She makes a note of that in her pocket everything's memory-helper app!

"Thanks!"

"And she wants to know if you're staying for dinner."

"Nah. I don't eat much, anyways, and mom wants me back before then."

Onis's sister and the sister's boyfriend are out in the living room at this point and sort of gawp at Bright on her way out but don't think of anything to say.

She waves a bit, says goodbye to Onis, then heads home.

And then she contacts video greens about the dance video idea!

Ziard thinks that's a great idea! I can get a choreographer I know in on it if you like! he writes.

That might help for my friend's part especially, yeah! We're trying to work in it being shoggoth style into an Amentan body plan and that's kinda hard...

I'll email my choreographer right away and she'll get back to you.

Hi, I'm Ziard's choreographer. What kind of style does your friend dance? Can I see a shoggoth dance sample?

She names the style Onis has talked about doing, and attaches a somewhat shaky video of her doing the same-level part of the separated-by-a-mountain-range dance, with a note that it's usually done underwater so there's parts that have a lot more three dimensional movement, and an explanation of the thing where you're using sign language while you dance, kind of as a singing thing, to help tell the story.

Any of this look like what you're going for?

Hm! Okay, so - watching these there's an idea in my head? The dance story we were thinking of making into a mixed dance and that the clip was from is about two friends who get separated by a volcano erupting, and then they're trying to talk across the distance and they can't?

So we could - do a thing that kind of... Really ties into one of the friends being Amentan? Instead of both being shoggoths. Like, start kind of with a mixed thing, both using the same sign language - Voan sign, since my friend won't be able to do the shoggoth one - and then we end up in separate areas? And there's video stuff to make it look like we're still trying to talk to each other, but now I'm using the shoggoth sign and we can't understand each other? And I could do the shoggoth part underwater, maybe, and she could be on land? And that way it's also easier for her to do.

I love it. Do you or your friend read chereme markup? What level is she at dancing in school?

Bright emails Onis to ask about chereme markup and dance levels!

I'm getting an 88 in my agemate-level class in school and we've done book 1 of chereme markup but I didn't do great on that test.

She thanks Onis and forwards the information on to the choreographer. 

(She also looks up chereme markup; if it's relevantly a language there's a decent chance she actually has it.)

Chereme markup is sort of like sheet music for dance, only four times more of a headache and with even more addenda in the vernacular as supplementary instructional marginalia.

She has what every individual piece means, but not enough underlying knowledge to actually piece it together into sensible things in her head. Ugh.

She gets distracted looking up videos of Amentan dancers while she waits for the choreographer to get back to her. (Her goal had been to find videos of like chereme markup with corresponding movements, but Bright is still pretty easily distracted from something relatively boring like this.)

The choreographer says she'd like to meet Onis and Bright on a day off from school and go over a draft with them!

Bright figures out how to loop Onis into the email chain so they can figure out a good time! (Bright's okay with most any time.)

Onis can make their next off-day work! Apparently however they are not supposed to do this in the school building; there are supposed to be some obstacles to finding out where Bright goes to school. They can use a place the choregrapher knows about.

Okay!

Bright does a lot of thinking but mostly tries to focus on schoolwork in the meantime, then is at the dance place right on time!

The choreographer has a very simplified routine plotted out for Onis and some looser suggestions for Bright, and a loose beat that she can play through floor speakers that Onis can feel.

Shoggoth dance usually isn't to music, and Bright's not done much human dancing beyond like playground games, but she can get a sense of the whole dancing to music thing!

Bright also drew out the entire original dance, which took forever, with a full translation of what's being signed, instead of just descriptions and a few sketches. It mostly applies to her part, though.

The choreographer can edit the draft in light of this!

Bright makes a few more suggestions, then wants to try some of the parts to feel how they work.