Tap. Tap. Tap. This part was simple, Self's feet moving to land with each sound, twisting at the waist in the simple pattern. And then it fell apart, again, as the tapping vanished into a cacophony of sounds; Self's feet kept moving, at when, at a guess, the taps should be.

"Stop." Avar raised a hand, pressing on the box that emitted the noises, and Self's motions ceased mid-motion, one foot held motionless above the glossy tiles of the floor. "Again." It went much the same.

This was the ninth lesson in dance, and it went much the same as the past eight, after the basic patterns in footwork and motion in the first. This was much more complex than walking, but the real issue was the expectation that the motion be synchronized with a noise that vanished into other noises.

Avar dressed, as always, in a blue-and-red scapular, falling to the ankles, dyed in a starburst pattern; the garment was cinched at the waist, and lacked the side panels which Efre always wore for their lessons. For these lessons, Self also wore a scapular, in simple blue, with a knotted red cord as a cinch. It permitted a free range of motion. This garment was very informal without the side panels, when it was acceptable to wear for moderately formal occasions; Efre had indicated that outside of certain practice, such as dance, it was considered inappropriate to wear in public.

For all of Self's lessons today, and indeed four out of the six days of the week, it was considered appropriate enough.

Self's attention shifted from the clothing back to Avar's face; it was more... angular than Efre's, the face Self recognized best and used as a comparison. The more recognizable feature was the fine spray of feathers running across Avar's scalp, which Self had not seen before; it reminded Self a little bit of the memories of the peri, with the fine white threads all over their scalps.

"You're hopeless. I've never had a student who couldn't hear the damned beat at all." Avar bore a scowl, looking Self up and down. "Fine then, stop trying to dance, and fucking listen. When you can track the beat, raise your damned hand."

Self listened. Avar pressed the box. The tapping started, and vanished into the cacophony, Self straining to go through the sound-signals to find the one, lost in the others. The noise ended. Avar pressed the box, and it started again.

The next lesson in the day was distinct, and yet the same. There was no music, for this, just a small green ball, which a djinn named Firou threw to Self, who was expected to catch it in hand and throw back.

Firou was dressed in a long blue skirt covered in tiny red starbursts, suspended from red fabric tied into a surplice. Firou had small gray horns, not terribly unusual, and had rather plain features that Self would find indistinct in a crowd.

They were in a large room with textured brown floor, made of the same material as the dressers in Self's room. The walls were gray, and the ceiling quite far above them. In each corner of the room were poles which held three baskets each, directed at different angles relative to the room, each at a different height.

Self had gathered this room was used for some kind of structured activity involving the green ball - another djinn on the far side of the room was throwing another ball into the baskets, missing as often as getting it in. The topmost basket had the shallowest angle, the bottommost the deepest; the other djinn had the most difficult getting the ball to stay in the top basket.

The next toss bounced off of Self's face, and fell to the ground. Self picked it up and tossed it back; Firou smiling at the lapse in attention. Self was improving, as long as attention stayed on the ball - during the first lesson, Self hadn't caught it once. At this point, Self caught it slightly more often than not.

The challenge now was throwing it back to Firou, and this toss hit the ceiling, bounced off the far wall, off the floor, off the ceiling again, before Firou, who had moved quickly, caught it coming back.

"You're improving, but you're going to have to work on controlling your strength. At least you haven't burst any balls today, thankfully."

Self's next throw did exactly that, much to Firou's continued amusement. There was even a laugh, this time.

The next lesson was, again, distinct, yet the same. This lesson was in a small room, entirely paneled in the textured brown material, even the ceiling; the room smelled ... sharp. It was one of the few locations which smelled of anything, except the courtyard, which had been an abundance of smells that were nearly as overwhelming as the sky.

In this room, Ghonch, wearing nothing at all, moved in slow, purposeful ways, with Self expected to follow along. Ghonch had broad, flat facial features, had thin bodily features, and was tall - tall enough for Self to be aware of it, which after the first lesson had made Self aware that heights did vary a little bit.

The motions were ... challenging. Self's body resisted most of them, and Ghonch had been insistent that the motions not be forced. Currently, Ghonch was seated on the floor, legs crossing and intertwining so that feet sat on thighs, waist twisting back and forth with arms outstretched.

Self could feel a ... tightness, in the hips, back and stomach, and couldn't twist so completely; Ghonch, on the far side of each turn, faced the opposite direction entirely. Self could get about halfway there.

Ghonch was insistent that Self not enforce orientation, and Self had fallen over multiple times during these practices, in particular when the pose involved standing on one foot, which Self still couldn't do.

"Straighten your left wrist. Yes, like that." Ghonch spoke as the next turn came around, bringing Self back under scrutiny. Ghonch rarely spoke except to correct, and only when Self hadn't noticed something needed to be corrected, and had grown increasingly quiet with each lesson.

The fifth and sixth days of lessons were more etiquette, ethics, and obligation, with Efre. The etiquette lessons had shifted to discussing how to interact with outsiders, both djinn and other; these were new rules, and required considerably more context, which Efre went into, going through the original lessons again, starting with proper forms of address.

The peri had three sets of names; their equivalent to the djinn name, which could be the same for many in the same community, and was used before one of the other two names, depending on social context. One of their other names was used only in private situations, the other in public.

The div, meanwhile, had seven names; one corresponding to their relative rank in the hierarchy, one corresponding to their obligations, one corresponding to their lineage, one used in public events, one used in private, one used only in private by those known very well, and finally a name chosen by each div that was kept secret, for reasons of ritual and magical purpose.

Man, Efre said, were too fragmented and divided to give anything specific, as each group had different rules, and didn't give any additional lessons.

Ethics, in turn, had become a practice of speed; now, Self was expected to give an answer as quickly as possible, and explain it only after. Efre indicated that it was important to be able to come to conclusions quickly in Self's obligations as a protector.

Obligation, likewise, had turned to focus on the obligations of the protector. The lessons now were on how to handle specific situations, all broadly fitting into what Efre called the command structure; there would be djinn whose obligation it was to organize the defense, and they would give Self instructions to carry out, in order to most effectively defend.

The new lessons continued. Self didn't ever learn to recognize the beat out of many other noises, and Avar, after another seven lessons, started playing only the beat; Self's skill at the dancing improved, and Self began walking, instead of floating, around the building.

The green ball stopped getting past Self two lessons after Avar quit playing music, and it was another three lessons before Self consistently managed to get it back into Firou's hand. The practice then changed, and Self was to throw it into the baskets, first from a distance of Self's arm. Whenever Self reached the point where the ball went into the top basket at least half the time, Firou had Self move another arm's length away.

In Ghonch's lessons, the improvements were subtler, apart from Self finally managing to stand on one foot - which required, counter intuitively, a change in the way Self approached it which felt like pushing down harder with that foot, as opposed to Self's previous attempts at balance. Mostly, Self just found that the resistance of joints and limbs moved further and further into the range of motion.

The biggest change was that Self had developed an awareness of the touch-sense; Self knew where each hand, each foot, each finger and toe were, at all times, in particular in relation to the sight-sense. It made moving around the world require considerably less effort, and, oddly, awareness.

Nights were spent, as always, in silent thought, the quiet of the room at nights becoming something Self thought about during the busy days of activity and lesson. When around the other djinn, Self increasingly found that awareness was being spent on etiquette, on evaluating facial expressions and emotions, on how to respond to statements or questions that hadn't yet been made. The solitude was a relief, when Self's mind stopped being filled with the others, and became an empty vessel for slower, more careful thoughts. The days were of others, the nights, they were of Self.