[Training] up, up, and away

Sohalia was not a particularly strong person, in terms of pure physicality. She had no hidden talents in the art of fighting or subterfuge; she was very much a "what you see is what you get" kind of a woman. But after her close call with the Ceffyl Dwr, she'd resigned herself to the fact that she needed to develop, at the very least, some basic self-defense skills. As an explorer and budding cartographer, she was bound to run into danger again sooner or later, and it wouldn't hurt to be prepared if and when that happened.

So she'd enlisted the help of a dear friend to start to help her get into shape before she could learn some basic self-defense. Now she and Tal stood at the bottom of a steep climb outside of Stormbreak, and Sohalia stared up toward the city with trepidation. She was nervous; she didn't want to make a fool of herself in front of Tal! To make matters worse, she was clothed for a workout: in pants and a loose shirt, rather than her usual dress or skirt. Altogether, it made her feel very unprepared for whatever Tal had planned.

She turned to her friend, hoping he wouldn't notice her nerves. "Thanks for doing this," she told him with a smile. "But... what exactly is 'this'?"

Sohalia

Tal was in need of some exercise himself lately, and Sohalia's request came at the perfect time to get his butt in gear. There was only so much training he could do on his own, even with Boreal's assistance, so having another human to practice with was going to be a big help.

Of course, first she had to get in shape, and he wasn't about to tell her to do anything he wouldn't do, too. As much time as he spent away from other humans he'd always had his dogs, at the very least, to keep him company and help him out, and that made a big difference when exercising.

So could making it more of a game, so the 'work' part of the work out wasn't as obvious.

He arrived at the appointed time and looked Soh over approvingly for her pragmatic choice of clothing. "It'll be good for both of us," he said with an awkward grin, trying to wave off her gratitude. "An' 'this' is a little game I call... uh..." Shit, he hadn't come up with a name for it! Reaching frantically through his memory he said, stumblingly: "Stair... tag. Yeah. Stair tag." He nodded as if that had been its name all along and handed over a small net bag containing four blue beanbags. He had four red ones on his own belt and his grin steadied, confidence returning. "We'll be runnin' up the Way here, buildin' stamina, but the beanbags are for throwin' at each other while we do. That'll build accuracy, an' also dodgin'."

Boreal chortled as she shouldered up beside him and then crooned a happy greeting to one of her favorite humans. Tal grinned and scratched her between her horns. "If you're in the lead an' you get hit, you haveta stop until the other person catches up. If you're in th'lead you could throw a beanbag back behind you, but if the other person catches it, they have more ammo to throw back at you!"

He moved to the startling line at the base of the steep ascent and shooed his dragon up into the air. "If y'slip an' start t'fall off the Way, Boreal will push y'back on," he reassured his friend. "She won't let you fall!"

Soh greeted Boreal with a friendly scratch and snuck a piece of jerky from her pocket to the dragon. Had she known Tal's thought process, she would have approved immensely. Making working out a game was brilliant in its simplicity; Soh was always ready to have fun! She accepted the bag and looked inside curiously to find four blue beanbags. She listened to the rules closely and grinned when Tal finished speaking. "Sounds like fun," she said. Maybe, if she focused on the game, she wouldn't feel so self-conscious about her relatively lacking physical prowess.

Soh joined her friend at the starting line, hefting a single beanbag daintily from her net bag. She tossed it in the air and caught it again. At least heights didn't bother her, and she could always shift if she fell and Boreal didn't catch her. "Right." She took a steadying breath. "On your count, then?" Not one to jump ahead of the count, she readied herself and waiting for Tal's instruction to begin.

Sohalia

Boreal rumbled happily and licked the treat from Soh's fingers with dainty courtesy, shifting to lean against the girl's hip while Tal explained the rules. They didn't take long, and when she agreed to the game the courier flashed a challenging grin. He gripped one of his own bean bags and toed the starting line as the dragon took to the air and circled around the path.

"On your mark... get set..." He paused, glancing sideways with mischief in pale eyes before the explosive: "Go!" left his lips and he was off and running, bounding up the first layer of floating stones and pavers with nimble feet. Since he was training himself as well, he picked out a more challenging path rather than the most efficient, deliberately choosing the smaller footholds and less steady chunks of floating roadway as he scrambled up the steep incline like a young mountain goat.

Despite the countdown, Soh still wasn't quite prepared for the inevitable shout of "GO!" "Hey - wait!" she yelped, but it was too late, and she took off a hair slower than Tal, her focus on keeping her footing more so than keeping up with her friend. It wasn't until she looked up to see him bounding up the rocky incline ahead of her that she remembered that this was, in fact, a race, and that Tal was now winning - by a mile. Soh was not particularly competitive, but in this race, she was challenging herself as much as Tal, and seeing herself begin by falling behind was enough to spur her onwards.

For someone unused to much hard physical labor, Soh found that she was surprisingly quick on her feet, particularly as she chose to take the fastest route rather than the more challenging one that Tal had taken. She was still behind, though, and it was then that she remembered that she held a bag of beanbags. She lifted the one still in her hand and slowed enough to steady her aim, then launched the beanbag at Tal's back, hoping that if she hit him, she hadn't thrown it hard enough to hurt him.

Sohalia

"Nope!" Tal yelled back, smug in his head start even if he was taking a longer, slower route. As much as he liked to win he wasn't going to be an ass to Soh when she was just starting out. They each had different things to work on, but it was way more fun to work on them together!

The smaller floating rocks were not just smaller targets, they were also less stable. It took a lot of concentration to land on one without losing his balance and tipping the stone - and himself - over. Tal's grin turned to a scowl of concentration as he hopped up a particularly tricky sequence on the edge of the Way, and he could barely spare a thought for Soh until he reached a broader paver. He glanced back and tried to duck the incoming missile--

The bean bag hit him squarely in the side of the head and he caught it by reflex as it started to fall, looking down at it with a moment of surprise and laughing indignation. "Hey! Rude!" He paused obediently, waiting for his friend and opponent to catch up and come level with him before he bounded off again, his taunting words trailing behind him. "But I bet y'can't hit me twice!"

Soh giggled in spite of herself at Tal's loud "Nope!" She pushed herself to run harder, jumping between stones with only a few bobbles to slow her down. It was hard work! She'd expected to feel that way, of course, but it was one thing to think one knew what it would feel like to push herself to her limits, and an entirely new thing to actually do it.

When her beanbag hit Tal upside the head, Soh gasped, nearly tripping on her own feet in dismay. "Oh! I'm so sorry!" she called, hurrying to catch up. "Are you o-" And then Tal was off again, taunting her over his shoulder. "That's the last time I pity you!" she cried playfully. She ran after him, using her easier route to her advantage. Noticing that their paths were about to cross, she grinned and bounded forward, trying to hip-check Tal as she passed by.

Sohalia

He almost felt bad for teasing Soh about the beanbag when she looked so genuinely contrite...

Almost.

Tal laughed at her 'threat' to withhold future pity and balanced on a bobbing stone to look back and stick his tongue out at her. "I can take anythin' y'can throw at me!" he boasted, jabbing his chest with his thumb before facing forward again and making a long jump to his next target. It started to sink but then rose again and he timed his bounce to a stronger chunk nicely, teetering on the edge a moment before pushing his momentum forward.

Some parts of the edge of the Way he was on were in worse shape than others, and some were definitely better. He was coming up on a section that looked particularly secure and attached to the main ascent and he took the chance to look for Soh over his shoulder. She was a lot closer than he'd expected and as she came towards him he put on a sudden burst of speed to avoid her hip check, taking advantage of the terrain as he turned and flung her previous bean bag back at her. "That's it!" he encouraged. "now you're gettin' the hang of it!"

Soh raced along, focusing her efforts on staying on the nicer parts of the Way. It wasn't that she was afraid of falling; in fact, she had perhaps less reason to fear that fate than Tal did, given that she could always shift and fly away. No, her reasoning was purely motivated by a desire to keep up, and maybe even to win. Soh had never been a particularly competitive person, but she was starting to see the appeal. It was a great deal of fun!

She teetered as Tal skipped past her attempted hip check, unbalanced by her own movement, having braced for an impact that never came. Still, she recovered in time to bat the beanbag that Tal threw back at her from the air, not quite catching it, but not quite dropping it either. The time it took her to recover, though, lost her precious seconds in their race, and she huffed as she sprinted to try and catch up, lofting the beanbag back towards Tal's back.

Sohalia

the courier was sure-footed and swift as he dodged her attempted attack and continued on. Maybe turning back to pelt a bean bag at his friend who was already behind him wasn't entirely sporting, but he was just, uh... returning her bean bag, yeah! Now she'd have extra ammo to throw at him!

Though he could see that they were approaching a broad platform a little ways ahead, and that would make a good finish line for now. Pushing themselves was the plan, but not pushing themselves so far that they got sloppy and slipped. They were already pretty high up, and it was a long way down to very hard landing...

But Tal was still feeling fairly fresh and since he'd so 'kindly' given Soh her beanbag back he was sure it would be flying towards him again any second now. With a fierce grin he began to dodge and weave his way up the broken stones of the edge, crouching low, jumping extra high, and leaping to the side to grab a detached, floating stair step and pull himself up to the next level. He saw the projectile fly harmlessly past his successful dodging and he paused in a crouch atop a large piece of airborne masonry to look over his shoulder.

"One last chance," he called back, gesturing to the platform a little ways up. "First one there wins!"

And then he was off, presenting Sohalia a tempting target as his routes to the finish line narrowed and forced him back towards the center line.

Soh was really getting tired now, as she pushed herself past her comfort zone and felt her lungs begin to burn. She watched as her beanbag flew harmlessly past Tal and winced, wishing that she'd had more of a chance to catch up now that she had fallen behind again. How was he so gods-cursed fast? And he was light on his feet, too, as he paused in a crouch to taunt her kindly point out their finish line. She would have stuck her tongue out at him, but he had already turned around, and it honestly seemed like too much effort by that point, anyway.

With the finish line in sight and three beanbags left in her possession, Soh heaved first one, then two, then three towards the courier in rapid succession, varying her aim each time in the hope that when he dodged one, he would run into one of the others. Then, she ducked her head and sprinted hard, pushing her screaming legs faster as she tried desperately to catch up.

Sohalia

He was light on his feet, but he also had both experience and luck on his side. When dodging meant the difference between life and death, he'd learned to get very good at it and those reflexes stood him in good stead in games like these. Figuring that Soh's only hope was to hit him before he crossed the finish line, Tal kept one eye behind him even as he continued his upward run.

Still, three beanbags were a lot!

He ducked the first and twisted away from the second, only a few steps from the finish, but his balance wavered precariously for a moment and he had to pause to pinwheel his arms and catch himself--

One of those flailing hands hit the beanbag as it soared past in what would have been a clean miss otherwise. "Fuck! I mean- uh, nice shot," he called back sheepishly to Soh as he sighed and stopped. She wasn't very far behind him, so he didn't have to wait long as she caught up and he took off at the same time she did as she moved past him.

If he had been hit a little further down he could have made up for the distance. He knew he could have. But they were too close, now, and he was unable to break away like he had before. Instead they crossed the finish line together and Tal flung himself down dramatically, grinning at his breathless friend. "Bet you're feeling faster already!" he teased, tossing one of his own beanbags at her playfully.

Tal ducked away from her first beanbag and managed to avoid her second; Soh was convinced he was going to dodge all three, but then her third just caught his flailing hand, and he cursed loudly, startling a wheezing laugh from the young woman. He waited for her and then took off, Soh hard on his heels. She was exhausted, but the finish line was so close, and she pushed herself to run through the very end. Even though she was pretty sure Tal had let her keep up at the end, she was still proud of herself for making it through the race.

She leaned over, bracing her hands on her knees, gulping air. She was in quite the state of disarray, with sweat dripping down her forehead, her hair going every which way, and her clothing mussed from the exertion. Tal tossed a red beanbag towards her, and she swatted at it halfheartedly, fumbling it and dropping it on the ground. "I almost beat you," she teased as she straightened, biting back a groan as her muscles screamed in protest. "And with you in the lead all the way to the end, too."

Sohalia

He just gave his friend a shit-eating grin as she swatted his projectile away, looking up at her from his comfortable seat on the mostly-solid ground. "Y'did great! It was a lot closer than I expected," he admitted with tactless honesty. "But don't feel too bad. I've been runnin' with the sled team since I was fifteen an' old enough t'apprentice with my aunt." He shrugged. "So it's kinda like I've been trainin' like this since I was a kid. You'll get there, too!"

Boreal circled lazily down to join them, dropping three beanbags at Tal's side as she flopped down on her stomach to watch the humans with amiable curiosity. Tal patted her head and collected the (slightly drooly) missiles with a wrinkled nose. "Thanks, girl," he murmured, sincerity warring with exasperation.

Looking back to Soh he tilted his head up at his friend as a sudden thought struck him "Say, y'wouldn't happen to know where the nearest singin' stones are, would you?"