The Gym: Wednesday Afternoon

[buzzkillcaptain.livejournal.com]

Dipper decided today to do something healthy. Like work out with the weight machine to try to perform a bench press.

It wasn't working well. He could barely push the bar up.

If one listen closely, they could hear him mutter "Stupid. Noodle. Arms."

Hopefully no one else would be around to witness his humiliation.

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

Oh! Newbie Kathy had somehow failed to meet, though she recognized him from Drivers Ed. Thorin was a source of some spectacular crashes, after all.

"Hey," she said, when she paused her routine to get a drink. "Thorin, right? From Mr. O'Conner's class?"

[dwarvenswagger]

His were the crashes that action movies dreamed of.

"That would be me," he replied, in clinic his head politely. "You are...?"

Look, you met a million new people When you got here.

[spin_kick_snap]

Michael Bay wrote odes to his explosions.

"Kathy Li," she said, not taking offense. She remembered her first few weeks here, when everything and everyone was new. "And genuinely impressed by the size of that fireball last class. Hi."

[dwarvenswagger]

"The cars are so fragile." And east to flip.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Fiberglass and ultra-light steel," Kathy said, nodding. "So, I take it cars aren't the usual mode of transportation where you're from?"

[dwarvenswagger]

"More along the lines of horses or ponies."

Or rams. Boars. Eagles if you were with Handalf.

[spin_kick_snap]

Maybe an elk or two if you were tight with some elves. Whatever.

"So, is it easier riding on something with a mind of its own?" Kathy asked, never having thought about it. "I feel you probably have a much lower chance of crashing and burning, but you then have to deal with something that has its own agenda, really."

[dwarvenswagger]

Man, fuck the elves. No one liked them and their perfect hair. How was it always so perfect?!

"Anders and I have discussed such a thing and believe it would be possible should you put black powder in the saddle."

They had issues, okay?

[spin_kick_snap]

"Wait, you mean to explode your horse?!"

She HAD to be misunderstanding.

[dwarvenswagger]

"Yes. What else would it be?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"...Is playing in a rain of horse entrails what you do for kicks normally?" Inquiring minds needed to know!

[dwarvenswagger]

"What?" Thorin asked, giving her a look like she was truly made. "I would not do that to a perfectly good steed. It was a mental exercise to prove it possible to accomplish such an explosion."

You were weird, Kathy. So weird.

[spin_kick_snap]

Nope. Kathy was not taking the blame for this one.

"And Schrodinger's cat or Maxwell's demon weren't challenging enough exercises for you?" she asked, giving him a dubious look. "Besides, even if you did put black powder into a saddlebag and then crashed the horse, where would the spark come from to light it? Were you just going to add some flint and tinder and hope for the best?"

Kathy, they did not need your help blowing up imaginary horses.

[dwarvenswagger]

Yeah, Thorin was going to politely ignore the strange cultural references there.

"My, I never would have thought of such a thing," he replied. "Do go on."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm sorry, I hardly consider myself an expert in the field of Equine Explosions," Kathy said, with a slight bow. "I defer to your clearly superior knowledge."

[dwarvenswagger]

"You certainly did not act as though you were a mere novice," Thorin pointed out dryly. Almost amused by the attitude now. "I had awaited your teachings."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't need to be a master glazier to notice a hole in the window," Kathy said, raising an eyebrow. "You said you'd stick black powder in a saddlebag. Full stop. An eight year old could see that's pointless without an ignition source."

[dwarvenswagger]

"Do go on,"Thorin replied, looking more and more openly amused. "You have found the glaring hole in my plan. How could I have missed it?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"That was what I had asked you, remember?" Kathy asked, giving him an extra polite smile. "I'm waiting to be illuminated by your brilliant fire-starting plan."

Yes, those were deliberate puns. Kathy made her own fun.

[dwarvenswagger]

"My most sincere of apologies. I forget the manners of men are so different," Thorin replied with a smile of his own that would work well at court with its blandness. "Might I ask why you are so interested in such matters? Or will you once more take offense to what was a mental exercise in possibilities?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Were they gonna have a polite-off? Was that where this was going?

"You may," Kathy asked, looking at him with wide, earnest eyes. "I might even answer you question, which--oh." She laid a hand over her cheek. "Which I do note you haven't been able to do with mine yet."

[dwarvenswagger]

Thorin stared at her as though waiting for her to really think about what she was demanding to know and how utterly pedantic she was being for reasons utterly beyond him.

Because seriously.

[spin_kick_snap]

And Kathy just blinked innocently back, as if she just couldn't wait to hear him expound. This was his thought experiment, after all.

[dwarvenswagger]

If she believed she could out stubborn a dwarf, more power to her! Though now Thorin was forced to reexamine her in case she was possibly not intelligent enough to see the flaws of her odd argument.

It was sad sometimes, the differences in the free folk.