trans_9 | [Open] Mai is bored. Again.

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[Open] Mai is bored. Again.

Mai was bored, as per usual. So, she did what she always did when she didn't have anything more pressing to do or Zuko to bother. She went and threw knives at things. It was therapeutic actually. It helped her calm, find her center, and more practice certainly didn't hurt her. She'd set up a simple training ring in the Sensorium - a circle of dirt, with posts and targets set up around the edges. She was moving quickly, turning and hurling knives, the dull thock of a blade biting into wood rhythmically filling the air as she moved, flowing through the actions, ducking and weaving. She'd been the one to take out HAL, an action she still felt no remorse for - a machine was a machine. It wasn't a person.

She went around the circle, tugging knives free as she wiped some weat from her brow - she hadn't bothered to style her hair up. It took too much time and she didn't have the inclination to do it every day, as she'd used to. Instead, it was tied back in a long, flowing pony-tail to keep it out of her eyes. She also had real clothes on, for once. Trousers had never suited her, but the desses that passed for clothing on that planet didn't much suit her either. Rummaging through the clothing brought aboard had dredged up a pair of loose "gi" pants and a loose t-shirt. Strange, but they worked. Oh, and a sports bra. The ones with the clasps and hooks had given her pause and she'd decided she wasn't going to bother with that nonsense. The sports bra, however, was much better suited then wrapping her own chest. It made her exercise easier, anyway.

She was barefoot just now, but she'd also managed to find some sandals - better then nothing, she supposed. She half-turned turned towards the door as she pulled out her last knife - she could swear she'd heard someone come in.

"Can I help you?" she intoned dryly.

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It's just a completely normal young man, although the Legion gear indicates he might be a bit stranger than he seems. He gives her an apologetic smile.

"Sorry to interrupt. I've been sitting in a chair all day and need to get in some exercise."

He nods his head at the target. "You're awfully good at that."

"Don't let me stop you," she replied, flicking a knife across the ring and into another target, "This room's big enough."

She glanced at him, looking him over. Interesting - he shared some equipment with a few others she'd noted. She shrugged at the compliment and paused to balance a knife on her finger, "I practice. A lot."

Lyle nods and takes up a space away from the targets, calling up some equipment. He begins with a few stretches to get the stiffness out of his limbs. He's very flexible, a trait he worked on to be able to hide in tight spaces and has kept up for years.

"Are you a soldier?" He's upside-down as he says it, switching from flexibility to strength training and back.

Mai kept up her regimen, moving on to some moving targets for her own entertainment. She flows through the actions with a fluid grace. She paused and glanced over at Lyle as he asked his question. She shook her head, answering in her usual monotone, "No."

She's not horribly talkative.

Unfortunately for Mai, the dour attitude just seems to amuse Lyle rather than discourage him from talking.

He does spare a moment's thought for whether this might be too personal a question while going through his normal gymnastics routine to check his balance. If Mai looks over, she'll see he's not the most graceful thing, but he's obviously practiced and seems to enjoy it.

"So who is it you're looking to protect?"

She paused to watch him go through his routine. He's no Azula or Ty Lee (or even Zuko), but it's interesting to watch someone else's technique, if only for a moment. She folded her arms across her chest, toying with one of the straps on her forearm that held many, many throwing knives. She looked up, the question startling her slightly. She doesn't let that show, though.

"What?"

Lyle's not really supposed to be a brute combatant. But his job does require fighting, and it requires him to be strong and limber. He takes it seriously.

"You're not a soldier. If you wanted to hurt someone, there's easier ways than getting that good with knives. So, next best guess..."

He finally looks in her direction. "Just curious."

"...why wouldn't you use knives?" Mai seemed genuinely curious, one eyebrow arched, "I'm not a bender and I don't like swords or spears."

Well, there was someone she wanted to protect, but she wasn't about to let on just yet.

"Oh, you might. But getting that good at them seems a bit much, unless you're planning to wage a war by yourself."

He lowers himself down off of the equipment for a short break.

"What's a bender?"

"I was bored, so I taught myself how to throw knives," she explained. That's about all he'd get unless he asked more questions. And even then, she wasn't likely to share her life story.

"A bender is someone with the power to manipulate one of the elements," she replied, "Fire, earth, air and water. I'm not one of them, so... I have to be good to match them in a fight."

"All right." He's not going to press her. If she wanted to answer, she would have.

"Can't say I've ever heard of them. Are there are lot of them where you're from?"

Mai raised a brow. Really. She nodded slightly, "Well, yeah. They're everywhere."

She shrugged, "...there aren't any Airbenders left though."

She didn't mention why. It might have something to do with her country wiping them all out about a hundred years ago. Well, except for Aang, but he was the Avatar....

"Humans back home don't usually have powers, though other species have some interesting abilities."

He picks up some light weights. He's going to have to go through a lot of repetitions, so he might as well get started.

"I guess if my world were like that, I'd want to be able to defend myself too."

"It's not like I needed to defend myself, really. I was just bored."

She watched him lifting weights, folding her arms and settling on the edge of her practice ring.

"What do you do back home?"

"I'm a Legionnaire." That's probably not much of an explanation, is it? "I protect everyone as best I can."

He grins a little. "That's what I'll be doing here, too. I didn't introduce myself, did I? I'm Lyle Norg."

"Huh," she remarked. That sounded a bit like the Avatar or Katara, "I guess that's a good thing."

She nodded, "Mai." No 'pleased to meet you' or anything - that's not how Mai speaks, "I guess I'll be helping fight the Ohm. I usually don't do the whole protecting thing."

Lyle's been smiling faintly this entire time, so it probably isn't obvious how amusing he finds that statement.

"We don't really have a choice, do we? But at least everyone here seems to have a good handle on things."

He won't voice his doubts to her, not when he doesn't have any proof.

Mai shook her head, "I guess not."

She eyed him up and down again with a faintly appraising look on her face. At least wasn't as irritating as some people could get and she was supposed to be branching out a bit, "Most of us are good at what we do."

Keyword being "most".

And today on Sheeana's magical mystery sensorium tour, there was a tall girl with heavy lidded, bored looking eyes and long black hair.

Another trainer. These were usually the most boring kind and she was going to leave when some chord struck in her memory. She'd seen her before somewhere. Anyway, the knifework was interesting, almost Fremen quality.

"People just leave these wide open." She observed, seeing how Mai would react to that.

Mai glanced over her shoulder at Sheeana. She vaguely recognized the woman from somewhere. A part of the crew, obviously, but one of the many she'd simply never bothered to talk to or gotten to know. She simply shrugged at her comment, "So?"

She hurled another knife, impaling a target.

"Just an observation." All these people wanting to project an image of themselves while hiding behind walls of gruffness or station and the sensorium was the perfect tool for it. This one seemed genuine though. "That is some interesting knifeplay." A hook. Would she hang her conversation on it.

"I guess so. It's not like it's a formal school or anything," Mai replied. She really wasn't sure if there were any formal schools for knives in the Fire Nation. Had been. Whatever.

"There aren't any..." She unsheathed the gleaming blade, milky white, made from the worm's tooth. "...For the crysknife either."

"What's a crysknife?" She eyed the knife in Sheeana's hand curiously. It didn't look too much like any throwing knife she'd ever seen.

Ah, there it was. "My people's sacred weapon. Made from the tooth of shai-hulud, the great sandworm. The sharpest blade in my universe. Tradition says I should not show one to an outfreyn, but you have the look of a connuiseur." For truth, she did not care that much about Fremen tradition.

Most of that flew right over her head. She arched a brow and studied Sheeana for a moment, "...can you actually throw it?"

She considered. "It's not made for it. But if neccesary..." She hefted the tip and threw. The blade impacted at one of the outer rings of a target, with a thwoOoOoOing sound. "I'm Sheeana, by the way, of the Bene Gesserit."

"Mai. Of the Fire Nation," she glanced over curiously. Not a bad throw. Still, purpose made throwing knives were better. She eyed Sheeana up and down, "...hasn't Katara been hanging out with you?"

"She is my Acolyte. I'm assuming you're from the same dimension." She gave her a similarly appraising glance. From the correlation between the Harkonnens and the Fire Nation, she was expecting someone a bit more...hedonist looking. While her subdued voice and thin frame might possibly have been the type seen on a Semuta addict, Sheeana somehow doubted that idea.

"Acolyte?" That sounded a bit strange, but Mai wasn't about to get involved in that sort of thing. Instead she arched a brow at the look Sheeana was giving her. She sighed softly, "Keep staring. I might do a trick."

"Would you really?" Sheeana shrugged. "I'm only doing the same to you as you to me." She walked over to the target and pulled the crysknife free. "Although from Katara's description of the Fire Nation I was expecting cruel, hedonist aristocrats, not much like you seem at all. Unless you're a soldier, and this setup isn't just a hobby of yours?" She flicked the edge of the knife over the top of her hand and sucked at the small dab of blood that welled up there.

"Probably not," she replied, flicking a knife from one of her many, many sheaths and straps and balancing it by the hilt on her finger. She raised a brow, quietly listening as Sheeana talked about Katara's description of the Fire Nation. Really? Katara had said that? She was going to have to talk to her.

"...we're not hedonistic. Or cruel."

She flicked the knife in her hand at one of the targets, leaving it quivering in the center, "We're just people. And it's just a hobby."

A might bit of retconning i'd like to do: Sheeana wouldn't deliberately put Katara's reputation with her friends in danger. Instead she's trying to get a rise out of Mai to figure out how patriotic she is. Perhaps she could have said "From the histories i've read and what I hear..." instead of "From Katara's description..."? That would fix my terrible boner.

It's really not that big of a deal. I don't think it needs to be retconned. And personally, I'm usually opposed to retconning unless it's something pretty major.

"We're all just people." she replied. It was provocative...but then, that was in her nature, to provoke, to gadfly. She wanted to know about the Fire Nation, its patriotisms and bombasts, and poking at one of the last survivors was her kind of idea.

Memory spread over her eyes as she recalled where she'd seen the girl. "You killed the Thinking Machine."

"Exactly," Mai replied, "It's not a hard concept to grasp."

Unfortunately, Mai wasn't all that patriotic or bombastic in general. Azula would probably work better for that sort of thing. She glanced over at Sheeana again.

"...thinking machine? You mean that HAL thing? I didn't kill it. I broke it. You can't kill a machine. It's just pieces of metal and wires."

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[Open] Mai is bored. Again.

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OOC

OOC

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