Adagio: Chapter 3, May I have this dance?

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

He was smiling. He was actually smiling. It was not his usual grin of arrogance, but a genuine expression of happiness. Jason was having a dream, and by the look of it, a very delightful one. Curiosity swirled in me in the anticipation of knowing what Jason was dreaming. He was never this happy, not anymore anyway. He hadn’t been this happy since… It had to be her. A gold strand of thought seemed to invite me as it swirled around. I touched it and it embraced me.

“One wish, my love…” I said to my beloved, “I cannot grant more than that.”

She rolled her eyes lightly. “Fine then,” she smiled and paused, “Flowers.”

“Flowers?” I echoed in delightful amusement. “What kind of flowers?”

“All of them.” She said, with the whisper of a child who had just been offered a toy.

“As you wish.” I said, tightening my grip on her hands. Those hands were beautiful. “Close your eyes, love.” She did. It had not caught my attention before, but I realized we were in a field. I took a graceful step back and I saw it: Color was shrouding every inch of acre on the field like and explosion clearing everything in its path. The colors then rose like birds from their sleep and turned into tulips and roses and lilacs and sunflowers and… and… Well there were too many to count, for every species of flower was there.

“Open up, dear.”

Her eyes were unreadable, but if I were completely honest, the moments where I could read her eyes were very rare. Did she like her gift? What had I done wrong?

“Hm…” was the only consolation I got. She was thinking. She squinted her eyes at me, those beautiful honey drop brown eyes at me, as if trying to take a peek at my soul. She extended her left hand out to me, and with that gesture, with that mere gesture, she sent me into an ecstatic state of mind. I smiled and took that angelic hand in mine. My lips were moving. What was I saying?

“May I have this dance, beautiful?” said my voice.

She smiled that ethereal smile of hers and something fluttered at the edge of my vision like wings. It looked as if white wings embraced her. The white wings covered the entire front of her body in white and then they seemed to melt down in mimic of a waterfall. The feathers glowed for an instance and then vanished, leaving behind beauty to compliment beauty. My beloved now wore a white dress, a brilliant white dress. It was the sort of white dress a princess or a girl on her sweet 16 would wear. And then we danced. With deliberate, articulated, measured, and exact moves, we danced. I spun her around, making her dress make surreal shapes in the air as it circled along. And then she stopped spinning. Why did she stop spinning? She looked at me, as if she had seen a ghost.  No, not at me, she was not looking at me, but rather directly behind me. I smiled faintly, all hope evaporating from my body. I turned around, still holding her hand, and gave that hand to her beau. I could not hate him, but he did make me rather uneasy.

“Thank you.” Said his informal voice, the kind of voice you would hear coming from a rockstar or radio host.

“Don’t step on her toes,” I said, the cold feeling returning to my body. I was hollow and cold again. I was no longer smiling, but rather neutral, with no sign of emotion, except for the air of arrogance my penetrating gaze emitted. And then I left, I left the hall, leaving all the other dancers staring after me. I was so determined to leave that I didn’t even notice how the guards shook as I approached them and moved out of my way. And I was out of the palace. In fact, I was so determined to leave I didn’t even wonder twice how we arrived at the palace. But of course, foolish me, everything was possible in this realm of Celadon. I had to return to Akane, the pure red Akane. 

Author's Note

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

The chapter was very good. I like your pace. The description and detail of each scene is making the story come alive. I like this story. Thank you.
Coyote