@brightflight
Long past the witching hour and the place was hopping. Somebody’d brought out an instrument almost like a lute but not – she’d been told it was called agitar, or a guitarra, or something like – and someone else was blowing a rhythm on an empty clay jug. Everywhere in the Hanged Man, folks were dancing, which made a pretty sort of counterpoint to the usual fights. Didn’t look all that different from the outside, she supposed, except there was a little less blood involved and a little more laughing.
And someone – not Hawke, that was for damned sure; nobody needed to hear that – was singing, too.
She laughed as she spun from hand to hand, from set of arms to set of arms, the room whirling dizzily around her and her short hair flying out like a banner around her head. At the end of the long twirl and whirl, she tripped, maybe intentionally and maybe not, into the lap of the pretty dark haired lady in red sitting at a table by the wall.
Planting a laughing kiss on the corner of the stranger’s mouth, Hawke said, tugging at her hands, “Come on, come and dance!”
She’d been perfectly content to watch the goings-on without feeling the need to join in - it was safer to blend in to the background than to stand out, and she’d been doing a fine job of it thus far...until the music grew louder and the gathered patrons started feeling the ale that flowed freely from the taps. Then it was a matter of sinking back into the shadows, pretending to be part of the woodwork as dancer after dancer spun past her with quickening steps.
Despite her reticence, her gaze was repeatedly pulled toward one dancer in particular: the laughing woman with bright eyes and sharp smile, feet moving with deceptive grace through complicated steps as she was turned this way and that. There was something about her, something that drew the eye and caught the imagination, and Ruby found herself unable to look away, her reserved demeanor undermined by this fair-faced whirlwind.
The sudden shift in motion followed by the ‘accidental’ fumble in step found Ruby with an armful of warm, breathless woman, and hazel eyes widened in shock as soft lips caught hers in a kiss so fleeting she barely had time to react before it passed.
“I...” Words were cut off abruptly as she was tugged to her feet without option to decline (not that she would have passed up the chance for a reprise of that quicksilver kiss...) she was pulled along into the reel, her own steps hesitant where the woman’s led with confident ease, a smile growing ever-wider as she followed along.
“Is every night like this?” Her question was broken by huffs of air, the staccato steps and rapid twirls robbing her of breath as she pressed against her dance partner for a moment, lips brushing against the woman’s jawline.before moving to rest against the delicate shell of her ear. “I really need to get out more.”