Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 8)

(What is Lizzo?)

"Then you'll love the Averdans," Lily chuckled.

(You don’t know Lizzo?! She’s an amazing musician haha I love her a lot)

“I look forward to learning it,” Ky said with a smile. “…is there space here for dancing?”

(Oh cool!! What genre does she do?)

"Plenty."
"The dining hall," Emery suggested. "Or the training room in the barracks."

(Like pop/hip hop/rap — which usually isn’t my speed when it comes to music, but she’s such a goddess, like all about self-love and female empowerment)

Ky nodded. Gods. Why did today keep forcing her back to the barracks? “Do you… move the tables? It doesn’t seem like there’s space in the dining room…”

(Nice!!)

"Nope. Nobles don't dance much. Especially not in Serpent Keep."

“Oh.” Well, that was disappointing. Something else she needed to leave in her past, apparently. Which was sad. Especially considering she was finally big enough to do the dances now. Most of the dances in her township were highly physical and involved a lot of upper body strength, which she didn’t have when she was twelve. At least not enough to be able to both toss people in the air and then catch them, like many of the songs required.

"It's more a thing in the East," Emery said. "And I think the Barrasters dance little. But Northern nobles don't usually dance at all. There used to be some tribal rituals that involved dancing but that faded out and stuck with the peasant class, then evolved."

“Why’s that?”

"No idea." Emery shrugged. "I think Northerners tend to be more stoic."
"The cold has frozen our hearts," Tristan said dramatically, thumping his chest. "We feel nothing."

Ky smiled slightly at that, glancing between them.

But the more she thought about it, the more disappointed she got. And she didn’t know why. It’s not like she’d been allowed to do any Austrakan dances in the past three years — why was this any different? If anything, it was better. Aleth had forced her to learn Eastern dances to be able to charm the daughters and little sisters of important people. But that always made her feel gross, since she knew fully well the girls that flirted with her thought she was a boy. Which meant she felt predatory flirting back, even though Aleth forced her to. It’d be nice not to have to do that anymore.

And yet it felt like some odd, deep betrayal to her roots to swear off dancing entirely. They danced for everything back home. Birthdays. Weddings — okay, well, there’d only been one of those that she was old enough to remember but she assumed it was at all of them. Just like she’d assumed she was going to have it at her own wedding. But, apparently not, if nobles weren’t allowed to dance. She wasn’t going to humiliate Tomhas by demanding a daddy daughter dance at her hypothetical marriage. Which was fine, she supposed. It would probably cause her an immense amount of confusion anyhow. Petrir had always been the person she had in mind when she imagined that, anyway. Her goal had always been to get strong enough before her wedding that she could support his weight so they could sway together at the very least in one of the rare slow songs in their culture. But he was gone. And so was that dream.

"If you do want to come to some dances in the village, I would be happy to host you for awhile!" He smiled. "It can get pretty boring here in the Keep."

“That would be fun!” Ky smiled, then glanced at Zander and Emery and shrank a bit. “Eventually.”

"I'm sure you can teach her some steps here," Emery said to Tristan. "She's sort of...on lockdown right now." His brow furrowed.
"Oh? Why?"
"Very complicated," Emery said with a sigh. "But it's a security thing."

Ky buried her hands in her pockets, ducking her head with a nod.

"Well, of course I can teach you dances while you're stuck here," Tristan said, smiling slightly. "If Uncle Gaius will let me stick around, pop by every now and then."