#call+

One night, he looks for sleeping pills but finds the keys to the beast on wheels instead. He’s already out before he can change his mind. He opens the garage door and lets out a low whistle. It’s been a while since the last time he was rolling through the city with this thing. Doesn’t make him forget the quiet piece of mind it gave him.

He swings a leg over the bike and settles in. He fires it up. The engine growls awake, dog tags clinking, and Simon gives out an involuntary grunt of pain from multiple rib fractures. Riding is going to hurt. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it.

The bike purred out of the garage and towards the city lights. Finally, noise replaced the torturing silence. The calming hum of the engine was enough to keep the dark thoughts at bay.

Simon has truly missed this contradiction of a sensation he only gets while riding his bike in the midnight hours. A perfect mixture of dead silence and the dull roar of the engine that keeps his thoughts in check. Streetlights caught him in flashes before releasing him back to the darkness, only bypassing a lonely taxi or a long-haul truck.

He kept going back to his bike every night, desperate for a sense of peace of mind. He’ll rather get his restless sleep in the morning hours, he decides.

It’s late Friday night when he sees you. He has driven off the electric, exhilarating highway and into the calmer side streets of town. Slowing down to adjust his posture, stretching against the ache, he sees someone in his peripheral vision—a sweet little thing walking all by herself under the poorly lit sidewalk. When you walk under a streetlight with a dark orange hue, the scene plays out like a movie in front of him. It felt cinematic watching you lean against the lamppost, trying to untie the thin, delicate ankle strap of your stilettos.

Simon realizes he has slowed down to such a lumbering pace that he would definitely be considered a nut case if you ever were to catch sight of him. But if he didn’t think you were crazy enough to walk wherever you’re going entirely unaccompanied this time of night, he’s fully flabbergasted when he understands you’re about to walk barefoot.

Simon might hold heat like a furnace, but he can feel the seasonal shift and he knows that asphalt must be cold.

He is oh-so-painfully aware of how this looks. He’s a brooding giant on a mountainous piece of machinery, face covered behind a dark visor. He also knows there’s not much help in revealing himself; it definitely wouldn’t make him any less threatening. Not to mention the way he speaks. His default setting is mute, for Christ’s sake.

But he is also gentle despite his size, and too considerate and protective to drive past you without giving you a chance to get home safely. He takes a look around, and there’s nothing nearby. Shouting and laughter coming from the petrol station in the distance, in the same direction you’re headed. Trouble waiting to happen, he can feel it.

He curses the society that too many men have ruined. The street is quiet, but quiet things weren’t even safe anymore. That’s how he knows he has to become a risk in order to reduce it by approaching you.

Simon keeps a safe distance not to alarm you more than necessary, but close enough to let you know he’s there. You look at him then, hesitates, and slows to a halt. He, too, stopped in his tracks but stayed right where he was. Doesn’t kill the engine and never makes a move to get off it. Decides against lifting the visor and not showing his ugly mug. Still gives him a chance to see you clearly. And bloody hell, you’re beautiful.

He keeps his voice low. «Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. You okay there, miss?»

He can see you getting nervous for a moment before you get yourself together and try to look unfazed. And still, he’s once again, utterly dumbfounded when you hit him with a bright smile and such a warm presence he might think you’re not freezing to death after all.

You go back to focusing on where you’re going, not stepping on an unnecessary amount of gravel, followed by a carefree «Ah, yes. Just taking the scenic route home. I’ve had worse evenings. I’ve babysat toddlers before, you know. Stepping on Legos has nothing.. oh.. shit.. on these.. auch.. delightful boulders».

They were not boulders. You’re stepping on sharp, pointy, cold pebbles, and pretending not to.

He couldn't blame you. He wouldn't accept help from a brute creature on a motorcycle that looks more like a weapon than a vehicle, either.

Simon is left speechless for a moment. He tilts his head, curious. Studying you, and watching you go on your scenic route, and wondering how this became his evening.

«Right..» He sighs, stretching the word. “The scenic route it is”.

He revs the engine, signaling his departure. «You sure you don’t need a ride?»

You look up at him then, big innocent eyes, and just naturally, unknowingly funny. «Oh, don’t worry. I know Kung Fu. Black belt obviously», you gesture to yourself.

Simon stays silent. You don’t see his eyebrows rise daringly.

«In theory», you try again when he doesn’t respond, as you keep walking, heels in hand.

«Try again», Simon dryly calls out to you.

You turn to him, walking backwards now. «Spiritually?» you shrug and laugh the whole thing off before turning away, and it’s the most wonderful, intoxicating sound he has heard in a while.

«Trouble on two legs, that», he mutters, and drives away, slowly and hesitantly. This was supposed to go a little smoother than it currently is.

Twenty minutes and a hundred pebbles later, you arrive at the run-down gas station with flickering fluorescent lights.

You’re met by a cluster of men standing close together. Too many men with too little to take up their time.

One goes quiet when you walk by, another smirks and nudges his friend. There are overflowing bins and scattered empty bottles on the sticky ground.

If cold asphalt didn't make you put on your stilettos, that would do it.

There’s a laugh that’s cut mid-sentence, before someone blocks a part of your path. He’s too close, with a smile that dont reach his eyes and reeks of beer.

«How are you doing, sweet girl?» The man is not even trying to be polite. He’s mocking you, trying to make you his plaything.

His hands are in his leather pockets. Unmoving. Secure. For now.

Ghosts haunt this particular gas station. And one of them is sitting like a furious bull on a big, black, monstrous bike and quietly watching the scene from a dark corner, underneath an even darker helmet.

With steady breathing, he takes in the important, painful details.

5, 5 inches.

That's how far away that piece of shit is from touching you.

He's too comfortable, Simon thinks. Unpredictable.

You look up at the bastard then. Not the way you looked at Simon when he pulled up. No, this is with disgust. Daringly.

“Thriving, actually”, you say through an evil smirk.

Simon's head drops, exasperated, for half a second. “Christ, woman..”

The sleezy fuck takes his hand out, almost reaching for you as he laughs.

4 inches.

“Feisty, this one, eh?” His evil laugh turns to a feral snarl as he leans in.

3 inches.

Simon’s eyes never leave the man’s naked hand. His jaw tight, hand flexing on the handlebars, and kept still. The kind of stillness that meant violence.

Drunk, unsteady, poor balance, right-handed. Easy.

2 inches.

Too close.

Before moving, something pulled at something in him. Beneath the roaring anger of his ribs. Something that makes him look at you and suddenly recalculate the situation.

He came to realize at the last second that the thing he wanted more than to unleash Ghost and manslaughter this filthy fuck and his sorry excuse of a squad, —is for you not to witness it.

One. Fucking. Inch.

The air shifts.

He killed worse for less. Why this mattered, he certainly doesn't want to think about. All he knows, is that he doesn't move out of duty. He moves on instinct.

“Dont act like you don't want the company, sugar. I bet you look good in my backseat”, he barely has the time to caress your cheek, before a sudden sound of a roaring engine splits the silence.

By the time you blink, the man has jolted away from you. Instead stands a dark shape on two wheels, and its broad, faceless rider.

“You don't want me stepping off this bike. " You're not built for what comes next”, you hear him growl.

Simon almost pulls out the fuckers guts right then and there, when he doesn't have the brains to back out.

“C’mon, mate. Plenty to go around, yeah? No reason we both can enjoy the view. You don't own her”, the man smirks and gestures to you.

That makes Simon look at you. Really look at you. You’re a little taken aback, but relaxed. Relieved even. So Simon doubles down.

“Sorry, I’m late love. Ready to head home?”, low enough to almost make you believe it. Loud enough for the unwelcome company to hear it.

Seconds tick by, without a word. You stare at him like you’ve seen.. well, a ghost.

Simon lifts his visor, and his dark eyes meet yours. If you didn't know him as a stranger, but as a friend, on a personal level, you would almost notice the pleading look that's buried deep down for nobody to see.

“…lovie?”, he tries again. Careful yet assertive.

The world stops for a minute. He got beautiful eyes, you think to yourself. Kind ones. Grandma always told you to trust the ones with kind eyes.

Finally you roll your eyes playfully. “Took you long enough to get here”, you play along and climb up on Simon's bike, dress barely covering what it's supposed to.

Simon pulls the visor back on, hiding the pleased ghost of a smile beneath it.

When you’re securely seated behind him, his helmet comes off, and he hands it over to you, not facing you, never facing you.

“What for? How about you?”, you ask, comfortably all of a sudden.

“Since when do you question me? I’m not explaining to your mum why I let you ride without one. Never have, never will”.

Simon thinks this must be the most he has talked in the last six months or so. But as he sees the sleazy prick in his peripheral vision, he gladly keeps the charades going.

You put on his helmet. It smells like worn leather and a faint trace of aftershave. It's so intoxicating that you involuntarily bite down on your lower lip and close your eyes for a brief second.

Simon reaches out behind him, mindlessly searching for your hands. He grabs your wrist and wraps your arms around his torso before tapping them as if saying “hold on tight”.

You lean into his warmth and squeeze him a little, bracing yourself for take-off.

Simon is back on the battlefield when he needs to regulate his breathing, feeling your arms around him. He slows his breath, counts it, controls it, just like he does before a shot. But his pulse climbs anyway. Your palms rest over bruised ribs. It feels embarrassingly close to relief.

He cracks his neck as a soothing motion and to bring him back to reality.

«Kung fu, was it?» he teases and revs the bike back to life.

Your voice is a little muffled behind the helmet, but he hears a sarcastically «Lovie, was it?»

«It worked, didn’t it?» he says matter-of-factly, not really a question.

You're off on the highway in seconds.

Not duty —instinct. He refuses to entertain the idea of what that might be.

He protected civilians before. It never felt like this.

Raqs Sharqi and the Caravan

There are also roles for characters who express themselves through dance traditions inspired by Raqs Sharqi, Baladi, Shaabi, Saidi, Nubian forms, Ghawazee heritage, Khaleegy, Iraqi Kawleeya, Turkish Oriental and Turkish Romani styles, American Cabaret, American Tribal Style, Improvisational Tribal Style, Tribal Fusion, Gothic and Contemporary Fusion approaches, Andalusian influences, Persian Classical Fusion, Lebanese and Egyptian Oriental work, Moroccan Shikhat, Tunisian and Algerian traditions, Central Asian influences such as Uzbek and Tajik movement vocabularies, along with modern experimental fusions that blend these practices with elements drawn from hip hop, flamenco, ballet, samba or contemporary floorwork.

Within the world of this story, which is set in a fantasy medieval environment, these names serve as reference points for readers and performers rather than literal cultural labels. In the Desert Realm, these forms would naturally have their own names, histories and meanings that reflect the languages and traditions of the setting. The intention is to honour the artistry, discipline and cultural depth that these real world dance lineages represent while offering performers the freedom to interpret their characters through styles that feel authentic, expressive and respectful.

The term “belly dance” is used only as an accessible placeholder for those who may be unfamiliar with the wider vocabulary. Anyone with an interest in portraying such a character is welcome, and there are many opportunities throughout the project for dancers to contribute their style, creativity and interpretation in a way that enriches the world and respects the art.

Again, please complete the Google Form and I will email you all the relevant links to learn more about the project, this includes the Discord Server dedicated to the project.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this information and for considering whether this project resonates with you. I appreciate your interest and the care you bring to your own creative practice. I look forward to the possibility of hearing from you, and I hope that, if our paths align, we can collaborate with clarity, respect and honesty in a way that supports both the story and the artistry of everyone involved.

Regards.

Matt.