Solo The Parts of Us

[Renate Winterflame]

Winter 11, 513
The Streets of Alvadas

"The whole is greater than the part." - Eyris's First Axiom

Renate was as still as a statue. She seemed suspended in a grand and sweeping movement, as if the tricksy city had paused her in the middle of a performance. But a closer inspection would reveal how her muscles shook with the effort of the stillness, how her clothes and hair swayed in the warm winter breeze. She was framed by a lovely mural of tropical designs and bright plants, some of which sprouted out of the wall and became as real as anything. Before her was a little black cooking pot, a rather plain thing among the rest. In it were a few select coins, which revealed its purpose as a busker's hat.

The first time Ren had attempted to perform on these streets, she had done an abysmal job of it. She had gotten the idea from others she had seen and decided that she much preferred to dance for a living than to cook or clean or serve. But she had enjoyed it more than her audience did. Her bit was too personal, too random. It didn't engage enough. She needed to appeal to them if she wanted to survive in the profession.

And she needed to be different. Today Renate was inspired by the beautiful ice sculptures she had seen in her youth, frozen and glistening with starlight. Although it was day, for now, the Vantha woman figured she had created a similar effect. She still wasn't that good and dancing, but she was pretty and apparently that counted for something. Her pot collected a few extra coins for her effort.

Needless to say, the pose became boring before long. She would change it when no one was looking, but she felt it was not the time to alter her approach entirely. It was, perhaps, divine inspiration that prompted her to wait for the curious young girl that would eventually pass--the girl who, while her father dropped a piece of metal into the pot, reached out to the living statue with a curious sparkle in her eye. Ren's own rosy pink gaze met the child's stormy grey, replying to her hesitance with a wink. Happily now, the girl touched Ren's outstretched fingers.

Her Vantha eyes flared with a violet thrill. Her hand gave a flourish and her wrist came alive with an elegant twist, the bells on her bracelet ringing like laughter. The movement rippled through her arm like a short-lived burst of energy, which faded as her arm settled into a new pose and again she froze.

The girl giggled. With a confirming look from her father, she reached up to touch Ren's elbow. The contact melted her arm again, wiggled in her torso, and ended in a little kick of her foot. The chimes on her anklet echoed down the street.

Ren stared at the opposite wall like a clockwork doll, except for the amused smile on her face. The girl bent to grant another magic touch to the foot that had given the kick, and at her cue Ren stepped into a short leap, complete with arms that bowed and crossed before her.

Those were the new rules: one touch, one part, one moment of movement. Renate was rather good at isolating the parts of her, if she did say so herself.

[Renate Winterflame]

Her spectator was catching on quickly, giving the dancer little chance to pause before she was reactivated again. They continued in this way for a minute or so, bringing the dance out into the street where people could see the woman's beauty and hear the girl's laughter, though they did not stray so far from her pot that the passersby did not know where to put their money. Eventually Ren had taken her little friend by the hand and was dancing wholly alongside her, spinning and giggling. Out of the corner of her vision, Ren could see a small crowd gathering around them. Adrenaline pulsed in flakes of red on her purple eyes.

And suddenly she had broken away from her new partner, twirling to a stop at one end of a circle of onlookers. She froze, as the rules of their game required, but by the time her skirt had settled on her legs, the child's father was escorting Ren's dancing partner away. Ren broke the act to exchange a departing wave with the red-faced girl.The ice-sculpture illusion froze on her hand, mid-wave.

It took a moment or two for the rest of her spectators to realize what to do. It gave Ren a chance to catch her breath, for the sweat on her brow to catch a breeze. A few whispers were exchanged. A half-dozen people had gathered round, in the same sort of circle that a good performer makes. Renate knew the circle, but rarely had she been at the center of it; despite the stone pose in her body, she beamed with pride. Her success--the layer of copper circles that had spread across the bottom of her pan--gave her no reason to change her strategy, except that most proper adults had reservations about reaching out to prod other proper adults.

So it was that, after she spun to the other side of the circle, Renate was left frozen for a few long seconds. She looked over the parts of the crowd in those seconds, at least what parts she could see. There where two women, perhaps sisters, carrying numerous bags as if they had just visited the bizarre; a young man in clerk's clothes, who might have worked for one of any number of offices Ren had never heard of; a pair of teenagers, boy and girl, who seemed to be struggling to decide whether they ought to hold hands; and an older man who was not quite balding, with a gilded brooch and a heavy purse. All were frozen alongside her, not by the rules of the dance but by the common courtesy that promised to defeat it.

She was losing them, by standing there and doing nothing. Thinking fast, she met the eye of one of the sisters, the woman who had caught on initially. Her expression softened and her long hair stirred on the tail of a nod, an invitation. The woman smiled and took her companion's bags, mumbling and gesturing. At her sister's behest, the other woman broke the polite distance which her fellow onlookers kept and crossed the circle. She touched Ren's hand and shrieked as the dancer grabbed hers.

[Renate Winterflame]

A shiver of movement slinked from the dancer's hand to her elbow to her shaking shoulder, but it did not stop there. It rebounded from her twisting body and back toward the woman's hand, which Ren raised and dropped in an attempt to transfer the dance's fictional energy. The woman could only laugh nervously, glancing back at her friend, so Renate urged her to open up by taking her by the waist and turning her around the circle in a little waltz. The dancer's partner had a lively step, clearly familiar with a good rhythm. The dancer herself released her after the eighth beat, shaking her belled wrists and freezing once more.

It was no coincidence that her still arms ended facing the clerk, who despite his tired look and worn clothes was the most attractive of the lot. With a shrug, he set down his bag and stepped forward, taking one of her hands in his own. Without hesitation, Ren guided his other to her waist and laid her remaining hand on his shoulder, then spun him around in a couple of four-step turns before she whisked away and stopped.

Each part of the growing crowd had their turn if they wanted it. Renate tried to customize each verse of her dance to each partner, based on what few parts of them she could discern. She had moved through four more rounds by the time she could see no others, her face flushed with exertion. The last that remained were the teenagers, who perhaps did not want to offend each other by engaging with a beautiful stranger. When she stopped in front of them, her pose was a deep and supplicating bow, punctuated by crossed arms and splayed fingers. Other onlookers encouraged them to participate, but even when the boy stepped forward, he did not risk getting taken by the hand. He bent down to touch her ankle, retreating so quickly she almost did not feel him.

Ren jumped up and stood straight, her arms stretched outward on improvised elegance so that she could stand with one leg. The other, the one which the boy had chosen, shook once, tossing the sound of bells at him.

There she balanced, as still as possible, but looming over them all was the inherent difficulty in the new stance. The girl beside the boy bent and poked the same ankle with a little more conviction; as if to reward her for her participation, Ren jumped to the other foot and gave a little pirouette. She ended it with a hand out to them, begging for a true dance, but the pair were cleverer than that. The boy reached around and touched her shoulder, to which she gave a feisty little shrug. The girl dared to nudge the small of her waist, and Ren rolled her hips. When the girl giggled, the boy tried Ren's elbow, and then her neck.

They would not dance with her, but they found their merriment in testing the limits of the game. Which parts of her could not be moved by dance? Not many, she was determined to prove; every part of her made up the whole dancer. She had a few more rounds of fun with them before she turned to the rest of her audience, which had thinned a little while her back was turned. She offered herself to them, accepting every challenge they gave, every touch they made.

Perhaps it was inevitable that she be presented with a touch that sullied the spirit of the game. Hands do wander where they are allowed, and unspoken rules are easily broken. In hindsight, Renate would regret trusting them at all.