The Light in His Darkness

First Kiss

"Um . . . at the ball, yeah."

"And I mean, we don't want to turn up not knowing how to dance, do we?"

"That would probably be embarrassing," Tam admitted.

"Right. So why don't we practice now?" Glimmer put in.

"You wouldn't mind practicing?" Tam queried, astonished. "I wasn't sure you'd dance with me in the first place."

"Well, I promised. Plus, you made some good points about showing them who I am. So why not? And yeah, I'd rather not be even weirder than I already am by not knowing how to do something that all elves should know, which means . . . practicing." She winced.

"Alright," Tam said innocently, holding up his hands, palms facing her. "Whatever you want."

"Do you even know how to dance?"

Tam scrunched up hazy childhood memories of when his parents would drag he and Linh to multiple dances.

"I think - something like this. Put your hand on my shoulder," he instructed. "Then, I take your hand in mine, like . . . this. And after, that, we start moving to the music, I guess." Tam put his other hand on her waist. He considered their position. "It seems like it's right."

"Okay . . . ah, sorry!" Glimmer exclaimed as she stepped on his toes.

"It's good," Tam said lightly.

"Only having one working eye messes up my depth perception."

Ohh, that made a lot of sense. He had noticed that she'd been a little shaky lately - was that simply because she couldn't see exactly where she was stepping?

That had to be part.

"Here, let's try again," he said, trying to get his mind off of it a little.

The movements they made were kind of jerky at first, but as they started getting more comfortable with stepping in time together, the motions became smoother and easier.

Once it got to that point, though, they started going faster.

That is, until Glimmer grunted as she tripped over Tam's foot and face planted onto the floor.

She snorted, and Tam was so genuinely confused - didn't that hurt?

"Oh, man, that does not feel good." But even as she said it, she smiled, which pretty soon turned into full on laughter.

"What's so funny?" he eventually had to ask.

"It's so ridiculously nice," she gasped, "to get hurt in a normal way. And the way happened to be me tripping over - you - and I fell, while we were dancing."

Tam still failed to see how that was funny, but he shrugged again and left her to laugh over whatever the heck was hilarious in her mind.

"Try again?" Glimmer asked when her laughter had subsided. She still sat on the floor, and Tam moved to sit next to her.

"Sorry, but I don't think so," Tam told her. "I don't need you injuring yourself even more." His eyes lingered on the scars that dotted her arms.

She caught the look and shivered. "Ugh, Tam. I don't need you treating me like I'm broken. I'm a normal person, you know."

"No, you're not." He meant it in the nicest way possible - it was what he liked about her. 

"What I meant is that I deserve to be treated with basic elven decency. I don't need to be handled delicately or something."