Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ataya frowned as his sister tugged at him, his temper still high and plenty resting on the tip of his tongue, ready to spit out. But then, part of him knew Akara was right. Knew it wasn’t worth it. Knew that both of them deserved a better night than one ruined by a single spiteful stranger. Thus, he grit his teeth, still stiff, but more or less cooperative as his sister guided him along. He was still internally grumbling when they reached the platform of fire dancers.

The ease with which his mind moved from peeving irritation over the words of a middle-aged woman to complete and absolute focus on the glistening, bare and well-muscled midriffs of male firani dancers was enough to make him do a double-take. But not enough, apparently, to redirect his focus anywhere else.

“I, ah…”

His gaze flit down, and up, and down, observing the way the movement of their attire seemed only to accentuate the patterns and rhythms of the dance. Their bodies moved fluidly with the flames as though they were dancing both with it and each other, and their scales caught the firelight as they moved, like individual embers of their own.

“Mmm.” Ataya blinked, frowning as it registered that his sister had actually said something. Without actually looking away, he attempted to mentally backtrack. Nesrinn, Nesrinn, Nes— “Oh, it, um…” He glanced to her just long enough to catch the direction she indicated and then focussed on the dancer in question. Irritation heated his ears, and he pursed his lips, rubbing at the tips of them as said ‘irritation’ climbed frustratingly low, serving only to add to a now pre-existing problem. “I couldn’t say…was he actually attractive last we saw him or did I just miss that…?”

Ataya frowned — not at his sister’s words in particular, but at the concept. It wasn’t that his body hadn’t briefly shown fleeting spurts of interest in the male physique; it had. But for the great majority of the time, his attraction had focused itself on young women, and he had never really even considered…

His eyes skimmed the men on stage, the heat already prominent in his face and gut welling up into his throat as well and burning all the brighter elsewhere. His mind, meanwhile, happily provided another full slew of mental images which did nothing to help his situation. He folded his arms. Father, he thought, will be thrilled.

‘Perhaps I might finally play the role of the second daughter he always wanted after all.’

Sneering, he jerked his gaze down and off-stage.

It didn’t matter anyway. Not really. No one was attracted to him, and that minor dilemma tended to eliminate both sexes from the possible drawing pool regardless. If only he had been born with his uncle Lithian’s devotion to the gods and desire to be a priest. Lip curling back, he curbed the urge to spit, and pushed his lips into a thin line instead.

Perhaps a talk with his uncle, though, was in order, even if a path to voluntary celibacy was not one he saw in his future.

Ataya blinked, pulled out of his roaming frustrations by Nesrinn’s approach, and despite his best intentions, his attention to detail took full advantage of the closer view. When Nesrinn’s words registered, his gaze darted up.

“Ah, the…show. Yes. It was a highly stimulating—” His brow pinched, “—stupendous performance. Very revealing. Most enjoyable.” Then, before he could curb the words: “Are you not cold in that outfit?”

“Yes,” Ataya blurted, answering almost before Nesrinn finished talking. “Something alcoholic sounds fantastic.”

Not that he had ever actually tasted a drop of an intoxicating substance before, or had any idea what the real effect would be or what they tasted like. But it seemed to him, from what little he did know of such things, that now simply ‘felt’ like the appropriate sort of time. So it was that, when his sister also spoke out in the affirmative, Nesrinn drew them aside, providing funding for two large festival drinks. Something “fruity” and something “sweet” at the request of the twins, Akara and Ataya respectively.

Ataya’s was definitely sweet. Sweet and chilled, and rich in a flavor that did not manage to mask the inherent something else to it — a sharp bite of sensation — that he assumed must be the alcoholic component. He hummed as he drank, several small, testing sips at first, proceeded by a handful of larger gulps. He wasn’t entirely sure he appreciated the taste of alcohol. In fact, he was fairly sure he disliked it, but at least the other flavors were fairly strong, and when he drank quickly, the alcohol’s flavor had little time to settle.

Before making it halfway through his glass, Ataya noted a strange melting warmth in his gut. As though something hot and viscous — like well-heated honey — was being dribbled down his throat and into his belly. A sound bubbled up in his throat, and he swallowed it down, though the corners of his lips still edged up. With the sensation came a foreign giddiness. An building desire to laugh at something, anything, and he hummed amusedly before proceeding to work through the rest of his glass.

“Sister…” Ataya’s smile curved as he caught at her shoulder, propping a fraction more weight there than necessary as he leaned in, “…what does yours taste like? And you—” His gaze flit to Nesrinn, eyeing him from over his sister’s shoulder, “—what ever inspired you to learn dancing of all things, is there more of this?”

Ataya frowned, huffing at the suggestion of restraint and holding off to ‘sober up.’ He’d only had one drink, and he wasn’t a child. Even the lightest drinker in the world surely wouldn’t be impaired after a single pass, and besides, who was Nesrinn to tell him what he could or could not do? He opted not to say anything, though. It wasn’t as though he needed the other’s permission or coin. The boy hadn’t even answered his question, clearly evincing no desire to actually interact with him.

Abruptly irritable, Ataya pushed away from his sister and her company. “Very well,” he quipped. “I’ll leave you two to entertain each other until your next dance begins. I’ll…return when I please. Do see to it that my sister gets herself into no trouble.” Without waiting for Akara’s almost inevitable objection, Ataya turned on his heel and started out into the crowd.

Part of him was well aware that his fluctuating moods were irrational on some level. Unfair, even, when his sister seemed so happy, and that he ought to stick around to look after her. But then, she was as old as he was — older, by a matter of forty minutes or so — and as shallowly impaired as he was. Both of them were fine, and inside he felt…

Mottled. Convoluted. Frustrated, and confused. One minute warm and prepared to laugh at anything, and the next roiling with conflicting emotions that ate on each other, gouging into one another and shredding his mental conscious like rabid canines competing for territory. Once fully out of sight of his sister and Nesrinn, Ataya purchased something promised to be fiercely alcoholic because he could and it wasn’t Nesrinn’s place to tell him not to.

It tasted like death.

Ataya nearly spit half of it up in his first attempt to drink, grimaced, and retreated well out of sight of the crowds. Down, down the streets, between groaning buildings and over cobblestone paths into, finally, an alley of near absolute inactivity. There, he glowered at his purchase. Away from the festivities, his chosen nook was quiet, disturbed only by the now-distant, muffled sounds of the festival and the breezes that made their way down the streets. It was blue-black with night and shadow, contrasted sharply by the white light of the moon falling on the stones before his boots, and he leaned his back to the brick, ignoring the way it caught at his hair.

What was he even doing here?

After sinking to a crouch and propping himself back against the wall, he began the slow, painful process of trying to down at least some of whatever it was he’d bought. Out of spite. And because he’d paid for it. It seemed a waste not to. It wasn’t entirely clear in his view whether the moon was mocking him or goading him on.

It mattered little, he supposed.