The Oldest Dance Quotes

“Kusha felt a tinge of pride, exponentially multiplied by her Low-Grade inferiority complex, reading this footnote. It worsened when ads started coming up on her HOME page after reading it. The ads had horrible titles:

Dream Youth For The Low Grades.
Alternate Longevity.
A Secret Pleasurable Way To Youth.
Get Your Dream Citizenship With Pleasing Pleasure Contract.

The last one is for non-citizens, of course. At least, she’s a citizen. But when Kusha discovered how many unevolved men and women enter such contracts just for citizenship, it made her face crease. As if she’d caught a nasty smell. For a moment, she even thought, she hated every High Grade in the world, including everyone in her adoptive family. Right now, standing in front of Meera, the hatred swells.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“If his first impression weren’t ninety percent pre-constructed by the entrance, he would think that it was a nice, comfortable place to live in.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Maroc Metz—as usual in his tailcoat, rimless glasses, gloved hands, and neatly brushed black hair—welcomes the Mesmerizer with boiling-hot tea—Earl Grey, raspberry flavor. He drinks a third of it in one gulp, its heat boosting his prana. The boiling-hot tea doesn’t make him blink away from the Devil’s Book.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“It's a laughable lock—one that you would use only to guard a graveyard. Not that anyone would trouble themselves invading a timber hut in a mangrove forest farther away from the Bay of Bengal. Still, how can someone live with a lock like that? Made of ancient iron, reeking of rust. It would need a primordial key to be twisted and turned, going through several moments of mechanical trouble until the old lock opens. Good luck if you can do that without breaking the key.

Oh! The key … Well, the owner of the hut has left the key right beside the lock, including instructions. The Monk, Yuan Yagmur—revealing his muscled arms from under his wide, dark shawl—takes the note (the one with instructions):

Please, scan your CRAB first before touching the key. For your own safety.
From what, you ask? It’s a surprise.
Enter without scanning if you want to find out.
—Mee-Hae Ra

”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“A herd of deer catches the Monk’s attention. They are running. He senses the fear in them. Soon, the largest cat in this forest takes one of them: it runs, grabs a neck, halts, and mauls; then it kills. A predator wins. Always.

The herd of deer accepts it. Mourning a while, they go back to grazing. Perhaps they even think, this time too, it wasn’t me. Not yet.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“You need to control your thoughts, Ra.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“She’s rethinking her reasons to make it believable to herself first. Otherwise, it’d be a lie, and as a Grade A, she mustn’t lie.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Rewrites history, huh?” Mee-Hae gazes at him. The sparkles in her eyes are those of an archaeologist who is living in a forest near her latest discovered underwater civilization. “The last Ice Age was supposed to be twelve thousand years ago.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Only her toes touch the ground to kick off and defeat gravity for one moment, until she drops back to the floor on just her toes, making it a flawless leaping-footwork of Bharatanatyam—a traditional dance.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“The herd of deer accepts it. Mourning a while, they go back to grazing. Perhaps they even think, this time too, it wasn’t me. Not yet.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“He saw what that man has become in their recent meeting.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“It’s too dangerous for her to step into this. Is he making a mistake bringing her? What if that monster harms her?”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“He remembers the thirty-seven beasts in his forest that turned stone-hard and dead.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“My nightmares are out of control. The thoughts during my dreams,” Mee-Hae says, leaning against his chest.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“And much of her energy gets drained in cell-building, in self-healing.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Even though her strong prana heals it at the same rate, constant damage and regeneration is happening inside her.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“You’re still depending on healing pills?” he says in questioning tone.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“He never wants to answer it if he doesn’t need to. So, this time, he visibly avoids her question.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“I have to stop him,” the Monk says.
“Am I the bait?”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“You are wrong, Yuan,” Mee-Hae says, half-worried and half-angry, her voice suddenly quivering. “He wanted to make you work. With or without him.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Just answer a question, Yuan. Did he put you onto this?”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“I want answers, Yuan,” she says.
“Come to Lotus Lodge. I’m getting a team together.”
“Who else?” Mee-Hae asks.
“You first.”
“Let me guess, you want me to call the others.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Sometimes, I wonder if he is behind it, too. Or maybe I’m thinking too much.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“I know what war looks like, Yuan.” Mee-Hae gazes into the forest from the balcony. Her palm traces her lower belly where her womb should be, and her face creases as if she is in physical pain.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“The Monk frowns—almost, noticing how vaguely the Archeologist crafted her answer, for he said he’d believe it blindly.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Mee-Hae Ra. Pointy face, angled eyes; skin warmed after years of living in the south; blue T-shirt, jean shorts, and CRAB in her left wrist. Nothing has changed, except the short, dark-red hair—it was black during the war.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“The Monk remembers taking this photo himself. Sometimes, he wonders if it’s his fault that that man lost his last threads of humanity.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Yuan?” calls one of the most influential archaeologists of the planet and also the owner of this half-broken hut.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“And there rests him—the Mesmerizer, frozen in one of his rarest smiles, right beside Mee-Hae. His hair is a darker shade of blond in the photos, as it was back then, and his eyes blue like the clearest sky.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance

“Mee-Hae stops a foot away from him, who is wrapped in his decades-old, dark shawl that should be torn and faded by now, but it isn’t, thanks to the technology that repairs one molecule at a time if you have the budget for it.”
― Misba, The Oldest Dance