Getting into a routine

[Vega]

50thTrial of Ashen during Arc 717

"Did you get dropped on your head as a baby?"

That had been Vega's response to what Arlo had said. It was clear, obviously, that she was slightly less excited about the suggestion than he, perhaps, was. "So, what you are saying to me is that there's some kind of festival thing, where people perform in the streets?" Alright, good for them, that bit had been fine. It was the second bit that had Vega's eyebrows meet her hairline, more or less. "An' you think that we, you and I, should be performers on that trial?" There was only one answer to what he was suggesting, of course. "This is revenge for the dancing, innit? Alright. You were a good sport then."

Vega grinned and shook her head, if they were going to make complete idiots of themselves, may as well do it somewhere no one knew them, she reckoned. "But there's a rule, Arlo Creede. If we're going to do that then we are not going to 'wing it', it will not 'be a'right, don't worry so much', and we will, without a doubt, practice."

Sitting outside their tents, the camp fire warm and the breakfast he'd made finished, she was very adamant about that. "Besides, if we work something out, a proper routine, it'll be good practice and I've noticed that you're getting a bit rusty, you know." Putting away the plates she'd washed for them, ready for the next meal, she couldn't help it. "I think it must be your birthtrial soon, you're getting a bit old and creaky. Age, mate. It's a dreadful thing."

Once everything was put away and she could no longer put it off any longer, Vega sighed and looked at him. "Alright then. You win. What're we going to do?"

The actual routine itself would need his input, or at least more information. Were they walking through the streets, Vega asked, were they performing this whilst in an open space, or what? Just what the situation was they were going to find themselves in was very important, after all, and would determine what kind of tricks and so on they did. An idea crossed Vega's mind and her eyes lit with delight. "Can we dress up?"

[Arlo Creede]

"Well why shouldn't we?" Arlo had argued when Vega declared the that idea he'd put forward, indicated some sort of madness. "It's called performer's day, where locals get together and show off their talent." True, neither of them could rightfully call themselves artists or performers either. But they weren't completely without talent. And besides, "There might be some money in it, if we put a hat out." Not his, but a different hat.

And revenge? He snorted. No. "In fact, we could even use a little bit of that dancing we picked up in Desnind." It was the last thing Arlo had imagined himself saying. But it might add a little something extra, were they to do it. It was more like him to live by the seat of his pants, lead from off the cuff. Planning wasn't exactly his specialty. But if they were to do something like that together, there'd need to be some some of coordination. "Like minds," he agreed. That would do.

"And just you keep in mind," he told Vega with a deep, if put on frown etched into his youthful face. "that no matter how much older I get, I'll always be younger than you. A lot younger. You'll be a matron before you know it," he added then, and with a grin.

Back to the topic at hand, however, he shrugged. "I get the impression that there's not really a stage. But we could always stop in place, and do what we want." Actually, he had some tricks in mind that they could do together, rather than just side by side. "I s'pose we could work out some costumes." And to make it even more interesting? They might dream up some sort of story to go with the lot of it, one they could act out but without words. Like a fight, or something like it, he suggested.

[Vega]

"Because we're not local an' we have no discernable talents? How are those two for starters?" Vega's response to 'well why shouldn't we?' was quick and genuine. She laughed, though, when he said they might make money were they to put down a hat. "Only if we use mine and folks pity me. I heard you think it, you know." She couldn't fault him, in fairness, but then it kept her head warm and she cared not two jots about anything else. "Is it just me, or do we end up talking about hats a lot?" She couldn't really deny it, now that she thought about it.

When he said about the dancing, though, she sighed, dramatically and 'gave in'. "I suppose," she drew it out as long and as dramatically as she could. "Since it's you. I suppose, I can." Her grin was genuine and when his face took on a deep frown, Vega laughed. "Arlo Creede, I'm two and a half arcs older than you. You do know that, yeah?" Veg wondered sometimes if he thought she was thirty not twenty. Or, worse yet, fourty.

Still, he had a number of ideas and she nodded. "I like the idea of tellin' a story. I bet you do, too. Fighting? Maybe. We could be clowns, too. I mean, slapstick stuff, you know?" Thinking about it, she considered. "We could be talking our imaginary dog for a walk, except the dog is one of those hoops. Or.." Vega's eyes lit with delight at the next thought she expressed, her eyes, which were currently a vivid purple flecked with gold, shining with excitement. "We could be a pair of drunk tramp kind of people. Missing teeth, bad clothes, totally off our faces." She gave him a glance which belied the two year age difference and would have been more appropriate on his mother's face. "Not that it gives you a reason for research, mind you."

[Arlo Creede]

"We're local so long as we're here," Arlo argued when Vega, so far as he was concerned, went grasping at straws to justify not doing it. "And we're plenty talented. I bet none of these Ne'haer...ans have ever between them brought down a speddawa...Well, whatever that thing was." Besides, he hadn't seen or heard anything that said that new arrivals couldn't join in, were they to want to.

"You stop calling me a kid, I'll never call you a matron again," he proposed, though grinned when he said it. As if it was some kind of challenge. It was, really. She couldn't help herself and she'd do it again, sooner or later. And so would he.

So if they were to participate, and make it a proper show, they needed some sort of scenario to play out. "Don't like clowns," he uttered without a stop. "Never have." Therefore it wasn't an option. Still, he looked at her almost as if offended while pointing out, "I've been drunk. Plenty of times before." He lied. He hadn't. But nonetheless, the idea was the best one so far as he was concerned.

"Drunks are sort of loose moving, loose walking. That would be good. Takes a special sort of flexibility and timing. We'll need to practice." But he had some ideas, he added, about tricks they could do together rather than side by side or completely separate. As if they were two drunks trying to keep each other upright and failing to do it. "You'd have to practice some of them, you know, till you can do them without a rope tethered to you," he warned.

[Vega]

"Yeah, fair point." She couldn't argue when he said that if she stopped calling him a kid, he'd stop calling her a matron. "But I'm right, an' you, my friend, are wrong. There's the trouble. Alright, alright, I'll try." She made no promises there, tormenting him was one of her favourite pastimes. Like shooting fish in a barrel, too. Vega couldn't help the grin she gave him, then. "I'm just going to have to focus on your height for a while I guess. Though, if you could stop growing taller, that'd be great." It was disconcerting, to her mind.

Lifting her hands in surrender, Vega chuckled, "I didn't say you hadn't, did I?" His response to the idea of pretending to be drunk told her a lot; he had a tendency to immediately defend around that topic and she rather thought that he never had. Not that it mattered, she couldn't rightly say that she'd ever been to the point of out of control. Like she'd told him, aboard the ship your life might depend on quick reactions. "I just said it wasn't a chance to do any further research." She shook her head slightly then gave him a companionable thump on the arm.

"Yeah, that works. Alright and yes, I'll practice. Eventually, I'll be good enough to do that without ropes." She grinned and stood, "If we clear this space here, we can practice?" As she walked, Vega jumped and somersaulted in the air, just like he'd taught her last season except then, of course, she'd needed ropes. Now, she just needed a little forward momentum and well flexed knees. With a raised eyebrow, Vega put her hands on her hips and gave him a challenging look.

"I've been practising. Every trial in the morning, whilst you snore, I train. So come on then, what are your ideas?"

► Show Spoiler

She's moved from unskilled to competent, so I figured by now she could.

[Arlo Creede]

Arlo wasn't sure he believed her, when she said she'd try to stop calling him a kid. Or implied she'd stop teasing him at all. He knew Vega too well. Besides, it was a part of their friendship that he enjoyed though he'd never admit it. She couldn't stop, anymore than he'd stop picking at her. He wouldn't even imply that he'd try. Instead, he grinned, his expression full of skepticism.

He was growing taller though, and was convinced that given the time, he'd outpace her altogether. "Not for much longer," he said, in case she decided to turn her focus there instead of his age. "It'll be me then, making the short jokes and you eating crow." Still, once they cleared a space to work in, it appeared she had a surprise in store for him. And in spite of himself, he was impressed and showed it.

"You have been practicing," Arlo admitted, begrudgingly. "And that's not an easy trick to learn." Then thinking about it, considering what she was able to do, he had an idea. "Alright, showoff. Let's see how flexible you are and how good your balance is. And mine." Strength too, he added with a wide grin, while at the same time doing a few stretching exercises to loosen up before trying anything himself. She should, he pointed out, always warm up before trying something like that. Or at least when possible.

And once he was ready, from as good as a standstill, he moved as if to do a forward somersault, but instead ended up in a headstand, walking a few paces on his hands for good measure before getting on his feet again. "So first, see if you can get yourself into a headstand with just a little forward momentum. Not running, just a few steps," he explained. "And once you're there, see how long you can hold it." If she could do that, after just a couple tries, they could move the next step.

Arlo did the move beside her, but this time he didn't walk on his hands, only remained still and upside down so long as she did. And once she was ready, he'd move on the crux of his idea. "This time, I'm going to position myself on my hands and knees. You approach from my head, and this time go into a handstand by placing your hands on my shoulders."

She might have to complete the arc more than once till she got it, by doing a full forward somersault and landing behind him. But as long as her weight was only on his shoulders and not his back, he'd do just fine. "Then once you've managed that," he added, even while he got down on his knees and put aside his hat, "I'll move into a more upright position, kneeling with one knee in front. Then you can use my raised knee to stand on, use for upward momentum, and try to do a handstand on my shoulders."

Either way, on all fours or one knee, he'd be low enough to the ground to avoid her hurting herself should she rotate too far. And all the while, he'd adjust to her weight, moving to accommodate the shift in balance for them both. The flexibility, strength and ability to adjust was as important a part of acrobatics for him in this case, as it was for her. If she didn't do her part properly, she could fall and risk hurting herself. And hurt herself just as much, was he to falter instead.

[Vega]

"Proper ladies should be shorter than what gentlemen is." Vega responded and she fluttered her eyelashes with an exaggerated flutter and a wicked grin at him. "If you weren't such a midget, you'd know that." Would she care if she was shorter than him? Not in the slightest, that would be fine. "Most Biqaj men are taller than me. Not the Sev'ryn though. They were teeny tiny people." With a glance to Arlo she didn't add anything, but she did look him up and down.

"I have. But I had a good teacher, in fairness." Vega wouldn't deny that he'd taught her well, but she also couldn't resist adding with a smile, "and sturdy ropes. You're gonna have to stop cooking good food or I'm going to get fat and sedentary." She was more than happy, however, to stretch with him and she nodded her understanding of needing to do that. "I always do, I just couldn't resist showing off," she was quick to reassure him. However, he had a plan that involved flexibility, balance and strength? Vega raised an eyebrow and listened to his idea.

"Alright," she said, and she practiced a few times at getting up into a handstand with limited forward momentum. Once she had done that a few times, she tried to see how long she could hold it. Because they were practicing, Vega wore a pair of loose trousers and a vest top tucked into them. Which meant that he could see the muscles in her arm ~ she was as strong as she was flexible and she could maintain for a while. She held herself there, recognising that the trick to keeping balance was to not move and she felt the tension in her arm muscles. "When I'm doing strength training, I lower myself up an' down like this." Her hair, of course, was behind her and touching the floor and Vega turned and grinned at him. "It's weird. You look upside down, but we're the same way up."

Utilising her strength to the best of her ability, Vega stayed there as long as he wanted her to, though the blood rushing to her head was less fun. Still, she had a pretty strong endurance for that kind of thing, so she remained. Eventually, though, he explained what he wanted to do. "What if I hurt you?" She checked, just by putting her hands on his shoulders, where the furthest back her hands could go before it got dangerous for him.

The first few times, she was far too cautious in what she was doing, concerned that she was going to hurt him, then she tied her hair back, frowned at him like it was his fault and did it. "How's this feel?" Vega landed, then looked at him and spoke in a serious tone. "You know, I'm stronger than you. You're probably lighter than me. Do you think you should switch places with me here?"

[Arlo Creede]

"Proper ladies?" Arlo snorted, ribbing her in his usual way. "Well I guess that's the key word then isn't it?" It was true though that generally speaking, the Sev'ryn weren't terribly tall as a rule. As opposed to the Biqaj, many of whom he'd gotten to know on the voyage from Desnind to Ne'haer. And as a human, he hovered around the taller end of the scale.

As for handstands, Arlo practiced them beside her. Mostly from standing in place, up, walk a few paces on his hands, and then from there he'd vault into the air just a bit to land on his feet again in a backwards arc. She'd gotten it though, to the extent that he believed she could do as he was suggesting.

Of course acrobatics was its own type of strength training. It didn't just build flexibility after all, but muscle in the arms, the legs and so on. Holding particular moves, in fact, required more strength than simply rolling through them. Still, grinning at her comments about him being topside down, but not, he mirrored her up and down movements till they were ready to move on.

"Hurt me?" he said, looking up at her curiously once he was in a position of all fours on the ground. He frowned and shook his head. "You're not going to hurt me if you do it like I told you." And when she pressed down on her shoulders, he helped her identify just the right place where she should place her hands when going into a handstand. "It's fine," Arlo said, but then stopped short when she referenced her supposed strength as opposed to his.

Frowning deeply, he rocked back up on his knees and eyed her without speaking, for at least a trill or two. It struck him, and he nearly said it too, that if she was to consider ever wanting a fellow of her liking to kiss her again like Cassion had done, she might not want to go round saying she was stronger than him. Didn't matter if she believed she was or she wasn't. Some things just weren't said.

Instead, Arlo shook loose the thought of pointing that out, and then shook his head. "We probably weigh about the same, or close enough. But it's not the issue anyway. It's going to take you all the strength you've got to pull it off...especially in your arms and shoulders."

In reality, he pointed out, this particular trick required a great deal of experience and know how from him, but not quite as much strength to do his part effectively. So long, that was, as she placed her hands correctly, he positioned himself correctly, and he used the right muscles to do it.

"It's about where the leverage and weight is focused. And for me, well here, I'll show you what I mean," he said and got up, dusted himself off and walked to Peg's cart that was parked at the edge of their camp. From out of the back he got an old apple crate that he'd had filled with some of his cooking equipment. Then coming back to where she was, he dropped it on the ground, open side down.

Then he transitioned to a forward handstand. But instead of hands placed on the ground, they were on top of the crate, gripping two corners where the frame was the strongest. To demonstrate further, while still upside down and feet in the air, he lifted one hand and then the other till he'd turned himself in order to grip the other two corners instead. And then? Adjusting his balance to avoid toppling over, he raised one hand...resulting in a one handed stand before finally dropping to his feet again.

After he was done, Arlo grinned, stepped up into the middle of the crate, hopped twice, broke right through the thing where it was most vulnerable and left the slats in splinters. "Now unless you're going to tell me that I'm weaker than a rotten old apple crate, so long as you do it like I told you before, you're not going to hurt me." So back on all fours again, he waited for her to give it a try.

[Vega]

Vega looked at Arlo as he stared at her and she thought about what she'd just said. There was something, obviously, and she had no idea what it was. As she realised that it was because she had told him that she was stronger than him, she felt her gaze meet his with more of a challenge in it. Boys were such fragile little things and she had no idea how it was that they managed their trial by trial life. Such tender and easily bruised egos and really, if he didn't like the fact that she was stronger than him then he should get up earlier in the morning and train. However, despite the temptation, she instead just met his gaze with her own, accompanied by a slight raise of the eyebrows and she said nothing.

She'd just been concerned about hurting him, for goodness sake. But then he explained and he showed her with an apple crate just what he meant. Vega looked at him, picked up one of the bits of the now fragmented apple crate and then she sniffed. There was a whole world of derision in that sniff. "I'm not, exactly, gonna say that you're not as strong as an apple crate, am I?" She dropped the piece on the ground and looked at him. "An' yeah, I'll be a good an' dutiful little woman and do what you told me. I was just asking you. Tender little soul." She couldn't help it then, she grinned at him with as good natured a grin as she ever had.

"You're an obnoxious and cantakerous young fellow, you know. Thankfully, I don't mind cos I'm an obnoxious and cantakerous old bird myself." Vega moved over and placed her hands on his back, testing where they were going to be, before standing and then making the movement. "Alright. Wow, Arlo, I can feel your shoulder blades. I mean, I know you're growing but you're wiry like a whippet. How do you eat so much and stay so lean?" That or not, she was happy to do it, do it again and then again until she had it right. He got up onto one knee, they practised more.

"It's about... what I didn't get." Vega had to take a break or she was going to throw up from the upside down-right-way-up-ness of her morning, was how she described it. "Is that, from my point of view on top, it's not about my balance. It's not even about yours. It's about ours. Like, we've got to work together no matter how good we are individually." That had become obvious and she'd fallen more than once, but thankfully caught herself relatively easily and tumbled to the side. Each time she'd fallen it had been because of over-caution on her part, born from concern about hurting him.

"Is it like that for you, or are you just concentrating on your own balance or mine? I gotta focus on both. It's weird." Still, she'd taken a break and she stood again. "Alright. All the blood's back where it should be. We're going to do it this time, going all the way. You ready?"

[Arlo Creede]

First she was stronger, then he was skinny? Arlo snorted and shook his head, even as he got up on one knee in order for her to move on to the harder trick. A little harder, at least, than doing the headstand while he'd been on all fours.

It required extra effort from them both. She'd have to use his raised knee as a step, thus losing some of her forward momentum in the process. Vega would have to readjust to pull it off, and so would he. "You're just letting the flattery fly fast and loose t'trial Vega," he told her, even as she toppled off behind him and went round to try once again. "It risks going to my head, just like the blood to yours."

It was true enough that due to a growth spurt, in an upward direction, he probably seemed a little thinner than usual. That too would catch up, he guessed, since the two didn't appear to be happening both at once. And when she took a break to catch her breath, so did he and rocked back on his heels. She was right, anyway. "It's both of us," he agreed. "It's not enough for me to just remain steady. A sawed off tree stump could do that. I have to adjust from start to finish, in response to your weight coming onto my shoulders." Or knee, and then shoulders, which made it all the more tricky.

"As you move, I adjust. Your center of balance changes, so does mine. You tilt, I counter," he added, and then got back into position, one knee raised again. So again until she could do it without toppling over sideways or back, and enough that he didn't exacerbate the problem by wobbling underneath her. He had, once or twice, and had needed to do some adjusting himself.

"Ready," he said. And after a couple more times, it seemed they'd finally gotten it without any mishaps. And he'd reminded her, smoothly from start to finish. By the time they'd gone through it a couple more times, Arlo was tired and figured she must be too. "That's enough for t'trial I think. You'll be feeling it and so will I." He'd been at this sort of thing longer than her, and she'd practiced and gotten better than she'd been before. Still, for all of that, they'd pulled of a trick that wasn't an easy one, and pulled it off pretty well.