fandomhighdorms | The Gym [Tuesday afternoon]

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@gym,
triela

The Gym [Tuesday afternoon]

It was Tuesday, which meant Triela was in the gym. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd let herself get talked into making this a regular thing, but she had. And she'd even worn appropriate clothes: sweatshirt, sweatpants, running shoes. Not the sort of thing she'd often be seen in public wearing.

Still, the point had been made, quite effectively, that her usual business suit and boots were not really effective football attire.

So there she was, dressed appropriately and a few minutes early. She settled in to wait.

[Expecting one, but open.]

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And it being Tuesday meant that Dolf was in the gym, too, in his football outfit. His new steady flow of money meant that he had been able to buy some new sneakers, but that hadn't really put a smile on his face today.

The whole Raven thing still bothered him.

Still: "Afternoon," he said, walking into the gym with a football under his arm.

"Hey," Triela returned with a nod. She eyed him for a moment. "You don't look excited."

Usually Dolf was at least a little enthusiastic about a chance to play, even after he'd discovered that Triela wasn't nearly as good as he was.

"It has been a weird few days," Dolf admitted, dropping the ball so he could kick it in her general direction.

Triela had to scramble a bit to get to it, which said a lot about Dolf's state of mind, really. "And not weird in a good way," she hazarded as she trapped the ball and sent it back toward him.

"I guess it is, sort of?" Dolf asked, catching the ball easily with the instep of his right foot. He wasn't really paying attention. "Someone came back from the dead. Except that just doesn't make any sense."

It was giving him a minor existential crisis.

He kicked the ball back.

"Oh." That.

Even when he wasn't paying that much attention, Dolf managed to be pretty accurate. Triela, of course, misjudged where the ball was going and had to take half a step to her left to stop the ball a bit awkwardly. At least she was getting better?

"Yeah. That's weird even for this place." And this place was weird.

Hey, football was something you learned by doing it a lot. Dolf had pointed that out in the past!

"I should be happy," Dolf said, running a hand through his hair. "With so few people dying. Or none dying, even. But they say there were gods involved. How can that be real?"

"You're okay with all the weird magic and technology stuff around here, but don't want to deal with gods?" Triela eyed him for a moment before sending the ball back... generally in his direction. "I mean, is there that big a difference?"

"I'm okay with the stuff I can see," Dolf said, jogging a few paces so he could catch the ball in time. "And I know sometimes religious people can give you strength. I felt Saint Nicholas looking over us once, in Bari," he said. "But real gods and resurrections are usually stories that are used to make people do what you want."

"Never noticed anything like that in Bari myself," Triela admitted. Of course the two times she'd been there had been for business, so she'd been a but distracted.

She shook her head slightly. "Did you know that we had an incarnation of Death here as a student last year?" she asked, trying to figure out ways to give Dolf a handle on the situation.

The ball, which he'd been about to kick towards her again, came to a sudden stop as Dolf put his foot on it. "You're making a joke?" he tried.

She shook her head, some part of her brain noting how odd it felt to have her hair swinging in a pony tail. "No."

She didn't really have anything more clever than that to say.

"Maybe he just said he was?" Dolf tried again. "Coming into a place like this, you can say you're a lot of things."

"True." Triela shrugged. She'd never really known Didi very well, so that was possible.

"But what would be the point?"

"Looking cool?" he suggested. "Trying to get an advantage?" He finally kicked the ball her way again.

Of course, if he'd met Didi, he'd have thought much differently.

"That doesn't really sound like her," Triela mused as she nearly missed the ball, scrambling to stop it before it rolled past her. "But I guess it's possible."

She shrugged again. "But, still, given all the other stuff going on around here, gods don't seem that outlandish, you know?"

"Not outlandish," said Dolf, broodingly, "Just makes the idea more dangerous."

"Because it might be true?" Triela hazarded, kicking the ball back toward him. A bit harder than she'd intended, given the bounce, but at least in the right direction.

"Because it might be easier for people to believe in it, even if it isn't true," Dolf said, though he had to stop whatever else he might have wanted to say right there and then on account of having to dodge an incoming football.

He ran after it.

Triela snorted and grinned a bit. "Weren't you just pointing out how hard it is to believe that sort of thing?"

"I think it's hard," Dolf shot back, once he'd managed to catch the ball and turn it around. He jogged forward, ball at his feet. "But I also know it is very easy for people to believe in it, because it's simpler."

"I guess." Triela frowned thoughtfully. "But I don't know that many people here who..."

Wait, scratch that. Maybe there weren't a lot of people on the island who had trouble with gods and stuff like that, but they did find it easy to believe that their morals were universal...

Dolf didn't think his morals were universal. He just thought they should be. So that was... different?

"I don't know how much of it's tricks and how much is real," he said. Real magic, real gods-- it was like something out of children's books. "But I guess it shouldn't matter. She's back, that's miracle enough."

He kicked the ball towards her again.

She shifted slightly and stopped the ball. But she'd done it a little too hard and had to chase it a couple of feet before getting control of it. "If it works, I guess that's all that matters, huh?"

"I guess," Dolf agreed. "It's better than some people I know got."

Triela paused just before kicking the ball, and frowned. "Think that's unfair?"

Well, it was.

He didn't want to say yes. It seemed ungrateful.

"...Yeah," he admitted, letting the ball bounce past him.

"It is," Triela agreed with a shrug.

"But that's life, you know? Unfair." It was odd, she thought, that she considered her own situation unfair. That was a relatively new development, but it hadn't made her less... philosophical about such things.

"I know," Dolf said. He took in a deep breath of air, then shook his head, rubbing the palm of his hand against one of his eyes.

No reason, really.

"I know," he repeated, and then turned around to jog back to the ball.

There was a moment of silent hesitation, where Triela asked herself why she cared. She didn't really come up with an answer before she spoke up.

"Hey... you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said, though he did so with his back facing her. He leaned down to pick up the ball and tried not to think about a lot of things. "Let's just play, okay?"

She almost objected, pointed out that he clearly wasn't fine, but... It was his business.

So instead she nodded. "Okay."

Dolf turned around and smiled at her. It looked a little wobbly.

He was being stupid.

"Thanks," he said instead, and that at least was heartfelt.

Triela smiled back.

"What are friends for, right?" Funny. That didn't sound as sarcastic as she usually managed.

"You're a good one," he told her. Even if he was avoiding talking about it, knowing she cared helped a little.

"Now watch my feet more," he added, quickly. "Or you might miss the ball again."

She snorted. "Yes, sir." Dolf even got a mocking little salute thrown in, too.

"Non pasticciare con me*!" Dolf tried to joke, kicking the ball over to the opposite corner because he could.

[[ * don't mess with me! ]]

"Hey!" Triela objected with a short laugh as she chased after it.

She'd show him! Just as soon as she managed to get the ball under control.

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The Gym [Tuesday afternoon]

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