little piece of home | the sensoriums [OPEN- calling all gymnasts]
[bendytimed to soon after podpop, after this conversation with Katara]
It was a fairly normal reaction, when a new crew-member first learned about the sensoriums, to go and want to create something familiar, something from home. Haley was no exception. She had gone, and stood in the middle of the empty chamber for a bit, trying to decide what she ( Read more... )
It was a fairly normal reaction, when a new crew-member first learned about the sensoriums, to go and want to create something familiar, something from home. Haley was no exception. She had gone, and stood in the middle of the empty chamber for a bit, trying to decide what she ( Read more... )
Of course, completely unknown to her that there were other people in the Sensorium, she had set the music in the place, and her clothes changed to a white leotard with blue trim, her hair put up in Fire Nation style. She started with a few stretches, movement she was sure that looked less than human thanks to her Bene Gesserit training, her right leg resting comfortably on her head and her left extending past her torso straight out. She eased herself out of the pose and switched, waiting several seconds before sticking her legs straight out on both sides, and then rising up.
She ran and did two forward flips, one back, then rested her arms to her sides a moment before doing three full cartwheels. Pausing, she eased her bod back into a cat lift post, then downward dog and she paused, now realizing she wasn't the only one here.
"Oh hey!" She knew BOTH the girls here. "Hayley, Jubilee! Nice to see you guys here! Uh, I didn't know!"
Smooth.
Reply
First, they made nutrigoo palatable, which was nothing short of a miracle. Second, walking in on a completely new room each visit was fun. Sure, sometime he walked into blazing heat, cannibal planets, or terrible music, but there was a short, electric shock of adventure every time. And it was interesting to see what the crew wanted to surround themselves with, when they could choose anything at all.
Today, the place was fairly low key -- the mats, beams, and bars of gymnastic equipment. But there were familiar faces here. "Then I'm not crashing a party?" he asked, hopping up to sit a beam near Katara.
Reply
Dude. There were suddenly so fricking many people up in Haley's space. "Yeah, okay. Hi Katara. And," she snapped her finger and pointed. "Ben, right? And uh, hey, new person, I'm Haley." The hand she offered was still covered in chalk, but Jubilee didn't mind, right?
"So, uh," she continued, "we having some kind of gym bonding party up in here? Cause, if so, who is responsible for the music? That's gotta be fixed." Haley concentrated and the music shifted to this. Haley nodded in satisfaction. "That's more like it."
Reply
She tried not to grimace when the music shifted. "Hey Katara." She said. Didn't anyone train properly any more? Sarge would have her neck if she attempted to train to that stuff.
"Hiya Ben. I'm Jubilee." She went back to stretching, because, honestly, she needed this work.
"Where'd you train Haley?" Jubilee asked, pulling herself up onto the beam and continuing to stretch. No one worked like that without training.
Reply
She stretched, then waved to Ben. "I guess they'll be the judge of that," she said, pointing to Jubilee and Hayley. "Nice to see you again, Ben! Do you do gymnastics too?"
The music was...unfamiliar, but she could see why Hayley liked it. The music carried a beat that she could follow, and that in turn could also match up with the movements they did.
Katara started to move with the music: one leg stretched up first, then bent back, turned around and turned with the other leg stretched, slowly out her keg down and then twisted in the air, her face flushed a little.
I like it ! she thought to herself.
She was listening though, just as interested.
Reply
He ignored the chalk -- he wasn't sure what the girls were practicing for, but gymnastic training, for a Jedi, wasn't an end in and of itself. It was for fighting and running away really fast in strange terrain, and he doubted he'd be in one of those situations with a chance to chalk up first. So he stretched briefly, stood on the beam for a moment, then flipped into a handstand and held it on the elevated surface. Focus.
Reply
"So wow, we're all gymnests, huh?" Her eyes were wide with sarcastic excitement. "One big happy family. Well, you've already seen my awesome dismount, so lets see what you kids can do." She crossed her arms over her chest, ready to be unimpressed.
Reply
She went over to chalk up her hands. "If not I can do tumbling runs, but I'd kinda like to work the bars if you don't mind." She glanced at Ben. "It's weird seeing a guy on the beam, Sarge never taught the guys that." She shook her head, and went to inspect the bars before she went to use them.
Yeah, Haley had been on them, but Jubilee had been thoroughly trained. She could almost hear Sarge barking at her to 'inspect the Freedom Bars, and learn from them Red Monkey!' Man, she missed him. She smiled to herself.
Reply
Music was one part, but in truth she could hear the tics and the movement all in her head. The meditations she had slowed time down in this way. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
One. Two. One two. One two three. OnetwothreefourGO
She spun sideways, her legs landing slightly apart, and she could see, in her mind, the advancing attack of someone she knew well: Azula at the day of Sozin's comment. She made a run and did three triple flips and reared back, locking her legs in place before doing a forward flip, her hands mimicking her water bending Tai Chi movement, then bent herself completely backward and stood straight up, legs in the air, and fell down lightly, her last movement in a stance.
She took a short breath, admiring silently how much faster she'd gotten over the last few months.
Reply
Reply
Mei-Xing pokes her head into the Sensoriums with a confused look. "Wait. Waitwaitwait. This ship's all meaty and pulsy, and suddenly we have an old-style gym?" What the drek, people. She steps in fully and looks around. Well, she'd be damned. She steps on in and stares around, running a hand through her hair as she watches the others play about on the equipment.
This wasn't what she was used to, but it might be nice to hang about. She'd just settle in and do her practice when all of these kids left.
Reply
She had to admit, she was pretty impressed by Katara's routine. "You got kind of a kung-fu vibe going on," she told the other girl.
Watching Ben on the beam, Haley had to smile. Here was a challenge. "Not bad, bean sprout," she told him, then vaulted up onto a parallel beam. She started the same way he had, going into a handstand on the beam, but then, she lowered her legs, until she was doing the splits, before finally lifting one hand off the beam and pointing it straight to the side- all without the aid of the force. Beat that Ben.
Haley was distracted though, by the entrance of another new person. "What is this, open day at the old folks home?" she muttered to herself. Then, in response to the new girl's comment, "... hey! What do you mean 'old-style'? This gym is perfectly serviceable, thank you very much. Everything's regulation." After spending several months training in here, Haley had to admit she had grown (just a tiny bit) fond of the place.
Reply
Then all that mattered was running down the aisle, and the hit of the springboard against her hands. Chalk slid over her palms as she grabbed the high bar and swung around, coming to a perfect handstand.
"I think," Jubilee put in, "that she meant gymnastics as being old style, rather than speaking about the aesthetics of the place." Her body folded, and she spun around the bar, enjoying the freedom of almost flying.
Her hands tucked into her body as she released the bar. In perfect timing, Jubilee managed to grab the bar again and twisted around it, ending in another handstand. "But I could be wrong, and she could just find our quaintness utterly fascinating and she now wants to observe the lower life forms that she's deigned to meet." She flashed a grin at them, turning on her hands. "Or I could just be being cynical."
Reply
She could have told Ben that it WAS half martial arts half gymnastics, because that had really been the way she'd learned it. The martial arts portion was the waterbender in her: she weaved in and out of movements, positioning her arms and legs a certain way before launching into a defensive strike. She lifted her body up with her arms before curling backward and doing a few more forward flips in the air, doing a split in-between and then running toward the beam and flipping perfectly onto it before splitting again, her arms grabbing onto the beam, and flipping her body several times before doing a somersault in the air and touching down to the mat, legs extended and arms apart from each other, breathing hard.
To Mei Xing, she gave a wave of acknowledgment, grinning.
Reply
Reply
She does, however, take a moment from her aimless griping to toss Katara off a friendly smile and wave. She doesn't really mean to offend people. She's just... Offensive. Sometimes. She doesn't even realize she's doing it, half the time. "Hey."
Reply
Leave a comment