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"Oh don't be such a wuss Teagan, I know you can do more than that. Don't huff at me, forty is nothing!" Beckie grouched, crossing her legs closer to her body as she sat balanced on his back. Tea was already sweating, more from being nervous than the exertion of the pushups. He was a bit upset at the moment, his stomach was doing somersaults and Beckie wasn't helping. Letting himself fall flat on the ground, he frowned, "You're ticking me off, you know that? You need to stop being so rude just cause Coach bumped you from the bar roster." Her face flushed red and she looked down at her hands, but didn't get off of him, "I'm not being rude. It's my spot Tea! You know that, why didn't you say no!" He sighed, and pushed himself back into position, doing four more pushups with her on him before answering her while he continued, "Cause Beck, I'm not going to refuse to compete just cause you have some weird sense'a entitlement." He started to struggle, switching his weight mostly onto his other hand, "Besides, you've got'a busted wrist. You can't do your routine on that!" She rolled her eyes and shifted so that her weight was balancing on his shoulders instead of his lower back. It made it a bit easier on his legs, but it was also more comfortable for her. She ran her hand over the brace that currently trapped her right arm, "It's just a sprain, I'm fine." He shook his head and held position, taking a few second's rest, "No way, Coach isn't going to let you do any events cept maybe the rhythmic floor, and she's not going to let you do that without a partner." The two were quiet for a few minutes, while Teagan kept doing the pushups that were steadily getting easier.

The room was cluttered with other people, some doing stretches, some practicing their routines or sorting through their CDs for their music. Only one or two people had noticed the lemur's ears and tail, and even then they had just assumed he was the "special" participant they'd been told to watch out for. Beckie got off his back so he could switch to a different stretch, but she wasn't going to let him finish without answering her unspoken question. He was so oblivious sometimes, so she spelled it out, "Exactly. I want you to be my partner Tea!" He sat up, crossing his legs with a startled expression, "What? The rhythmic is girl stuff!" She huffed, getting her face right up close to his, not saying anything. He leaned back a bit, trying to escape the guilt trip, "But it's dancing!" She rolled her eyes, "It's gymnastics too you know." He whined, "But it's mostly dancing!" She straightened herself out, brushing invisible dust off her arms, "Says the big tough boy in the leotard." He pushed his hair back out of his eyes, looking at her angrily, "Insults aren't gonna make me do it." The redhead rolled her eyes and moved to stretch herself, ignoring the pain from her hand. After a few minutes, she still hadn't said anything, and Teagan, who had gone into cobra pose to stretch out his back, was starting to get frustrated again. It was annoying when she just shut up like this. Popping his back with a bit of a wince, he held the position and sighed, "Fine. I'll do it." She let out a screech and tackled him, letting out a string of ecstatic "Thank you"s.

Walking through the plaza, Tea became more and more nervous. The arena itself had nowhere to feed the people, so after the parallel and high bar events, everyone had cleared out again and headed across the street to scour the food court that the mall there contained. The place was soon packed with spectators and gymnasts, though most of the gymnasts seemed too concerned with their diets to eat anything that place had to offer. Teagan, as some may know, wasn't one of those athletes. He had skipped breakfast to make it here in time, and though he may have been nervous, he was starving. Everything looked so good too; he was having trouble deciding what to have. Beckie on the other hand, because she didn't have to do a heavy event today, had decided on something fatty for once, two cheese coated slices of pizza.

After hard deliberation, Tea managed to decide, and followed Beckie back to the table with a tray bearing vegetarian baked ziti, vegetable lo mein, half a small cheese pizza, a bowl of fruit salad, and a raspberry protein shake. When they sat down and he spread out everything, Beckie couldn't help but laugh a little. He looked confused, taking a bite of the blazing pizza. She smiled, "You don't eat like a gymnast." He shrugged, swallowing the bite before he spoke, "Doesn't matter whether or not I eat like'a gymnast, I am one aren't I? Besides, I've got a fast metabolism; I don't have to eat like a bird to stay fit." Beckie frowned, turning one of her slices around in her hand, "So not fair. I'll have to run fifteen laps just to burn some of this off before dinner." Moving on to the ziti, Tea twirled his fork absently, eventually stabbing a few pieces of pasta to stuff in his mouth. Beckie rolled her eyes, "You're such a dork sometimes." He swallowed and grinned, "Yeah and you put up with me anyway."

Through all of their joking though, they were both worried about the next event. After all, most of the teams competing had been practicing their routine for months. Tea and Beckie would barely have an hour once they'd eaten! Coach had managed to get them pushed to the very end of the roster, so that would give them some extra time at least. Twenty minutes after they had originally sat down to lunch, they were stretching the time they had set out to eat. Every minute counted when they had so much practice to do. So, finishing off the last of his lo mein, Tea threw their trash out and snagged two more protein shakes for them to bring back to the arena.

When he got back, he found that Beckie had gotten her bag and quickly run to the music store. She now carted a plastic bag as well, with three CDs tucked inside. She wiggled the bag around and smile, "Might as well have new tunes for a new routine, right?" With an amused eye roll, they pushed their way out of the plaza and headed back across the street to the arena. Inside, it was the complete opposite of the plaza. The place was deserted, with just a few stragglers stumbling around, chattering or waving to each other. None of this interested Tea or Beckie though, so the two of them just jogged right on back to the warm-up room.

Not ten minutes into the practice, both of them were frustrated. With the new music the routine Beckie had put together just didn't work. So, they had to put something new together, and so far, neither of them had any plausible ideas. Tea brushed his hair back, glancing at the clock. People were going to start coming back soon, they had to get it together, and fast. While she was still fiddling with the stereo, he got an idea, "Turn on.. Um.. Try Pump It." He yelled, stretching his hands up above his head. She frowned, a bit skeptical, but replaced the current pop CD with the Black Eyed Peas one, "What good will this do? It's totally not what everyone else is doi-" She stopped, and smiled, "You already know that, don't you." He nodded, "Damn straight." Rolling her eyes, Beckie came over to join him and started mentally counting the beats, "You're horrible at being tough."

As much as Tea would have loved to stay and pray with Coach and Beckie, he had to go back out. After the floor routine he had to prep for the rings. He had washed all of his makeup off and changed into a plain black unitard, technique was much more important than style in this event, and rewrapped his hands in fresh rags. They were carefully dusted, as were the rings, and all fourteen competitors were lined up by the mat. This event could be more dangerous than some of the others, so there was a bit less energy and bit more caution about it. Apparently, since in the last tournament the rings had been raised a good seven inches, and the sudden change had a few people worried. The crowd had settled since earlier, they were probably starting to get as tired as Teagan was himself. Tea was fourth in the lineup this time, and already he recognized some of the people there as people he had trained with in the past few weeks. He didn't remember which were good and which needed practice, but he would find out soon enough.

The first person up did fine for the first part of his routine, but as his arms started to get tired, he started looking down at the floor far below more and more often. Doing this slowed down his decision speed for whether or not he was going to go up or down, and so, after not too long, he was starting to sweat more than normal. Tea cringed as he watched this, knowing what would happen soon after something like this. With a gasp, the others heard and saw the boy's arms snap back and his shoulders crap, all wincing and turning away when his knuckles cracked together over his head. Tea though, didn't look away. He watched with a concerned frown as the boy was helped off the rings and over to the medics to make sure that he hadn't dislocated his shoulder.

The second boy didn't do much better, spooked from what happened to the first. This one, however, fell off the rings instead of just slacking his arms and dropping down. The remaining twelve, Teagan included, were becoming more and more jittery as this boy was checked for injuries. He had a sprained ankle, but that was all, so he was given the opportunity to get back up and try again. With quite some conviction though, the boy shook his head and refused, being helped away by his coach. The third managed to get through his routine with only minimal mistakes, though he did manage one good shoulder crack out of a misplaced grip.

Now, Tea was up. He wasn't exactly scared, just a bit worried about what his mother was thinking. She wasn't the type to condone dangerous things, and from the look he had seen on the previous three's faces, these rings were especially hard to keep safe yourself safe on once you were worried. Well, standing there after he'd been called up was just going to get his disqualified, so Teagan took a deep breath and climbed up onto the rings, keeping his grip solid while he waited for the judges to start the timer. When the buzz indicated that it was going, he started his routine, sweat running off his forehead before he even got into his tricks.

Now, normally, when one blacks out, it means they've taken a hard fall. So naturally, when Tea awoke, head spinning, he assumed that he had fallen off the rings and knocked himself cold. But, something was off, he wasn't lying in an infirmary bed, instead he was sitting up on one of the metal benches in the warm up room. Ul was standing in the corner, talking to Coach Miles. Tea got a bit anxious, praying she wasn't telling Coach that he wouldn't be allowed to compete anymore. He tried to move to go see what they were talking about, but found that each attempt brought a shock of pain from his right ankle. He gasped in pain, pressing his eyes shut. This pain, oddly enough, made him realize that he had never actually passed out.

He had made it through his routine just fine, and was overjoyed about it. If he could stick his landing then he would probably take the gold! Getting a bit cocky, he had tried to add an extra flip to his landing, and thus, had only half landed on the mat, his right foot slamming hard against the solid wood floor. And now, he was in a brace, waiting for the nurse to bring back a cold pack and a set of crutches.

The judging ceremony was only minutes away though, he could hear them starting it now. He sure as hell wouldn't miss that. And obviously, Beckie wouldn't let him miss it. With one finger in front of her mouth to shush him, she snuck into the room behind Ul and Coach's backs, and slipped her arm under Tea's to help him stand up. "Come on," she whispered, "They're starting with the parallel bars in about two minutes!" In silence, save for the occasional ouch from Tea, the two managed to sneak back out onto the main floor and join the mass of athletes and supporters gathering around the judges.

It was all coming down to this.

The head judge stood, carrying with him the first set of medals, the ones for the parallel bars. Nodding to him, the announcer tapped her mic to get the crowd's attention again, "I know you're all so excited to hear the results. But please, remember that there is more that just one event. Feel free to cheer and wave signs, whatever you want to, but don't come up on stage to hug someone or anything like that until we've announced all of the winners." There wasn't much of a response to this, as the gymnasts on stage would have made the most noise, and all of them were doing some form of prayer.

Teagan had taken his rosary off his tail to clutch it in his hands, though unlike some of the others, he kept his eyes open, occasionally looking up at the overhead screens to see if maybe they would show the ranks there before she finished announcing them. Beckie was rocking nervously, almost tipping Tea off balance on several occasions. Smiling, the announcer picked up the bronze medal, walked down the line to one of the youngest contestants, and pinned it on his chest. There's not much that could describe the boy's reaction, aside from sheer glee. He did a little spin, almost tumbling into one of his teammates, and raised not only cheers, but a good deal of laughter.

The second was the silver, and, quite to Teagan's surprise, the announcer walked up and pinned it to his jacket with a smile. Beckie was stunned as well, not because he hadn't won the gold, he hadn't expected to, but because he had placed in the top three, second place at that! He did a little victory yell, then tried to do a little dance, hampered by his injured ankle. By the side of the stage, his mother and Coach stood, both a bit pissed off at him for his disappearance, but excited anyway.

He didn't remember who the gold went to, except that it was one of the older guys. It was a bit odd standing up on stage while they announced the high bar winners, but after that they would announce the floor, and neither he nor Beckie were willing to chance missing that. However, there would be a short break for congratulations between the bar and floor events.

A young teenage girl had been sitting within the crowd as well and cheered as Teagan was announced second. She clapped happily and smiled very serene. How proud Tyyne was !

She was wearing her new clothes and had tried to look quite pretty, but natural as usual.

Silently she watched how Eva moved towards Teagan and wondered if she should go and congratulate him as well. Somehow it felt strange to go and hug him now. Tyyne pondered silently and decided to watch for a while, because she just didn't dare.

The child turned his eyes to the girl now, a tiny hand lifted to wave. He smiled brightly at her, but his attention was jerked back as his friend said something else. "Teagan!" He said in response, tail swishing back and forth happily, arms going around the older boy's neck as he was given a proper hug. He did, however, pause a moment beforehand to stare at the lemur child baffledly. What was that face about...? Oh well. He released the other child as he stood once again, tucking himself behind the older boy just slightly, leaning against the side of his leg slightly. He popped a finger into his mouth, gnawing on it as he stared first out to the crowd and then to the announcer. He got the feeling he shouldn't be up there, but.. Oh well! He wanted to stay up with Tea for now. He snuck a curious look to Beckie, though.

His attention quickly snapped back to the announcer as she approached them later in the ceremony, and he smiled brightly as another medal was pinned on his friend. He moved out of the way a bit as they hugged, and then clapped his hands enthusiastically along with the crowd. Blue eyes drifted after the girl as she darted off, and then turned back to Teagan, a grin lighting itself across the 'roo's face.

Now that there was only one event left, and Beckie had left him without a support, Tea sat down on the stage. After the people for the pommel horse and floor cleared off, only thirteen contestants remained on the stage. Remembering that there had originally been fourteen on the rings, Tea assumed that the first one to be taken away had actually dislocated his shoulder, and from the looks of the others, some sporting fresh knuckle bruises or splints, he wasn't the only one after that to get hurt. Following his lead, a few of the others who had hurt their legs and ankles sat, drawing up a laugh from what remained of the crowd. With a smile, Tea looked Eva over again. The child was wearing an unusually baggy shirt, but other than that he looked like his normal best buddy, so he kept one arm wrapped around him lightly, just so he wouldn't feel alone standing in front of all of the people. "Hey," He whispered, "It's really good that you learned ta speak, I woulda been sad if you had ended up mute."

The announcer, not noticing the conversation, went about her routine of doing a little talk, this one centered on the event's dangers, and then started to award the medals. Once she had given silver and bronze though, Tea had decided that he just hadn't won one, understandable with how terrible his landing had been. So, the lemur was especially surprised when she stopped in front of him with a gold medal and handed it down to him. She would have pinned it on, but since he was sitting down he could do it himself. Tea simply blinked a few times and felt his cheeks blush. He'd actually won a gold?