The beach, Tuesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

There was a whole school of yoga practitioners who believed that yoga could be better than -- or at least as satisfying as -- sex. Duke had never been one of them, but this morning he was perfectly happy to try.

It'd been a long night last night, and it was only Tuesday. Octavia said this stuff usually lasted a week.

The pose he was working towards today didn't look especially complex, but it was one of the most difficult he knew. It would take all his focus and composure --

He dropped back out of his handstand with a curse. Focus and composure were not especially easy for him right now, after all.

[beach yoga is open as usual!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Rey almost canceled. But she knew nothing was happening here, and she really did need this today.

Plus Duke would probably forgive her if she was an impossible brat like she seemed to be to everyone else.

"So, zen," she greeted him.

[betterthanaplan]

"Zen," Duke agreed, glancing back at her without ever quite actually looking at her. Because -- yeah, they didn't have that kind of relationship, but that didn't mean he was blind. "Just because it's extra difficult this week doesn't mean we can't try."

[thatwaslucky]

"You have no idea," she sighed. and while she took her boots off like normal, she definitely threw tossed them in the sand with more force than necessary.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke tilted his head and nodded, letting out a little frustrated noise. "I might have some."

He had a we're-not-calling-it-that girlfriend. He had plans with said person. But they were still more than 24 hours away. . . .

"Right, so, uh. Should we dive right in?"

Yoga teachers were probably supposed to at least look at their students a little, weren't they.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey stopped, and just so he understood exactly what she was dealing with here, said, "I'm picking it up from the whole island."

With zero prospects, and no way to turn it off.

"Yeah. Let's dive in."

[betterthanaplan]

That got Duke's attention. "What, seriously?! That's -- jesus. How are you even outside right now?"

Sorry, not diving in quite yet here, Rey.

[thatwaslucky]

"Because nothing actually helps. So being outside and being active at least feels like something."

It was probably pretty clear just from the tone of her voice that she was beyond done with this.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke nodded, trying not to think of just how little his, uh, solo work last night had helped. Or multiplying that by the population of the island. Or about Rey attempting to deal with the result of that multiplication.

He was very glad he was wearing loose pants.

"Right." He dusted his hands off and looked at the yoga mats. "Let's get you into some handstand variations, then."

[thatwaslucky]

"Yeah," she said, walking to one of the mats. "What are we doing, then?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I was working towards a scorpion handstand, myself. That's where you're standing on your hands and bend your legs down over your back to touch your head. Or, you know, as close to it as you can get."

Duke had never made it all the way to his head in that pose, no.

"But we can try an upside down tree pose or shoulder stands or -- pretty much anything. You can do a lot of weird shit balanced on your hands."

And yes, he was now picturing how it would work to have sex that way. Thanks, Fandom.

[thatwaslucky]

...Yeah. There were definitely some things pictured, there.

"Maybe we should start slow."

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Yep. We can do that. Basic handstand first."

Get that blood rushing to your head instead of your nethers!

[thatwaslucky]

She nodded, bending to place her hands in the mat and pull herself up into a handstand. She could practically do one in her sleep by now, even if she wasn't as steady as usual.

It was like her focus sucked today or something.

[betterthanaplan]

Funny how that happened. "Good." Duke didn't do quite as much checking of her form as he usually might, as that would require him, you know, checking her form. "You want to try it one handed?"

[thatwaslucky]

Rey wasn't sure about that, at all, since she was already a little wobbly and her concentration wasn't great.

But maybe it was a good focus exercise, so she took a moment to try and steady herself before taking one hand off the mat, and immediately started to fall over,

[betterthanaplan]

Yeah, Duke wasn't at all surprised there, and made sure he was around to catch her if she didn't seem like she was going to be able to catch herself. "Right, no inverted tree pose yet," he said. "Maybe we'll try a tripod pose instead."

. . . Once his brain stopped trying to make a dirty pun out of 'tripod'.

[thatwaslucky]

She at least managed to come down in a way that, while not graceful, at least didn't hurt.

But uh.

"What's a tripod pose?"

[betterthanaplan]

"You know how it takes three points of contact to make as steady a base as possible?" Duke asked. "Instead of using just your hands, you balance on your hands and the top of your head. The trick is to make sure your spine is straight and aligned the whole time, so you don't put too much pressure on any one part of it."

[thatwaslucky]

"Can you show me?" Rey asked, and if she sounded wary, well. She was going to have to watch him.

[betterthanaplan]

"Sure. Yoga's always a bit easier to show than tell," Duke agreed. He dropped down into child's pose, taking a few moments to breathe into that before slowly easing his weight onto his hands and head. He straightened his legs until his hips were firmly in place over his shoulders, his back straight, his chin parallel with his mat, then carefully lifted his legs up into the air.

Tripod pose.

Apparently, showing off for the pretty girl was in line enough with what his body wanted him to do that he even got to focus properly on it. Otherwise, that probably wouldn't have gone nearly so well.

[thatwaslucky]

The funny part about that was how much Rey thought he was more or less anti-attracted to her.

That wasn't going to stop her from watching way too closely, whether she wanted to or not. "Easy enough."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke wasn't really anti-attracted to anyone. Which normally meant he had a lot of practice not letting that attraction show or affect his judgement.

This week was messing with him a lot on that front.

He lowered his feet back to the ground and rocked back onto all fours.

"Sure, you say that, but I'm going to stop you the moment your back isn't straight. This one's way more about strength and form than balance."

[thatwaslucky]

"Okay."

She copied what he'd done- seriously, she'd been paying attention- pulling her legs up and immediately deciding this was maybe the wrong hair fir this today.

She wasn't up straight, either. It was possible everything was going to be off today.

[betterthanaplan]

"Nope!" Duke said, reaching out to stop her legs if she tried to raise them. "Hips over shoulders. Try to keep them square. No rounding the back."

[thatwaslucky]

"Okay!" she said, adjusting as ordered.