xp_logs | Danielle and Manuel - Fancy Dancing (Reply)

set before this log with Forge, Dani and Manuel dance the light fantatic...or at least do their best whale and whiteman impersonations.

Manuel watched the next swirl of dancers go about their business, and then nodded to himself as he finally got the rhythm down. It was complex, but he'd been here for hours, sipping on what the Americans laughingly referred to as beer and studying the Indian - no, Native American dances.

Indians were from India.

He spotted Danielle in the crowd, and waved to her. He didn't want to raise his voice over the chanting and the noise of the crowd, so he risked a quick low-level empathic flash - the "I'm over here!" feeling
that had worked so well with Amanda.

Dani's eyebrows quirked as she turned and headed towards Manuel instead of the seat she'd reserved. It'd keep. She'd kept the inhibitor low for the day, which allowed her to feel Manuel if he let her and keep the swirl of emotions around her to a dull roar. Although, despite there being hundreds of people watching the dances the emotions were fairly stable. "Hey," she said waving, careful to keep her shawl on. It was the only part of her Powwow dress that still fit.

Manuel scooted over a little to make some more room for her. "Hey." he said, once he was reasonably sure she'd hear him. "Interesting dances, these. Do you know the steps?" he asked curiously. "Because if you do, and you're feeling physically up for it..." he grinned.

Dani looked up at the screen displaying the current dance, "No...I don't know this one," she told him, sitting down, "I did the Gourd dance mostly. It's coming up though," Dani shifted, fixing her shawl, "So what do you think?"

"It has been interesting." he said with a pensive look. "Some of the artwork is quite nice, and it seems that most are not quite so, err, strident about Spaniards as you were." he laughed. "Just to be safe, though, I am not advertising my heritage. This isn't about mine, this is about yours. And the reason I asked about the dances - I think I've picked up the steps. Want to go shock a few conservatives?"

"No one really cares. I mean...you saw the Grand Entry, we raised the American flag and sang the national anthem. My grandfather fought in the Korean War," Dani tried to explain, she wasn't anti-America, she was anti-white superiorness, although there was a fine line between them sometimes. "You wanna dance?" she repeated, somewhat skeptical, "Sure, lead on Grey Owl."

"Grey Owl?" Manuel said with a laugh, standing up and offering his hand to Dani as well. "What _is_ it with different cultures insisting on giving me new names? I kind of liked Magni Red-Eyes, but Grey Owl?
What's up with that?" he asked, betraying his recent massive exposure to bad late-night television.

Laughing at Manuel, Dani pushed a braid back behind her shoulders before answering, "Grey Owl was this Ojibwe environmentalist in Canada in the 1930's or so. He wrote a book and it was THE thing to read. Well, it turned out, he was a white man from England who had been adopted into the Ojibwe tribe. After people found out, no one cared about what he had to say anymore."

Manuel had to pause he was laughing so hard. "Oh, that's priceless." he wheezed out around laughs. "I should get a copy for myself. At least you're not hitting me with that name."

"Pierce Brosnan played him in the movie," she added, adding insult to injury, "I was surprised he didn't suck."

"Who?" Manuel asked with amusement as he finally pulled himself together. "Name doesn't ring any bells, but that's not a surprise. You sure you're up for this? I don't mean to be rude, but you are a little
... ungainly ... right now. And this is important to you, I can feel it."

Eyes narrowed, Dani turned glaring at him, arms akimbo, "Ungainly?" she repeated, "You would be too if you were seven months pregnant! You asked me to dance, now are you ashamed to be seen with me!?"

Manuel tried not to grit his teeth. "I was trying to give you a way to back out gracefully with no loss of face if you decided that you were too awkward to dance." he explained. "If you think you're up for it,
then yes, let's dance." he said, extending his hand for her to take if she was so inclined.

Taking his hand, she still glared at him, "I wouldn't've said 'yes' if I didn't want to, Manuel."

"Women change their mind at a whim." he said unkindly. What he left unsaid is that pregnant women were doubly as bad that way. "So - assuming that they'll let a Spaniard like me take part - where do we go to do this?" he asked her as he looked around. "I'm not about to scan this crowd.

Dani looked at him as if he were crazy, still half dragging him through the crowd, "They'll let anyone dance who wants to, over in the center. See the other people?"

Manuel looked towards where Dani had indicated. "I guess that's what you could call that." he said with a chuckle. "Come on, Danielle, let's show these people how it's done." he grinned, and then quickened
his pace to get to the dancing area - almost practically dragging Dani along behind him.