at a time. Some of the wood swelled, snapping with a beat of its own. Aravanya's eyes crept open in time to see Quenthalus jump. "Reflexes, friend." The first they had spoke since leaving the Silverwood haunts.

[Quenthalus]

She seemed so alien and distant, or maybe he felt as if he were unfamiliar with her sense of self. The very thought launched him into a side-probe of what he could be missing, that she seemed to so easily posses. Her eyes never wavered from his curious inability to settle still, but her answer to that was to stand. Still seated, he looked up at her, wondering what she was about. Aravanya only seemed to stare down at him, expressions of expectancy etching across her countenance. Startled by her strange pause, he rose up awkwardly and bobbed from left to right unevenly, never taking his eyes from her for fear of falling out of cue. Where did this serious air drift in from?
Her eyes hid a smile, but the rest of her seemed tense across all those supple valleys. "I'll explain the rules of the dance." She began moving on soft steps in a circle, studying the fire that had grown into a worthy blaze. Quenthalus appeared amused and curious, and unaccustomed to the word -rules- being applicable to dance. Nevertheless, he swayed to her subtle movements and listened for her illustrations.
"We came to this meadow from the north. We have found the fire in the center, and now you will Hunt to the south. But you must follow the arc of the moon back to the north, and you can never return down the path you came. Return to the fire before I do, and you will have surely learned the dance." She spoke authoratively on all matters of this Wild Hunt, carefully ambigious about her specific meaning, and aloof with regards to the dances inherent values, but Quenthalus fancied himself an improvisational mover, trusting that the surface of the forest would be grounds for practicing unorthodox and quick-reacting steps. She was right, if he were to fleet across rock and log, fen and rush, he would have to remember those reflexes, as she had said earlier. Still, he didn't see why the element of a race was necessary.
"Every movement is dance in motion, Quenthalus, or it is merely you just existing." Her hand gestured him come forth.
"What do you mean?" He crept forward with two gentle steps, snaking toward her right, then leaping, leaping again, and twirling toward her.
She merely grinned and exploded toward the wood in a flurry of acrobatic insanity that was barely comprehensible to Quenthalus. He was doing his best to find something that was functional and still looked pretty just to keep up with her.

[Quenthalus]

When he had crossed into the forest fold it was quickly becoming too difficult for him to attempt keeping a gaze out for her. Branches and dappling snapped his face, or bramble would snag at his sleeve. Stumbling forward, faulty underfoot nearly ended his first five minutes into a grass-borne waltz turned bramble-bum-rush. Dodging some rocks he quickly bounded, turning, nearly falling, then catching himself as he dismounted onto a fallen log. Still shakey and unsure, he kept his feet moving, much softer against the moss covered surface. This was baffling, and he found himself either locked by heavy brush at certain points, confronted by wild thick, or slowed to the point of a droning sway from all the rugged terrain. There was a wild crash in the treetops some distance away, a clear indicator of Aravanya exploding through the wooded canopy. He couldn't hope to move like that.

"Do not focus so hard! Just dance! Your beauty will be your momentum! Then you will always be ready!" His suspicions were confirmed, and for a brief moment she crouched in a branch, looking back at him in time to shout, laugh, then drop an apple to the sudden oncoming rhythms that flooded the hollows. The Restwood seemed to cry out in bliss, swaying branches to their passage, and as the wind rose he felt himself settle into her zephyr of wisdom. Carried on by her words, he breathed the cool air, accepted the inevitable and daringly lept from the log to the muddy ground at the mouth of a ravine. Skipping several slick rocks, he kept his feet moving, his arms bobbing, his body braced for a fall that never seemed to come. Jolted by the newfound confidence of balance, he smiled softly, having never fully appreciated the eons of ageless dance he had entertained at Moonwillow, and how in its numerous ways it had shapeshifted through the passing of the music trends.

Twirling his arms he slithered through a tangle of bushes and shift-kicked his legs, crossing the right before the left, leaping on both feet, then switching left to front to narrowly evade a collage of undergrowth and small bushes. His shoulders raised, and with the air cool against him Quenthalus felt every fiber of his body devoted to the moment of movement. His lowlight vision was bleeding into the darkness, subtly making shapes from the vague patches of rock here, or the low hanging branch there.

Just keep moving, he repeated. He said it in his mind till the music and the motion became so engrossing that his mind said nothing and every celestial beauty around him crept beneath his skin with a realness so instinctive that he might only have a fraction of a blink to respond before it was too late. Ever watchful of a clear and unobstructed path, a safe ground to lead with a flurry of sommersaults, leaps or vaults, he became aware of the traveled signs and marks of passage. He was always moving, keeping pace to the music and to Aravanya, though she surely bought him time by stargazing, dancing atop branches or squirrel chasing. Her masterful footwork was all but a dream to the pedestrian Quenthalus, earthbound, for now.