Post by Domino on Jan 21, 2007 17:10:56 GMT -5
Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.
Endless repetition: it was how you learned a language and it was how Neena Thurman learned everything else, and how she was still good at it. She really relied less on luck than she might've, all things considered. Not by her choice, really. Beliefs instilled by Daddy Thurman: if you do something enough times, you'll get it right. If you do something right enough times, you'll stop doing it wrong.
Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.
So she was punching a bag in the gym. It actually had a gym. She'd been somewhat surprised after being introduced to the Danger Room, but of course sometimes there was a need for straight-up strength training, and the DR might be needed for more important things than if she wanted to get in a few hours of punching the crap out of something on a boring afternoon.
Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.
It was wonderfully cathartic, really. And she did have a killer left hook to show for it.
Whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump - and breathe.
Maybe it was unfair that she could hit it square on every time she tried, but whatever. She still couldn't have hit it as hard without practice, practice, practice.
Practice plus fortune makes perfect, it would appear, Neena thought as she braced her hands on her legs and breathed deeply, slowing down her breathing before she got outside her target range. Or at least kept her young and, if not as taut as in her college days, still looking pretty damn good for (dare she think it) pushing thirty and pushing it hard.
Ugh. She was old. She'd never thought she'd get old. It had been the divorce that did it, really. She'd been 15 until she was 28 and then - what? No gray hairs and only the beginnings of wrinkles, but it had to be said that she didn't race her old high school buddies down the empty access roads at midnight anymore. She didn't go drinking like she used to, she didn't laugh so hard she made herself hurt. She was quiet. Quiet, closed, efficient and perfect.
She slicked her hair out of her face, feeling it damp with sweat and imagining what she must look like, dishevelled and messy and gross, punching the giant bag with half-gloves, which chafed at her skin and made it turn the weird grayscale all of her cuts and bruises and scrapes were, a lighter version of the black blood coursing through her charcoal veins. Her dad had used to call her tar-baby when she got hurt as a kid: not tar on the outside, like in the story, but tar on the inside, where she could hide it. That was the one thing about being old she liked: the pride and the fearlessness of her mutation, the markers of maturity. She still had the Aviator sunglasses she'd worn all through high school and college somewhere in her room, or it might be in the boxes her daddy was slowly sending her as he found more and more of her stuff still at the old house. She hated those glasses now. Useful if she didn't want to be seen, but ugly as sin and too big for her face.
Domino stood back up straight, popping her back and trying not to think too much about her college days as she lay down on the bench of the bench-press, pulling her legs up and starting in on her crunches. Had to keep those abs tight or else that little stud would start looking even stupider than it did.
Endless repetition: it was how you learned a language and it was how Neena Thurman learned everything else, and how she was still good at it. She really relied less on luck than she might've, all things considered. Not by her choice, really. Beliefs instilled by Daddy Thurman: if you do something enough times, you'll get it right. If you do something right enough times, you'll stop doing it wrong.
Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.
So she was punching a bag in the gym. It actually had a gym. She'd been somewhat surprised after being introduced to the Danger Room, but of course sometimes there was a need for straight-up strength training, and the DR might be needed for more important things than if she wanted to get in a few hours of punching the crap out of something on a boring afternoon.
Whump. Whump. Whump. Whump.
It was wonderfully cathartic, really. And she did have a killer left hook to show for it.
Whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump - and breathe.
Maybe it was unfair that she could hit it square on every time she tried, but whatever. She still couldn't have hit it as hard without practice, practice, practice.
Practice plus fortune makes perfect, it would appear, Neena thought as she braced her hands on her legs and breathed deeply, slowing down her breathing before she got outside her target range. Or at least kept her young and, if not as taut as in her college days, still looking pretty damn good for (dare she think it) pushing thirty and pushing it hard.
Ugh. She was old. She'd never thought she'd get old. It had been the divorce that did it, really. She'd been 15 until she was 28 and then - what? No gray hairs and only the beginnings of wrinkles, but it had to be said that she didn't race her old high school buddies down the empty access roads at midnight anymore. She didn't go drinking like she used to, she didn't laugh so hard she made herself hurt. She was quiet. Quiet, closed, efficient and perfect.
She slicked her hair out of her face, feeling it damp with sweat and imagining what she must look like, dishevelled and messy and gross, punching the giant bag with half-gloves, which chafed at her skin and made it turn the weird grayscale all of her cuts and bruises and scrapes were, a lighter version of the black blood coursing through her charcoal veins. Her dad had used to call her tar-baby when she got hurt as a kid: not tar on the outside, like in the story, but tar on the inside, where she could hide it. That was the one thing about being old she liked: the pride and the fearlessness of her mutation, the markers of maturity. She still had the Aviator sunglasses she'd worn all through high school and college somewhere in her room, or it might be in the boxes her daddy was slowly sending her as he found more and more of her stuff still at the old house. She hated those glasses now. Useful if she didn't want to be seen, but ugly as sin and too big for her face.
Domino stood back up straight, popping her back and trying not to think too much about her college days as she lay down on the bench of the bench-press, pulling her legs up and starting in on her crunches. Had to keep those abs tight or else that little stud would start looking even stupider than it did.