Flashback Acrobatics - Part I -

[Aleksi]

Spring, 24, 509 AV

Aleksi took a deep breath and a long, almost violently loud stretch. Every bone in her body seemed to have cracked. It sounded almost as if she was at least three times older than she actually was. After putting her pants and top on, she peeked outside. It was a beautiful day... or well, it was going to, because the sun hasn't come up yet. Her fingers reached down towards the regular place Luc was laying at, tugging on his fur which made the poor, still sleepy feline growl and cover his muzzle with the left paw. Aleksi tugged again and mumbled Up boy before heading to the right of her tent and slowly rubbing Night's neck. The Strider was already used to it, really, and he was nowhere near as lazy as Luc. He shook his head and greeted Aleksi in their own little way before stepping towards her, letting her know he was ready to go. Her voice was a tad louder, this time somewhat annoyed as she spoke in the general direction of the feline Luc, up, now. Frowning a little, she started walking towards the edges of the city. Tilting her head from one side to the other, making her neck crack and her spine adjust properly. When she finally reached her destination, she looked back and saw the clearly grumpy cat dragging itself over the grass and growling under its breath. She laughed and then tapped Night's neck, before starting to run. It didn't seem to lead anywhere in particular and yet she just kept doing it. Picking up pace slowly, she reached her top speed at that time, breathing a bit heavy as her body moved. Every muscle tensed with each press of either of her feet on the grass. Next to her, was her Strider, not moving too quick so he wouldn't pass her, but not too slow either, knowing that if he does, she'd just give up completely. Luc was just a bit slower, still trying to wake up with what seemed like a grumpy expression on his muzzle. Aleksi, after a while, started moving her knees up higher, then her feet further back out, making sure everything is stretched and properly warmed up before her actual training, even though this might have seemed like it to most people. When her cheeks got a nice, warm shade of red and her body was glistening from sweat, she stopped, taking a minute or two to breath. Acrobatics was on today's agenda and Aleksi hated it. Her body just refused to stretch the way she wanted it to, but she was not one of those to put down a challenge. Pushing her legs open, she slowly started bending down, reaching the floor with her elbows. She groaned, making a somewhat tortured face as she started spreading her legs further. It took her full ten minutes to actually get to the ground, but when she did, she felt quite comfortable. The comfort though, didn't last for too long. She stood up and repeated the procedure, this time, having her body take around half the time it did before. Yet again, she was not happy with the result, so she got up and kept repeating the procedure until she could instantly get to the ground. Taking a deep breath again, her body stretched up, having her feet on the ground, near each other. One leg moved up, slowly, making it's way to about her eyes before falling down. As usual, she mumbled Why do I do this to myself? As her leg, gradually moved back up. Repeating the procedure again, until she could actually hold her leg next to her shoulder for at least ten seconds. She still wasn't happy, but she knew that'd do for now because if she continued, she'd just end up tearing her muscles completely. Her arms stretched out though, her right one over her shoulder, down her shoulder blades. It seemed as if she has improved since last week, managing to touch the very bottom edge of the bone with her fingertips. When she felt the pain in her muscles, her arms switched, keeping them there for a little while. Finally, it was time for her to just try and stretch all of herself. She arched back until her body bent down into a bridge like figure... or well, something similar to it before she ended up falling onto her back and nearly slamming all the air out of her lungs. Coughing for a moment or two, she pushed herself back up on her feet and arched, this time making it down just a bit lower than the last and then falling again. Aleksi always hated doing things half-properly so she just continued, for another hour or so, until she could actually arch back properly and kick her legs back so she'd end up in a crunched position on her feet. This time, she actually looked happy, almost proud of herself as she stood up. The happiness disappeared soon, since moving, after that kind of stretching was quite painful. Father taught her though, that the only way to take care of muscle ache was to make them work more, so she pretty much sucked up all of the strength she had withing her and tapped Night's neck. It was the only signal her Strider hated. Since the two had an amazing connection, just like any Drykas human and their horse, Night hated seeing Aleksi jog back home, because he could sense her pain, her devastatingly strong pain. It got better each day, but not good enough for the animal to ignore it. Luckily, Luc was still a feline and easy enough to distract. One yell from his owner I'm chasing you Luc! And he would not notice half of what was going on. It was a tested tactic Aleksi developed for safe and not annoying trips back home to the tent, where she'd just lay down on her sleeping bag and growl in pain for the next hour.

[Jackalope]

Aleksi

Award

Skill	XP Earned	Lore Earned
Animal Husbandry	+1	Luc Is Slow To Wake
Running	+2	Finding Your Pace
Acrobatics	+2	Stretching: Doing The Splits...Eventually
		No Pain, No Gain

Witty Remark Here

Good intro to flexibility! I'd like to see the build up of gaining the range of motion take place over a little more time, rather than all happen in one thread, but I enjoyed the struggles and the failures. How else do you learn, right? Keep up the good work! If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.