Chương 5: Art of the Dance

It was like no dance Miriam had ever seen. He raised one knee, dragging the toe of his white shoe back until it was in line with his lower leg. Then his foot dove back down to the floor, seeming to slide across it until his toes pointed up, heel down. He was smooth in his motions, like water sliding off a leaf. Miriam did her best to imitate, but it was painfully obvious she was getting it all wrong.

"Don't worry about the form yet," Eoin said calmly, sliding his arms around in gentle circles.

"There are many forms, all for different things. Eventually the forms are embedded in your body and you only need them for training - you can use fórsa magic without them. But for now what is important is the constant… state… of… movement." Miriam took his words to heart and stopped rigidly trying to follow him so perfectly.

This was difficult for her - her whole life, she'd known there was a Right Way to Do Things, and even as a student her gifts were in memorization and following carefully planned steps, no matter how complex. Now what was important was…

"Flow," Eoin said, as if finishing her thought for her.

"Feel your body moving, never stopping, never resting. Even when you're sitting still, your body moves." She could feel this intensely, even as he said it. Her - blood? Sap? What did she have now? Whatever it was, she could feel it coursing through her veins. Could feel her lungs fill with air, inflating and deflating. Perhaps even feel the electricity dancing over her brain, even when her mind was blank.

"Excellent," Eoin said, sounding a little surprised.

"Now this is the difficult part. The movement inside you. You have to grab it with your mind and re-weave your body out of it."

"I have to - what?" Without stopping he conjured another image. It was of a ghostly hand, hanging in the air. As she watched it got bigger, getting closer and closer to the translucent skin of the tip of the pointer finger. Then a needle and thread appeared, gently poking into the skin and pushing out, threading a blue, undulating string through. It was water, she realized. The needle and thread were weaving water into the skin of the ghost hand.

"You do this with your mind, of course," Eoin said.

"Remember, the body is fórsa. The mind is you."

"All I have to do is imagine a needle and thread?"

"I thought that would be an understandable metaphor - there are other visualizations we can try if this doesn't work for you. But the hard part of this is that with your mind, you must grasp the ever-moving fórsa in your body, shape it into the needle and thread, then move it through your body. I suggest starting with the fingertip." Miriam frowned.

"How do I grab the fórsa?"

"If you can sense how it's moving in you, you just have to visualize your mind keeping pace with it. Once you are moving at the same speed, you can reach out to it and take hold. Try it now." Eoin was still moving smoothly, his voice never wavering and he moved unceasingly through different poses. Miriam could still feel it moving in her, but it wasn't like a thread. It was a loop - there was no beginning, no end. Still, it did have a rhythm, like the pulse of her heart.

She let her thoughts surge forward with each beat until it felt like she was ice-skating with her fórsa, a slide forward, forward, forward. Then she tried to reach out to it. She failed half a dozen times. The stream of fórsa would dance out of her grip, or disintegrate to simply reform elsewhere, like a hand passed through a waterfall.

"Perhaps 'grasp' is the wrong word to use," Eoin said thoughtfully.

"Maybe… think of it like merging. Your mind and your fórsa are moving together, becoming one. Then your mind moves itself and as such moves the fórsa." Miriam considered that. She sent her mind skating with the fórsa again, but this time she invited it in. She beckoned to it, asking it to dance with her, just like when she was thirteen at the spring ball and little Jamie Ryan had been too nervous to ask. This time she felt it start to move with her, instead of the other way around.

It came in close, wrapping itself around her mind.

"Gah!" Miriam squealed, falling flat backwards onto the cot.

"What happened?" Eoin hovered over her, concern plain on his face.

"I don't know… it was working, just like you said, but then… bam! It was like being hit by an avalanche." Miriam shook her head, still a little dizzy." Fascinating! Do you mind if I take a look? I can't weave your fórsa but I can look at it. Maybe diagnose something?" Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Miriam grinned up at him.

"Did I ever tell you I used to be the town doctor? The look on your face is exactly the one I would use when I needed to set a broken bone and I would lie about it not hurting."

"Is there anything you haven't done?" Eoin's smile was incredulous but warm. She shrugged.

"I didn't go to school for it or anything. Our doctor died. It was the middle of winter and a new one wasn't going to make it over the pass until spring. No one else even wanted to try, so I handed off my kids to my cousin, locked myself in the doctor's office and read as many of his books as I could. I managed well enough until a new sawbones made it to town and I gladly hung up my doctor's coat."

"Gladly?" Miriam shrugged.

"I wouldn't have minded doing it for longer. I enjoyed the challenge of it, and I was helping people. But I also knew the town wouldn't accept a doctor with no formal training, and the new doctor didn't seem to care for me. Seems he was ready to ride into town as a healing savior and when he found us in more or less good shape he blamed me for stealing his glory. At any rate, I had a house to run and kids to raise. Other interests to pursue. I let it go."

"A jack of all trades, huh?" Eoin nodded.

"Very good. I think this attitude and your experience will help you here. To be honest, most people who learn this are children. I'm fascinated to see it done by someone with an experienced mind. Anyway, let's take a look at what we're working with." He peered closely at her. Three blue lenses appeared in front of his left eye. She could see his pupil magnified, a brilliant blue ring over an abyssal black center. He absently steadied her by putting his hand on her shoulder.

As slim as he appeared, his hand felt strong and rough. She might have underestimated his physical strength. She blushed, though she hoped it wasn't visible given her new coloration. It had been a very long time since a man had touched her. She smiled to herself, thinking about the kiss she had almost stolen. It was far too soon to trust anyone in this world, but she felt at ease with Eoin. Best of all, he made her laugh - even if she still assumed he was a liar.

Maybe these were the sort of feelings that also came with being young again." Incredible!" He said, his eyes even wider.

"The amount of undiluted fórsa in your body is like nothing I have ever seen."

"What did you see?"

"It's no wonder Solas has gone to so much trouble to keep you. With your power alone he might make it as far as the Fifth Ring. Look… this sounds terrible, but most of the people who enter here from the Realms Above are children. They either wander into the vents or those like Solas lure them in.

"The amount of fórsa they have is gargantuan compared to a Sidhe child, but it's not much really. You however… it must come from having lived such a long life in the Realms Above. You've been building fórsa all your life, with nowhere for it to go." Eoin whooped and jumped up.

"This is just so exciting! This is the sort of thing I live for, Miriam. New discoveries everyday." Miriam laughed with him.

"So, how do I control this much power to do the weaving?" Eoin's grin returned.

"No idea! Never faced this problem before. Maybe… hmm. Maybe you could siphon off just a fraction of it at a time. Think of it like a braid, and you're pulling out one strand. We'll deal with the rest of it when you don't have a power-hungry gremlin about to suck out your life essence." Miriam nodded, and began Eoin's dance again. It was easier to get into the frame of mind for shaping fórsa than it had been before, and in no time she was back skating with her power, inviting it in.

Just a little, she beseeched the fórsa. The rest can join me later. Just a little! About a third of the stream separated and wandered over to her, still surging in its pulse-like rhythm. She let it wrap around her. Her dance stuttered for a moment - the force of the stream was still nearly overwhelming - but she managed to keep it under control.

"I've got it," she said quietly.

"Now," Eoin said softly.

"Weave it." Miriam began to weave the fórsa into thread. It fought her at first - it wanted to be its natural, unconstrained shape. But Miriam and the fórsa in her body were one person, and she had never had much difficulty in convincing herself of anything. In her mind formed a shape: a needle and thin thread.

"Concentrate on the fingertip," Eoin said. Miriam struggled to line up the needle to her finger until she realized the scale was wrong - she had made the needle the size of the ghost finger Eoin had shown her. She squished the needle down as far as she could, but it was still too big. Instead she decided to close her eyes and just… imagine it.

"That's it," Eoin said.

"Ha ha! Fantastic! You're doing it!" Miriam worked for two more hours, weaving the thread and harnessing her fórsa. By the end of that time she had rewoven only one side of her distal phalange - the bottom and tip of the first joint of her index finger. She sank down onto the cot, exhausted.

"And you have to do this to your whole body?" Eoin looked tired as well. He'd lost the hat, revealing long blonde hair tied up underneath and a pair of pointed ears. His blue sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

"Eventually, yes, but it takes a lot of time. For now, the structured fórsa will help to slow the absorption from his device - theoretically. If it could flow unaided, he might have been able to take in your power at the speed of your fórsa - which to me looked pretty fast. Now at least there is a maze he will have to navigate. As we go, it will get harder and harder for him." Eoin's head snapped to the side, as if hearing a loud sound nearby.

"Ah. I'm afraid my time is up. I can only talk to you like this because of my fairly… unique circumstances. Only when you're below the sea, which here means - only at night. But I will be back tomorrow night. And as many nights after that it takes to get you free."

"Thank you, Eoin," Miriam said, looking at her finger.

"I don't know whether all of this will actually get me free or not, but you've helped me when you didn't have to."

"Perhaps there will be a time when you can return the favor," Eoin said, beaming.

"Farewell for now. Whatever happens today… try to weather it." Then he blinked away, a green shadow slowly fading in his absence. Miriam sighed. Alone again. Then a loud sound from upstairs. Solas was awake.