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[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider. Favorite poetry: epics. Popular dramatic ideal: heroism. Dances: wildly abandoned. Stimulants to make people sense what I took from them. What did I take? The right to choose a role in history.
-Leto II (The Tyrant): Vether Bebe Translation


Recreating one's homeworld on the ship wasn't the most creative move she could make, Sheeana knew. And she did her level best to avoid using the sensoriums wherever possible. She would not become dependent on their artificial comfort like so many others did.

But there were certain things unavailable in the city for her and music was one of them. So she found herself in the plaza at Arrakeen. The sun beat down on the cracked and ancient concrete, on Fremen travelling into the city to sell their goods, on pilgrims, on priests in their white robes. The heat was oppressive to most but to her it was life, and each ray that soaked in through her skin made her blood pulse closer to her skin.

She stood in the exact center. Old music, also native Rakian, came through from phantom instruments and she kicked her heels up. She went whirling, abandoning herself to the frenzy of movement, spinning until she was half blur, one leg held out to balance her like a figure skater. Arms flung out and aided her momentum, dark hair whipping about. She used this momentum to launch herself into higher and higher spinning leaps, sometimes coming down on a foot and sometimes on a hand. Everything melted away in the flux.

If left alone this way she could easily keep going until she collapsed. Luckily she'd left the door unlocked. She didn't much care either way if she were watched.

Comments

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara stumbled into the Sensorium and was immediately struck by how much it reminded her of when she and the rest of the Gaang were hiding in the Fire Nation. The town squares definitely caught her interest, but she didn't really plan on staying: this was someone else's simulation. When she saw the flurry of movement, her eye caught the dancer and then marked the music it was spirited with an air of gypsy in it somehow to her. She found herself quietly flexing her toes, then balancing on the balls of her feet to the music herself.

But it wouldn't be long before the music swelled and started to sweep her in the same circle with her teacher. Though it was difficult, she mimicked her teacher's speed in the music, dancing her own trial dances she'd learned from the different corners of the world she had traveled. It was like the time she'd danced with Arha, and even before when she'd danced in the cave with Aang, their dance more of a tease with an element of fighting in it. Katara flipped a few times, her legs kicking up the dirt faster, and now she moved the rest of the body to the beat as if she were avoiding projectiles, and the moves came as easily as if she were practicing Prana Bindu with her teacher.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana willed the tempo down (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2023%20-%20My%20Skin%20Is%20Not%20My%20Own.mp3) so Katara could match her pace and she pulled herself back until she was more visible and less blur.

She circled Katara until they were like two desert cyclones turning around each other. Imaginary Fremen whooped. "Sacred Ones!" they called.

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

The change in the music reminded her a little of the sights and music they'd heard on that earth mission. It made her slow her pace down, but she matched her teacher perfectly: music was a joy she could see they both shared, and only wished she could show it with her closer friends. Still, she thought that it wasn't something she was ready to publicly show just yet anyway.

The praise brought a flush to her skin but she was smiling, and the movement continued in its fluidity, Katara mimicking her martial arts in water bending, as it was itself part of a dance. She didn't know what kind of music this was called, but she liked it a lot.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana snatched Katara's hand, spun and lifted her, allowed the girl to do the same as the musicians moved on (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2025%20-%20The%20Golden%20Path.mp3). She was flushed and smiling too, but starting to wobble. She'd been obviously at this for a while. Seeming to sense that, the "musicians" took a rest before she fell over. She looked over at Katara. "Have you done this before?" Katara looked like she had. Prana Bindu would improve your ability to dance, but she had never gone over it in lessons.

A few seconds later, a dusty Fremen girl, prematurely aged by harsh life, wearing a much patched stillsuit and carrying an infant in swaddling clothes shouldered her way through the watching crowd to them. "Holy Sheeana! Please, I beg you and your consort to bless my ch-"

"Stop that." She said it to the sky though, and Stacy responded by making the woman disappear. Her eyes darkened at that. Was Stacy trying to provoke me with that? Or was it my own unconscious? I have too much of those priests in me. I can't escape it. Always I have to be the center. Look at my behavior lately...

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

In the last dance Katara surprised herself: she shook and shimmied for the entire song, and had an idea that could Aang see her like this, well, it would make things between them WAY more awkward needlessly. When Sheeana stopped she stopped with her and grinned. "Actually, yes. Besides my bending, which is dancing at its core, I've actually danced in my world too. It's always been a bit of a secret thing I like to do when no one's watching."

Here though, Katara regarded her teacher carefully. The girl certainly wasn't real, just a part of the backdrop, but she was also not used to hearing her teacher addressed as "Holy" anything. So at Sheeana's reaction, Katara definitely marked the reaction. The name: something about being revered by her people bothered her.

"Why teacher?" She asked.

[ayasofia.livejournal.com]

Now it was Sofia's turn to watch as Sheeana twirled about. She tapped her foot to the rhythm. "May I join?" She called.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana nodded and crooked her hand to beckon her over into the clearing amidst the crush of bodies. She willed the tempo down (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2023%20-%20My%20Skin%20Is%20Not%20My%20Own.mp3) as the next song began to help her adjust.

[ayasofia.livejournal.com]

Sofia danced rather than walked her way over. Between the music and the mass of people, it was all so invigorating.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

They danced for several songs, Sheeana leading her but never going faster than she could follow. Eventually Sheeana began to wobble, having been at this for quite a while and was forced to call a break and leave the clearing.

Fortunately the splendor of the marketplace at [Arra]Keen was available to them. Stalls sold all manner of goods, sweet paradan melons, flaky baklawa, religious trinkets and "relics" purportedly touched or blessed by Leto or Muad'dib themselves, the assorted detritus of thousands of years. There were suddenly watercoins in their pockets, so it was all there for the choosing if they wished. The crumbling magnificence of the former Atreides Citadel, with its great pillars and old statues rose irrationally high on the north end.

[deep_sky_diving]

Tess has finally discarded the pseudo-scab across the side of her face, though the skin underneath is mottled with the paleness of fresh growth. She seems more energetic, though—perhaps the healing process is finally done, or done enough. Without the suit she lets out a hiss of breath as she comes into the desert heat, and she conjures up a mishmash of white robes to temporarily replace her jumpsuit.

One more deep breath and she melts into the crowd, discomforts forgotten to slip through that part of the city. Some bartering, a trade of imaginary coins—she is an outsider, but she knows the ways that all places are really the same under the surface, and how the same patterns emerge again and again. With some small fruits she makes her way to Sheeana, adeptly juggling and making them vanish and appear between her sleeves, drawing her own small following of a crowd.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Maybe that awareness was what caught Sheeana's eye in the firstplace. Regardless...Is she challenging me? She shot her an inquiring look.

If the answer was in the affirmative, Sheeana would start pulling audience members out to her, using Voice to force them to do tricks, leading them on with the power of suggestion. Though true Rakians of her time would worship her anyway, she did not activate that to keep the playing field level.

If not she would greet her and tell her she had one of the essential skills for surviving a new place.

[deep_sky_diving]

Tess' smile at Sheeana is as innocent as it always is, though her eyes—far more indicative—lack the sort of drive they'd have if she was really trying to challenge Sheeana. The fruits flick between her fingers and then up her sleeves, just like that, and she breaks up the crowd observing her with pleasant laughs and gracious smiles, then moves to closer approach Sheeana.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana dismissed her 'thrall' too and met her student. She made as if to touch her face with her fingers but stopped a couple inches short. It was pale and new but she was whole instead of grossly scabbed like a few days ago. You're better? went unspoken.

They had coin enough between them and a world's treasures to buy, at least for a few moments.

[ford-sawyer-815.livejournal.com]

An unlocked door just begs to be opened. Then again, so does a locked one for that matter, especially when the person doing the opening is as nosy as the man who is standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest as he leans against the frame, watching Sheeana as she leaps and tumbles about the room with grace and elegance.

"Well, ain't you just a nimble little minx," Sawyer said with a slight grin. There were things about gymnasts that every man could appreciate and Sawyer was one who definitely appreciated them.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana dropped the tempo (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2016%20-%20Trap%20The%20Worm.mp3) so she was now no longer flitting in and out of the limits of human vision (though by no means slow) and more sensously, displaying the skills of uh, display she'd been taught. There was always plausible deniability, of course, but enough to keep him interested. She offered him a teasing smile as she turned.

[ford-sawyer-815.livejournal.com]

Sawyer remained still, watching appreciatively as Sheeana switched things up a bit. "You tryin' to get a rise outta somebody there, sweet heart?" he asked, grinning at her wryly.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

One final and pop of the hip and she slowed and approached him. "Keeping in practice. I cannot get music in the city. And without dance I become...tense." The implication was sexual tension, although she actually meant the Wild Place within her, only one of which's aspects was sexual.

[restoresbalance.livejournal.com]

When he'd first walked in, Luke had thought that someone from his world had called up Tatooine, for this place reminded him very strongly of it. The hardpacked ground, the shifting sand around the edges that got everywhere, the heat--for all that he'd spent years away from it, and for all that Uncle Owen's moisture farm felt like lifetimes away, Luke had never really gotten Tatooine out of his blood. Perhaps it was that his father was from there; perhaps it was that Luke had grown up there.

He was, as Arha had pointed out when he'd arrived, a desert animal. So perhaps it wasn't surprising he was drawn to it.

The whirling, spinning dancer in the center of the city, though, that was different. He'd only been to Anchorhead rarely, and Mos Eisley even less frequently than that, and Luke knew that in neither place were dancers of this sort. Sure there were Twi'lek slaves, twisting sinuously for their masters, but nobody who danced with this kind of abandon. And nobody named Sheeana danced in the streets of the cities of Tatooine.

Not wanting to disturb her, Luke pulled up the hood of his cloak and watched her from a spot of shade.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

The next song (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2023%20-%20My%20Skin%20Is%20Not%20My%20Own.mp3) was only slightly slower than the last and heavy with drumbeats. She stomped and popped her hips and shoulders to the drums, lept and whirled with the baliset, all at the very limit of human vision (and even that was a restriction for her).

Eventually the hours she'd been at it caught up to her and she swayed, a moment from collapse. That was when she knew she had to retire for a moment before someone found her passed out, face first. If she weren't a Fremen and Reverend Mother, she would have been soaked in sweat.

She dismissed the circle that had formed around her. When one didn't move with instant obeyance, she picked him out for his offworld garb. "Luq...Skaiuaker." She said with a grin between deep breaths.

[restoresbalance.livejournal.com]

He came up to her--ignoring the stifling heat of being in the sun--and put a hand out to steady her if she wished. "You all right, Sheeana?" he asked. For all that Luke wished she hadn't instigated that arguing after they'd all been through mental and physical hell, he wasn't about to discount her as a friend.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

She leaned back into his hand rather than drop to her knees or awkwardly pratfall. "How gentlemanly...of you." She said with a teasing smile.

[jesushasayak.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a marketplace! Aang sneaks in to peek around, saffron robes clutched around him. The sun bears down on his bald head so he imagines up some imaginary coins to buy an imaginary hat, and then goes wandering around.

It's a very interesting place, kind of like Omashu or different places in the Fire Nation colonies, but much, much more lively. The dust itches his nose, however, and that leads to a massive sneeze, and something crashing.

"MY SPICE SHIPMENT!" calls out a voice, distraught.

"Sorry! Uh...gotta go!"

He runs off, and that's when he runs into Sheeana and simply watches her dance. Dancing is something that all cultures have, and something he always enjoys learning. The music reminds him of music from the Fire Nation, fast-paced and rhythmic, and before long his foot is tapping, the hat is discarded, and he can't really help himself--he flips out into the square to join in, laughing.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

And that was the last person Sheeana expected to see here. As the tempo stopped for a few seconds, she fixed him with a sly grin, a vixen's challenge. Can you keep up? it seemed to ask. Luckily the next piece (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2023%20-%20My%20Skin%20Is%20Not%20My%20Own.mp3) was relatively slower, with drums you could fix yourself to.

Two Holy Children dancing in the illusory market square of a dead planet. If it weren't a Thinking Machine, i'd suspect Stacy of being poetic.

She whirled, carried by the rythm but now with Aang as a point to zero in on. It gave some focus to her mania. Handspringing backwards, she watched him to see what he'd do.

[jesushasayak.livejournal.com]

He jumps towards her and then there's a quick handspring to the left as he goes around. Every movement somehow works in strange harmony with her own. Gravity seems to only be a minor hindrance, something that welcomes him back to the ground rather than forces him to stay there. There are flips and handsprings, backbends and splits, and movement that are clearly derived from multiple martial arts.

And yes, Sheeana, he can keep up.

However, he only dances around her, not with her. They are two satellites orbiting one another, never in the same space, never touching. There's only one person he would ever dance close with.

Eventually, though, the music stops, and Aang bows to her, and then puffs out, "I really like your music. Is this your home?"

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

She was (or could be, she didn't want to outpace him) faster than him, but still bound to the earth in a way he seemed to gleefully ignore. Is he air-bending?. She didn't mind that he wasn't close to her. This wasn't that kind of place or music.

Finally finished, she swayed in place, keeping herself from collapsing. She'd been at this for some time, it seemed. This was her nature, to throw herself into activities and give them all of herself. If she weren't Fremen and Reverend Mother, she would have been soaked with sweat.

She parted her palms horizontally, the Fremen equivalent gesture. "Thank you, Avatar. This is Keen, on Rakis. I was born in the desert, some miles outside of here." Which was true, though she'd spent three years in the priest's citadel here. It was complicated though, and she was too reserved to blurt all that out. "Are you hungry?" That put anyone at ease, save for those who suspected you of wanting to poison them.