InsaneJournal

Who: Alfie and Penn
What: A martial arts lesson and a talk
Where: Penn's studio
When: This week
Warnings: None

Alfie had spent the better part of a week catching up on what Thomas had been doing in the past six months. She, herself, had spent two-and-a-half years in Seattle before she’d gone abroad, and when she’d left there had been Creations in large quantities, yes, but there hadn’t been vigilantes on the evening news as there were now. It was all worrisome.

She’d checked the financials, and she’d checked on the company, and she’d found a number of off-shoot businesses that hadn’t existed six months prior. They were fronts, obviously, and not technically illegal, since there was no money flowing through them, but they were there to be found. She’d learned, also, about a badly orchestrated vigilante meeting that had resulted in the near-death of a young woman, and the injuries of others.

What she hadn’t found, however, was more troubling. She’d hoped that Thomas would come to this new world and make a life for himself. She somber eighteen year old she’d met all those years ago had turned into a man of singular mindedness. She had hoped this world, with its lower crime rates, would help him take a step back, find a life for himself that went beyond being a symbol.

Now, it seemed that the symbol had gone from being one man, to being a legend for an entire city of under-skilled, single-minded individuals.

She’d learned all of this in her first week back from a sandy beach and man young enough to be her son, and she’d realized she was going to have her work cut out for her. Being the conscience of a man like Thomas Brandon was not the easiest thing, and she was beginning to feel her years.

Which is why she’d woken on Sunday, the day before the vigilante bar excursion, and she’d arranged for a martial arts lesson. She hadn’t had one in decades, and she had a feeling she was going to need to brush up. After all, no one ever expected anything dangerous from a woman entirely gray and of a certain age.

Penn had learned not to expect anything from anyone. Years upon years, you expect certain things from the human race as a whole, and don’t bother expecting anything from people individually. The studio wasn’t an impressive one. It was a big one-room with black matting often found in gymnastics gyms, and there were mirrors on either side. Clustered against one wall stood standing punching bags of various sizes and heights. In the front there was a modest desk and an antique computer, and a small room that must hold a bathroom and an even more modest back storage room.

When she came in, Penn was scowling at a tiny screen attached to a laptop that was even tinier, hunched over the device and stabbing at it with two fingers. He stopped, looking transparently grateful for the distraction, and glanced at the clock. Penn stood up. He was a big, square man, wearing a generic white gi that seemed to emphasize his stockiness by dividing it in half with a worn black cloth belt of about an inch and a half thickness. The lines in his face emphasized his jaw and not his eyes. “You’d be the two o’clock,” he said, genially. He had a surprisingly smooth voice, if at a lower register than most men of his coloring. He came around the desk to meet her, obviously sizing her up.

Alfie was dressed in gray workout pants and a white shirt. She looked good for her age, toned in a way that indicated she worked to retain her figure in the face of gravity and age. She had been her current age for over fifty years, and she was comfortable in her skin. There was no frailty of the old, no tired look around her eyes, though she was feeling an exhaustion in the evenings that she’d never felt in Musings.

The man, the instructor looked different than she expected, and Alfie was not regularly surprised by anything. She walked up to him, looked into eyes that spoke of many more years than his face did, and she inclined her head. She no longer felt the need to prove things with strong handshakes or wry wit, so she refrained from tell him that as it was two o’clock, yes, she was his appointment.

“Do I warrant a lesson?” she asked, patiently standing where she was as he sized her up. She had nothing but time, after all.

“Lady, everybody warrants a lesson.” At least she hadn’t come in some complicated fashion disaster in pink that bound her up so much she couldn’t move. Penn didn’t understand that. There wasn’t anybody in the studio to impress. These women didn’t need make up and fancy clothes to learn how to not die. He was impressed that Alfie was bothering with something like this, as from her demeanor he perceived a certain competence that meant she wasn’t driven into it by boredom or some emergency necessity.

Not everybody who walked into the studio was a Creation, but the close proximity to all three meant that Penn got a feeling a lot of them were. He wasn’t stupid enough to point it out, or ask, but you got the feeling about some people. He didn’t know what it was. Penn was the kind of man that didn’t need names for things.

“Anything in particular you want to learn?” Penn had a forthright attitude and a strange accent. It wasn’t the way he formed the vowels, it was the way he put the words forward.

Alfie had traveled enough in her long life to have heard a wide variety of accents, but he was still strange, with his oddly devoiced vowels. She didn’t ask where he was from, didn’t even consider doing so. His privacy was his own, though she tucked the information away for future thought. A good businessperson noticed things, but they didn’t show their hand. Five minutes in, she knew he was a Creation (too old to be his age), somewhere tribal, perhaps, based on the devoiced vowels, and forthright. It was the last trait that made her stay - she wouldn’t have had the slightest qualms about losing the money for the lesson if she’d found him untrustworthy.

“Given what I’ve been reading in the newspapers, I think escape techniques. I have a feeling guns aren’t necessarily the weapon of choice these days,” she said, and she sounded calm saying it. as if her concern was more for others than for herself.

“And if it is, I can’t teach you to dodge bullets,” he grunted. Some people came here to learn how to be super heroes, and that wasn’t what Penn was teaching. He got the feeling that the guys that were superheroes either had much more training than he offered, or they weren’t superheroes for long. “Come on, then. Lose the shoes.” He stepped past the desk, over the tile, and lead her through the usual ritual of entering the studio. No shoes, you bow at the edge, and so on.

He took her through some basic stretches, and didn’t lecture too much farther than basic theory, being aware of your surroundings, eye contact, not being afraid to make noise when you were scared. He tipped his head at her as he reached out and corrected her technique as she reached down for a toe. He certainly didn’t have any physical qualms about contact, but the touch was businesslike. “Breathe,” he recommended. “I get the feeling you’ve heard some of this before,” he said dryly.

There was nothing he said or taught she hadn’t heard or learned before, and she didn’t bother denying it when he asked. “Some things are like slipping on very comfortable, worn-in shoes,” she told him. She knew he wouldn’t push her, not at her age, and so the lesson was what she expected, more technique and form than actual impact and assault. That was fine with her. The even breathing of it, the positions and the concentrating on forms, it was all relaxing. And really, she needed that more than anything else. It helped her think, and she needed to have a clear mind right now.

“What kind of men kill without bullets?” she asked him. She didn’t know his name; she hadn’t asked. “What kind of men kill without anger?” It was a more interesting question. “What kind of men spill their blood stopping such men?” It was all asked calmly, between forms, thoughtful.

“Reach farther,” he said, rather mercilessly. “You can go farther.” Then without pause, he continued, “The kind of men who can kill without bullets are the kind of men you don’t want to meet. Those are the kind of men you just run from. You run and you scream and you hope somebody hears you. The men that answer if they hear, they’re the other kind you’re talking about.” Penn was undisturbed by the wanton violence of the Seattle he’d joined. A lot of places he’d been were ridden with this kind of violence, the aimless, mindless kind that just meant a lot of men with a lot of screws loose. “Breathe,” he said again. “You’re holding your breath when you stretch, and that’s not going to help you get farther.”

“Young men always want women to go farther,” Alfie said, but there was an air of entertainment in the statement, of agedness and a knowledge of young men, an appreciation that wouldn’t fade. She did as he asked, even with the entertained words, went farther until she felt the tug and burn of it, the reminder of pushing beyond her limits something she still relished. “Beyond all that,” she suggested, in reply to his responses. She breathed, intentionally, and then she laughed, an old sound, warm and curled around the edges. “What makes you think I want to get farther, young man?” She knew he was no such thing, nothing young, but it was nice to say, regardless.

“Lady, I haven’t been young for a long time. The name is Penn. Use it. Now switch legs.” He smiled though, entertained too. “You stretch more, you get hurt less.” More sore in the morning, but those were details. He wasn’t doing much sitting or stretching himself. He just stood there with his arms crossed, apparently waiting, waiting for her to get loose enough that he could work with her. “Now beyond all what?” He didn’t object to talking, he just didn’t do it all that often. “Pull your toes up,” he added.

“Do you truthfully think I’m intending to go fight villains at my age?” she asked, a bit of temperance in the question. “When I was young, I would have stayed home from that fight. Now, I’m nowhere near as wise, but still nowhere near that stupid.” She pulled her toes up, after switching legs. “You weren’t born Penn, young man, no more than I was born a man.” She went back to stretching at her own pace, slow and thorough, and she looked up at him. “Beyond the types of men they are and into the why. The why is important.” It was, she knew. The why was always everything. Once upon a time, she cared about that for herself - now, she cared about it for other reasons.

He pointed a thick finger at her. It had so much callous on it there was a good bet there wasn’t much of a fingerprint there. “Call me young man again, we’re going to have us a problem.” He was serious, and yet he wasn’t. He didn’t want her calling him that, but you got the feeling that Penn’s problems weren’t all that bad. “As for why, probably somebody died. Usually how it is. Somebody died and they didn’t like it much. Seeing death changes a man.” He flapped a hand at her. “Get up and move a bit, shake out.”

“I know perfectly well that you’re older than I am,” she told him, standing without any reaction to the brusque way in which the order was spoken. She had money, but she hadn’t come from money, and she didn’t react like someone who expected special treatment because of station or income. She stood, but she leaned against the wall, caught her breath how she chose. “Yes, someone died,” she admitted, agreeing. “But everyone dies here, and not everyone reacts in that way. Why are they all ours?” Ours meant Creations, and it was obvious she was using him to bounce thoughts against, even more than she was using him as a martial arts teacher.

He raised his wiry eyebrows at the bit about his age, but didn’t comment. Penn was so brusque that he didn’t even realize he was brusque. He waited for her to catch her breath, though, watching her carefully to make sure she didn’t lock her knees or push too hard... or not enough. “Don’t have an answer for that. Maybe it’s just because they know they can.” Again without pause. “You okay? Now isn’t a good time to hide things. Injuries, bad experiences, you tell me now and we deal with them slow and not all at once.”

“They can, while possibly true, isn’t going to help.” She said it without recrimination, fact and fact alone. She laughed when he asked if she was okay, the kind of laugh that came from a long life of laughing. “I have no traumatic experiences to speak of, old man.” She smiled as she began shaking out her legs again. “I’ve lived one hundred and ten years, and I haven’t regretted even one.” Even the ones where she’d been a bad mother, those weren’t regretted years, only regretted moments. “Do I look frail to you?” and then, without a beat, “Who are your people?”

“Looks ain’t everything,” he replied, frankly. He regarded her seriously with the watery blue gaze, like seaside shallows, and then he said, “They’re all dead. Beside the point, these days. Come over here when you’re ready and we’ll work on an escape for a grab and an escape for a hug, and if you do good on that we’ll work on more next time.” A second later he said, “Lot of people call me old man, too. Not sure I like that much better.” But he didn’t tell her no, and he didn’t sound so sure about that one, so he fell silent again.

“We’re all going to be dead one day,” she reminded him. “I intend to matter, even then.” She said it with a quiet determination, the kind that let him know she didn’t raise her voice to get the things she wanted. And then she walked over to him slowly, at her own pace. “How long have you been across the portal?” she asked, and it was a question based in curiosity, not a need to know; there was a difference in the tone, something idle and lazy.

“Few years now. That important to you?” He didn’t move forward or back, just waited there, unfolding his arms and looking incredibly capable in that gi and the black belt. This woman was used to getting what she wanted, and he understood that without objecting. He didn’t have much she was interested in, and he didn’t have a problem telling her no if she took a liking to something he had no interest in giving. Long story short: he wasn’t threatened by Penelope Worth.

“I’m finding that time in this world changes people from our world,” she explained without hesitation. It did - the newly arrived wore their awe and wonder on their sleeves. A few years in, reality filtered in, and with it the knowledge that you’d handed over immortality for a place no different than home. It made a difference, how long a person had been in the human world.

She nodded at him once, letting him know she was ready to resume, and she waited.

He might have been blunt, poorly-spoken and annoyingly confident, but he knew what he was doing, and he was patient and thorough as he taught her how to escape from a front-choke hold and from a hug from behind. Both involved minimal effort and not much precision. The combinations required guts and a stability of mind during the attack, and he focused a great deal on the practicality of the movements rather than a lot of pointless show. After he’d made her do it a dozen times, he stepped back, gave a little nod, and said, “Good. We can probably do a short review next time and you can learn something new.” He said it like learning something new was a thing to be looking forward to, and not dreading.

“And if I only want to stretch my legs and talk to someone whose old enough not to put on airs about a conversation?” she asked, unapologetic and blunt. There was something about humanity that she’d learned early on - they were young. Not necessarily physically, but mentally. She liked a pretty young thing as much as the next woman - in fact, they made her feel young and reminded her of what life was like in the now. But it was different, conversing with someone who’d seen a human lifetime come and go.

“Don’t do much talking,” he said, grunting a little and moving off the mat with no sign of the exertion of the last half-hour. He didn’t object to the conversation in general, but he didn’t want this woman getting ideas about getting real chummy. He wasn’t going to sit down and have tea and talk about the good old days. Still, he had an interest in the strange philosophy of the time, and nobody else was much interested in the why and how of the place. “You want to talk at me, we can do that over a beer, though.”

She smiled to herself as she went through the motions of leaving the studio proper, moving on to retrieve her shoes. He was slightly difficult, which she liked in a person, and she looked at him as she tied her laces. “I want to stretch, and I want to work on new things when I’m inclined, and I want to talk at you,” she told him, rising to her feet and reaching for her purse and the plastic within. “A weekly session,” she said, holding out the card. “If I want to buy you a beer after, I’ll let you know.”

Another eyebrow lift. “When you’re inclined, huh?” This woman wasn’t in a big hurry to learn the basics, that was for sure. “You’ll learn more when I’m inclined, not the other way around.” He took the card and stuck it in a drawer seemingly at random. “Same time next week then.” The machine in the drawer went chink, and then he handed the card out again. “Signed you up for a year. You want longer, let me know.” And then he grinned and handed her the receipt.

She laughed, not at all bothered by any of that cheekiness, rather impressed at his taking the upper hand at the last moment. “Until next week, young man.”

She so enjoyed a challenge.