Open

[deductiongeek]

Who: Conan and Anyone
Where: Gym Car
When: Middle of the night, Egret 23
What: Insomnia and dealing with things. Conan is not okay.

It was the middle of the night, and Conan was wide awake and kicking a soccerball against the wall of the gym car. As the ball rebounds off the wall again he catches it with the back of his heel and kicks it right back at the same spot on the wall.

He'd been at this for a while now. The gym car was far enough away from the sleeping cars that he shouldn't be bothering anyone, and he didn't really feel like laying out a game of solitaire tonight.

Comments

[sweetnessandfight]

This seems like it could get tedious quickly! [The voice behind him is warm and familiar, and is accompanied by Sarai bouncing the ball back to him. She's petite and dexterous, so that likely comes as little surprise.]

Though I suppose if you tell me how to play, we could strike up a game. Failing that, you could come help me in the kitchen, if you like? I've got an urge to make breakfast where onions are not the mainstay.

[Not that the onions had been bad this month--there'd been a decent variety! But even Sarai got tired of them, eventually...and she was very tired of onions.] I'm thinking some sort of sweet bread, personally.

[deductiongeek]

"I'm not really playing right now," he says as he bounces the ball up, then catches it under his foot as it falls. "This is just practice."

A frown.

"And isn't it a little early for Breakfast?"

[sweetnessandfight]

"Well, there are other options for late-night snacks, but I was planning on getting an early start, since I'm awake at the moment." Sarai shrugged at that.

"If you're just practicing, I suppose I can spectate. I'm not very well versed in that game at all. Not that you shouldn't try explaining it to me," she said with a smile. "That is, if you'd like."

[deductiongeek]

"I don't mind. Have you ever seen a game of soccer before?"

There were so many people here, from so many different worlds it was hard to guess what things were the same from one world to another.

[sweetnessandfight]

"I do not know what soccer is, no. We've nothing like that on Hydaelyn." Oh, certainly there were games to be played with leather balls, but the organization itself tended to be a bit lacking.

At least, it was that way on the Steppes, where she'd grown up.

"I would be interesting in learning, however." Any knowledge was good knowledge, really, at least as far as Sarai was concerned...

[deductiongeek]

Conan happily seizes on the distraction.

"The main thing that makes soccer different from other ball games is that only one player can use their hands. All of the other players use their feet, legs and heads."

[sweetnessandfight]

"And there is an objective? What's the significance of the one player who can use their hands? A defender of some sort?" It was true that the inability to use hands would make things difficult for the other players...

Not that the Xaela tribes of Azim did a lot of serious game playing, unless it was in preparation for some sort of combat.

"Soccer," Sarai said to herself, trying to memorize the word to associate with the game.

[deductiongeek]

"The goal is to score in the goal. The two players who can use their hands are the ones guarding the goal. The rest of the teams try to get the ball past them into the goal."

[sweetnessandfight]

She wanted to say that she understood...but Sarai really didn't. "Perhaps I should see it in action. I don't think I'm unintelligent, but...I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it, I have to admit."

Sarai shrugged a little. "I suppose our games on the Steppes were somewhat less complicated, which might explain that."

[deductiongeek]

"Maybe I should try to set up a game here. It would be difficult to demonstrate it all by myself."