["fifty ways to kiss someone. send me a 💏 and I will randomise a number in order for my muse to kiss yours. No 18: a kiss of encouragement."
This story was based off of this prompt and is a short story. It has a few inconsistencies because it is a small scene inside a larger plot line, so please forgive me.
Also, most love stories I write are in first person POV. I don't specify the speaker's gender deliberately and it is left up to you to decide that :)]
The king was impatient.
His anger seemed to flood the rooms and the walls and the carpets, and with every scramble of a frantic minister, the dancers only seemed to tense.
It was unfair. But then a lot of things were. With a roof above their head and food; with bodies that went untouched by greedy hands, they were living in privilege unknown to so many. So, although their hands shook as they colored their lips, and quivering fingers smeared their eyes black, they didn't cry.
I watched, sitting in the corner with a basket of fruits and a knife, the sad parade of colors, occasionally orchestrated by the gentle ring anklets, and was thinking about how it was becoming a frequent. The parties went from once a month to twice a week and the noise that once was happy, rung in all our ears like a moth that flits around the diyas as if asking to be set aflame.
With the parties came the dances and their feet no longer moved with the joy they did before. It was always the same song, the men too drunk to notice, it was always the same movements, the same smiles, the night rotting in the alcohol and boisterous laughter, and art that lost respect.
Aruna was seated, already dressed, alone at her designated seat. Her palms were sweaty and her gaze shifted around the room in a panic I wasn't foreign to, but was still worried about. She looked up at me and I smiled at her. She wrung her hands, lower lip jutting out slightly in worry but she still returned it.
I placed the knife aside, and got up, setting the basket down beside the chair. She stood up when I did and the two of us made our way to the back of the room. It was less crowded, save a few musty chairs and the tarp carelessly thrown on them. Moving as fast as she could in her costume, she walked around them to cross the room and only stopped when she had her hand firmly placed in mine.
It was an anxious grip.
I'd seen the same strain on the brushes she painted her face with and on her costume as she adjusted it when she had sat down. It was unfamiliar on my hand. I didn't know trembling fingers and sweaty palms; hands that seemed unsure of what they were doing and where they would go. Everything she did, she did with the surety of a goddess' statue -- the firm, unwavering hold on her weapon, confident about landing every hit.
"I think we both know what I fear," she began, looking down at her feet "But what I'm most afraid of is being unable to do anything about it."
"No, I don't know what you fear." I said, and she looked up at me. "I don't have the slightest clue." I added.
"You do! You know very well! I..." she paused, dropping her free and letting it fidget with her costume "I don't...want to talk about it."
"And that is the problem," I said "When we find ourselves hesistant to give fear a name, it becomes a vagabond, homeless, unafraid of the law and of God. We give it the freedom to do whatever it wants to us."
"I am afraid the King will hurt us." Aruna said, suddenly and defensive "If anything happened to me, I would be able to recover, but the girls, I am afraid for the girls. I'm afraid for you."
I took both her hands into mine, "And how does that make you feel?"
"I don't think this is funny at all," she said "I am afraid! It's making me afraid!"
"That, I don't think, is true."
She opened her mouth to retaliate, but the door slammed open, cutting her short. It was the minister, frenzied and anxious.
"The King is growing impatient!" He yelled.
The King had been upset for an hour now, but that wouldn't make the dancers prepared any sooner. It took them two hours to get dressed and this time he had given them barely thirty minutes. The flowers hadn't arrived and neither had their jewelry; it would take much longer before they did.
The dancers shifted uncomfortably and the younger ones scampered away from the door. Aruna tightened her grip.
Their teacher stood up, "Can no one else entertain the King?" she asked, readjusting her hold on her walking stick "The dancers are still getting dressed. Hurrying them will be fatal to their performance."
The minister screamed, "Why does any of that matter, woman? Do you think you are above the King, do you think it is okay to question his motives? We do as he says and now, he wants the dancers!"
Aruna let go of my hands "I do not think it is appropriate of you to speak like that to her!" She turned to face him and stepped ahead, "She is a teacher and older and what you are doing is extremely disrespectful!"
The air in the room tightened with tension and the minister's face grew visibly angry. "I," he began, irritated and insulted "Have a lot I want to say to you. But, I have been taught that when time is of the essence, one does not pick fights with angry dogs."
"Hurry up and present yourselves in the ballroom as soon as possible." He said and turned, leaving us alone.
Aruna turned to face me. Her hands found mine instinctively, but they didn't shake anymore.
"Is it fear, Aruna? Are you sure it is fear that you feel?"
"It's anger." She said "And I think I know what to do about it."
She unpinned her hair and let it tumble onto the her shoulders. She smoothed her costume down.
I placed a hand on her cheek and kissed her. She smiled at me.
Making her way around the chairs, she strode to the door and the other dancers gasped. One of them left the mirror's side, "Aruna, what- where are you going?"
"To dance."
