Our Last Dance [ONC 2021]

Chapter I ~ Year 17

18th Century Venice

New dress, new shoes, and a fabulous new hat later, I was walking through the small pathways of the city, politely nodding at the people I passed by.

This had been my seventeenth reincarnation, my seventeenth time dying and coming back to life. All the people I knew were probably gone now, or extremely old. It didn't bother me as much as it perhaps should, but after so many times, death just didn't seem to mean much anymore. I'd been very young when I first realised that caring about a dead person wouldn't make them alive again, it would only make you feel miserable.

It had been around the same time that I'd made my Triple-A-policy.

Acknowledge. Accept. Adapt.

Acknowledge you're alive, accept your current situation and adapt to it as fast as possible.

Especially that last part had become my area of expertise. It did no longer matter whether it was a different city or a different century, within a day, I seemed as if I truly belonged there. So, when I woke up that morning, in soaked clothes without any money on me, I wasn't panicked in the slightest.

'Oh, pardon my clumsiness, sir, I did not see you there,' I exclaimed in fluid Italian. The man I'd bumped into simply grumbled a response before continuing his way along the small pathway on the side of the canal. I quickened my pace a bit as I walked in the opposite direction.

'My money, it's gone! Stop the thieve!'

With that, I made a run for it.

There were many reasons why I loved Venice, but the maze within, built from streets and alleyways, must have been my all-time favourite. If you didn't know where you were going, they were easy to get lost in. A shame, were you to follow someone, a convenience, were you to be followed.

In the end, I couldn't see why the man had been making such a fuss. With the money he'd had on him, you could barely buy a book. Perhaps he'd had some sentimental attachment to the leather wallet he'd kept it in. Oh well, I thought, as I tossed it in the canal below me.

The waves made perfect circles in the calm water and I only noticed myself staring when a man standing on a gondola drifted past underneath the bridge.

Expecting to see some couple, I was surprised to see the boat loaded with masks. They were almost identical, ivory decorated with flowers of gold and lips coloured a deep shade of black. Omens of one of the most famous events of Europe.

'Pardon me, sir! Sir! How long until the Venetian Carnival?'

The man looked up at me with raised eyebrows. 'How long have you been sleeping? Only one more week, girl!'

I thanked him and took the money I had "collected" so far from my pockets. It seemed that it was time to go do some shopping.

~ ~ ~

Venice had never been a very special city. Yes, it had canals, but so did other cities. You could say that Venice had a certain beauty to it, but then again, so did other cities. But there was one thing that made Venice really worth living in. Six months a year, when whole of Europe couldn't keep their eyes of that city, when from all over the continent people traveled to admire the parades, to enjoy the entertainments, and to experience it all anonymously. The biggest masquerade of all, the Venetian Carnival.

There was nothing I didn't love about the Carnival: the extravagant gowns, the unfamiliar people, faces hidden underneath a simple mask, and the dancing, of course. Although it wasn't something preserved merely for the Carnival, it was one of my favourite parts of the celebration. Perhaps it was the mystery of dancing with a masked stranger, that had made me fall in love.

So I ran through the streets of Venice, buying costumes, masks, shoes, and feathers to adorn it all. Some lady in the street was so kind to "give" me her earrings, beautiful rubies caught in a golden frame, and some other women was willing to "lent" me her bracelet for the festivities.

Slowly, the city started transforming and a day before the start of the celebration, she finally seemed worthy of her title as Queen of the Adriatic.

And that was how on the evening of the opening, I left the place I'd been staying at, dressed in a red gown with golden embroidery, an equally red fan resting in my hand. I'd hidden my face underneath a mask not much unlike those I had seen lying in the gondola and as the crowds swallowed me, I thought to myself: there truly couldn't have been a better time to have come back alive.

~ ~ ~

The evening was still young, my feet didn't hurt much yet, and I would say I was rather sober when I met him. Well, when I truly met him, that is.

'Shouldn't you be standing over there, my dear, between all those dancing people?'

I looked at the man standing next to me. His hair was a mess, it was clear he had been dancing too. He was dressed in the standard costume: a cape flung over his shoulders, a feather adorning his hat. Only his shoes were different, replaced with a pair without shoe buckles that seemed much more comfortable.

'Wouldn't I look rather out of place, sir, standing alone, between all those dancing couples? I couldn't possibly make a fool out of myself like that, could I? Unless of course there were to be a man here, wishing to dance with me.'

I made eye contact with him as I raised a glass of wine to my lips, but before I could take a sip, he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the moving crowd.

'Something like this, my dear?'

And then we were dancing.

A blush crept up on my face and I was once again glad I was wearing a mask. It's fine, I convinced myself, it's the Venetian Carnival, nobody will judge you here for dancing with a stranger. So I danced, and I danced and at one moment I lost a shoe, but I simply threw away the other one and I kept dancing, and my fan had lost all its feathers, but I couldn't seem to care, and my earrings had come lose and were probably trampled by a hundred feet by now, but none of it mattered.

None of it mattered as long as I kept dancing. Morning wasn't here yet; I would have enough time to think about those things another time. For now, I just wanted to stay enchanted by him, because wasn't that what the carnival was all about?

He had put much less effort in hiding his face as I had. His mask had the shape of a cat, with golden ears standing out a bit above his head. Cute, I thought.

I made a small pirouette, still holding his hand above my head. Everything seemed so magical: the complex melodies, the masked people, the easiness with which I'd started my newest life. I closed my eyes as the stranger led the way and my limbs seemed to move on their own.

'So, it is you.'

I opened my eyes. The stranger had let go of my hand and now stood a few steps back. In his hand, he was holding my mask. A wide grin was spread on his face.

'Well? Am I right?'

'Sorry, but who am I supposed to be?'

'The girl that stole my money the other day. Of course, I don't care about the money, I have enough of that. What I want to know is where you left the wallet. Family heirloom and all of that, you know, it kind of had some value to me.' He looked at me expectantly. 'Well?'

'I have absolutely no clue. What you. Are talking about.' As I was talking, I tried to grab my mask from him, but he was taller than me, by a lot, so it was of no use.

Yet another important life lesson I'd had to learn: act. If all fails, at least pretend you're confident in what you're doing.

Sadly enough, acting is all about making someone believe something and it was obvious that he was not buying it.

'I think this would have been our last dance, sir,' I declared. 'Good night.'

I didn't care that by now, it was almost morning again.

'But we had so much fun, my dear.' His grin refused to leave his face, as my mask was still dangling in one of his hands. 'Well, truly a shame that we haven't had a proper last dance. I have had the most wonderful evening and for that I will give you a head start of exactly five seconds. Four. Three...'

And with that, I made a run for it.