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The Beach, Wednesday Afternoon

By the time the afternoon rolled around, Octavia was starting to feel pretty okay in her new body. The adjustment wasn't that big, even if there were moments where she found it annoying that her proportions were so different or that a familiar movement didn't entirely work.

However.

By now, she'd also figured out she was surprisingly uncomfortable with thinking her thoughts only to say them out loud in a voice she didn't recognize and that didn't feel at all like hers. Which wasn't great, especially since she'd made plans for today that would presumably involve talking.

Not that she was even sure the plans were still in effect, because for all she knew, Rey was probably having the same kind of wrong-body experience as she was.

But Octavia steeled herself and headed out anyway. Just like she'd told Rey, she'd followed along Serendipity Place until it met Pie Lane, and she'd headed down to the shore from there. And now here she was, on the beach, sword in hand and running through some training moves. Trying to focus on how the weapon still felt like an extension of her arm, of her, and trying not to focus on how much she didn't want to open her mouth again.

A few porgs were watching her, but thankfully from a respectful distance.

[ooc: Open post! Getting my mini-spam out of the way before I have to go AFK for some hours.]

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Rey had been missed by all this stuff for years she'd been here, which meant days like today felt especially unfair that she got hit with all of it now.

She didn't consider canceling at all, but it did feel a little weird trying to get to the beach when she was very aware of how she moved differently... in order to do something where she'd be moving. But she was there, staff slung across her back and bag over her shoulder, stopping when she got there to watch and wait for Octavia to finish what she was doing.

She did that to everyone.

Also she assumed that was Octavia.

Between the sword and the cheekbones, it was solid guess. And even in this body, it was obvious Octavia was no joke with a sword. She ran through a few more slashes and stabs - some looking a little vicious even with nothing but air as her opponent - before she stopped and looked over. "Rey?"

The staff was a fairly good clue. Also, yes, she was trying to use as few words as possible.

It was not going to go very well.

"That's me," Rey sighed. "It's possible we picked a bad day for this."

It wouldn't stop her from doing anything. It would, however, be annoying.

Octavia shrugged her shoulders in lieu of a 'maybe'. She agreed, though.

"Could be just an extra challenge."

Everyone liked challenges, right? Right.

"It is that," Rey said, and added, "You seen to be doing pretty well for yourself here."

Another shrug.

"Routine comes through," she said, because that was what it felt like. "Muscle memory, even if the muscles are different."

"How often do you get out to do this?" Reybeondered. "You're good, muscle memory or not."

"Whenever I can," Octavia said. She was getting slightly better about not feeling like she wanted to wince whenever she heard her voice. "Usually I do it in the preserve. Then I can do target practice, too."

Yes, target practice. With a sword.

"Target practice," Rey repeated, eyes wide. "With that."

"Yes," Octavia said. Briefly, there was maybe something a little bit amused to her expression. "I'm good at that, too."

She really was! And it was terrifying.

"I'm impressed," Rey said, not shy about that sort of thing. "Determined to stay on your good side, but impressed."

"Best side to be on." The switch in bodies had done nothing to oft-raspy quality of her voice, apparently. "I'll show you some other time."

Possibly during an invasion, if they were very lucky. (Octavia's take on what counted as 'lucky' was... skewed, yes.)

"Do you want a closer look at the sword?"

"Yeah, if you're good with that," Rey said, walking closer. "The swords im used to are... different."

And currently broken. She had it in her bag, just in case Octavia wanted to compare.

Octavia flipped the sword ~~which was suprisingly difficult to find decent pics of~~ in her hand so that she could offer it to Rey hilt-first. The sword was not particularly pretty: it looked like maybe it had been repurposed from some kind of scrap metal. But the edge of the blade was sharp, and whoever had made it had known what they were doing. Including the nasty-looking, not quite hooked tip.

It probably also felt a little on the heavy side for something that was often used for throwing.

Rey took it, surprised st the weight, but also thinking it'd probably feel heavier with her normal arms.

"Is it homemade?" she asked, because of course she'd be interested in how someone had put this together.

"Where I come from, most weapons are," Octavia confirmed. "There's no mass-production of anything."

Rey stepped back to safely give it a tentative swing, taking in how different it felt. Lightsaber hilts were heavy, but not like this, and they balanced a lot differently.

"Dangerous place, back home?"

"Could say that," Octavia drawled as she watched Rey. "But not more so than any other war-torn area."

Sometimes her sense of humor veered towards the pitch black.

She nodded at the sword. "How's it feel?"

"Very different," Rey said thoughtfully. "My blade much lighter, so this is new. I'd say this would get tiring faster, but you're also probably not using it for longer fights."

"Depends on what you consider a longer fight," Octavia replied, shrugging. "I try to end mine quickly."

And efficiently.

Rey wished she could do that.

Sort of. Felt like a weird thing for her to wish for, really.

"I had one with multiple enemies, that lasted for what felt like forever," she said, switching to her left arm, since that was stronger. "I would not have done well with this."

"It's all about what you've learned with," Octavia replied, this time keeping the shrug more at a level of tone. "That's what they gave me, so that's what I learned with, so that's what my muscles know."

For her, the weight of it was a familiar comfort.

"Who gave it to you?" Rey wondered, turning it to hand it back over to her.

"Indra kom Trigeda," Octavia replied as she took the sword back. In her hand, the way she held it, it didn't look as heavy. "She was a chief in my clan, and she trained me."

That was a simplified version of the whole truth, but the whole truth involved a lot more Lincoln than she was willing to talk about right now.

"She seems to have worked out for you," Rey said. She thought a lot about that sort of thing these days.

Octavia shrugged. "I was her Second, for a while," she said, tone creeping back into perfect mildness. "Means she saw potential in me. And I didn't want to let her down."

Which she'd ultimately done, but that was... one of those things that didn't need saying.

"I feel like that always sounds like a good position until you're actually in it," Rey said with a little rueful smile.

Hernando was practicing walking in heels. Very slowly. She'd made her way very cautiously from T42 up Serendipity. A slow walk with a nice view. When she neared Pie Lane, she noticed someone on the beach going through sword moves. It wasn't Kanan or Kaidan - they were both still women. She didn't know anyone else who worked with a sword and it was, as always, a little mesmerizing.

Hernando paused to watch. Wobbling only a little while balancing on the heels.

Octavia noticed someone watching almost immediately, from the corner of her eye. A quick glance told her it was a woman -- or someone who at least looked like one, more to the point. And also not anyone she recognized.

And she wasn't in the mood for strangers.

And so what she wanted to do was call out that it wasn't a spectator sport, but that would've meant hearing her own unfamiliar voice again, and she was doing her best to avoid that. So what she actually did... was just keep doing what she was doing. Just maybe with an added level of viciousness to the way she wielded the sword against an imagined enemy.

Today was frustrating.

Yeah, that.. wasn't discouraging the spectating. The way Octavia was moving had a grace and a fluidity that almost made it art in motion, and the art nerd right here was rather fascinated by it.

A little lost in her own head thinking about it, in fact, but watching nonetheless. Which meant she wasn't paying attention to her balance and one of the wobbles caught her off guard. Leading to a larger wobble, a complete failure to correct because she still wasn't used to the different way this body moved, a sharp yelp, and Hernando's ankle rolling and dumping her right on her ass with another yelp when she bit her tongue.

For a few seconds, Octavia genuinely considered ignoring that. Wasn't her problem.

... But guess she wasn't in that much of an asshole mood over the voice thing. So, incredibly dryly, she paused what she was doing and called out, "You okay?"

Hernando was touching her lip and tongue to check for blood. There didn't appear to be any. She threw Octavia a sheepish look. "Probably?" she offered uncertainly, "I'm sure I'm going to have some new bruises and my pride most certainly now has bruises, but I don't think I broke anything."

Which .. suddenly made her pull off the traitor heel to examine it, breathing a sigh of relief that she hadn't broken that. Walking all that way back home barefoot would not be fun.

"Your sword work is very interesting," she offered tentatively, "I've only seen people practicing with wooden swords before."

The dry tone wasn't going anywhere. "Wooden swords are pointless."

The people who'd trained Octavia didn't really believe in going easy on anyone. She had the memory of getting kicked in the face during her first spar to remind her of that.

"I think the point was so the experienced sword person didn't hurt the new person," Hernando offered, "I'm not certain the new person had ever seen a sword before."

Octavia shrugged one shoulder, her gaze flicking down to the sharp blade of her sword. Even with the way she was just holding it now, it looked more like an extension of her than a separate piece.

"Not helpful in the long run."

Yes, she was even more curt than usual, today. Sorry.

"I wouldn't know," Hernando said with a lopsided smile, putting her shoe back on and sort of awkwardly scrambling to her feet, "I don't know how to fight. Only recently did I start taking self-defense lessons. We're still working on basics."

"Good for you."

That was actually sincere! Sort of, for as much as she could bring herself to care about random strangers' survival skills.

It just sounded way too dry for any sincerity to actually come through.

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The Beach, Wednesday Afternoon

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