Dancer - Jay Yablonovitz
The parlor didn’t smell of the flowers that crowded the space above it’s patron’s heads. It smelled more of rushing water, as though a creek lay hidden beneath the grassy floor or that the branches and vines making the room were enclosed in a bubble of fresh water.
Blossoms glowed, nestled in the soft purples and yellows of the flowers above. They glittered as they fell from the ceiling into the cups of tea before each patron. Landing on petals bleeding pink inside ceramic walls.
Rhale wrinkled her nose against the sensation of a blossom landing against her skin and dissipating in a simmering glow. Wyla trained her gaze on Rhale, almost teasing as a blossom she seemed to take no notice of fell against her purple eyelashes and faded into sparkling oblivion.
Wyla belonged in this space. She fit this realm perfectly. Soft tan fingers running laps around the rim of her cup. Loose purple hair, gently accented by the soft colors of the parlor. Incandescent red eyes accenting the mirage of a lovely girl. A perfect fit for the strange, welcoming haze of the realm.
Across from her, at their table for two, Rhale couldn’t have been more ill-suited for a place, despite this adventure being her proposition. She knew she was dull compared to the realm she sat in, and the girl she sat across from. Gray skin, and white eyes to match her hair. Much too long to be convenient, but not enough of a bother to cut, so she would keep it pulled back and wouldn’t give it another thought.
She didn’t stick out. Not between the haze of the air and the tingling of pollen-like blossoms. Rather, she failed to blend in. It was as though someone had ripped a patch from the fabric of this realm and sent something that looked like her to fill the space. Though, she couldn’t bring herself to mind. Wyla was beautiful, and while neither of them would admit it, or care to talk about it, Wyla was hers. Nothing more. Nothing less.
So, the two found themselves in a realm that seemed to be only a small parlor. Known for its misty atmosphere and air tinged with a threat. A popular spot for couples, and friends, and anyone who liked tea and risks smothered in sugar.
A risk that, at least to Rhale, fell limp. The parlor wasn’t particularly hard to find or get to. It just took a bit of daring and a bit more stupidity. The entrance could only be found by climbing too high and falling too far, but there was a certain safety in the fall. Wyla’s hand clasped in hers, the two cutting through the air, wind carrying them swiftly down. As the ground grew ever closer the sky fell from beneath them, and blew them a kiss goodbye before they plunged beneath the surface of their realm, and came to a table for two, with cups of tea suited with bobbing petals. A cup for both of them. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But, the entrance wasn’t the thing deterring potential patrons from this not-so-secret parlor of flowers and spiked tea. Stories of the realm always centered on the famed dancer. The beautiful creature who ensnared with a smile and could change the color of the sky.
The beautiful dancer who hadn’t shown up all night. Rhale had heard mutterings that they hadn't been seen in days, and was beginning to wonder if this entire realm was just one practical joke.
“I don’t understand how they could change the color of the sky,” Wyla said, seeming to read Rhale’s mind as she broke the silence from where she sat, studying the collage of petals above them.
“Hmm?” Rhale’s eyes snapped into focus. The rest the room becoming secondary to Wyla.
“You can’t see the sky.” To make her point she glanced up, Rhale’s eyes followed as though the thousands of flowers had disappeared in the moment Wyla took to speak.
“Maybe the flowers are the sky, and they change the flowers.”
“By killing them?” Wyla remarked, eyes flicking down to her still full cup of tea. Her fingers curled over the small handle, as if entertaining the idea she would drink. “Not that it matters.” She muttered almost to herself.“Are you insulting our host, Wyla?” Rhale wrapped a hand around her cup and raised it, almost to her lips. “Quite rude.”
Wyla fought a grin and averted her eyes back down to the tea, placing a feather light touch atop the petal. Maneuvering it around the tea. “Our host who has yet to make an appearance?”
“They let us inside. That’s nice enough,” Rhale said from over her cup.
Wyla’s smile twisted. “Nice enough to not let us plummet into the ground like fallen stars?”
Rhale flashed her teeth in a shining grin. “Exactly.” She took a sip of the tea. It tasted like flowers. Colors clashed inside her mouth, sweetened without sugar, and soft, with a twinge of life that traveled down Rhale’s insides before she had the chance to swallow. “Besides,” She set the cup down on the saucer. “The sky changes color by itself anyway.”
Wyla eyed the tea, never one to empty a glass half full, but never jumping to accept drinks she hadn’t seen poured. Drinks pre-set at a table made for two. Drinks catered to the kind of people who would jump off the highest treetop for the chance at a cup of tea.
Rhale followed her train of thought, written loudly on Wyla’s face. She reached across the table and placed a finger under Wyla’s chin. Forcing her stare away from the tea to match eyes with Rhale. Red clashed with white before Wyla led Rhale’s hand from her chin and intertwined their fingers atop the table.
“I’d like to see that,” Wyla said. Teases flashing in her eyes. Her lips twisted into a grin that somehow promised the world, the sky, and sun, and meant none of it.
Later, at some night, in some time, in a realm that didn’t belong to either of them, they would gaze at a sky that hadn’t lightened yet. They would stare at the air above them instead of the person sitting a hair's breadth from the other. The world at their disposal and their sights set on the stars.
Rhale opened her mouth to tease, or pry, or complain, but couln’t. Breath stolen from her lungs and words seized from her throat by the thickening of the air. The soft golds of falling blossoms flashed to a burning pink. Branches stretching around and above thickened, twirling and twisted vines shifted. The flowers adorning them both blossoming, opening bigger and brighter with an intensity to rival the sun. The grass cushioning patron’s feet softened, flattened, and reached, forming a path of bent stems towards a curtain that had not existed before.
It shifted and glittered. A transparent door the patron’s couldn’t see behind and were unable to look away from. Surrounded by the dizzying intensity of the petals, the constricting pulse of the vines, the burning glow of the blossoms, the shimmering curtain kept the focus, disturbed by an imaginary breeze.
A movement echoed across from Rhale. Small and far away. A squeeze, an affirmation, a reach. She should have mimicked it. She should have at least turned to see where it came from, but she didn’t want to. So, she stared.
The curtain didn’t part or shift as the creature stepped through. It had nothing to hide. There was nothing that lay beyond. Nothing that mattered, at least. For nothing was real except for the cup of tea sitting just beyond the tips of Rhale’s fingers and the thing that had stepped into the parlor.
They were vivid and real and untouchable. A palette of pink and warning. Skin a soft diversion from the burning realm around them. Their hair was brilliant. Shining and mussed and intentional. Eyes the only oddity in their palette of pink. A brilliant white to rival the moon. Pieces of the sun lived in those eyes that entranced and incinerated. A gaze that would pull anyone in and blink them out of existence. Leaving less of a trace than a dying star.
They flashed a smile, bright as their eyes and inviting as a web. They wove between couples and friends with still full cups of tea. Bare feet traced invisible patterns in the grass that reached and clung to their feet. Praying to a deity of pink.
They moved, they flowed, with all the purpose in the world. Each limb an extension of another, every move carrying a purpose. They were something much more than a dancer. Something so much bigger than itself, contained in a small being.
They didn’t dance. They didn’t walk. They simply were. They moved, or perhaps the room, the realm, the world itself moved around them. They could move between reality, or shatter it if they wanted. They could command the world to warp itself around their being, and how could it refuse?
They extended an arm up, a languid movement. An ocean inside a person. Their fingers unfurled to reach for a flower pressed against the ceiling. Petals flared as their fingers neared. It bloomed, and reached, growing closer to the creature anyway it could. Their fingers were soft against the burning complexion of the petals. They traced a path along the flower. It shuddered, and relaxed. The flashing vibrance remained, but the petals softened and returned to their position of poised beauty.
The creature took their fingers from the flower, and all was still for a moment. Blossoms paused in the air, vines stopped their rhythmic pulse, all that was was the creature standing in the middle of the parlor. Staring at the flowers.
In a choreographed movement, more of a dance than anything the creature could do, the petals of the flower peeled away, and every other flower followed. Thousands of petals taken from their stems and whisked into the sky. Brushing against the branches and vines that had bound them, making them fall away with soft caress.
The petals danced into a shining sky of pure blue. Adorned by no stars, moon, or sun. Decorated by thousands of petals floating above. Buffeted by a wind no one could feel.
Rhale traced the patterns of the dancing petals as the air cooled. The petals seemed to lighten as they whafted in the sky above. Everything relaxed. The branches and vines did not reform. Keeping the parlor an open enclosure. The grass stiffened and relaxed. Her breath returned to her lungs. Something ran over the back of her hand and she looked down to see Wyla, staring at her with an indescribable expression.
Words Rhale didn’t want to say bubbled inside her chest. Reassurances, questions, and topic changes grew inside her and rested under her tongue. She didn’t need to say anything. This was Wyla, and Wyla had nothing she needed to hear.
Rhale turned her hand over on top of the table and intertwined their fingers together. Her other hand pushed the cup of tea towards Wyla.
“You should try it,” She said, staring at the cup. The petal that had bled pink into the tea was gone. Leaving cold tea alone inside the cup. “Tastes like flowers.”
Wyla gave her hand a small squeeze, and reluctantly, turned her eyes down to the cup. Rhale followed her lead as she closed her eyes and swallowed the tea without bringing the cup away from her lips.
When they opened their eyes they were huddled under the tree they had fallen from together, hours, or days, or just moments ago. It speared into a sky spattered with stars, leaving Rhale and Wyla small curled together at the base of the trunk. Safe and grounded and smelling of flowers.
Rhale took a slow inhale, holding onto the clear smell of a star-filled night, aged wood, and Wyla’s familiar scent of lemongrass. A slowly souring smell of flowery tea and falling blossoms hovered around the two. Clinging to their clothes, entwined in their hair. Rhale kept Wyla’s flower scented hands in hers as she stood up.
“Come on. I’m going to find you a sky that changes colors.”
Wyla gave a soft smile empty of promises and longing. She kept Rhale’s hands in hers as she accepted the invitation, and let Rhale lead her to a sky all their own.