Then he can dance!

It's starting to feel like a lot happening at once, and Ma'ar finds himself needing to exert more effort not to keep falling back into a fighting stance and scanning his surroundings for danger, but for the most part he manages to stay relaxed. And it's...actually pretty fun? 

No one attempts to murder him during the line dance.

When it gets dark the crowd thins out over the course of one last dance and people head home.

Ma'ar waves to the girl who he befriended and calls out to thank her for teaching him to dance, before heading bridgeward. 

"Anytime!" she says, waving back.

The bridge and a little more walking sees him back at Charl's house.

Ma'ar lets himself in. "- Azabel? I'm back." 

"Oh, how'd it go?"

"I think it went well! I had a good time. I think I did all right at dancing. Except that I have to keep remembering not to move like I'm fighting." 

He demonstrates one of the dance steps in the corner of the room. 

"Very nice. Do you practice fighting a lot, or get into scrapes in your spare time that I don't notice, that it's your first instinct there -"

"I haven't gotten into any scrapes since that stupid fight years ago! I don't even spend much time actually sparring, and I guess I don't practice fighting without magic really at all, I just... I think the instincts go back further than that." Shrug. "And I don't have any practice at, hmm, at moving my body just to have fun and look pretty." 

"Well, there are dances pretty often, if that's something you want to practice."

"Just here, or back at the Tower? ...I guess there are almost certainly dances somewhere around the Tower, it's so big." 

"I wouldn't know, I meant here. There probably are some there too though."

Nod. "I think I will go back again, while we're here. Is it every night?" 

"Unless it's raining or icy or everybody has the flu, yeah."

"Mmm. - Anyway, did I miss supper?" 

"We ate but yours is still warm." She serves him a plate of fish and squash.

He thanks her and sits down to eat it. 

She sits with him and eats an apple. "I'm glad you had fun at the dance."

"Thank you! I think I might've even made friends with someone, sort of." 

"Oh, who?"

"She said her name was Eliana?" 

"I don't know her that well."

"Well, she was pretty friendly to me. She wanted to teach me, but her mother said she had to do her laundry first, so I helped. She teased me a bit about looking like I was going to punch her, and made a joke about how I was doing well because I hadn't fallen in the river while trying to practice - I didn't realize it was a joke, at first, but I don't think she minded..." 

Ma'ar recounts a bit more about their interactions. "- I think she thought I was nice and not weird and scary?" 

"Sounds like it, though falling in the river could've been a dig at me."

"...Oh. That'd be - sort of rude of her?"