i_speak_softly | Luceti Appointments

[Don is busy counting, so it doesn't quite register whose voice he just heard until after he's said "Come in". No matter. The answer would have been the same.]

Hey.

[He's on his back on the weight bench, but he pauses in his reps while Robert enters. He's only seen his partner in this room once before, and that... was months ago already.]

[Robert looks shy - out of place, if possible, though he offers Don a smile as he steps closer to him. His hands are held close to him, and he idly runs the fingers of one hand over his wrist.]

I... hope I was not interrupting anything.

[Don resettles and resumes his exercise.]

I'm just lifting. [He smiles at the ceiling.] Give me a few minutes and I'll do something more interesting.

Whatever you do is always interesting to me... [Robert studies the equipment Don is utilizing with a curious expression. He doesn't frequent gymnasia much, so this equipment is all foreign to him, but it's fascinating to watch Don work out on it, and it's... a pretty nice display of his physical strength.]

Does this device have... a name? [So unfamiliar with exercise...]

[Taking your eyes off the weight bar is pretty dangerous, so Don can't see what Robert is looking at.]

Which device?

The entirety of the one you are using. Or do the pieces have separate names? [He's so out of touch with this kind of thing that he honestly can't be certain.]

[Don pauses again, setting the bar back in the cradle to look over at his partner with a mildly baffled expression.]

Robert, it's a weight bench.

[He has literally never encountered a weight bench before. This is what happens when your physical education system is extremely lax and you avoid the hell out of gyms.]

... Ah.

... [Derp. Now he feels sort of stupid.]

[Okay. After this he's going to give Robert a brief tour of basic exercise equipment, because clearly their definitions of "basic exercise equipment" are very different. But first -]

Count me to fifty. I'm on thirty-six. [He grips the bar again and lifts it.] Thirty-seven.

[Robert watches the way Don's muscular arms contract as he lifts the bar, and tries to think of just how much force is going into that lift.]

Thirty-eight...

[Not that he needs to count aloud, but doing so is soothing and rhythmic.]

Thirty-nine...

[If Robert reads the numbers printed on the weight discs, he might deduce that Don is currently lifting 125 pounds, plus the weight of the bar itself. His movements are calm and practiced, effortful but not strenuous. He looks like he could do more than fifty if he felt like it.]

[A hundred twenty-five pounds. That's nearly Robert's weight. It's a mixture of fascinating and mildly, detachedly frightening. The kind of training Don had to do to get to this point is nearly unfathomable, even though he objectively knows it happened; for someone who, before Luceti, couldn't even walk across the village, it is incredibly difficult to contemplate.

Robert duitfully counts down the numbers, matching Don's steady rhythm.]

... Fifty.

[And then he stops, waiting expectantly.]

[Don smoothly replaces the bar on the supports and rests a moment, then sits up and smiles at Robert.]

You should come in here more often.

I feel... [... Like a burden?] ... unaccustomed to being in a place like this.

But if you would like me to, I could make a habit of it. [As awkward as he'll probably be. He definitely feels like a fish out of water.]

[Don gestures around.] What don't you recognize?

[... Please don't say 'everything'.]

Erm...

[... Most of it?]

... [He actually looks genuinely... ashamed of himself. Not knowing something really sucks.]

... I have difficulty... recognizing much of anything here.

[So pretty much everything.]

[He stands up from the bench.]

What do you want to know about?

[The things in this room are so familiar to him, he doesn't know where to start. Maybe this way will be better.]

I suppose the ones you... would use most often...

[Robert doesn't even know which ones those would be.]

... I... suppose I should use this sort of thing myself... are there protocols, for it?

[He answers the second question first, very strenuously:] Yes.

[He then moves to the far side of the room, where the floor is covered with some kind of woven material.] Mostly I work on the mats. I also use the training post a lot. [He indicates a thick, sectioned wooden pole, about four feet high, with pegs sticking out at intervals.]

How exactly do you use the training post? [It doesn't seem like something that would be easy to utilize, to Robert's perspective.]

Do you want to see?

Of course, if you do not mind demonstrating.

[And now Robert turns to watch attentively.]

[Don nods, then turns to the post, contemplating it for a moment before launching into a flurry of strikes that set the sections spinning. The pegs blur by, but Don intercepts them with unerring accuracy, using them to stop the sections or reverse their spin. The demonstration only lasts thirty seconds before he brings the post back to a standstill, turning to Robert again to see what he thought.]

[Robert is just standing there open-mouthed. For somebody whose reflexes and reaction times are as slow as his are, something like what Don was doing is ridiculously accurate and fast.

... Finally:]

... Gods. That was... well, incredible.

[Don looks embarrassed.] Just an exercise...

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