And just as I was getting to the really, really nice part of something to that tender, a feel of velvet touched me, and pulled me right off the bar, dragging me with them, my stumbling words too shocked to ask who it was, until the feeling got familiar enough through -- this was the second or third time I had met with Mocha Ray today, but this time, it was not me who took her hand, but her who took my claw. And then the other sleeve met my other claw, the shiny new one, and before I knew it, we were in the middle of the main floor.

The dance floor, perhaps it was. Surrounded by others, no way out except to use my own fanciful moves and woo her.

A fancy seeing her here, and fancy my legs went, with no purpose, rhythm, or thought behind it. Elegant was out of the question, this shimmy would be a wild one, uncoordinated, but above all, it was mine to have with her. Her legs copied mine, and it quickly dawned upon me that she, too, had no clue of how to dance. We were both only copying what we saw, and at least the ones surrounding us had practiced first. Our arms crossed, rose to touch God, propelled us left and then right. We exhausted each other, and at one point, without knowing just how many times I would dwell on not just giving her a long kiss there and then, she put me almost towards the floor, her face not an inch away from mine, such adorable smile, youthful face...the same clothes as always. If Mocha Ray was caught with what anyone else had on, she'd be on the news as a defiant whore or something...like that. But she was not anybody's whore, I knew her too well, and if that ever happened I would die trying to restore her name to holy justice.

The waltz went on and on, speeding up, and then, spinning like old movie, we let go of each other, her almost bumping into a man behind with even longer hair than mine, and then dissapeering amongst the crowd. Her smile remained the same. What I had done was the real run to the practice I had done along that lone stage. Nobody had noticed us here, doing our own thing, unprofessional, but ours.

The rest of the night was about how one would imagine, sticking with other sentinels for the most part, our own tomfoolishry. Leader was silent on this night, surprisingly, preferring the liquor to the lips.