The Toothdancer Quotes

“... her teeth had begun to dance.

They twitched in her jaw like living things. She shrieked, not in pain but in horror, her mouth suddenly full of wiggling bone, as if she were in one of those nightmares where all her teeth fell out at once. It was like chewing and squirming and wiggling a loose tooth, wrapped all together, in time to the pennywhistle's tune.

She tried to bite down hard, hoping to still the awful dance, but it was worse, much worse, all the teeth rattling against each other, her skull filling up with the sounds of chattering. Oh god oh god no no no no NO!

It most of her teeth were dancing, the one bad molar was kicking. It felt as if it were battering against her cheek and the rest of her teeth, like a bird at a window, slam, slam, slam.

The Toothdancer leaned in closer and played more quickly. Marra wanted to scream in denial, but if she opened her mouth, all her teeth would dance out. Oh god this was worse than anything worse than the blistered land, that had been outside, and this was inside her skin inside her face-

With a popping sensation, the bad tooth pulled itself free of her jaw. It landed on her tongue, bouncing like an insect and began to batter against the backs of her lips. Marra yelped at the sensation of hard, crawling life loose inside her mouth. She tried frantically to spit.

The Toothdancer dropped the pennywhistle, leaned in, and plucked the tooth neatly from the surface of her tongue with his beak. He turned and dropped the tooth, wet and glistening, in to the tooth seller's palm.

Then he bowed very politely to Marra, patted her arm, and walked away.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“The Toothdancer looked like a stork or a heron, with a long hard bill and a curved, mobile neck. He wore a tattered black suit, with feathers sticking out of the holes, and his hands were very human. When he turned his head, Marra saw half a man's face below the beak, as if it were a mask, and yet his eyes were clearly a heron's, the colour of new-minted coins, and set back from the beak like a bird's.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone