You share your enthusiasm, and the Nine Tails share advice in turn - you were actually picked up by Dr. Fune for a backup dancer contract, yes? It's a clever trick to get other gods involved, explains Mukt, Number Eight, the final deliberation that terminates in the sacred verdict, but it absolutely won't do if you want to get steady work in the industry. She shakes her head, no, that essentially only limits you to backup dancer work, almost always under the supervision of a professional in the field which around here means either their little troupe or Dr. Fune, and she believes there's no need to dwell further on the exact problem with relying upon Dr. Fune. Honestly, Shakt says, there's no way he'll be keeping his job for long if he doesn't get a handle on his debauchery, though on the bright side that ought to leave a considerable opening in the field for someone who'd be technically qualified to engage in the law-dance.
You look at Wran, and Wran seems to be looking at you at the same time. There is a brief spark of potential competition between you before it is overwhelmed by the beery sense of togetherness as you bask in the goblin wisdom being showered upon you.
1
Speaking of, it's at this point that even the Nine Tails seem to have moved on to speculation - how exactly
would you become qualified enough to work as an actual defense dancer? The process is somewhat labyrinthine and, to their knowledge about the modern procedure, may in fact take decades to go through in its entirety, so if you happen to have that kind of time you could enroll in an accredited divine dance program. However, those are notoriously selective on account of high demand for qualified dancers in many modern spheres of divine conduct, and highly costly even if you do get selected - only gods with a very solid history can even afford the power loans to go to those.
So your best bet in the short term and most likely the long term would be paralegal work, explains Thavar, Number Four, the procession of the one accused to the square where they will be tried and the depths of their Wrong Action fully plumbed. You would likely still need Dr. Fune's oversight as well as be enrolled in
some kind of dance certification program for law-dance specifically, and to handle a trial you would almost definitely need both you and Wran covering as many dance competencies as two paralegals reasonably can be expected to. Perhaps daunting, she admits, but also not impossible in the short term.
They all get out their antiquated mirrors as they start consulting the lesser varieties of dance school they used to hear about, and as almost all of them turn out to have closed down you begin to appreciate, watching silently as you are, that the gods you are watching going about the process of adapting their knowledge, are quite possibly ancient indeed. At the very least the things they remember seem at least a century old, and the goblin trivia still bouncing around in your head endows it with a further depth and distance in time that only now seems to stretch out in full before you as you learn to see in their yellow eyes the true history of a world come and gone that you don't think you'll ever fully know except from what they can tell you, tales from a time when their world was young...
You unfortunately get very little actionable place names from the Nine Tails, and before you get too drunk they excuse themselves for a relatively early night, leaving just you and Wran at the bar, making the dregs of your last free beers last as you watch these strange and ancient creatures leave your presence.
"So," Wran says after a long pause. "Are you, er, are you actually up for this? The whole thing, I mean. Being... paralegals in dance, getting the good doctor out of whatever hole he's in, enrolling in classes?"
"I dunno," you say, still in a haze, "are you?"
They give a sheepish smile. "I mean, like, it's bizarre but it's kind of cool, but it might also be a complete waste of time, but then I also live for this kind of thing, but also I do need to make rent, but still I think it might be my life's dream to do something like this? But maybe my life's dream isn't very good and I should, I dunno, find something that won't eat up all my time and bankrupt me just because I think I might enjoy it? Maybe I can try to become a paralegal in some other, less uncommon legal system? I have this whole thing where I have this, this burning
need to make these things right, I mean like really right, like you look at them and go like 'damn, they done did some
justice' in here and oh god I'm drunkenly rambling here in a massive way? And maybe I want to cry a little because this is weirdly overwhelming? I-I really think I've drunk a bit too much here, truth be told, and
could you please say something and stop me already"
A) "Look at me, Wran. We. Are. Doing. This. All of it, baby, to the bitter end. Swear on my immortal essence and yours!"
B) "Listen, I'm drunk, you're drunk, we don't need to be making a life-changing commitment right here and right now. Let's wait until morning."
C) "No shame in admitting we're not up to the task. Let's just pack this into the 'what coulda been' sections in our respective noggins, all right? We'll look back on all this and laugh someday."
D) Follow your instincts and pounce, because you've honestly never felt more connected to another god in your life.
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Topic: [SG] The Gods Are All Right: Queh, Goddess of the Dark (Read 10610 times)