Description:
Elfa's been here far too long - hidden away from the world in an attempt to get herself something akin to stability, some semblance of 'safety' that she can use to hide herself and protect herself from what she feels is the world crashing down on her. Were it not for the explosive bursts of psychic power, people could have written her off as some crazy kid, traumatized by time kidnapped by Vega's Shadaloo. Unfortunately, it seems she's been set up to be a weapon - even if she doesn't have any choice in the matter.
So what does an unwilling weapon do in their free time? They casually make their way through life, and pretend that nothing is wrong! This, at least, is what Elfa does. Today, she's in the YFCC's sparring area, working over and against one of the heavy bags. She's dressed in the variant of the Shadaloo Doll outfit she was found with, a pair of jeans over that, cut so that she can use the occasional high kick. Focus is in her pale grey eyes, and the skunk-stripe of grey in her hair is coated with a liberal amount of 'working out' sweat.
Meanwhile, other YFCC residents have had their own problems lately, and Frei is among them. Yet as personal disasters go his isn't so bad (and certainly doesn't stack up to being held hostage by a major crime syndicate). All things being equal the monk is actually on the road to recovery. Sadly, it hasn't gotten him OUT of the YFCC, as he's still nervous about the idea that his brother might show up and harass innocent children who can't really defend themselves. Sure, he claimed that it wasn't a possibility to Mizuki... but his lingering presence proves otherwise.
Having cleaned, filed, organized, and in one case baked everything that there was for him to do, the monk decides that perhaps some physical activity might burn off some nervous adrenaline, and thus it's to the cavernous workout room he goes as well. His normal jeans and oversize shirt are discarded as being too heavy for this sort of thing; instead he makes do with a pair of denim shorts and a white tank top. Curiously, even his typical headband is gone; his dark red bangs hang slightly lower into his face, but visible just beneath them is the edge of a wound near the center of his forehead -- a gash of some kind -- that's almost done healing.
However, as he enters the room, his eye is naturally drawn to Elfa and he blinks. The YFCC is for fighters, but most are at the 'self-defense' sort of level... people practicing for fun, exercise, or the mental benefits of it. The 'weapon' has a rather more distinctive presence; her movements are sharper, more precise, more focused than someone who does this for fun, and drawn to the incongruity, the monk walks over to her, bare feet pressing into mats and squeaking a bit on the floor as he crosses the distance, then gives her a little wave. "Hi there."
Rote commands run through her head, whispering words that guide her through strike after strike. Were one to put her next to a working Juli or Juni, the motions would be in lock-step, picture perfect synchronicity. Training, after all, was the same for all three of them. To the extent that physical attacks were concerned. She's wrapped up out of her reverie, her last strike landing awkardly on the bag as Frei speaks, and her wrist twists at the same time. She winces, eyes half-shut in pain as she pushes it away and looks to face Frei.
"Ah.. hello. I hope my noise was not.. disturbing." Her voice is thickly accented, Russian or some close country in it. She offers a polite, thin smile, and then steps away from the bag to grab a nearby towel, wiping off her brow. "Were you here to practice?" Almost as an afterthought, she extends her hand, speaking perfunctiorly. "Elfa Bykova."
Frei can't help but wince with her; he knows enough about fighting and anatomy to know that the wrist probably isn't supposed to move in *quite* that direction, or at least not that far. Still, even one mistake can't wipe out the otherwise quite elegant precision of what she was doing, which leaves the monk with an expression of impressed surprise. However, he does take the hand as offered and shake it once. Businesslike, too... of course, that seems to be the default mode for many fighters lately. "Ah, nice to meet you. I'm Frei..." There's a faint pause, almost as if he was going to continue on with his family name as she had, but then he changes his mind at the last second and simply says, "Just Frei is fine."
Taking his hand back, he pushes it over his head, locking fingers with his other hand and making an arch of his arms, eyes briefly squeezed shut. "I was just going to get some exercise to burn off some energy," he admits, bringing one hand down and rubbing the back of his head with the other. "I was doing some work in the office but they, uh..." He pauses, then laughs. "I've been pestering them for things to do and I guess they ran out."
It'll heal - that's one of the few good things Elfa's found out from her time within Shadaloo. She's been messed up in ways she hadn't thought possible by people swince, but she always seems to end up back to normal before too long. She shakes out the bad wrist, and then just lets it fall against her side as she shakes Frei's hand, curiousity showing in her pale eyes as he avoids his last name, then letting it go. Everyone has their secrets, after all - she has hers!
"Feel free. The bag.. it has surrenedered to me, and asks for a new challenger." She jokingly says then, slapping the bag with her hand, shaking it just a little. She steps away from it, and then perches herself on the rail, her feet catching the vertical rails so as not to fall backwards. With her intrinsic balance, well - it probably wouldn't happen anyways. "'There is only so much one person can do. You have found that limit, so now you must relax another way, and prepare for the next.' Father would say that after I ran myself out of energy on the ice rink. It is... a good saying."
Only so much one person can do, huh... still, this woman appears to be full of surprises. "Ice rink, huh... were you a figure skater?" he asks, giving the unusual woman a once-over with his eyes again. She certainly seems to have the build for it: tall, slender, athletic. For a moment the monk is distracted with thoughts of his mother, who has much the same bodytype but for entirely different reasons, and it actually strikes him that what would in Elfa make for a good figure skater makes, in his mother, someone able to draw a sword at an appreciable fraction of the speed of sound. "That sounds fun... I think I'm too clumsy for figure skating, but you're always your own worst critic."
Stepping to the side, Frei plants both feet on the mat, then angles his legs a bit and takes a deep breath, pushing downward with both hands, palm-down, as if shoving some invisible thing to the mat. "Actually, I do tai chi... well, in fact I *teach* tai chi here. It's not exactly a rigorous workout, but you'd be surprised how well it works as exercise if you get into it." Hands cross in a complicated pattern, then shift to the side as legs and torso turn, changing stances... and giving lie to the idea that Frei is too clumsy for figure skating if he ever bothered to try. What he lacks in speed, he more than makes up for in grace. "How did you get from figure skating to beating up punching bags?"
"Da. My Father is.. " And Elfa shuts up for a second, as if pondering whether or not to spill her life's secrets to a stranger - but really, her father's name is nothing too special, too secret. "He is Vyacheslav Bykov - a hockey player of some note. He would always say that I should have had skates instead of feet." There's a grin then, a little secret snippet of her past she hasn't shared with anyone else - pride at what she used to be able to do. She hasn't found a place to practice as of yet, her 'skating' - sometime soon, she will.
After Frei's demonstration of not-clumsiness, she tsks and shakes her head, amused. "You say you are too clumsy, but you lie with a silver tongue, Frei. Two days tops, and you would skate rings over many men I have met. Father might simply try to run you over in full pads, though." The question he finishes with, well - it's enough to knock a bit of the smile off her face. She starts to answer, then looks around as if there were more eyes in the area. Satisfied that others aren't watching, she more than willingly spills her guts to the man. "... I am hiding from someone who kidnapped me. I am learning to defend myself, if they come." One has, already - but she was still here when she woke up, so she must have won. Theoretically.
In terms of hockey, Elfa might as well be talking to a wall; if her father's name gives anything away, Frei doesn't know it. He does laugh a little at the story, though, and the idea that a big burly Russian hockey player would give rise to the stunningly svelte practitioner of a more refined art like figure skating is indeed pretty amusing. As for lying, though, he looks slightly embarassed about it even as he continues to move through the progression of various tai chi forms. "Maybe. I've always felt it better to be surprised by finding out I can do something, than be surprising by finding out I can't." Perhaps overly demure, but practical nonetheless, from the monk's point of view.
The statement that follows, though, changes the entire tone of the conversation, and Frei -- who's never been good at hiding his emotions -- predictably shifts his expression from amusement to concern. The smooth motions of his forms are disrupted for a moment, but only just so; once he's centered himself and processed what Elfa's said, he speaks with firm determination on the subject... though at first his voice is slightly quieter, even repentant, for having brought it up. "I, uh... sorry. But you're as safe here as anywhere else in Southtown, maybe more so." He thinks for a moment of other people who've sought refuge in the YFCC, or at least who consider the place their refuge against a world that might be hostile to them... and finds himself included in the list. In fact a faint smile brushes onto his lips as he gets over the surprise and focuses on what needs to be said. "After all, we help people. Supposedly, anyway."
"Yes. Everyone here has been helpful. I have been made comfortable, as safe as can be - it is an alright situation for now, but.." There's a bit of wistfulness there, the girl looking towards the door, idly thumbing the red fabric of her uniform. "My Father does not even know if I am still alive. I am supposed to not talk to him for his safety, but I miss him very much." Ah, fate. She shlumps her shoulders just a bit, and tries to shake out that melancholy before it becomes anything more.
"I wish to be safe - but I do not think I can stay that way forever. Shelter is good against the storm, but one has to venture out to gather food and wood for the fire, da?" She's speaking in cliches, but to her, it's truth. Safe is good - but safe can harm as much as not safe can. "Do you provide safety here, or seek it, Frei?"
Cliches are fine by Frei; anyone who's spoken to the monk knows he's good for his share of wacky sayings, arcane phrases, and absurd proverbs as-is. But something about Elfa's longing to speak to her father grabs at him, and he slowly stops what he's doing, dropping out of the tai chi moves as if he were a top slowly winding down to a stop; everything goes into slow motion and then nothingness. "I, uh..." He pauses. He was about to say he knows how she feels, but does he really? Elfa is forcefully separated from her father, while Frei... Frei got up and left and hasn't looked back. Are the two situations necessarily transferrable?
A hand comes up toward his chest and the monk's eyes lower a bit. "A little of both," he finally answers, in terms of her question. "I'm not powerful enough to stop everyone who might want to hurt someone here." He briefly recalls his fight against Remy; the Frenchman beat him pretty badly, after all, but Frei still hopes in his heart of hearts he got through to him somehow. "But I'm here because a friend thought I had something to offer these kids, and because..." He pauses, then shakes his head. "When I was a kid my... parents tried to get me to learn a family fighting style. I did it for a long time because I wanted to be close to them, you know? But eventually it drove us apart, and it... didn't need to." The unspoken rider, of course: because she was so damn stubborn! After a pause, he continues. "So even if I can't beat up everyone who walks in the door I can protect people another way. I want their experiences to be positive so that they leave here having experienced... something good. That's the best I can do."
She listens, really she does - though she does focus on one aspect that Frei'd finished with, and tries to fit that into her worldview. Skewed as it is, she's unable to see how someone would walk away from a family they'd grew up with. After all, in her head, she's always hearing that whisper of 'Must go back to Father'. "Can you not make amends with them now? Burned bridges can be rebuilt, I think. Father would never turn me away, even when I was a horrible girl." She wasn't ever really truly horrible, though - nor did she rebuff her father's choice of fighting style. Never having fought before Shadaloo took her, well.. Mn.
Running fingers through her hair, she looks away from Frei, feet letting go the rails and letting herself land back on her feet on the floor. She has to think this through, for herself and possibly for the man standing before her. "You've given me things to think about - that is a positive thing. When I meet Father again, I will sit down beside him and say 'Father, there was this man who shared pain with me, so I realized my luck to have you.' And he will smile and laugh, and want to do what he can for you, too. Father is like that." Hopeful!
A hint of surprise flickers in the monk's expression for a moment at Elfa's statement, because she is only the second person to make it on the subject. Why can't he just go back, start over, say he's sorry, work it out? Is not doing that what got him in the position he's in? Is Kataki's presence here actually spurred on, in some way, by his mother being spiteful and angry about his choices in life? To an outside observer, this sudden whirl of thought gives Frei the look of a stunned animal, someone watching an approaching truck in headlights bearing down at speed and unable to move. However, for all the intensity of his sudden locking up, it passes quickly enough, and he closes his eyes for a moment, smiling a little. "Well, ideas are about all I'm good for, so if that helped, I'm happy."
Stretching his arms out to the side, he suddenly turns his head from Elfa a bit to watch students on the other end of the workroom doing... the various things that people at the YFCC do: katas, sparring, exercising. His voice, when he speaks, is far away and thoughtful in tone. "Make amends, huh..." He turns back to Elfa with a small smile. "I guess because nobody knows who really did anything wrong. Was my mother to blame for forcing the training on me, or was I wrong for throwing it all away to pursue something else?" He pauses, then shrugs noncommitally. "Deep down I know that who's to blame is irrelevant. I guess it's because I want them to be happy for who I am now instead of resigned that I'm not who I was then. I'm not sure they will be."
"If you know this, then why do you not share it with your family? I would think that a good family would be happy to know that their son is happy in life, doing what he does." Really, she can't actually understand - but she can come close, trying to put herself in Frei's shoes, tortured as the fit might be. "I would be glad to say to them that their son has become a very wise man. Full of 'good ideas'." She offers a small grin then, and starts to say more - when an interruption occurs.
A messanger approaches the pair, and with only a slight greeting to Elfa hands her a sealed envelope. She looks at it quizzically, and then turns back towards Frei, eyebrows arching up, pale eyes showing her confusion. She opens it, and then frowns deeply. "Frei..? Who is 'Geese Howard' and what is a 'Saturday Night Fight'?" Turning the letter over, she shows a plane ticket and note requesting her presence for a exhibition match.
Laughing, Frei smiles genuinely at Elfa. "I think your father would likewise be proud that his daughter knows exactly the right things to say." He brushes some hair out of his eyes and then shakes his head a little. "You might be right. I'm not sure yet. But believe me when I say, with all seriousness, that it's going in the battle plan." Slowly but surely, he's building it up, too... a stack of ideas to use when confronting Kataki becomes inevitable. In a sense, he's 'training' emotionally, working his way through thought experiments and soliciting advice until he finds the right combination, or at least something like it. Emotional 'muscle', perhaps. "I'll even try to accept the compliment with grace rather than demurr as is my wo--"
He's interrupted by the arrival of the messenger, and blinks silently as the envelope is delivered, opened, read, and then questions about it raised. Both auburn eyebrows go up in surprise, especially since SNF is pretty popular worldwide... of course, he's never been a figure skater before. Maybe they don't have time for TV. "Ah... SNF. Geese Howard's a local businessman with a very successful corporation. One of the things they do is run a weekly fighting... well, it's kind of like a game show only with punching," he explains as simply as he thinks is possible. "It's fun, I do it when I have the time. The money is nice and it's usually fun, you get to travel on their dime. Typically you have to sign up, though, not get invited..."
Walking over, he stands slightly behind and to Elfa's right, somewhat rudely reading the contents over her shoulder. He blinks again at the location and the other fighters. "Aya... me, huh..." he says, having to mentally tack on the '-me' she used last time they met, in an SNF. "And in a museum! Wow, they must really want to throw their money away. I don't know the other two, but Ayame's alright. Just kind of..." He searches for a word, and eventually settles on "...hostile."
"So.. interesting. I am not... well, 'professional' fighter. A game show, I could perhaps do." Any further objections from the russian girl are tamped down rather violently, a look of pain crossing her face at a sudden migraine rocking through her temples. She reaches up and rubs at her forhead, and then offers a slight chuckle. "It would be good to have fun, for a change." She looks a bit nervous at the choice of locale, but hey - if it's something she's not going to pay for, it won't be her problem. That sort of relaxed attitude is something she'll have to foster for herself, she decides.
"I would like to do something 'fun', I believe. It will be an enjoyable change from feeling frustrated and pent up." Sadly, she doesn't go thinking about the contents of what could or will happen - there's too much gunk in her mind saying 'This is a good idea' for her to change her opinion about it now. Instead, she shares Frei's enthusiasm, and then nods intently. "They will all be dedicated, then? Something that I may challenge, and make Father proud?" Maybe she can find a good old fashioned hockey stick...
Rubbing the back of his head in mild embarassment, the monk clears his throat. "Well, I say 'game show' because they like gimmicks. Which is okay, I like gimmicks too. Most people on SNF are experienced fighters, though. I'm not sure about 'dedicated', but close enough for government work." He briefly pauses, assembling a mental image of a fight taking place in an art museum, and though his outward expression doesn't change his *inward* one is doing a very powerful wince right now. Yeah... hope Howard Enterprises' insurance premiums are paid up. "It should be fun. I usually enjoy myself unless there's someone there who just... doesn't want to be there, and since it's usually voluntary that doesn't happen too often."
Still, Elfa may not be worried, but something about the situation is gnawing at Frei a little bit. SNF by invitation, and to someone who says she's not a 'professional fighter'? If he knew anything about Geese Howard, warning bells would be ringing like crazy. As it is he's just some guy, and thus dismisses it as nothing. "Maybe someone here scouted you to participate," he muses aloud, then brightens. "That would certainly be good publicity for the center. I mean, anyone with an eye for fighters knows you're in a different league than the kids who work out here, really..."
"I will do my best to tell people what a fine job the YFCC does with keeping people safe and sound. They.. you are all very kind to me." With that, Elfa snaps the invitation shut, and tucks it into the pocket of her jeans. The plane trip's only a few hours away, and already, her mind is bubbling with excitement and anticipation for the event. After all, she's being given a chance to show herself where Father might see, in some way or form. Certainly, were he to know about her appearrance, he'd tune in - and perhaps even come see her in person. Her attitude is cheerful now, eager, and she reaches out to shake Frei's hand once more, before turning to preperations, and the bag that she was working with.
"I should get ready - Frei, thank you for this time. I hope that you and your family can find a way to accept who each other is... With your wisdom, it should not be... too difficult." She nods at this, certain of it as certain as she is of a Father's love. That said, she starts to turn towards the bag - hitting it with a triple spin, a trademark move of one Camille White.
He's smiling as he shakes her hand, reassured by her positive attitude, but the return to family issues dampens Frei's energy a little bit. "Wisdom, huh... well, they say that wisdom is never a first time thing. If you know what to do, that's just 'knowledge', not wisdom... so maybe you're right." He steps back and watches the practice restart in earnest. Despite having fought Cammy before, however, he was too busy getting beaten into the dirt to recognize any of her moves... though he seems impressed at the footwork and skill Elfa's displaying for someone who's not a 'professional'. Of course, neither was Sakura Kasugano however long ago and look at her now.
"Good luck! Maybe I can come watch your match since I'm not engaged this week." Hmm. In fact, that seems like a good idea, and the monk resolves to make the effort to make that happen. Turning to go, he gives a little wave. "If I don't see you, do your best." And then he's off to the office, to make some phone calls, and price checks, and perhaps to bake a cookie or two. Again.
Log created on 13:09:36 03/01/2008 by Elfa, and last modified on 15:28:33 03/09/2008.