In the early hours of the morning, a Shetona man sat slumped on the stairs of True Vue, haggard and hollow. He was called Eheeya─flower in his native tongue─but few addressed him with this delicate name. Most knew him only as Dancing Green, acclaimed Arcadion combatant and fixture of Alexandrian nightlife. True to his reputation, he had spent the prior evening gallivanting through the city's liveliest districts, only stumbling home at dawn.

Granted, to an Alexandrian, "night" and "day" were differentiated by little more than the numbers on a timepiece. Inside Everkeep, the streets of Solution Nine were perpetually bathed in the glow of electrope. Outside, a thick shroud of thunderclouds loomed over Heritage Found like a long-held grudge, shutting out the sun.

Yet there were those who had once known its warmth. Erstwhile citizens of Tural, caught in the catastrophe that had partially fused the two realms some thirty years past. Eheeya could recite the old stories by heart. For though he draped himself in the trappings of a city-bred man, he had spent his youth far from the tower's shadow, raised by a mother with great reverence for nature, who wove Shetona tradition into every tale.

"Long before you were born, Eheeya, Yyasulani basked in the sun's embrace. Ours was a land beautiful beyond words."

So devoted to this symbol of life were their ancestors that they named themselves in its honor. Beneath the omnipresent thunderclouds, her words were imbued not with mere longing, but the ache of heritage lost. Yet to a child born to unbroken gloom, her words could only conjure vague imagery of a bright, round thing that floated high above the world. Indeed, the village had light enough, with electrope lamps burning in every home. Why cling so fiercely to that which only shone for half a day?

From an early age, Eheeya had been at his mother's side, a dutiful assistant in her work as a reforger, scavenging what might be salvaged from the debris cast out of Everkeep. They hunted for anything of value─worn but functional devices, scrap that could be broken down for resources, and so forth. Whatever they found they hauled to the depository, and when the day was all but over, they returned to their tent, where she would cook a modest meal of vegetables from Yyupye's Halo. Afterwards, he would crawl into his plain but warm cot, and rest his weary head, ready to join her on another excursion come morning.

None would ever believe the future king of revels had once lived so quietly. But one day, the quiet was shattered by a Shetona stranger whose voice was as loud as his garb.

"Come with me, baby, and I'll show you a real party!"

The man was disconcertingly friendly, given they had only just met, but as he appeared to be on familiar terms with Eheeya's mother, the youth shook off his initial unease and followed him to Everkeep.

Eheeya had never been to Solution Nine before. It was all so strange and new, he could scarcely catch his breath, for there were marvels around every corner. After a brief tour of the city proper, the man announced it was time he took the youth somewhere "truly happening."

As the large, heavy doors of the grand entertainment hall swung open, Eheeya's ears were filled with thundering music that shook the very ground beneath his feet. The party is here? Grinning, the man grabbed him by the hand and led him inside.

What he saw next would be forever seared into his memory. A sea of people, swaying like a wave to the thrum of a deep, steady bass. A suspended sparkling sphere, casting dappled light in every direction as it spun. Reeling from the dazzling spectacle, a single thought gripped Eheeya.

The sun!

At last, he understood his mother's nostalgia.

The Shetona man gave him a nudge. "Don't be shy, now. On the dance floor, everyone's a star."

Eheeya knew nothing of dance─yet, almost in spite of himself, his feet found the beat. Before long, he was swaying and spinning with the spirited stranger and the rest of the crowd, following not scripted steps but the whims of the moment. It was as if time itself had become a slave to the rhythm, lost in the glitter and glow of the evening.

The next thing he knew, he was lying awake in his own bed.

Had it all been a dream? The night was a beautiful blur. He had no memory of leaving the city and could only conclude that he had nodded off after hours of cavorting and capering. Had the boisterous fellow carried him home?

"That man is your father," his mother confessed that morning, before the fog of sleep had lifted. The possibility had crossed Eheeya's mind, and he might well have broached the subject had he not dismissed it as an impossible fancy at the time.

The two had been lovers in the days before the dome claimed Yyasulani. When the land was fused with Alexandria, each chose their own path. He would leave for Everkeep, and she would remain. It was no cause for grief─as is Shetona custom, while it was common for both men and women to take many paramours over the course of their long lives, women took sole responsibility for any children born from their trysts.

Eheeya then eagerly told his mother of how he had not only basked in the glory of the sun in Solution Nine, but frolicked beneath it all night long. His heart swelled with pride as his mother's eyes grew wide. Yet a beat later, she threw back her head and cackled. What he had taken for the sun, she told him between failed attempts to stifle laughter, was but a gaudy light fixture commonly hung above dance floors. In hindsight, it was painfully obvious, and so great was his embarrassment that he resolved to forget all about Everkeep. Mercifully, his father never visited again.

Some days later, while they worked side by side, Eheeya's mother paused and studied her son. "What's put a spring in your step?" she asked.

"Nothing," he muttered, turning away and busying himself with the task at hand.

He was terrified. She had caught him dancing─and he hadn't even noticed. The harder he tried to suppress the memory, the harder it strained to break free. When he shut his eyes, shifting lights flittered beneath his eyelids, and when all was quiet, his fingers would idly tap with the rhythm of a primal bass. It was a yearning that could no longer be denied.

I belong on the dance floor.

Eheeya had left his heart in Solution Nine, and he ached to go back. Yet he dared not speak of it to his mother, for it was a betrayal of her belief that they should live in harmony with nature, no matter the hardship. So he would slip away whenever he could to dance in secret. An unused tent, a quiet field, a crumbling ruin─anywhere could be his dance floor. In his mind's eye, the mirror ball always glittered.

Weeks and moons and years passed. Like all male Shetona, Eheeya's masculine features did not emerge until puberty, and at fifteen summers, he was now growing into a broad-shouldered young man. When their people lived under the sun, it had been tradition for boys to leave their homeland, but he doubted he would have to follow suit. Where could he even go, when the dome's walls were all but impenetrable?

His mother had other ideas. "Now that you're a man grown, you should go and live in the tower," she declared. "Pursue your passion for dancing."

Eheeya blinked. She knows? How!?

She let out a familiar cackle. "A mother knows her son’s heart."

"But...I can’t. What kind of son runs off to Everkeep and abandons the woman who bore and raised him?"

"Listen to me, Eheeya. When you were young, I told you that Shetona was our word for the sun. But its true meaning is sun divided. We must accept nature's blessings and burdens alike, and pass them on, so that each of us might shine in our own way."

The young man said nothing, processing this revelation as his mother continued.

"This is where I choose to cast my light, and this is where I will remain. But you─your splendor is needed elsewhere. So go, my dear sun. Find your place and burn bright."

The next day, with naught but the clothes on his back, Eheeya came to Resolution and was allocated a job and an apartment. Life in the city was not without its hardships, yet he thrived. Be it natural-born talent or the fruits of daily practice, he stole the spotlight, and soon was recruited as a backup dancer for a well-known musical performer. It was then, at the height of his newfound success, that fate once again came calling in the form of a stylishly dressed older man.

"How would you like to compete in the Arcadion?"

It was an opportunity like no other, as the man spoke of Alexandria's vaunted martial tournament. Eheeya hesitated at first, citing his lack of training and experience, but was assured that with the aid of feral souls, his killer choreography would more than suffice. And so, unable to resist the allure of what was undeniably Solution Nine's biggest stage, he agreed to take part, and Dancing Green made his dazzling debut.

Now, a lifetime later, the verdant gladiator was at an impasse. His persona, an echo of the man who first inspired him, had become a second skin. Yet the more his adoring fans sung his praises, the more that skin felt like iron, dragging him down with every step. No matter how grueling the day's training, he had to commit to the night's revelry, playing his role as expected. It was an endless performance with no intermission.

Dancing Green, the incorrigible party animal, was tired...and he couldn't tell a soul.

Or could he?

As he racked his brains upon those stairs at True Vue, it occurred to him that there was one person in whom he could safely confide. And so, for the first time in a long while, he returned to the wilds.

When he arrived at his mother's tent, she was nowhere to be found. Worse yet, the place bore none of her warmth, only a mess of electrope devices scattered about. As she had spurned regulators, it almost looked to be someone else's dwelling.

His blood ran cold. No, surely not... Could she have...?

"Groovy reunion, baby!"

Eheeya spun and locked eyes with his father, whom he hadn't seen since that night in Everkeep.

"Your mother left on a journey to go and see the sun. But life inside the dome is more my style, so she kindly let me have the tent."

Relief washed over Eheeya. He recalled there had been no few rumors about a newly opened passage through the dome wall. His mother, ever longing for what they had lost, would naturally take it─seeking the place where she could shine.

Though he hadn’t managed to speak with her, he nevertheless knew what her answer would have been. Your sun burns brightest on the dance floor.

"By the way, I hear the unenhanced challenger has been crowned light-heavyweight champion. Are you ready to get down...Dancing Green?"

That lunatic actually won?

It was altogether too reckless to enter an Arcadion match without the use of a feral soul, yet this outsider had bested an entire division, and would next set foot upon Eheeya's own dance floor. My fabulous moves against their chaotic audacity... What a tango it will be!

His eyes sparkled as he shot his father a grin.

"Damn right. It’s gonna be one helluva party!"