JESTER ASKS : sender briefly lifts the receiver up in the air while spinning during a dance together.
dancing with @chaoshe hadn’t been exactly . . . planned . but jester is a good dancer , a good partner , and so different from the two other partners that she’d been so accustomed to for so long , though both in memory more than anything else . bren is gone forever and asking to dance with wulf would open the shared wound of bren’s absence even more than they usually endure . but astrid has always liked to dance — the little girl in blumenthal standing on her father’s feet — the teenager in rexxentrum bouncing between her two partners or watching them dance together , or the three of them attempting some approximation of the dance with three bodies with more laughter than sense — and now a grown woman , her only dances since her teenage years being for assignments , or when caleb ( not bren , she has to remind herself , caleb ) had wanted something impossible to get without insider help .
but jester is not her boys , whatever of her boys remains now . and jester is a good dancer too — differently trained than what astrid is familiar with , but talented nonetheless , and enthusiastic in a way that astrid isn’t certain that she’s ever been , enthusiasm that encourages , endorses spontaneity .
and speaking to spontaneity , mid - spin jester’s arms tighten around her waist , both taking the lead and lifting astrid off of the ground for the rest of the turn . her hands quickly find jester’s shoulders to support them both as she goes up , surprise evident in dark eyes even as her body knows what to do . jester is both smaller and stronger than her — though perhaps that follows logic , as rarely as jester ever does something like that .
when astrid’s feet find the wooden floor again , she lets jester keep the lead — lets jester take control of the dance for a little while longer , as she can’t help but to laugh , surprise and a hint of delight coloring her tone .
