Gym - OTA

[treadswater]

There was a time when Annie was in a gym at least six days out of seven. Ages eleven to sixteen, during her time at the Career Academy (a slightly grandiose name for quite a glorified school club, but it wasn't until Annie was a victor herself that she recognized the self-depreciating humour in the name). Before school and after school, training and training and training. After that, when she was washed out, no gyms, but she kept up the physical activity - and exceeded it, fishing being what it is. As a victor, she ran most mornings, or swum. Worked out. Sparred with Finnick. She'd noticed if she didn't, her mind got worse, her fits of hysteria (anxiety attacks, Beverly had called them) more frequent.

But it's been six months since she's done anything properly physical regularly. When her mood's been stable, she's turned the holodeck into a running track, but that hasn't been nearly anything like five or six days out of seven.

She's twitchy, which goes a way to explain how she winds up in the gymnasium, trailing her fingers over the bo staffs in their rack. She'd been good at spears in the Academy, and although the idea of stabbing now makes her uneasy, she's still good at wielding a staff. She can get her fiancé (tall, built, twice her size and lethal) on his back.

Annie picks up one of the staffs and hefts it, giving it an experimental twirl. It's well-balanced, and she smiles, quiet and shy and delighted.

But despite that delight, and how practically she's already dressed (boots, trousers, simple blouse under her loose jacket, hair braided), she doesn't make any further movements towards any of the practice mats.

Comments

[ethnobotany]

The other place Beverly can be found that isn't sickbay, Ten Forward, or the Arboretum is the gym. Unlike a lot of people, Beverly isn't much of a weight-lifter. She prefers things like meditation, which she usually ends up doing through the Klingon form of Mok'bara. It's usually so effective at clearing her mind that it was what she used often in Zelien, at least towards the end of her stay, and now when Annie walks in Beverly isn't even paying attention to the room. She might be if something threatened her little bubble, but right now? No.

It isn't until after Annie has chosen her staff and Beverly has gotten through a sequence of the Mok'bara form that she finally pauses, intending to reset and start again. Instead, she pauses fully, noticing her new companion.

"I didn't realize anyone else was in here."

She was just that distracted.

[treadswater]

"I was tryin' not to disturb you," Annie admits then, automatically and casually resting her staff across her shoulder. It's a move with a bit of swagger to it, but as soon as she notices that she's done it, she winces and swings the staff down and holds it with both her hands.

She's not a Career any more. She's not. That confident girl managed to think her way into terror years before she ever set foot in the Capitol.

"I. What were you doing, Beverly? It didn't really look like you practising to fight."

[ethnobotany]

Beverly's smile warms a touch and she gives her head a little shake of reassurance. "Believe me, there's little that can interrupt me in the middle of that." As Annie could probably tell, Beverly gets involved in what she's doing, hyper focused to the point that she blocks out everything else, including her own thoughts and worries. That is, of course, the entire point.

"I wasn't," she admits. "It's the basis for a form of Klingon combat called Mok'bara. It's said to clear the mind, so I use it more as a form of meditation, to keep my mind clear and focused, especially when I have too much time to let my mind wander to less pleasant things." Like Zelien, which she is sure she doesn't need to clarify for Annie.

"Actually, it might do you some good, too. I could teach you, if you'd like." She won't be as good as Worf, but she's taught a fair few people by now. Besides, it really might help Annie with her anxiety.

[reincarnshaman]

Trever comes stumbling into the gym after being shoved roughly by Kale, who dodges a grab and gives him another shove. This time Trever manages to evade and bounces backward a few steps onto the mats.

They're both in work out clothes, though Trever is barefoot, his shoes over his shoulder, and Kale is wearing gloves. The reasons for why Trever is barefoot becomes apparent when Veena comes sauntering in behind them, a sock in her mouth.

"Oh! Hey, they've got staves!" Kale said, excitedly. "I can continue to knock your on your ass."

"Hah! I'd like to see you try," Trever said, dropping his shoes. He walked over to the rack of staffs anyway. When he saw Annie he gave her a smile and pointed to his twin. "Hey! Annie! Look, Cabbage Boy showed up!"

A shoe goes flinging in Trever's direction, which he catches before it can hit him.

[treadswater]

She smiles at them - well, at Trever, then at Kale. One she knows, and liked when they talked before. Despite how shy she seems (and, really, is), she doesn't seem taken back at their loud entrance.

She's actually used to this. Or, was. It's familiar.

"Family privileges, I guess," Annie says. "Hi, Kale. I, uh, didn't know you were on-board, too."

[engineermage]

The second shoe goes flying. This time it actually hits Trever in the head, bouncing off and onto the floor.

"Family privileges my crow bitten ass," Kale said. "I didn't know I was on board either until recently. Apparently he's had time to tell horrible stories about me, hasn't he?"

[aehallh]

The gym is part of Irian's daily routine, one of the handful of things she uses to stave off what might otherwise be an almost deadly degree of boredom. She can do the same workout routines here that she might do at home, more or less, and occasionally she's found a sparring partner or two. All told, it is not a terribly bad way to spend a couple hours of her time each day. After breakfast, she dresses in a sleeveless shirt and her uniform trousers, and takes the turbolift down to deck twelve.

There's a young woman she's never seen before in the gym already when she enters — human, Irian guesses, with long red hair drawn back into a plait and loose, casual clothing. She's holding a staff, but not in the tentative manner of someone who's never picked up a weapon before. No, she looks like she'd know what to do with it, if it came down to it.

Right at the moment, though, Irian's not quite interested enough to stop; she gives the other woman a polite nod, then goes over to one of the mats and starts a few warmup stretches, followed by a series of practice martial arts forms. She's not an expert, where hand-to-hand combat is concerned, but it's obvious she's trained, if nothing else.

[treadswater]

Knowing what to do has never been the problem for Annie Cresta. She knows. She can watch, analyse, react, all trained to be dirty and competent and, if possible, showy.

Actually doing, now, that's the issue, isn't it?

The twirl of the staff slows as the dark-haired woman passes, and finishes as she walks onto the mat. But Annie doesn't put it away. It's too obvious, oh someone is here, I should run. And, besides.

The woman's movements are fascinating. Trained, clearly, but not really how Annie knows. Some movements are familiar, but only because there are only so many ways to really kick.

She rests her staff on her shoulder, the movement relaxed and comfortable, and watches. She's maybe being obvious about it, but it's interesting, and so she focuses. Analyses. Tries to see the patterns in what the woman is doing.

[aehallh]

Irian was not an intelligence officer for over fifteen years without knowing when she's being watched. This time, though, she's not bothered by the attention: it's curiosity, she guesses. Not someone who's trying to figure out her fighting style in order to exploit it later. She could be wrong on that count, but she doesn't think so.

There aren't actually a lot of kicks involved in this particular form; llaekh-aer'l is about grounding oneself in the Earth, and the feet usually (not always, but usually) stay put. Failing Earth, the metal of a ship's deck will do; it's the same thing, anyway, where the Elements are concerned. She completes the sequence she started, focused, without rushing, and only then glances over to the other woman in the room.

"Am I interrupting?" she asks, and there's the very slightest breath of humor in the otherwise dry words that makes it clear she knows she was being watched. She doesn't seem offended, though, pausing a moment to take the human woman's measure; one of her own hands moves, casually, to sweep a loose strand of her hair back behind one pointed ear.

This girl, whoever she is, knows at least something about combat — it's in the set of her body, the casual way the staff rests over her shoulder. Irian doesn't have to know human kinesics, specifically, to recognize that much.

[notalwaysstrong]

"You practice hanbōjutsu?"

This voice comes from a man who is wandering in, dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Mack had mostly been planning to go at the bags, but paused when he spotted someone who seemingly didn't have a partner.

[treadswater]

"What?" She turns to face the man (around thirty give or take a few years, fit, moves like he knows what he's doing), frowning in clear confusion. "No, it's more...um. Spear-fishing crossed with making things up."

Then she winces - making things up, Cresta? now why would you want to do that unless you're a Career, hmm? - and quickly continues.

"I'm, I'm not used to the idea of so many different types of fighting. You use a staff in hanbo-jut-su?"

She tries to pronounce it correctly, but between unfamiliarity and her own thick accent (it could be Mexican, but occasionally it seems a bit too American, Texan), she garbles it.

But.

She tries.

[notalwaysstrong]

"Yup." Mack picks up one himself, twirling it in his hands. "Hanbō literally means half-staff." He sets it on his shoulder. His own accent is a relaxed, drawling southern US one, likely difficult to pinpoint a location from it.

"Wanna show me what ya got?"

[chaotica]

Exercise, unfortunately, hasn't been able to quiet Cambridge's considerable and active mind.

He can't stop thinking over his memories of Wolf 359. Which, in turn, leads to him experiencing the symptoms of mild panic: elevated heart rate, racing thoughts, fixation on unnecessary details. There's no way he, in his position on that ship, could have prevented or changed the outcome of the space battle. Fortunately and unfortunately, things are different here. He could change it.

But does he want to?

He finishes another form from the various martial arts he's learned, alien and human. This one emphasizes precision and control; in training at the Academy, far-too-many years prior, he'd drawn on his prior ballet training (from ages five to fifteen, ten full years) more than he'd drawn on the instructor's actual words, and it had resulted in an easy aced course. He keeps himself honed now, too, because you never know when you need to take down a traitorous Klingon maid. These situations tend to come upon one without warning.

[treadswater]

He's graceful.

It's one thing that the Careers aren't known for. They are known for winning, for being brutal and cruel, for putting on a good show, for running in a pack. But although they are all trained, and all trained in the same kinds of things, there's never been ever attempt to make them fight the same as far as any style is concerned. And that means that whatever grace and beauty they bring, it's all up to the individual.

Finnick is beautiful when he fights, but then, he's the most graceful person she's ever known. Ran, Four's youngest victor, is efficient, brutally so. There's an elegance to be had in that, yes, but it's far more subjective. Ran is impatient, channels her anger, and it shows. Annie has seen herself in the bloodbath of the 70th Hunger Games, and she could see that she'd been fast, mean, darting in and out because she'd been one of the shortest on the field. That's how the Careers were taught, if there was a common link. In hand-to-hand, be ruthless until they can get their hands onto the weapons.

The people here, when they practice, fight nothing like that. There are styles she thinks she's picking out, in the times she's drifted through the gym, but the movements are graceful against the empty air, not unlike when learning the steps to a dance. And this man is no exception. A bit more graceful than others, even.

So, Annie watches. She holds the staff against her, hand loose around it, and watches the movements of his limbs, trying to predict the end of the movement, trying to analyse purpose and skill.

Analysing to the point that when he stops, she's still standing there, head ever so slightly tilted and her green eyes dark with thought.

[chaotica]

He meets her eyes, then. He's been aware that she was watching. He just ignored it.

"You've never been exposed to this sort of fighting style," he remarks. "Insular life? And a violent one, I suppose," with a pointed glance at the staff in her hand. Easy conclusions; he supposes that she's one of the new arrivals, though, and any further guesses have to take into account that the possibilities for Annie's life are literally endless - infinite in number - and not constrained by his own perception of the universe.

[kaylinneya]

Kaylin's permission post/trigger warning
Kaylin had been working her way down to the gym. She was coming down regularly to work out, and to look for sparring partners She yawned loudly as she entered the room, glad to be an adult again.

She wanted to workout, she wanted to work all the food she ate as a kid into muscle, because she wasn't sure how that worked. She was hungry when she was herself again, but that told her nothing. She was a fiefling, she was always hungry.

She sees the girl with the staves, and studied her from behind for a long moment, watching her as a Hawk does, studying her silently, how she moves, and how she doesn't. Specifically how she stays where she is.

Finally Kaylin gets bored of the nothingness.

"Going to practice with that club, or marry it?" she asked dryly. She was intentionally calling the weapon by the wrong name.

Still, she was well versed in how deadly a staff could be in proper hands, and she wanted to challenge herself against this girl.

[treadswater]

"Oh, um."

The words my fiancé would be jealous of the latter run across her brain, but despite the way the other young woman reminded her of a Career, she fumbles back into awkwardness.

"Neither, I was just lookin'."

[super_seal]

The gym is one place that Steve makes a point to come to on a daily basis. It's not actually that difficult, he hasn't figured out much more to do with his time, but the gym is something that he finds familiar and in that relaxing.

Today he's been working out with the punching bag on a mat off to the side. Attacking the bag with a mixture of various different martial arts, he sees Annie when she comes in but he doesn't stop his workout.

They've met. Well, sort of. It's more he knows who she is than anything else. A passing acquaintance.

At first he's content to leave it at that. He watches from the corner of his eye as she picks up the staff and for a moment he thinks she's going to start her own workout. When she doesn't he stops his workout to watch her.

He has a quick internal debate before he's slipping his sleeveless workout shirt back on and wraps his towel around his neck. Picking up his water-bottle, he takes a long drink and then approaches her.

"Everything okay?"

[treadswater]

She'd noticed Finnick's roommate when she came in. But he'd seemed busy. Not that she's avoiding him, she's actually been quietly planning on how to summon up her courage to get to know him better. Somewhere where Finnick isn't being protective at her, isn't drawing attention back to himself to allow her to slip away: after five years of walking as a team, they do it almost automatically now.

So, instead, she'd occasionally glanced over and assessed. Some of the moves were the fancy things she'd seen here, but he'd seemed more efficient than some of other folk. Training for a purpose. It's something she can understand.

Not that she notices him walking over. She'd gotten somewhat lost in thought, and so she startles a little when Steve speaks.

"Um," Annie starts, which is fairly normal for her interactions with people. She's shy to Finnick's slick, the unpolished district woman next to his stylish socialite, right down to how she speaks with a much thicker version of their Mexican-Texan hybrid of an accent.

Then she smiles, lowering the staff and letting it hang loosely by her side. The smile is still shy, but not quite so startled. Confused, though, and that's clear from the faint crease between her eyebrows. "I'm fine. Did, uh. Did I not look it?"

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate doesn't often come to the gymnasium. It's not her kind of practice ring, all things told. She prefers a range, or a gallery — but out here, there's not a whole lot of that. Not while they're all stuck on a boat floating out in the dead of space.

She's been a little off-center herself lately, likely because of all the excitement that's been going on. However, she still manages a smile and a polite nod when she thinks she's caught Annie's eye. She'd tip her hat if she were wearing it.

"Howdy."

[treadswater]

"Hello," Annie replies. It's not the first thing she does. The first thing is she startles, a tiny tiny tiny bit, as the woman's greeting pulls her from where her thoughts had taken her.

Then she smiles, shy but friendly enough, and lowers her staff as if she'd never been twirling it.

"I'm not, uh. In your way or anythin'?"

She has an odd accent, does Annie Cresta. Mostly Mexican, but some Texan there, too, all marinated over hundreds and hundreds of years.

[and_she_waited]

"Oi, Ginger!" Amy calls out from across the room.

It's become a favourite greeting now, whenever she sees another redhead on the ship. Don't ask what she's doing in the gym; boredom probably played a large part.

[treadswater]

It is such an odd greeting that for a moment, Annie doesn't really react. She just twirls the staff and then shifts her hands to twirl it around, differently. Not really just showing off now, but the kind of swing you'd use if something was on the end, if it was weighted differently. She misses her workshop.

But then she slowly remembers that no one else was really in this room, and she turns up to look at the tall redhead.

"Um."

Annie frowns, confused.

"Were you calling to me?"

[makesbettermouth]

Amy, meanwhile, has been ignoring the gym like it's her job and decided to show up for want of any other distractions.

Annie is very fluid of gesture and movement, and it's enough to keep Amy quiet and watching her with impressed jealousy. She's wishing she didn't skip her last few workouts.

[treadswater]

She doesn't notice Amy, not at first. So she stands there and swings the staff. The twirl pauses as she steps back, and she turns it into a swipe, as if at someone's knees. Another twist and a thrust, angled up due to her shortness but aimed at a hypothetical forehead.

She's been using a spear and harpoon to fish since she was a good, and they trained her since she was eleven in more lethal things. Her glassmaking is where the graceful twirl comes from: she knows what she's doing and it shows.

At least until she notices Amy. Then she startles, her movements suddenly stuttered until she stops.

"Um," she begins. "Hi."