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Around Town, Tuesday Afternoon

Ringo kept considering getting across the causeway to try a ride through the forest. AirTrek wasn't really designed for dirt and leaves and stuff, but the density of trees might make it possible. That was in the back of her head, slowly mulling over the possibility, as she slowly worked her way around town.

She put those thoughts on hold as she finally arrived in the little plaza that had been her ultimate destination.

It wasn't a part of town she spent a lot of time in, as a big open space wasn't really her speed. Sure, you could do some pretty impressive stuff with unobstructed space, but Ringo's style involved a lot more playing around obstructions. That was where the fun was!

But there were some things that big open spaces were good for, like practicing the basics. So Ringo was working through skid-stops, hopping up and down from a couple of benches, and spinning to ride backwards. And it turned out that the basics were still really fun. So while it wasn't hard, Ringo was still grinning hugely as she leisurely worked her way around the area.

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Alluka had received a phone call, and an invitation, in that order to come out and skate, and since it wasn't dark out and the weather was nice and she was maybe already full from a tea party and hadn't wanted another--

Well, it wasn't long before Alluka came spilling around the corner and into the plaza, with a cheerful, "Hi, Ringo!" to accompany her.

She skidded to a stop, pleased that it was neater than it had been when old-Ringo had shown her how. She'd been practicing.

"Alluka!" Ringo hopped down from where she was balancing on the back of a bench and beamed over at the other girl.

"Hey, nice moves!"

"Thank you!" Alluka chirped, doing a little spin, and then heading over to Ringo for a hug.

Hugs were always the most important thing, after all!

Yay hugs! Ringo may not have thought they were the most important thing, but they were definitely important!

"You've definitely been practicing!" Ringo said in approval after she'd given Alluka a squeeze and stepped back slightly.

Alluka beamed.

"It shows?"

Why else would she say that, Alluka?

"It does!" Ringo giggled.

"You're getting really good at stopping." And it was a pretty important skill.

Alluka looked both pleased with herself and a bit embarrassed at the same time.

"Well," she said, "old you thought it was important."

Ringo grinned. "Old me sounds pretty smart. Because she was right."

"After all, once you know how to stop when you want, you can go faster without worrying about it, right?"

Alluka wasn't entirely sure that was true, since going really fast was a bit intimidating, but so far Ringo had proven to be right about how fun the ATs were.

"Are we going to work on speed today?" she asked, giggling.

"If you want. That, or jumps. Which one would you prefer?"

"Which do you think would be more fun?" Alluka asked, throwing her hands out expansively. "I want lots of fun today!"

"Hmm." Ringo made a big show of thinking about it. "Maybe a little bit of both? We can work on getting up your speed, and then do a few little jumps while we're at it?"

That was probably a bit fast, but Ringo was really excited watching Alluka on ATs.

It sounded good to her.

Choices where she didn't have to pick between one or the other were the best! It was like getting candy and chocolate at once!

"Oh, yes, please! That sounds good!"

"Awesome." Ringo grinned and drifted backward a bit. "Want to make a couple circles around the plaza, then? See what feels like a good speed?"

Alluka looked at Ringo's drifting backwards and clapped her hands together.

"Should I chase you? Fast as feels right?"

"That should work!" Ringo grinned, speeding up slightly, but still moving backwards.

"And if I start going too fast, just say so, okay?"

"Okaaay!" Alluka said, shaking out her braids and beginning to follow Ringo.

Another person might've asked Ringo if she was sure it was safe to go backwards, but Alluka didn't even think of it.

It probably would have been more dangerous if Ringo hadn't been genetically modified the way she had. She basically had a 3D map of the area around them in her head.

She grinned, watching Alluka speed up, making little mental notes about the other girl's technique. She wasn't going to say anything yet, but she'd have some hopefully-helpful advice to give later!

Alluka had gotten better, it was evident in the way she didn't hesitate nearly as much, even though her technique was still that of a relative beginner.

She was getting better at trusting where to move and how to move without thinking too hard about it, though she was still leery of turns, taking them wider and slower than she really had to.

But still, she was speeding up.

"I'm going to catch you!" Alluka said, laughing, though she knew it was unlikely.

"Oh, you are, are you?" Ringo grinned back, slowly speeding up as she watched Alluka, staying just out of reach without getting too far away.

"Let's see if you're right!"

"I'll do my best!"

And she was, getting faster without really realizing it as she focused on catching up to Ringo--which made her nervousness burn away, since she didn't have time to worry about how fast she was going when Ringo kept speeding up and up.

Ringo had noticed the way Alluka was careful about turns, so she made the circular path she traced around the plaza a wide one. They could practice turns another time.

She grinned, letting herself slow just a bit, coming almost within arm's reach of Alluka before getting a bit of distance again.

"You're getting pretty fast," she decided with a grin. Alluka wasn't exactly a natural like some of the people on the island. Or, perhaps more accurately, she didn't have another set of skills that transferred to AirTrek. But she was quite good for a beginner. Especially one who hadn't grown up running around climbing on things.

She'd had a year of being on the island, at least, to give her some basic muscle definition, and her family had spent a long time indeed honing their line into the perfect bodies to be trained into assassins.

Alluka hadn't had much training at being an assassin, but she had excellent reflexes and balance, when she wasn't getting too excited and forgetting how to let her body do its own thing.

"Not as fast as you," Alluka said, making a daring grab for Ringo when she came close enough to do so. She missed, of course.

That little lunge had Ringo pulling back in a big dramatic movement and grinning. "I've had a lot more time to practice than you, to be fair."

She sped up again, this time more noticeably, wondering if Alluka would try to keep up, or let her get away for the moment.

Alluka pouted.

It would probably be the smarter thing to do, to slow down, and ask for them to take it a little more carefully.

But Alluka, like all of her brothers, was terribly spoiled and used to getting what she wanted so long as their parents didn't mind.

Coming to Fandom Island had not actually done anything to curb that. Alluka tended to get what she wanted very easily on the island, which was made even easier because she did not want many things.

Mommy and Daddy would want her to win--she didn't know her parents very well at all, but she knew that--and that aligned with her selfish desire to win (she was getting better, she was!) which meant, for once, she wanted something badly enough to push herself for it. Hard.

Alluka sped up, and then up again.

Ringo's eyebrows went up in surprise. That was a pretty impressive burst of speed.

In another situation, Ringo might well have let Alluka catch her. But this was AirTrek, and Ringo's generally competitive nature was turned all the way up when it came to ATs. So she sped up herself, still going backward as she kept the distance open.

She made a little jump, sliding a couple of feet along a stone bench before landing back on the ground without missing a beat.

Yeah. She was showing off just a bit.

She was, and Alluka knew it, and it wasn't fair.

There was no way Alluka could keep up this pace for long, she didn't have the training, the strength, or the endurance to do so, but she wasn't aware of that.

Everything she had was focused on getting to Ringo.

Even that jump, one that she would never have tried in any other frame of mind, without a lot more trepidation, she did just as Ringo did, only forwards instead of backwards.

She was sweaty, and gross, and cranky, and she didn't even realize that she'd done a thing she wouldn't normally be able to do.

After all, she still hadn't caught Ringo.

"Whoa!" Ringo beamed, clapping excitedly (without slowing down). "That was an amazing jump!"

Alluka blinked, coming back to herself suddenly, as Ringo's clapping and her words, broke her concentration.

"Wha--?"

That was as far as Alluka got before her shattered concentration caught up with her body, which was unaccustomed to doing anything this difficult, and... oh.

That was going to be a bad crash, as her legs got tangled up in each other and she went down in a tumble of leggings, skirts, and hair with a cry of surprise.

Edited 2016-06-08 02:48 (UTC)

Ringo skidded to an immediate stop, then shifted directions to check on Alluka.

"Whoa, you okay?" She didn't sound super-worried yet. Spills happened in AirTrek, and she'd seen worse. But Alluka wasn't used to falling, so Ringo was a little bit worried.

Alluka did not actually know how to answer that.

She felt shaken, and she hurt, and it felt a bit like the end of the world.

(It wasn't. She wasn't badly hurt at all, but Alluka didn't know that.)

Both of her knees were scraped, one of them badly enough that her leggings had been torn, and one of her arms was a bit raw, because of the way she'd landed, and she was going to have a multitude of ordinary aches and bruises for the next few days. The scrapes were bleeding, like small scrapes do.

But Alluka had never felt anything like this before and it wasn't fun and it felt bad and she did the only thing she could think of to do:

She burst into tears.

And now Ringo was worrying. She rushed over and knelt down, looking to see what had hurt Alluka so badly. Had she broken something? Sprained something bad?

"Alluka, don't move." That could make things worse. "Where does it hurt?"

Ringo wasn't really trained in first aid, but she'd seen enough fall-related injuries to feel pretty confident about at least identifying whatever it was that was wrong.

There was no way she was going to answer that question, since she was too busy crying, and in shock, about what had happened.

No one had told her this could happen!

It hadn't occurred to Ringo to mention it. Because, of course you could fall down on ATs, and of course you could get hurt. But most of the time it was "rub some dirt on it and walk it off" sort of hurt, not this!

Ringo was starting to get a bit desperate as she looked over Alluka's injuries. Nothing looked that serious! Some bad scrapes and bruises, sure. Some torn skin, that was normal. But nothing that she would have expected to cause a reaction like this! Which meant there must be something she was missing.

"Alluka, Alluka, look at me." The other girl hadn't hit her head, but she seemed a little bit dazed.

Alluka sniffled, tears still streaking her face, and tried to focus on Ringo instead of all the bad things.

"Wh-What?" she managed.

Ringo's eyes were wide with worry. "What happened? Does anything feel sprained or broken or anything?"

She sniffled more and scrubbed at her face with her sleeve.

"How, how does that feel like?" she asked, lost. "Everything hurts."

Huh? "You've never, like, sprained your ankle before?" That hadn't even occurred to Ringo as a possibility.

How did you describe that.

"Um, like, it hurts under the skin, I guess? Like, um, when you move?"

"But," Ringo said quickly, "don't move yet. We want to make sure that you didn't break anything that would make you get hurt more if you move."

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Around Town, Tuesday Afternoon

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