Eight Intertwined

19 - Dancer

Even during the hours of daylight, Sunshade was scarcely a place that people wanted to visit. Everything about the town screamed that there was something wrong, a little hint at something uncanny that lurked in the shadows. It came in the alluring sway of the dancers' hips as they performed the show of their own survival, the voices of the men who pretended to be decent before slipping into something disgusting when night fell, and the shifting eyes of the merchants who deliberately turned their gazes away from Sunshade and its secrets. Everyone could pick up on it, but scarcely anyone had the pride or confidence to voice it. 

Nighttime brought with it all sorts of extra challenges though. The truth of Sunshade's brutality became all too clear, and it was notable why there were no children within the town. The underground excuse of a society was mysterious at best and terrifying at worse, and Primrose was glad that there were no young children forced to endure the brutality of the town. The youngest occupants of the town were often the dancers, and Primrose chose to avert her eyes from such a fact to keep from wanting to kill Helgenish all over again. 

That was why it caught her by surprise when she encountered a young girl outside of the dormitory where she and the other dancers lived. Her hand was about to grace the knob when she saw the young girl spinning around proudly for an older man who was likely her father. They held themselves with such pride and wore clothes that were far from being customary in the Sunlands, making it loud and clear to Primrose that they were visitors for the night rather than official occupants of the town. She knew that was for the best, as she wouldn't wish Sunshade's horrors on anyone. 

"Papa! Papa! I'm going to be in a play!" the little girl chirped, her light brown ponytail swinging back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm exclusive to the joys of childhood. "I will be the beautiful princess, and everyone will look at me! You'll come and watch too, won't you?"

"Of course, my dear," the man replied, approaching his daughter and placing one hand on her shoulder. He smiled as laughter burst free of his daughter's lips. She was barely able to contain her excitement, and the pride on his face was precious when it appeared beside the young girl's joy. 

"Many thanks, m'lord!" the girl said, bowing her head deeply before sweeping back up to her normal height, the actions all poetry in motion. She started laughing again after she dropped the mask of her act. "How was that?" The man opened his mouth to respond, but the young girl prattled on without even waiting for an answer. "And guess what, Papa? When I grow up, I'm going to be a beautiful dancing girl--the star of the stage!"

Primrose did her best to hide the way that her shoulders knotted themselves with tension at those words. She had once danced before her father after being taught a particularly difficult move. Primrose's mother had taught her father before she passed away many years ago, and he took it upon himself to pass the movement onto his daughter. She could still remember the way that he had beamed down at her as Primrose declared in her youthful naivete that she would come to be the star of every show. Geoffrey had simply smiled, unaware as to the true brutality that such a title could bring to her. Primrose had certainly fulfilled her promise, but it was far from being in the way that she would have liked. Helgenish was not the one who she wanted to dance for each night. Even if the performances were for her father, Helgenish was the one benefitting from her shows, and she detested him for it with every bone in her body. 

When Primrose managed to drag herself back to reality, she could see that the young girl's father had grown pale. "A dancing girl? That is a dream best forgotten," he advised her. Primrose could have sworn that he shot a glance over in the direction of the tavern, but his expression was firmly unreadable. 

"But why, Papa?" the young girl asked, her eyes brimming up with tears at the shattered dream that she had been granted. She couldn't seem to believe that her father had betrayed her in such a way as to suggest that she couldn't accomplish such a task, unaware of the true motivations behind his words.