Started: June 22, 2011
Completed: July 6, 2011
Posted to FF.n: October 7, 2012
Author's Note: Title is a reference to the FFXII fic, "Through the Sands to You." Music for consideration: Sade's Forget Me Nots and Soldier of Love. This was originally written for this prompt on the kink meme: Joshua/Tethys-Jehannan natives, mating/marriage rituals of some sort?
There is one thing Tethys did not tell Gerik: she knew how to dance long before she met her dancer. Well, one dance at least; but this is something she will never tell an outsider. And despite her love for her Chief, there are still secrets she will keep within memories of sand, sweat, and burnt feet.
She started learning it young, as all Jehannan children do. But it is a private thing, practiced in secret away from curious eyes, that one does not show others. It's a life's work, a series of steps growing from childhood until death, and perhaps, if one is blessed by the moon and stars, one will be lucky enough to find their life's partner while dancing as well.
But she left Jehanna young to follow the money, she had had a brother to raise after all. And with Ewan growing up with a sage in the thin mountain air, and not hot sand beneath the soles of his feet, he has not learned to dance, and he never will.
Perhaps it is this longing which makes her teach Artur to dance. Perhaps, it is also his resemblance to the sweetheart that she'd wished to dance this private thing with, in hopes their hearts would beat in time, their blood quicken, and their sweat would mingling as their bodies bent to the music that only they could hear. But such things, once attainable, are now only part of distant dreams now that she travels with the Chief.
By the time the Chief joins the errant price and princess of Renais, she has set aside hopes of dancing across red sands and capturing her lover; such things are now gossamer dreams to her. In these dreams, she has learned all she should have as a daughter of Jehanna, all the secrets, the rites, and words, but all she has is a hope for love and destiny.
She passes her birthday with the company, clearing out monsters in Jehanna. She does as she always has for her birthday. In the dark of night, she charms her way past the night watch and goes to dance. She has not danced here in so long. The sand finding its way into her slippers, while distracting, is familiar and fills her with longing.
She listens closely to the shifting dunes, the faint scuttle of animals, feels the pulse of starlight and begins to move. Even her rustling clothing she tries to keep in rhythm with the desert song.
Time speeds and slows like the pulled taffy Ewan loves so much. There is only her, the music, and the wilderness distinct to her homeland that no country could ever imitate or hope to understand.
The beat changes so she changes with it, but something is different. She looks and there is the red-headed mercenary that had given Gerik pause with his coin flipping. She will not stop her dancing for a stranger, despite the pause it gives her; her chest still beats with the tempo, the muscle between her shoulders clenching.
He smiles, and places a foot between hers. She reacts, he follows. His fingers ripple, her belly undulates in waves. She might not have learned all she should have, but she thinks she will do just fine with this man.
Their dance is a slow burn that draws them closer to each other until her chest heaves and she can smell the sweat on his skin.
His fingertips touch her hair. "Your hair, gazelle, is red like the sands. You and I are lucky." His smile is full of teeth, white against the darkness. The endearment is one she has not heard in many years; she has grown accustomed to the outsider's speech. "I flipped a coin, you see," he continues, "and I thought that if it flipped heads, I would go out and see what you do out here. Do I need to flip my coin again to know if - "
She covers his mouth with hers. Their dance becomes a much subtler one; a slight rock, the grazing of fingertips.
"We dance on red sands." She replies with a grin. "And as you said, we are both lucky." She hooks her ankles at the small of his back and grabs his long hair with both hands. "I don't think you need your silly coin to know this."
She rolls her hips against his, their hair spilling into one another's as they gasp for breath and the red sand slips into their clothes. They make love with the starlight and desert as their witness, a secret to no one who knows this space of heart that is Jehanna.