Dance Like You’ve Never Been Hurt

Her footsteps echoed up the empty staircase as she made her way to the dance studios on the fifth floor of the building. She had a shoulder bag slung over one arm that held two pairs of shoes and socks that came to her mid calf. The lights were dim in the staircase, as befit the fact that she was technically here long after the building was closed. But it was part of the campus of NYU in the City That Never Sleeps, so as far as Kennedy was concerned they really should have been prepared for someone to use the studios at 3 a.m. Not that the dim light bothered her.

Even though she was inside she could feel the moon high in the autumn sky outside. It was nearly full but not quite, pregnant with anticipation and the promise of what was to come. Her moon sign, her auspice, the Galliard moon, and she could feel its song beating in her heart.

That was why she was here. It had been months since Fya had left, and while her ID had let Kennedy into the buildings for a short time afterwards, once tuition stopped being paid, the ID no longer allowed Kennedy access to the studios. It had been months since she had been able to get access to a proper dance floor – and with how busy the Pack had been, it hadn’t even been like there had been time to regret not dancing.

But they were back in the City, back from the deep Umbra, and whatever terrors the Wyrm had to throw at them were still distant. There was only so much time you could spend in preparation and study. With the Galliard moon high in the sky, she had to dance.

Fortunately the only locks between her and the studio space were mechanical, and no match for a well-placed claw. Shifting just enough for claws to appear on a single hand was still novel to her, but while her jacket was dedicated to stay with her while transforming, a full shift into Crinos would have destroyed the shorts and sports bra she currently wore beneath the black leather coat.

Her wandering mind kept her occupied until she realized she was in the studio. The mirrored walls, the bars along the edge of the room, and most importantly the floor and the soundproofed walls, the window showing the moon outside, high in the sky.

Tossing her jacket to the side she closed the door, and pulled out her iPhone, plugged it into the speaker system built into the room, and blasted her warm-up music.

Over a dozen years of training and habit made her feel wrong not stretching before she started to dance, so dutifully she went through her stretches. Calf-raises, lunges, seated stretches, the routine was automatic to her. As natural as breathing. Of course, now that she was Garou, pulling a muscle was hardly a serious setback, and although she was outside of her “prime” dancing years at the advanced age of nineteen, she was in better shape than she had been even when she was expected to take the O16 championship at Worlds two years ago.

Feeling a slight sheen of sweat begin to coat her skin, Kennedy decided she was ready. She was agitated, full of passion, full of Rage. “Ye’ve got an unquiet mind, dove,” her teachers would tell her. And they were right. Sitting and waiting and talking was for others, it was never Kennedy’s style. Liam and Emily? They were the thinkers in her circle. She was like Brian, always ready to jump into a fight, even before her First Change.

Which is why she forced herself to lace up her soft shoes. With a selection on her phone, the gentle melodies of the slip jig began to come over the speakers. Taking her position, she forced herself to stand stick straight, hands locked down at her sides, feet turned out as she waited for her time to begin the dance.

There was passion in the slip jig, but it was a dance of being airy and controlled. “In that, it was like the Changelings,” she thought. Memories of Lord Devon Mayfair invaded her mind as she moved through the dance. Some of those memories were from her recent meeting with him in his new form, but she knew some were from her ancestor – the White Howler who he had enslaved in his previous existence, and who in turn earned her the right to wield the Klaive she now carried.

She hadn’t even realized that the song was over until she found herself bowing to the non-existent judges. “Stupid girl,” she thought to herself. “Letting yer mind wander like that. Focus on the damn dance.”

Kennedy looked around the empty studio. “Fuck it.” Trying to stay focused and do the dances to their proper forms was an exercise in futility. She wanted to punish the floor with her dance, she wanted to work herself into a state of sweaty exhaustion. It may have simply been Mother Luna calling to her through her Auspice sign, but with the passion she was bursting with and the way her mind kept drifting, she needed to either fight, fuck or dance herself into oblivion. The first two were irresponsible, no matter how tempting they might be. And the latter meant that the only dance that was going to satisfy her was a Treble Reel. Quickly she changed into her hard shoes, set her phone to play the Dropkick Murphys, and began to dance.

As her body moved through the studio, feet hammering into the floor in complex rhythms and patterns, Kennedy let herself go. Her form was perfect, every step hitting the beat in perfect time. It was a prize-winning performance, although no one was there to see it. But as she lost herself in the dance, she lost herself in her memories too. Her body knew what to do, even as her mind went back to all that had happened over the past year. Fighting trolls and Black Spiral Dancers. Nearly dying at the hands of a damn leech who drained her blood at a distance using magic. Watching her friends fight and nearly die battling an impossible creature that warped reality. None of her pack died that night from the Nexus Crawler, although there were scars earned that night, but she had to watch as Lishta sacrificed herself.

Why? Why would she do that? They had barely known each other, but there was something about the Dancer Galliard that had called to her. Maybe it was the ties in blood from Kennedy’s own White Howler ancestry. Maybe it was just an attraction to her lithe form and dark hair. But there might have been something there, even though they were on different sides of this war. She’d never know, because Lishta was dead.

Thoughts of Lishta led to thoughts of Fya. Her runner’s body, her short stature, the mischief in her eyes as she learned about the world they could explore together. She had left months ago, but Kennedy still thought of her. But of course she had left, everyone left. Or they died.

Everyone. It had been so long since she let herself remember, but the memories were there. The alley. Liam, Emily, Katie, Brian, and Bridget. They were young and invincible.

Kennedy’s thoughts swirled around her mind as her body whirled around the room, feet beating a stacato pattern that could be heard even over the punk rock music.

She told herself that she had blacked out. But that wasn’t the truth. She remembered everything. Every moment as Brian stepped forward to confront the five men. She watched as they tore Brian’s throat out, the blood splattering across the alley.

It was the splash of Brian’s blood on her skin, the scent of his death that triggered the change. Kennedy had been angry before, but that was the first time she felt her Rage. The change was as natural as breathing and the creature that killed her ex-boyfriend was no match for the nine-feet of angry muscle and blazing red fur that was on it in a second. The one that had done the killing was drunk on Brian’s blood, and never knew what killed him.

His friends, however, knew. Kennedy would never know if they had met a Garou before, but they knew enough to be afraid. They fought, but it barely mattered. The Galliard Moon had been high that night, and Kennedy was in a full on Frenzy as she tore through the leeches. She had howled with Rage and a newfound sense of freedom as she looked down on the bodies of her enemies at her feet.

And then… then the memory she had been suppressing for so long. Katie freaked out at the sight, and in a blind fury ran towards Kennedy, swinging her purse as some sort of stupid, ineffective, improvised weapon. The Beast that rode Kennedy in that moment only saw Katie as another threat, not knowing the long nights that Katie had practiced with Kennedy, the secrets they had whispered to each other, the first kiss they had shared when they were thirteen before Katie decided she didn’t like girls “that way.” The Beast remembered none of that, it only saw a threat, and it thrust a heavy clawed hand straight through the slender girl’s body.

Tears poured down Kennedy’s face as the memory came back, as she danced across the room. Four songs had played already, and she was exhausted, but she would not… she could not stop. She danced like that was the only thing left in her life, and maybe it was.

Liam and Emily tried to run, but the Beast only saw them as prey and it easily overtook them, tearing them apart with a powerful combination of tooth and claw.

But Bridget… the girl Kennedy had crushed on for over a year, the girl who Brian had left her for, causing her to be jealous not over her ex-boyfriend, but jealous of him for being with her… she simply cowered before the monster.

Perhaps… perhaps if that had not been Kennedy’s First Change… perhaps she might have recovered her senses.

Perhaps. But that was not what happened.

Kennedy howled a scream of pain and rage into the empty dance studio as her muscles gave out. She collapsed to the floor, exhausted, hurting, filled with impotent rage.

“When the fuck does it get easier?” she asked no one in particular, the empty studio surrounding her. “Is any of this worth it? The pain, the loss, the death?”

The moon shone its light on her. Giving her no answers. And Kennedy Donovan, known to her pack and the Garou as Blood-on-the-Dance-Floor simply collapsed to the floor, crying out her pain and sorrow. Later, perhaps even later that night or morning, she would again be a warrior for Gaia. A Galliard of the Fianna. A part of the Trail Mix pack. But in that moment, she was just a girl who had lost nearly everything she knew and loved.

“Live like there’s no tomorrow. Love like you’ve never been hurt. And dance like nobody’s watching.”