http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/san-miguel-festival-dance/

For almost five hundred years, this square had been a hotbed of international tension. Two countries had traded the semi-tropical outpost back and forth a dozen times. The regions natural resources were essentially tapped out from years of exploitation. As a result, the small city’s role had been reduced to tourism for its unique blend of architecture from two opposing historical traditions and the yearly peace conferences held by every nation of the continent.

High summer. Only a few days past the solstice, delegates from fourteen countries descended on the city full of stout fortresses, overly spired churches and the neatly stone-tiled streets. For five days every year, the sleepy town normally reserved for architecture nerds became the center of the political world.

All that would start the following morning. Tonight, they would celebrate the spirit of cooperation. Tonight, the gathered political appointees, elected officials and landed gentry of the remaining monarchial states would put on their finery to glad-hand and drink far more than could be considered reasonable for people representing their countries.

Every year, the festivities began in the main square that abutted the Church of Todas Lanzas. Speeches in the afternoon, a few small ceremonies to thank the locals for the hospitality and then a dance ritual. The crowds for this opening act were never large. Everyone was across town where the dinners and parties were held. That’s where the big names would appear, where celebrities with semi-related charitable causes went to hobnob with the truly powerful.

But there were two men of legitimate consequence who had stuck around for the dance. They were treated to a sight that many found archaic and needlessly flashy. But these two men stayed for they saw higher stakes. These were men with some sense of history and symbolism. As the sun set and the dance began, they stood just outside the gates of the Todas Lancas.

This square had seen a great deal of bloodshed in its time, and their two countries were largely to blame. The Fyrel Nation was the younger country, well-organized and newly rich from its huge advancements in electric power. Their electric lanterns lit the square and many of the wealthier homes and businesses in town.

For as long as there had been civilization in this part of the world, the Nenipugs had believed themselves its shepherd. Compared to their neighbors, there numbers were small. Howver, they had coalesced into cities and government long before the continent’s other denizens. Their population was never impressive, but they were intelligent to a fault. They had the best universities in the world, the most recognizable leaders, and they were quite happy to champion their greatness to anyone within earshot.

“This crowd gets smaller every year,” noted Ghiroo, the Fyrel Nation’s Chief Foreign Diplomat. He was a short man dressed in the finest suit money could buy.

“It’s a real shame,” replied Miklan, the Foreign Lord of Nenipugland. He was tremendously tall and dressed in a tasteful but forgettable traditional Nenipug eveningwear – a dark blue, high-collared, calf-length jacket over a simple white cotton shirt, matching blue cravat and alarmingly slender pants.

“No, I’m saying hardly anyone comes to see this nonsense,” Ghiroo gloated. “Must finally be coming to their senses.”

“It’s a beautiful dance, objectively,” Miklan replied with haughty nonchalance.

“It’s art. It can’t be observed objectively.”

“Not by lesser minds, no.”

Ghiroo shook his head. “And you wonder why no one comes to see your guys prance around like fools.”

“The glories of our power supply are subtle,” Miklan defended with ease. “Their elegance is lost, I believe, on the blunt minds of the quickly modernizing world.” This was a potshot at the Fyrel electricity cartel that was expanding with speed across the continent.

“That’s probably right. They’re too busy pulling themselves out of poverty because they have a cheap, limitless power source.”

A young woman with the dark skin of the western Fyrel people appeared beside the two men. She gently coughed to announce herself.

“Ah, Caprice,” Ghiroo said upon noticing. “What’s the word?”

“Just taking in the show, sir. Can I get either of you two anything?”

Ghiroo turned to Miklan. “Mik, you need a beer?”

“Actually, if they have that plum beer-”

“Yes, that’s what we need. Two plum beers.”

Caprice nodded and gave a small smile. “I know just the place.” She slipped off as quietly as she’d come.

“She’s new?” Miklan asked.

“Yes. Just out of school,”Ghiro said. “One of yours, actually.”

“Cathedral?”

“Yes, how’d you know?”

“They have a study program here in the summers. Probably how she has a particular plum beer spot in her back pocket,” Miklan explained. Ghiroo noted that, when he wasn’t being snide and self-congratulatory, his opposite number was a wonderful mind with whom he enjoyed sharing conversation.

“The crowd is so thin,” Ghiroo said, this time with no venom.

“Yeah,” Miklan said. “It’s disheartening.”

“I like a good party as much as the next guy, but all the stuff going on over there tonight isn’t for anyone of substance.” Ghiroo let out a sigh. “It’s for tourists and photographers, the journalists looking to ingratiate themselves into the story and the stage magicians that passed for modern statesmen.”

“Well said.”

Music struck up in the square, drum-heavy but with a lilting melody that was at once incongruent and lovely. The dancers began their ancient routine as individuals, organized around the edge of the square with no proximity to one another. Gracefully, they began to step and stomp, twirl and hop in a complicated series of athletic maneuvers.

Each held in his or her hands something like a short, stubby scepter. These were waved in intricate, looping patterns. It even appeared to the trained observer as if the scepters were leading the dance, and the humans followed in their wake.

Caprice emerged from the crowd with two large, overflowing mugs. She handed one to each foreign minister. Each lifted his hefty ceramic mug, and they clanged them together in a toast.

“To international cooperation,”  Ghiroo said.

“To lighting the night.”

“Even if it is in the most laborious way possible.”

Miklan rolled his eyes and sipped. “Why must you ruin a nice moment?”

“Why does it take a twenty minute dance to light one simple thing?”

“Well it’s not one simple thing,” Miklan argued.

“One dance for one building isn’t great return for value,” Ghiroo argued, unable to help himself.

“It’s a giant building, or can’t you see the enormous church looming above you?”

“The only thing I see in a Field Power building is an opportunity to convert it to electricity,” Ghiroo replied with purposefully exaggerated indignation. “So it doesn’t require constant tending.”

“We go through this every year, you and I,” Miklan said with a sigh. “The dancers use the magnetic scopes to harness the power from the fields. They’re directed into their pairs housed inside the fixtures which convert that energy to light. It’s an age-old process, and the light will last for months.”

As the dancers maneuvered themselves around the square, they drifted, subtly but inexorably, toward a common center. As the foreign ministers drank and bickered, the dancers waved their scopes. It was an ancient magical rite, and it had lit half the continent before the Fyrel Nation had invented machines that harnessed, and soon reproduced, the electricity in lightning storms.

High above, something came to life inside the fixture secured into the cross atop the Church of Todas Lanzas. A soft light began to glow. It was weak at first. But as the dancers continued to move, to wave their scopes and draw on their old magical art, the light grew stronger. And lower, in each spire of the church, tucked into sconces and affixed to the outer walls, the other fixtures began to glow with their own dawn. After twenty minutes, the dancers had nearly reached the common central point in the square. And the huge church burned in comforting yellow light.

“Flick a switch,” Ghiroo was saying, unable to abandon his argument. “One switch, and in ten seconds the light is at full power.”

“But that’s not the whole process. That’s only the end product.” Miklan was unwilling to back down. “There’s the burning of fuel at the plant, and the time and money and power spent installing the lines needed to carry your electric power from the plant to the people.”

“Expensive up front for the investors. Cheap for the buyers, and it doesn’t need to be redone every few months.”

“Well that’s debatable. We’re going to talk about it tomorrow, but we have reports of lines already deteriorating in some of the eastern countries.”

Beside them, Caprice sighed wearily. All around the square, the locals watched with smiles glued to their faces. The dancers were elegant and effective, and this was a tradition that was older even than the feud between the Fyrel Nation and the Nenipugs. It was a wonder of the ancient world and, centuries later, remained one still even in a world advancing with such pace.

And still the two countries argued. They fought and stole and, through grift or graft, they sought to one-up one another. At this point, she wasn’t sure it was genuine political maneuvering. She rather thought it was an old habit, so ingrained in the ruling classes of the two countries that they did it entirely by reflex.

“You ignore the delivery of the energy-” someone accused the other.

“But no! Because the ancient art requires the timing and patience that’s so ill-fit to-” the other barked back. They spoke over top of one another, more interested in delivering their point than having any real debate. Eventually, Caprice couldn’t handle it.

“Oh come on. Just can it!” She nearly shouted, and that wasn’t something most people did to political officials as powerful as these two. Both cut off in mid-argument and turned to look at her.

“You’re both so busy arguing you can’t see the common…” she started to say, but gave up. She waved her arms in sad resignation. “Look at this crowd. Look how amazed they are. It’s not many people, sure, but those that came hail from a dozen different countries. We’ve been here all day, and you two are the only ones arguing about energy futures, the only ones posturing about who’s got a leg up on the world stage today.

“You’re like the fake tan girls laughing at art school kids while getting mocked in return for being substanceless.” Caprice was rolling now, and she hammered home her point. “You’re both too caught up in the semantics to see it, but you’re not in the least bit different.”

In the square, the dancers reached the middle. Slowly, each lowered their scopes, and the old magic ebbed from the space. Towering over the dancers, the onlookers, the tourists and two embarrassed governmental officials, the Church of Todas Lanzas glowed, brilliant and captivating.

Electrical, Magical…  It was majestic in any light.