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 Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:06 pm
Swimming was definitely still a preferred method of exercise for Tambrey; the water always felt nice and one could sometimes forget that swimming lengths was quite a work out because the practice was enjoyable.
She'd actually been putting a lot more time than she had before into active pursuits after spending so much time trapped in a cell (it certainly had been no hotel), and swimming had been a 'want' for a while, though she'd been self conscious over it until now.
A swimsuit meant showing off her scars moreso than her exercise shorts did and, though they were fading, one could still make out pink-tinged lightning marks upon her legs and remnants of bruising in some places.
A one-piece did mean, at least, that most scars, including the bullet-graze scar on her side, were hidden away but the scar on her left arm- where it had once been broken and later had suffered a shard of wood piercing it- was visible. She never did get used to that particular one but it seemed more awkward to hide it.
The grunt padded toward the water, goggles swinging from her wrist and glasses already set on her bag near the wall. Her toes curled slightly for grip as they found the edge of the pool and she sat down, dangling her legs into the water, to put her goggles on before sliding in.
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:51 am
Finally.
The doctor had ummed and arred a bit, but had eventually agreed that he could at least go swimming provided he took it easy. So it was that with waterproof dressings over the still healing patches on his back Aulus stepped into the pool changing room.
Stripping off he avoided looking at himself, not because of the bruises and new scars on his arms, legs, and chest but because he was so damn skinny. He didn't feel right, not at all; the sooner he could get some muscle back on the happier he would be. Once he had his shorts on he did head over to a mirror, but only to inspect his back. Where the dressings weren't covering it up, his flesh was bright pink, and raised and twisted in a variety of interesting ways. It was pretty cool actually, other than being too bony.
Shrugging slightly Aulus pulled his eyes away from his reflection and headed into the pool room itself. There was only one other person here by the looks of it, which suited him just fine. Not really looking at the figure getting into the water he moved over to the benches and set down his towel before moving to the edge of the pool and sitting down; no bombing in for him yet. Dangling his legs in the water with a scowl beginning to form on his face he did then look properly at the person he was going to be sharing the water with, mainly to see if they were looking (or staring) at him. As he took in the figure however his scowl disappeared, and was replaced by a slight smile. "Hi there Tam, fancy running into you here."
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:01 pm
Tambrey wasn't aware of anyone else at first, missing Aulus' entrance as she pushed herself under the water and reached with both arms stroking leisurely, beneath the surface, for the other side of the pool.
Aulus' greeting caught her just after she'd broken the surface, now facing where he was sitting, on her way back over.
"Hey Sensei." She greeted in return, treading water for a moment and smiling back, before stroking to rest her arms on the poolside next to where he sat.
"Felt like a swim."
She didn't exactly stare behind those goggles but her eyes did look him over worriedly for a moment. Was he allowed to swim? She supposed, if he was here, he must be, unless he was here without permission. However, she didn't really envision Aulus as doing anything that would cause him to end up being less active than he wanted for any more time.
"How're you doing?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:10 pm
Aulus gave a snort of amusement and shook his head. "This look like a dojo to you Tam?" Having her call him that now felt kind of weird, he wasn't sure if he'd get used to it again even during lessons; after all that had happened... well, he'd have to see.
"I'm doing alright," he went on with a nod and a shrug, "on a much lower dosage of painkillers, and back on duty in a couple of days but nothing active yet. Managed to talk the doctors into letting me star swimming though, build strength and fitness back up and that. How're things with you?" It was easier to just talk about the physical things, to skim over the wounds and scars you couldn't see. He wanted to know how Tam was doing on that score, but not as much as he wanted to avoid talking about himself.
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:51 pm
"... Maybe a flooded one?" Tambrey commented, feigning a look around to gauge whether it did or not look like a dojo.
It was kind of hard to drop the title when she'd started using it as a nickname, and she certainly couldn't guarantee it wouldn't keep popping up even if she started making a conscious effort at it.
"'S good to hear." She said, genuinely; nothing active, sure, but at least he was allowed to start doing things again. She was really beginning to feel good about how people were recovering now- yes there were a lot scars in physical and mental forms, but the little group (and those that had come to rescue them) seemed to 'doing well' now.
She pursed her lips a little as she was asked.
"Erm. Well. I still walk a little stiffly sometimes, but I got lucky wi' what I got away with... Physically, 'm doing mostly fine now. I, uh, went and saw Jerome; said he'd seen you too."
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 2:17 pm
"Yea, I saw him," Aulus nodded, easing himself carefully into the water. It felt kind of... weird against his back. Not painful or unpleasant or anything just... different. Mmh, well, no matter; if it didn't hurt he wasn't complaining. "He looked good, considering," the red-eyed man went on, "and I gather that the guy on the rescue team that got burned - Rory, that's it - is doing better too now. Guess the whole thing came off pretty well... still hard to believe we got Deimos."
That was satisfying. He hoped the little s**t was really suffering down in his cell, it was no more than he deserved. Pity they hadn't got Tethys too, he would love a bit of alone time with her strapped to a chair and him holding the prod for once, and maybe some slivers of wood or hot needles.
During this rather dark train of thought Aulus' face hardened and his eyes went distant, but the bubble of thought and hate and rage burst after a few moments and he shook his head. "We were bloody lucky."
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 3:14 pm
Tambrey nodded, watching Aulus work his way into the pool.
"Hm. Found 'm trying to get up when I visited- he didn't get far though. I think he just wanted fresh air. Got tired o' the bed." She couldn't blame him for that.
The grunt smirked as Aulus mentioned Rory.
"Oh, yes, Rory... He seems better... Was supposed to be my, uh, 'catch up' for the labs. Not sure who had that bright idea... He was a little 'out of it' when I met 'm properly."
Deimos. Right.
She'd been putting him out of her mind most of the time; sure, it was a victory but somewhere in her brain was the fact that the Galactic leader had some -very- loyal followers, including that certain blue-haired one that Aulus had been thinking about.
"Very," She agreed "But we're here. 'S not the cell." Tam' sounded rather more optimistic than she probably felt, attempting to focus on the present. The past was painful, the future a little bit scary.
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 10:32 am
Right. Not in the cell. "You're right." She was. Thinking about Deimos naturally led him back to thinking about that place and... and he really didn't want to go back there. Focus on the present, that was the thing to do. "How're your pokemon? They been missing you?" Aulus asked, sinking up to his neck in the water; strange on his back or not water felt good after having been denied it for so long. Pretty much everything on base still felt like luxury at the moment; food and drink pretty much whenever he wanted, and a huge range of choices too. Beds were soft, clean clothes amazing, and the freedom to walk around and go outside, and... well, everything.
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 6:01 am
The grunt bit the left side of her top lip for just a second, thoughtful; she'd noted the change in topic and, while not an unnatural transition, understood it. The cell wasn't a nice place to dwell on. Sure they'd become fond of the people who had been their cellmates, but those people, and themselves, had suffered while they called that little room home.
"Yes. Well. Most. M' spider wouldn't miss anyone 'r anything, I think..." She didn't /entirely/ believe that, nasty as Neph could be... there had been that little... 'look' before Neph had run off during the rescue. "The others though... 'specially Palu; she's only in her ball now because I promised t' take her wi' me 'nstead of leaving her in the room..." Said ball was currently attached to her belt, stowed in the changing rooms.
"I'm guessing it's the same story f' you?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 1:10 pm
"Yea," Aulus gave a brief laugh, "mostly they're very pleased to see me. I left Tortie up in my room to come down here to get her comfortable with me not being in the same room as her all the time.... Then there's Discord." Aulus shook his head and raised his eyebrows. "Don't think I told you about him, I got him not long before... the museum mission but I was far too embarrassed to talk about how I ended up with him, or to let him out around anyone else; he's a right bloody handful." The events that had seemed like the end of the world then seemed silly now and though of course he hadn't enjoyed the punishment duties he ended up with, in retrospect accidentally trashing the executive dininghall was pretty hilarious.
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Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 12:54 pm
Tambrey smiled as he talked about Tortie- it was an odd group, she reflected not for the first time, with so many people who were actually attached to their pokemon despite the goals of the organization- and blinked a little as he moved on to talk about 'Discord'.
That was an interesting name...
"Discord? ... As in 'chaos'?" The grunt inquired curiously.
She didn't know who this pokemon was and shook her head slightly to indicate that, no, he hadn't told her about it.
Aptly named though, apparently.
She did sometimes seem to miss rumours and things, having not really spent a lot of time just socializing beyond a few people; certainly she seemed to end up caring for people, but didn't seem to hang out with a lot of friends before the last mission. So, if the trashing of that dining hall had been common knowledge, it had been, without Aulus mentioning it, knowledge that she hadn't come across.
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:42 am
Aulus grinned sheepishly and nodded. "That's right, very much so. It all started when I called Executive Agent Nadja an unethical communist b***h.... I'd been having a very bad day and she walked into me in the corridor, and I may have slightly overreacted." Just slightly, but he was getting pretty good at 'slight' overreactions to a lot of things. "So I got summoned to her office," Aulus continued, "and naturally I assumed I was going to be demoted forever... but instead she gave me a pokeball and assigned me cleaning duties in the trainee toilets for a month. Not that the cleaning duty was great, but it was a lot better than I'd expected and... a pokemon? Now why would she give me that?" At that point Aulus paused, grinning wryly at Tam. "Can you guess what happened next?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 9:00 am
Tam's eyes widened slightly at the words 'unethical communist b***h', not that it was all that obvious behind the goggles.
"Uh... Naturally..." She agreed with a nod. Calling Exec's anything was usually not a good idea.
She listened, nodded at the revelation of toilet cleaning duty, then blinked a little at the fact the punishment had included being handed a pokeball.
"Ah... I have a feeling that this'd be where the appropriate name comes in?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 12:19 pm
"It was embossed on his pokeball," Aulus said with a nod, "I wondered why that was as I was stepping out of her office. I found out when the slippery bugger let himself out and charged off down the corridor. Weirdest Serperior I've ever seen, I tell you, I'll show you sometime when he's worn out and not going to go out of control. Anyway, yea, he rushed off down the corridor and burst into somebody's office. Totally trashed the place and dumped her desk toy into her fish tank before running me over going back out the door. Chased him down to the Executive dining hall where he started smashing more things. Because that was clearly a day on which I was making brilliant decisions I jumped on him and got dragged around through the mess, eventually got thrown off onto the dessert trolley. Lay there dazed and trying not to breathe tiramisu with custard running into my ear for a while before I managed to get up and call him back into his pokeball while he was distracted by a chocolate milkshake... so you can see why Discord is an apt name. I gather he's been causing minor havoc in our absence, but Char's been getting good at controlling him luckily."
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:23 pm
Tambrey listened mostly as he told the story, interjecting only to ask "He let himself out?" with a small frown. That was something she'd had happen before with Neph, though not often thankfully.
Smashed an office... Smashed a dining hall... Dragged Aulus around.
No, she bit her lip. Wasn't funny, wasn't.... She tried to completely stop her amusement, but her mouth just bent against her will into a slightly sniggering smirk.
Clearly he was okay though, and had recovered from that experience... Still, she apologized, still smirking, laughter in her voice a little.
"Sorry... Hee. 'S a funny image. 'M glad y' got him back in though. Least Char's a fire type as well if really needed to stop him... I'll look forward to seeing him though." She thought a moment... "And if y' really wanted to keep him from getting out, y' could ask Hayes t' see if tech would do something with his pokeball? Y'know, interior security thingies or something... If you haven't already..."
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