Dance Dance Evocation

Dorvauldar Marsh Training Grounds

The butt of the javelin hit the ground with a juicy squash. Leaning into the spear itself was Balthier, as he watched his students gather before him.

“Are you sure this’ll work?”

Lavian, often the most courageous of squires, was now reduced to a mass of uncertainty as she felt Balthier’s judging gaze burn into her.

“Of course it will,” he then replied. His voice honeyed, his smile all charms as he looked over the three Summoners, lined up on the edge of the pond. He stood to his knees in the murky waters, cradling the javelin with one hand as he thoughtfully stroked his chin with the other. “I have a fair idea whom we might meet in the Terminus of the Midlight’s Deep, and if my assumptions are correct, we will need several Summoners at the ready.”

Alicia shuffled her feet.

“I get that,” Lavian promptly sneered, “but how would dancing fit into this?”

Balthier’s grin flashed like a bolt of lightning of which the Thunder God himself could be jealous – though for some reason said Thunder God was at the edge of the marshlands practicing his vocal chords.

“You could ask Bathsua, she knows all about dancing her way through magic lessons – don’t you, Bathsua?”

I felt his mischievous gaze and the lightning grin set itself on me, waiting for a response.

Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you drag me into this, you—

Dancing Knight

Before my glare, or the words hanging for dear life on the tip of my tongue, could do any considerable damage to Balthier’s ego, a new arrival quelled the tension in the marshes. Both Alicia and Lavian looked up and immediately greeted their commander. Agrias, for her part, pretended that her presence in this group was as natural as the stench from the bogs in these marshlands.

“And there is our final student,” Balthier announced. “Ready for your first Summoning lesson?”

Summoning? Hadn’t Agrias already learned enough to summon the likes of Odin? Why was she here, if not for—?

As the tremor of the javelin rippled through the pond, onto to dry land and gendly tugged at our dancing feet in the rhythm that Balthier set for us, I realised why Agrias was so adamant on joining our summoning class and I would bet my last gil it had something to do with a certain pony-tailed machinist.