Devotion to the Dancer

There it was, just there, just above her tongue and oh-so-close.1

The music was gentle tonight, not the harsh beat she usually preferred. A gentle song, a song like the lava flows beyond the mountains, gentle in a way the snow never was. Here, so far away from the rest of the clan, she could dance. Dance by herself, dance with only the music of the stars beyond. Dance without being called a whore. Dance without being sold off by her very clan to those stars so very very far from home.2

She was deep in the mountains, but close to the heat. It pounded through the walls in time with her steps, one moment raging hot and the next soothing and just right. On the days the music was alive, and harsh, and consuming she danced by the cold, moving so so close to the stony walls that kept her safe from the snow and ice. When the music was cruel and fast she danced next to death, shivering as his cold breath rushed down her back and made her lekku quiver. But when the music was soft like this, quiet and peaceful, she danced by the heat of the mighty mother...3

The mother- that was what she called the heat. It wasn't a name her people gave it, just her. Something of her own, something she kept away from the eyes of the clan. It was like dancing. Only she could dance like this, away from the eyes of the others, her lekku covered so that no one would see them flush and twitch with ecstasy every step she took. She wore plain brown clothes to melt away with the stone, imagining the finery of the dancers she had seen on holovids. Those ones, with their bangles and shiny clothing...4

Could she make it? Could she be like them? Could she make it to Coruscant and dance on the holovids in front of billions? Could she?5

If she could make it off this damn rock. She loved her clan, her home, the mother, but...6

Oola looked up at the ceiling as soon as the song ended, still caught in the pose of a true dancer, and wondered if she could even make it as far as Tatooine.