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[ open | july post ]

who: Otabek + open
what: Catchall for July. Currently - at the rink. Will update if needed! :)
when: Through July ; Mid day.
where: The Rink
warnings: Nothing to worry about.

ooc note - feel free to send me a message here or on

agalio if needed

At the rink; Afternoon

Every second, every movement, every step. It was all a show. Regardless as to whether or not he had an audience, Otabek treated each practice seriously. He treated it like he would be performing to win that gold and bring it back to Kazakhstan. He worked himself hard over the few hours he had at the rink every day. This day was not different. He arrived there shortly before one. He walked towards the edge of the rink and sat on a bench near the door. The ice was always freshly cleaned with the Zamboni at 12:45, so when he arrived, they were always finishing. He could step on fresh ice and enjoy the feel of it beneath his blades. He took of his shoes, sliding on his skates. He tugged the laces tight, and slid the guards off of the blades. He dropped his jacket on the half-wall by the rink, checking the music on his phone, and putting in earbuds before hitting the ice.

The songs that played help keep him focused. He moved smoothly on the ice, warming up. He started with some step sequences, first. Feet moving easily over the ice. The movements came easier as time passed. And as he got more comfortable with the step sequences, he moved onto jumps. Singles - first. He was sure to pause and just skate for a few moments between jumps. He didn't want to wear himself out too quickly. Pacing, his coach would remind him, pacing was important.

As he progressed, he finally moved onto quads. He went through the Quad Salchow first. The move that he remembered learning from someone who was his friend once. His expression shifted for only a moment thinking about the fact that they had shared a lot then. After a brief moment, he returned to his serious, concentrated expression. He tried for a Quad Flip, and flopped. It didn't go well - the first several temps resulted in him hitting the ice or touching down. He'd get up, move, and work on a step sequence between each attempt.

It felt so quiet out here, even with the sound of the music in his ears. And then, he looked up towards the edge of the ice and saw someone, so he made his way over to them, tugging the earbuds out of his ears. "Here to skate?" he asked.

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"What the hell is hockey?" She learns something new every day here it would seem, things that seemed very day to the other people she talked to. But then again, autoreivs and the lot weren't exactly normal for most of the others in this place, either. A bit of a give and take wasn't all bad, just... sports and the lot were not the norm in Romdeau. Not really much room for sports domes and he open areas needed for those kinds of things. Hell, there weren't even ice skating rinks, just gyms and well regulated diets.

"It's a hard earned talent." There are many, not very fond, memories of falling both on the ground and metal decks of air ships to back that up at the very least. She'd learned, over time, how to best navigate the slick surfaces, but, mostly, there's Daedalus to thank for making sure that she was hearty.

"I've never broken a bone. Daedalus' head might've exploded if I'd managed it, though, so it's all for the better. If I do it now, though, he's not here anyway." Don't get her wrong, Otabek, Re-L's actually thankful for that one. It's with a careful motion that she begins to move again, pushing off to begin a lap again.

"Doctor McCoy is good, though, if you ever find yourself in need."

Otabek sometimes forgot that her world was nothing like his own. His own is so normal and straight forward. Hers...wasn't like that, from what he gathered. He'd figure it out eventually. "It's a...sport people play on the ice. A lot of dudes play it so they can get a little aggressive." And that wasn't his personality at all. While he was broad, muscular, and built like someone who could play - he didn't enjoy fighting, or getting aggressive with each others.

But he loved the ice, so he found figure skating.

"Learning to fall is a hard-earned talent." Some people would never figure it out, he was sure. He had witnessed many interesting falls. "If you'd managed it?" he asked. He was a little curious. He took note of the doctor, but was far more curious now.

That's a pretty safe assumption. She's sure no one here would truly understand how different things were unless they experienced it themselves, but... she'd be reluctant to ever go back or to even construct a VR experience for them. She was perfectly happy (other than sometimes missing the technology or creature comforts) to never be back in Romdeau dome or experience her other fellow citizens again. Individuals here may take her by surprise from time to time, but it was better than the same bland exchanges over and over again. "Oh, so a constant tough guy contest?"

By that tone she seems unimpressed but.. if she had the chance to watch a match her attitude may change. It's all kind of up in the air.

His question isn't all that unusual she finds - many people had questions related to her home or why things were the way they were. The easiest way to explain it to Otabek would be, maybe -

"I.. had a very sheltered existence until maybe six months ago. I wasn't allowed anything too dangerous that might have damaged me. I still tried, but.. wasn't wily enough to sneak by Daedalus for long enough to get myself hurt most times."

"For guys my age," Otabek noted. Sure, he hung out with people who were often described as bad or bad influences, but he didn't much enjoy fighting. He was, for the most part, a pretty gentle person beneath that calm demeanor. Hockey was definitely not suitable for him, even in the slightest, and he knew that quickly. He was learning fast that the worlds people were from were very different. He had met others who didn't have figure skating in their world.

The way she had explained it, though, made perfect sense to him. He understood someone having a sheltered life. Although he, personally, got to experience a lot of things even at his young age. He got to see the world and experience a lot thanks to his sport.

"It's very different here for you, isn't it?" he asked. His tone was soft and easy. Sure, it was different for him, too. But he was used to being on his own. He was used to working as a DJ and he was used to training for the figure skating season.

"Is it really so necessary to bruise someone to prove you've got testosterone?" Granted, in her world they'd done the same thing, just verbally. Constantly. Most conversations were like well orchestrated chess games, honestly, and she's still not used to not digging through what is being said for hidden meanings or just some kind of barb to throw back. Civilized hockey, she thinks it might've been called at one point or another, inevitably, but thankfully she's never had to deal with it. Romdeau had been left far behind after the Eluvio and now Riverview, it was just a matter of relaxing in to it and.. well, getting used to it, really. She's just bad at both of those things.

Previous to leaving the Dome for the first time, she'd never explored the world outside in anything but reading and videos of the world before its destruction, or films. Once she'd seen the outside world there was absolutely no such thing as turning back, going back to her sheltered life where she'd clearly been lied to about what was outside, who was outside - her well dress aristocratic life couldn't stand up to the brunt and force of her curiosity about outside.

And, in the end, it's that that may have saved her life.

"Very. Going from relative aristocracy to completely homeless other than an air ship was adventurous enough. Then there's a space ship with dubious activity and the Quarantine on top.. " It's not relative aristocracy - she was the aristocracy, but there's no sense of pride in it, for her. Donov Mayer had been the source of so much misery for her that there was no pride in claiming the blood line she'd never even carried anyway.

"Grandfather is probably rolling in his grave and that's just fine with me."

Otabek snorted. "I don't think so. But I'm a professional figure skater." They were definitely far more about art and style than anything else. He wasn't much like the other skaters in so many ways, but he still was more into the style and grace associated with his chosen sport than the aggression required in others. It was why he was never suitable for anything other than where he ended up. And he was glad for where he did. He likely wouldn't be where he was now if he hadn't continued pursuing it.

"Different can be good," Otabek noted. He could appreciate different. The different worlds and backgrounds here weren't beyond him, after all. He came from a world where those differences helped someone shine on the ice. It helped them win and stand out. By being different, one could progress. Different experiences led him to have a different style than others. Having less made him more. He was grateful for it.

"Well, it is good." His eyes shift to the eyes only briefly, then back to her. "Depending on how you deal with it being different, I guess."

"You do realize I still don't really know what the hell that entails other than being on the ice, right?" At first she'd been slow to admit when things were new to her, preferring to research on her own time and pretend as though she's always known it. Now.. well, no one had really gawked at her in a way that said that she was a total alien even when she'd asked questions that seemed simple to them. So it seemed as though it wouldn't hurt, really, to put it out there and see what came her way in response. She learned more, the more she asked, and that was never all that bad of a thing.

"For the most part it is good. Other days it's exhausting." Figuring out how to function in a place where she's unknown, unwatched, generally unremarkable to people (other than the occasional gawking over her height) was turning out to be a little more difficult than she's originally anticipated. At first it had seemed so easy, so carefree almost - but life was still life, there were still bits that were complicated beyond what she had anticipated and others that she tended to overthink. Like conversation, which now held so little wight compared to in Romdeau. For a moment she focuses on how she's moving, her concentration centered in her feet before she responds.

"The dealing with it is most difficult, I think. The learning curve, for me... Some days it seems greater than others."

It doesn't really surprise him much that she doesn't know about figure skating. She was from a different world from his own, and he had encountered others here who hadn't heard of it or know what it is, either. And, he knew that there were people who didn't quite get the sport where he was from, too - even if they had heard of it. There had been a time where Viktor was teaching people the sport here, but that time had passed. Now, it was just himself and Yuri. Some of the residents seemed to enjoy skating, but...it wasn't quite the same as either of them.

He shifted a few feet ahead of her again, moving backwards. "It's...jumping, spinning, footwork. It's...most easily compared to dance out here." A lot of figure skaters were also dancers that he knew, or at least practiced dance to help them with their sport. He had tried that, and it didn't work out as well for him as it did for Yuri or others. While he knew it wasn't the same, he was finding that was the easiest way to get others to understand.

"You have time," he said. "People expect everyone to be figuring things out here, I'm finding."

He was always used to worry about sponsorships and competing, and keeping up with everyone else. And he was figuring out here how to maintain his lifestyle that he had at home, while still enjoying his time with the people he met, and his work.

Honestly, she probably could have gotten a lesson or two from Viktor and Yuuri while they'd been here in the Quarantine. She'd spent much of her time with them trying to figure out how it was that they'd come from the Eluvio to here, discussing with Yuuri why things may seem suspicious or just off, those kinds of things. Sensible, at the time, but now with all of her digging...

Well, it was time probably better spent just exploring the Quarantine as a whole. Hindsight and all, really. There wasn't anything that could've been done about it then.

"Makes sense." Honestly she didn't mind it - other than the occasional wobble she was becoming steadier on her feet, more sure as she fell in to the rhythm of skating like this. Not all bad, at any rate, just a process of learning the foot movements and not questioning herself too much. She'd never danced beyond a little bit of a formal ball room balanced on Daedalus' shoes, when she'd been much smaller, so there was little to draw from, there.

"Yes, they do, but at a certain point I need to have it figured out." Constantly having to ask and ask about things that seemed so common place across many versions of Earth wore on her nerves from time to time. "I don't mind asking questions just not things that seem to be so common place."

Otabek considered the entire thing, and then, he offered. "I'll show you sometime." Sometimes, seeing was better than telling, and he found that was the case with figure skating. He felt more at home out here on the ice, than he often did walking around. He had been out here for the better part of his life. Or at least, long enough that this was his life now. He loved everything about it, and had so much to thank for it.

He did note that she seemed to be getting a hang of moving on the blades. It was a tricky sport, really. It was deceptively hard at first. But he found once one got the hang of it, it wasn't something you lost. He liked that he got to share his sport with someone unfamiliar.

"Hmm, I guess," Otabek said. "I'd rather ask than make a horrible mistake. Even for common knowledge things." Truth. He knew that even things others mostly knew, he didn't. There was no way to know everything. He expected that he'd always be learning. "Is it so bad to not know things?" he asked.

"That sounds like the best plan, honestly." With many things she'd discovered as of late that was the case, seeing was better than having it explained to her and trying to make sense of it in that way. Most things it was just a matter of having nothing to base her imaginings off of, really, but once she'd had a demonstration things had gotten a little easier.

"Fair point." She concedes on his point about asking instead of making mistakes, though -

"I think to some it just... makes me seem a but unwordly. If that makes any sense at all." She knew she'd lived in a literal dome of isolation, but this was at times a little too intense for her. Particularly with the sheer amount of things she found she had no idea about.

He shifts his feet, skating with ease for a few moments. He was comfortable here, relaxed and easy. The fact that he was so comfortable here made talking easier for him, as well. He took in everything she said when she talked. He's a quiet person by nature, so listening is easy for him. He knows that showing is better, it is why he offered. He was learning that many here were unfamiliar with the sport. He knew Yuri and himself had joked about doing a show, but maybe they should consider doing it for real.

"Maybe," he said. He considered most people here otherworldly, really. He had met many different and interesting people so far in his time here. He had met a robot and an alien and all sorts of different and interesting humans.

"I get what you mean though. Still." His point applied. He was sure even the people from here sometimes asked questions about things. Just everything about this place was a little odd at times.

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[ open | july post ]

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