"Ooh," says the girl, and she gives him an apron to scrub.

Ma'ar takes the apron and scrubs. 

When they've finished everything assigned to her and hung it up to dry in the backyard she runs back to the square and teaches him one of the basic line dances.

Ma'ar is very attentive to the lesson and is reasonably quick at picking up physical skills. His dancing posture does have a tendency to keep slipping back into a martial arts fighting stance, but he usually catches himself within a few seconds. 

"Haha, wow, you're supposed to spin me, not deck me," she says, the first time he does this.

"Sorry!" He flinches and steps back, startling a bit. "I'll - er, I won't do it again." 

"Mm-hm, okay, try it again from the three-beat -"

"- Er, right." 

And Ma'ar takes a deep breath, lets it out, deliberately relaxes, and tries to start again at the three-beat while holding, hard, onto the affect/attitude that they are safe and he is not in danger and he is having FUN right now. 

And presently he will know the dance! "There! You're pretty good at this!"

"Really?" Ma'ar, still holding her hands from the dance, takes a quarter-step back. "I - really never felt before like I was good enough."

"I mean, you just started and you aren't forgetting steps or breathing really hard or falling into the river."

"- Goodness, did someone try to learn this and then fall in the river?"

Ma'ar is still looking into her eyes. 

"I'm exaggerating," she laughs.

Ma'ar laughs back, and keeps his grip on her hands, and his smile at her on his face, and he tries to continue following her lead even though he is SO CONFUSED and feels very out of place and - possibly out of context from the entire world she grew up in...

"All right, you'll do fine at the actual dance with the whole line," she says a minute later, "let's not wear you out for it, 'kay?"

"....Okay, er, thank you for teaching me." 

Ma'ar steps back, releasing her hands, and waits. 

She twirls back over to her mother to help her carry the rest of the laundry home.

Ma'ar considers offering to help them, but at this point it feels like it might be Drawing Attention to himself, so instead he just smiles and waves, and waits for the rest of the interested-in-dancing locals to show up. 

They pile in, some twenty-five people, and form lines and start in on the dance he learned, with him on the boys' side opposite his new friend.

That's so many people! And they're expecting him to do a complicated thing right! 

...But it's not that complicated, Ma'ar reminds himself, and he just learned all the details, and he just needs to keep reminding himself not to hold himself in a stance appropriate for fighting rather than dancing. 

And he does the right moves along with the other villagers, and occasionally glances over at his friend and smiles. 

She smiles back, and twirls around, and skips along to the next person.

They do a different dance next, though.

Ma'ar is definitely not going to be able to manage this dance without fumbling and inconveniencing his neighbours a lot! He steps back, making apologetic faces at the people on either side of him in the line, and watches closely to see if he can pick up the moves for the new dance fast enough to rejoin. 

It's not complicated - it's not even that different from the last dance, if he watches closely enough.

Oh, good! 

Once he's pretty sure he can manage it without causing any disasters, Ma'ar steps in closer again and makes eye contact with the nearest dancers, watching for an opportunity to rejoin. 

He can slip right in.