Day 13: 4266 words, 8090 (Dancer), 110,175 NaNo Total

Despite a really horrible ear problem through most of last night and today, I still managed 4,000 words. I'm pleased.

And Dancer is turning out to be a nice novel. I'm having fun so far.

So here is the snippet:

He slowly ate his food. The vegetables were tough. The bread had the texture of grain that could have spent a little more time in the mill. He found Devlin glancing at him now and then, as though measuring something -- but she said nothing. They ate. The silence in the room filled with a few whispers, but he tried not to listen.

And then, utter complete silence -- as though the entire building had gone still in one breath. He glanced up to find Devlin looking toward the door, her eyes wide with surprise.

"There's something you don't see every day," she said, an unexpected enthusiasm in her voice. "You are in luck."

He turned to see a young man standing at the doorway, clearly visible in the light just outside the building. The stranger looked a little shorter than most of the locals, and he wore his slightly curly hair longer. The clothing -- dark blues and greens, seemed gaudy in comparison to the local style, and marked him as another off-worlder. Cha had thought there weren't any others besides him and the IWC Troops.

Then he noted the scarf around the young man's neck partially hid a bandage and one arm rested in a sling, while the other hand held tight to a cane. He stood, there, leaning against it, as though waiting for something. He looked like someone who had gone through hell.

"The bastards are going to ignore him," Devlin said with a hiss of anger that drew glares back to her. Cha looked her way, wondering what the hell was going on this time. She met his look and blinked. "Oh, you wouldn't know. That's Dancer. He's the best Bear Dancer this world has ever seen."

Cha looked again. Not another off-worlder after all, but rather something far more exotic. He did not, however, understand the reactions of the others in the room, some of whom glared (though perhaps that was normal here), and others who seemed to be working very hard to ignore him.

The young man glanced around the room, his face devoid of emotion. At least he didn't glare. And he did pause when he saw the two of them, a bit of curiosity in the tilt of his head.

"I'm confused. I thought the people of Forest idolized bear dancers," he said, looking back at Devlin again.

"Oh yes, as long as they perform up to expectations." She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "The boy's out of favor because of his last dance. You can invite him to join us, but it won't make you any friends here."

It seemed as though Devlin wanted him to ask the stronger over, but given her attitude toward the locals, it probably wouldn't have bothered her that they didn't like it. He, however, was going to be living here in Woodvine for a few months, and the idea of purposely annoying them --

She leaned closer again. "He knows more about bears than anyone you could possibly talk to."