faderift | Parkour!

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Parkour!

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura; open
WHAT: Climbing lesson 1: falling without breaking your neck
WHEN: After the wake; lessons can be picked up whenever
WHERE: Stables and that crumbling chunk of the battlements next to them
NOTES: lessons offered

prepwork;
A distinct advantage to her home is that when she taught herself, she had plenty of deep water to land in. Skyhold has snow but until she has to, she's not going to go prowling the mountains in a hurry. Skyhold does have plenty of straw from the stables and after a few tests, it's entirely sufficient to her needs and so armed with a rake, she gathers it into piles because whatever, her needs are greater and the horses can get it back later. Anyone showing up early will have their attire inspected and be told to do a few stretches. If demonstrations are truly needed, this is the time to ask.

falling! (with style);
The roof of the stables themselves are low enough that it would take an exceptionally bad fall to cause an injury so that's where she bases the lesson, a ladder handily placed to help less confident climbers up and she talks them through it, the importance of breathing, of relaxing stressed several times. The instructions are usually to stand on the edge of the roof, take a deep breath and allow her to give them a quick shove as they spread their arms and go as limp as possible to land in the straw but for those a little more confident and with at least some skill in climbing, there's the stables and hayloft to climb then up to the battlements, ropes helpfully attached because she has absolutely no desire to see someone injured in her first few days here. Her instructions are clear, emphasis on not rushing, on looking for where your hand has to go next, to use the legs.

Everyday is leg day if it's parkour day.

warm down;
The lesson might be over but she won't let people leave without some cursory stretching at least. They're cautioned about some stiffness the next day or so before she starts tidying up the straw into the proper place, happy enough to chat away or answer questions; if someone is willing to help clear up then she'll be in their debt because who enjoys dealing with straw, no one that's who.

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“I’ll tell you this; you keep doing it you’ll be strong. Right here, at the core.” Curling her toes, she takes a hand away from the wall, clenching it in a fist in front of her stomach for a moment before she finds her fingerhold, pushing up to take some of the strain away. “Keeps you very trim and eventually you feel the eyes follow you. Of course those on the ground get a very good angle to see the benefits of hard work.”

You get used to the calls and whistles. In time you even get good enough to wink or blow a kiss to the admirers.

“Trust me, I fell coming here. All the way up and I had to dig my way out and I would have shamed even the oldest, saltiest sea dog with my cursing.” But really, sinking up to your shoulders in snow and her teeth had chattered so hard she thought they’d break. “You could get hurt because you have to land differently and because it’s cold, you tense up and if you tense up falling, that’s when you break a bone. I don’t know how magic works on those but escorting someone to the healers to watch isn’t how I want to find out. Korrin offered barriers but I’d need to try that first to see how much it changes things.”

Up she goes as she talks, pushing that list bit with care before she’s up and over, kneeling down to offer a hand when he makes it too in case it’s needed. The first time with this is always the hardest, realising just how heavy a body is when you’ve got to force it upwards once again.

"Well good to know. I could use some better control in that part of my body." That was a pretty good pay off actually. Even if he was a Mage, physical strength was still pretty important to Sam. The mention of getting an audience does make him chuckle. "Eyes? Well I don't think anyone is going to coming here to watch me make a fool of myself." Obviously completely missing what Araceli is referring to.

Korrin had been here huh? Was she taking these lessons as well? "A broken bone isn't something to laugh at. Healing magic would depend greatly on what kind of break you're looking at. Simple things could take a day, anything more maybe a month or so." And that wasn't including if it was a clean break or anything.

"Barriers sound like a good idea. Could always give it a try once I get to the top," he huffs as he follows going up slowly, minding his footholds since it was still rather new to him. Sam doesn't even realize he's gotten to the top until a hand appears in front of his face, which he takes thankfully, making sure to keep most of his weight on his other hand and legs. Once he gets his chest over the lip he sighs and lets himself rest for a moment. "Yeah, lot harder than it looks."

“Side benefits include eating more and not putting it on, if you keep up with it that is, a fine balance but you build up muscle each time you do it.” Well, provided one doesn’t overindulge because the food here isn’t what she’s used to and she always feels guilty about how much she leaves on her plate; Lux would roll like a barrel if she fed him all that she leaves, his nose always sniffing for whatever he can get. “Some will laugh but how often are you able to look up and see so nice a view without lying down in the street? Give it time and people will just so happen to find themselves down here gazing up, arguing over who has the nicer backside.” She’s speaking from experience, something that takes a bit of getting used to but it only added to the reputation she had back home.

“I was more than a month each time with my wrists, no magic just a big ugly splint and a sling. A day to heal a bone. One day. Then poof, better. I can’t imagine such a thing!” It delights her, really, not enough to go break something but that it could ever be so quick without all that time cooped up bored out of her mind, having to walk everywhere because running jostled it too much in the sling no matter how carefully she tied it.

“If ever there’s a situation that involves a big jump from anywhere, if they’re that good at protecting people, it’d be useful. Hitting the water hard knocks the breath out of you, anything harder hurts so bad you have a good few moments of lying there stunned. Those terror demons like to knock people flat and if anyone is too close to a ledge…” She trails off, not really needing to finish and true, she would suggest ropes and spikes for scaling mountains but you don’t always plan ahead with these things. “But look, you have made it, all the way to the top. Someday you’ll be able to stand all the way up there and leap down.” There being the highest point of Skyhold. After all, everyone needs a goal.

“So, shall I demonstrate falling then come back up to advise or should I talk you through it and then you just try it. Really it’s about staying limp, arms out, and the piles are arranged to allow for anyone listing to one side or the other.”

"Nicer back-" That certainly brings a level of redness to Sam's cheeks that has nothing to do with the cold or the exertion from climbing. He takes a moment to clear his throat. "Ah, well... don't think there would be much arguing. I'm sure you have the nicer one." Not like he had actually looked since he had been paying attention to the wall - Right time to finish pulling himself up the rest of the way before he make a more awkward fool of himself.

Indeed he had made it all the way to the top. Just so he could throw himself off and possibly do it all again. How thrilling. He doesn't even comment about jumping off from the tallest tower of Skyhold, because at the moment he can't even fathom it.

"Ah..." Looking down to where they were supposed to drop, Sam tilts his head in thought before looking back to Araceli. "I'd hate to make you go down then come back up, but... I think instruction and then a visual would help me a bit better."

Oh it’s always fun to scandalise but hanging around with Zevran has only encouraged the streak in her that she learned to temper in the guards, at least around more polite company. “Well naturally, I’ve been doing this longer but one day you’ll get there and be the envy of all your friends. Some people like some things more than others though - men or women, dark hair or light, tall and muscled or small and lithe. No one can help what they like.” It’s why her policy is to like everything just not quite equally.

One day. One day they can terrify anyone on the balcony or at the front steps by leaping off and whooping. Especially Templars.

“Not a problem.” She jumps up and down on the spot for a moment, stretching and letting one of her wrists pop because it’s colder up here than it is when you’ve at least got the shelter of the wall. “What you want to do is stand with your heels at the very edge of the wall and then you lean and let yourself go. Arms out at your sides, not right out but,” she demonstrates as she speaks, arms a few inches out from her sides but not held high, “like that. Legs a bit apart - honestly so long as you don’t flail and just let yourself fall, your body will move the way it should. You just spread your weight out so it’s not all in one place and that’s why you keep yourself as loose and relaxed as possible, like sinking into a hot bath. The higher you fall, the more you’ll want to spread unless it’s water. With water, you always try to dive, it takes so much momentum out of it and you can pop up and start swimming.”

And with that, it’s time to demonstrate herself, smile on her face as she takes up position and lets herself go, falling back with a smile until she hits the pile of straw with a soft thump, springing up to her feet immediately to shake it out of her curls although she doesn’t quite manage. This time on the way back up, she uses the normal technique, a few longer strides as she runs up, feet planted, knee at her chest then moving upward quickly, reappearing moments later to stand beside him so she can clap him on the arm.

“You’ll do better than fine, when you know you’re going to fall and you know that you know how to land, nothing goes wrong.”

Mainly because no one here has pistols

Sam isn't sure, but he thinks she is still talking about butts. She could be talking about climbing... no she's definitely still talking about backsides. Well he's not sure he's going to be the envy of any of his friends, unless his said friends were actively watching his ass, which he was sure weren't doing that save maybe three of them. Araceli does have a point that everyone likes different things- and now he's wondering what that guy likes.

Great. This was not helping him focus on the whole falling thing. Which looks rather terrifying honestly. She was falling backwards? Was he supposed to fall backwards, too? Falling from this height was already getting him nervous, but watching the sky as the ground snuck up on you? Ugh.

Sam jumps a bit when Araceli taps him on the arm, literally appearing back next to him in less then a couple minutes. Damn she was fast. "Ah huh. I can already feel my stomach doing flips." If he seems scared it's because he is.

Every good friend looks at your butt at least once because that's what friends do. If your friends say they don't then they're clearly liars.

Falling face first takes more nerves than she's sure first timers can handle because yes, all you could see was the sky and how the wall seemed taller and taller but falling face first gives the body time to tense up. People panic, she's seen it before, attempting to stop themselves or curl up as if they'll be able to protect themselves. It ends in broken bones. Here it ends up with those and a mix of hay and straw up the nose, in the mouth and maybe in the eyes.

Setting both hands on his arms, she smiles softly because she remembers her friends at home being scared when she first showed them what to do and they'd watched her doing it plenty of times. "If you don't want to jump, if you don't think you're ready then don't. There's a rope to get down where you just slide and kick out with your legs or we can go along the battlements and down the stairs. There's no shame in it. Every time I jump or fall, my stomach still tries to leap into my throat, just for a fraction of a second. Some things we just can't control."

They're not liars if you don't ask them if they do. He gets that people 'look', but some reason it's still surprising to him that anyone would do so with him. Half the reason he gets flustered; not so much the subject, but rather it being focused on him.

Hearing that there is no pressure to jump and that she was honestly offering different ways to get down, and even saying that she's still affected by jumps, helps to calm Sam's nerves a bit. Only a little though because he's still staring down at the hay pile a good distance down. He doesn't plan on backing out though. If he has decided to do something Sam always plans on following through with it - stubbornness at it's finest.

If it wasn't for Araceli's offer to not jump he might have been a bit worried about his arms being grabbed, which would have definitely tensed him up. Now though it only helps to calm him down a bit. "No, I'll do it. Just... need a moment. Is there a certain way I should stand to do this?" Taking a step back, Sam turns around and looks at her curiously.

Life is risk. There's an almost casual disregard of death in Castileos when you're surrounded by the sea and take it for granted that you'll be reclaimed by it one day but part of her always has that split-second to wonder if she's made her calculation right or if this is the time she screws up and breaks her neck. Danger and excitement are close enough for a former thief anyway that she doesn't always know which one she's feeling at the time.

"Like this." Stepping up to the edge, she stands so her heels line up with the edge. "If you stand too far away you'll clip your leg on the way down and you won't line up correctly and you'll hit with a splat. Might even bump the wall as you go too. But if you stand with just your toes, you'll flail around and won't relax. Heels lined up to the edge you have your whole foot and you'll be a whole body length away. You just fall. Like you've had a terribly long day and you're finally going to bed." As she says it, she realises it's the one advantage she can give to landing in those piles because hitting the water, even if it's warm, is still a shock to the system and you're wide awake afterwards.

Clip your leg. Hit with a splat. Bump a wall. That all sounds so lovely. "You know I used to think falling was such a simple thing," he grumbles lightly before lining up his heels as well. Knowing that just leaning or taking a step back will send him plummeting to the ground has his heart pounding in his ears.

"You definitely give 'hitting the hay' a whole other meaning." He's looking over his shoulder as he says it, trying to imagine how his fall is going to go. "You said arms out slightly? What does that do?"

Okay she could have phrased it better, it's been a while since she taught and everyone involved owned pistols so there were far worse potential injuries they'd been talked through as girls. "But how many times have you hurt yourself even on a little fall? People fall and break hands because they catch themselves badly, they sprain things, get covered in bumps and bruises. The body always seems to pull very tight because we anticipate and have longer memories of pain than pleasure, it goes against so much to relax, to go limp and loose. Acceptance isn't one of the strongest traits of any person. Or human." It's strange to have to clarify that when there are only humans where you come from apart from things seen from far away, not elves and dwarves and Qunari or Tal-Vashoth.

"Ah, that slows you down. You see, like in the air, you experience a certain drag if you're spread out. You travel faster if you're in one long shape because there's less disruption - think of diving into water compared to jumping. When you dive there's very little splashing, your hands make a nice clean space and your body follows. You jump and," she makes a sound effect to demonstrate, hands balled into fists before the fingers stretch out, fists pushed apart. "The air is a bit trickier but you feel it. You don't want to hit the ground fast, you want to slow down because it hurts less that way."

"Do you want an actual count or a rough estimate?" Alright, perhaps it isn't that much, but the answer is still 'a lot', which was why he wanted to take these lessons. Course his falls were usually off a chair or something of similar height, not from the top of a building.

The bit about positioning your body for drag in the air is pretty interesting, pulling Sam's attention away from the empty space behind him for a moment. It makes a bit more sense when she makes it a reference to water. That he's more familiar with. "I'll... try to keep that in mind."

Alright. No more stalling. Letting out a long exhale, shaking out his arms a bit, and lastly giving Araceli a glance, Sam leans back. Immediately his body wants to correct itself, but he forces himself not to, feeling his insides tighten as he suddenly drops. Before he can even blink Sam finds his back hitting the hay, his eyes wide as they continue to stare at the sky. It wasn't exactly a comfortable landing, but it definitely was softer than hitting the ground.

He'll just need a moment of just laying there. Give him a second.

"Basta!" Playfully she swats at the air and laughs, shaking her head. "Shh, sometimes this," okay she's going to have to just point at his head he's taller than her and she doesn't want to have a single possible moment of lost balance up here when he's new to it, "gets in the way of all this." She gestures to the whole of him because the mind is always ticking away and it's a very difficult thing to quiet, seemingly more urgent in a whisper when the heart or body may be shouting.

Watching him, she resists bouncing on the spot with excitement, giving him a thumbs up and then away he goes.

"You did it!" She checks, just to make sure he's not completely out of it before taking aim for the next pile, falling and popping up to come over and kneel next to him, bright smile tempered just to be safe as she holds up three fingers. "How many fingers my friend? Does everything feel good? Can you wiggle your fingers and toes?"

It's a good thing there is another hay pile because Sam doesn't feel like getting up for a bit, his heart still beating so fast it felt like it was going to pop out of his chest. Kind of reminded him of when Krem swung his maul at him while he was prone during their first spar.

Feeling Araceli plop down next to him, Sam turns his head to look at his instructor. The fingers being placed in front of him makes him blink in some confusion before answering. "... 3. Besides my stomach being all the way in my throat, I'm fine," he says all while looking at his hands and wiggling his fingers. "Toes feel fine.'

Even though it was years ago, she remembers that first leap, resurfacing to the cheers of the other thieves clustered around the dock as they'd clapped and she laughs, tossing her head back when he seems to be right as rain. She sits, knees drawn to her chest, arms around them and her smile is still wide and bright.

"That's what it feels like, every time, you've just broken a rule, or it feels like that. The rush." It can be addictive, often she climbs and runs and leaps for the sheer joy of it when she could get around just fine and with less fuss on the streets but it's always better up high. "You did it! I'm so proud, you must be too! Come on, I'll help you sit." Or she'll try because there's about a foot or so in it and muscle if she's any judge of these things but best to sit up, take stock, soak it in properly.

"Pride might come later. Right now I'm still in a bit of shock," he says with a shaky laugh. Maker, he had actually done that. At feeling her grabbing his arm and actually trying to pull him up earns Araceli another laugh, though this one sounding less shaken up. With him just being a dead weight she was only managing to kind of roll him a bit. Snorting at that Sam helps with sitting up, a long exhale escaping him when he settles again.

"That was... interesting. Think I could keep practicing that, just... not again today." That was enough excitement for one day, didn't want to over do it. "Thank you."

It's interesting to get to watch the reaction this time because there are some others with experience at these lessons and her fellow guards had watched her do it plenty of times but it's dawning on her just how odd this all must be. To just fall. To climb right up the sides of walls instead of using stairs or ladders, even instead of using rope and it's maybe a good thing he won't quite be able to see her smile after she gives a huff once he's up. It's fond, the excitement less so it's not overwhelming but she is proud, the way she always is when she's helped to introduce someone to something new.

"There's no need to thank me but gratitude, you are most welcome. What I think you need is to eat something to settle your stomach and a good stiff drink," she shrugs lightly because that's pretty much her advice in most situations because what doesn't improve with fine food and something to wash it down? "I'm always around at the moment and I can keep one where it is, I'll find the man in charge of the horses and ask him to leave it. But don't hesitate to seek me out whenever you want more lessons and to advance along."

That gets a laugh out of Sam, feeling the rest of the shock disappearing. "Food sounds like a good idea. Drink? Still working on that." It was sound advice regardless.

"I'll take you up on that offer. Whenever I feel like throwing myself off from the roof of something I'll be sure to call you." Looking up to the hole they had come through, Sam gives a shake of his head, still in a bit of disbelief that he had done that. "This was... fun." Terrifying, but fun.

Looking back to Araceli he gives a smile. "Thank you for showing me the ropes. I think I'll take your advice and try to go settle my stomach, and... I'll plan on being around."

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Parkour!

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