'Her feet ne'er still;
Move o'er water like meadow grass.
A wraith in sil'ered light,
Lost to all but the soul that sings her tune.'
***********************************

He couldn't remember exactly when he'd been drawn outside to the herb garden but he was glad he'd done so. The song that had been inside his blood, taunting, teasing, shifting him along even without his knowledge of it.

Yet when he'd seen her, he'd thought it had been a dream, yet his sodden feet were proof that it was true.

She came in sleep, always; as if awake she'd never be able to feel the truth of her steps. The grace she found so easy in the darkness would be lost in the day if she tried to repeat the movements of her heart.

Every night he watched her, safely from the ivy wall, where if she woke by some misplaced step she wouldn't see him. Only he would know, and he wouldn't tell anyone about her dancing, about her movements through his soul.

Some days she was all grace, a swan flying over the ground, her feet never touching the earth for what seemed like moments. Others she would be rooted still but her arms would sway in the breezes only she could feel, but still he watched her, soothed her with his attention, his vigil at her night-side.

In the day she'd be normal Marie, laughing, happy, always there with a smile or a touch for him. Never wondering why he didn't sleep so well anymore, when it was her who kept him from his bed, lost in her world of movement and grace.

So here he was again, this time he was ready, ready to move into her world, to touch her, to hold her, to dance the steps she wound across the frost laden grass.
Slow, so slow like the turn of the stars above he circled her, watching as her movements grew more frantic, more heated the closer he got to her body. Seeing the flesh of her arms goose as she passed an inch away, his own hands tightening as he stopped his need to just grab her and run.
Positioned he mirrored her movement, flowing with her in this dance, studied for so long he knew her moves; the next dip, the turn and her sway-backed step. Guiding himself into her warmth, touch so light she never felt him but sensed the warmth instead.

Eyes that had never seen before opened to watch the stars wheel and spin as she shifted around his form, weaving herself through, around, under and within the man that had held her still for too long. She was *free* here, in this place, this moment of darkness, of utter surrender where nothing mattered but the dance. Partnered at last her face did not smile with joy, it only saw what was real, a man drawn to beauty that he didn't understand or question. Eyes locked on his she drew him with her, along the lines of pattern, through thought and into desire; where fire's built are burned high and strong. In this dance there would be no surrender, no ground or quarter given.

All or nothing was it's tale.

When light's first fingers fell on the herb garden there was naught to see but the trails they'd made in the frost. A pattern wondered about for days as the grass refused to grow again where they'd trodden together, as if their path was one no-one else dare copy for fear of godly wrath.

After too long he'd found his muse, mute and quiet in darkness, her movements soft and harsh and encompassing all in their expression. Freed from the constraints he'd put upon himself, they'd gone to dance their own tune, out on the road of stars.