Horsefeathers [Shayera]

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It was very late at night, or very early in the morning depending on how you prefer to define these sorts of things.  Harvey was supposed to do something when Shayera when he got off.  He'd finally figured out something, despite the hour, for them to partake in.  He'd gotten the idea when he was recently turned teenager again, which was kind of nuts.

He hadn't done this in years and he had found out there was this roller rink that stayed open very late AND it served drinks, so he was pleased, though he wasn't sure how he would do with the whole skating thing. 

When he was young he used to skate all the time, it was something to do, a fine way to pass time and meet girls when he was a teenager.  He tended to prefer skateboards because, at the time, it was much cooler than roller skates, but he doubted he had the balance for that anymore so he found his old speed skates.  After work he'd changed out of work clothes into something a little more appropriate for such activity.  A pair of jeans, a GCPD t-shirt, and a ball cap.  It was a rare thing to see Harvey in a hat that wasn't his prized and well taken care of fedora, but he didn't want to mess it up if he took a spill.   Before Shayera arrived he skated around lazily, getting a feel for it, hoping to god he wouldn't embarrass himself later.  

As he skated around he kept a keen eye out for her arrival.

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Since their chat, Shayera has found herself thinking way too much about what Harvey said. Mostly because, though he couldn't have known it at the time, being 'Shayera of Thanagaria' is not nearly as simple as he probably supposes. She isn't even completely sure that's who she is anymore, for one thing. And if that is who she is, then she doesn't know who that is.

Of course, after entirely too much puzzling over that one, she then realizes that he also said that she thinks too much and should trust her instincts - that hit the nail on the head too.

So what are her instincts saying now? They're saying that attaching wheels to your feet is a silly thing to do. Then again, being Shayera is not simply a matter of instincts but experience and logic too - both of which say that just because something is silly doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. It could turn out to be wildly entertaining, even. And if it's something that Harvey enjoys she might as well give it a shot and see if she likes it as well.

The day had been long and hard to her, which is why some would probably say that it's a bit silly of her to be going on a date in the middle of the night, but the fact that she rested afterward ought to be proof enough that it's not going to do her any extra harm - not because she slept, but because she didn't sleep. Why not go out with pleasant company instead of laying awake in bed wishing in vain for sleep to happen? In fact, there's some hope that this will help tire her out to the point that later she'll be able to sleep rather deeply, if not for very many hours.

She arrives wearing a pair of dark skinny jeans and a bright turquoise halter top with ruffles cascading down from the neckline - an attempt to blend being comfortable enough for this activity but feminine enough for a date that she's taking quite seriously. Not having a pair of skates of her own but having heard that she'd be able to rent them, she arrives wearing a pair of black pumps she can easily change out of. It isn't hard for her to spot Harvey skating around, but even after that she takes a moment to look around the place - she's curious about what kind of people would inhabit such a location at such an hour. Gotham is a city that's home to all kinds.

Her attention shifts quickly back to Harvey, and she gives an amused smile as she approaches him. "We definitely didn't have anything like this back on Thanagar," she comments when he's within speaking distance, "I don't think it would ever occur to a Thanagarian."

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Harvey had his hands behind his back. He was doing well, picking up speed, confident that he might just not bust his ass after all. Spotting Shayera wasn't hard, she kind of stuck out like a sore, feathery, thumb. He slowed up as he got within range of her and used the break on the heel to slow himself up. He stopped at the guard wall she was near and leaned against it, shrugging.

"Well, its something we like doing, I suppose. I used to do this here and there when I was a teenager, it was a great way to meet girls. I just found out about this rink a couple of days ago. They shut it down to the underage after midnight and it becomes a bar. Though, I dunno, alcohol and skates could be a bad idea, but I'm all about bad decisions when the mood strikes. Here-"

He handed her a little red ticket.

"Go rent yourself a pair of skates, might be easier to start with inline skates if you're a beginner. Come see me when you're strapped up and in."

Harvey winked and took off again, his speed built, though a half drunken woman nearly crashed into him, he narrowly dodged her. He seemed pleased at the change in song that blared over the sound system.

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"Oh, so this is supposed to impress me?" Shayera asks with a crooked grin. Hmm, perhaps it might... She's seen humans skating before, but never too closely, and she has no idea how difficult it is. It doesn't seem like something that ought to be very hard to her - it's such a slow, basic-seeming way to move after all. But especially since she's imminently about to try it for herself for the first time, she's not going to make predictions about the difficulty and perhaps once she has some experience she'll have a better idea of how impressed she ought to be.

Laughing at his comment about bad decisions, she glances at the ticket that he gives her - some special form of currency? "Thanks, I'll be just a minute," she says with a nod, heading over to the counter. After a really annoying but blessedly short conversation involving her having to explain that her possession of wings fails to alter the fact that she has a normal shoe size, she finds a bench to sit on while she trades her footwear, idly bobbing her head in time to the beat of the music. While she's never worn a pair of skates before, she's certainly worn enough other odd pieces of equipment before to figure that they'd need to be laced quite tightly.

When she's done with that she's momentarily nervous about standing until she notes the careless way in which a man walking past wearing skates is moving - so the carpeted area where people aren't skating is very safe then. Still, as she stands her wings spread slightly just to make sure that she holds her balance in the unfamiliar footwear. But yes, easy enough. In fact her wings fold up behind her again as she makes her way over to a break in the wall around the rink, relocating Harvey on the skating floor and waving him over as she stands where the carpet ends.

"So, am I your first skating student?" she asks, "What do I do first?"

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Harvey did a couple of laps while she got strapped up into her skates. He caught sight of her once she was ready. He didn't give much warning, he just reached out and took her hands, guiding her onto the rink while he skated backwards.

"Alright, I'll drag you along so you can get a feel for the floor, but the idea is to sort of mirror what I'm doing, but I'm doing it backward so its different. I realize this must seem confusing..."

He looked next to him and a woman was gliding on the floor effortlessly.

"See, how she sort of leans on one foot and then the other and just repeats that over and over? Its like once you get your forward momentum going its just leaning forward and side to side. You'll feel most of the work in your thighs. You can probably use your wings like sails, if you want, to keep yourself from toppling over. I'll hold onto your hands until you get it."

Harvey was somehow graceful, which was also a rarity. He did eventually let go of one of her hands for a moment to adjust his ball cap, but grabbed it again and continued to pull her forward. He would have skated behind her had she not had giant wings that could easily knock him over with little effort.

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There's a moment of slight imbalance when he pulls her forward, but Shayera recovers from it easily by leaning a little on Harvey - careful to be sure that she doesn't let the unsteadiness of her feet case her grip to become too firm. But in spite of her strength, she's really quite light and easy to hold steady. She's probably quite a sight, though - even with her hands being held and her feet doing the work, she still has two more limbs that reflexively spread whenever she's concerned about her balance - and very large ones at that. Fortunately for the other skaters, she also has an extremely good awareness of what's around herself and won't spread them into someone's path, but it's easy to tell just how sure she is of her footing based on how widely her wings are spread at any given moment. She's trying to keep them more folded, as having them out increases drag and makes it harder for Harvey to pull her along.

Nevertheless, she's pretty relaxed about the process, and grins as Harvey stumbles through his explanation of what she's supposed to be doing with her feet besides letting him drag her around. Looking from his feet to those of the others also skating, she first nods and turns her attention to her own feet. "Like this?" she asks as she begins to slowly try, relying quite heavily on his support at first as she's focused more on the movement of her feet than her balance. Her movements are slow and overly thought out, but also precisely the motion that he was trying to explain.

The idea of using her wings as sails causes her to laugh, and she comments, "You know, I was just thinking about trying something like that? But for what I had in mind - well, not a good idea with other people in here that I might bump into while I experiment." At the moment her wings feel more like a hindrance to her than a help, but not by enough to make this activity unpleasant. In fact, a moment later she laughs as she says, "This feels so weird, but it's fun! It's been a long time since I tried doing something this different."

And while she doesn't exactly seem to have any special knack for it, she is coming into this as an athletic person with a great deal of body awareness and control. She's not having to fight too much to keep her balance and when she understands the movements she's trying to make that isn't that difficult - it's making those movements quick, smooth, and without over-thinking it that proves to be the challenge here.

Especially when he lets go of her hand. Having not expected that, she wobbles wildly for a moment - enough to cause a slight breeze to come off her wings as she hastily corrects her balance. "Woah!" she exclaims, but she manages to stay on her feet, laughing when she's steady again, "Hey, warn me next time you do that!"

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Harvey gave a shrug.

"Not too many people here and they seem to be good about giving us plenty of room to work here."

Harvey continued to guide her along the floor.

"Alright, I'm gonna let you go for a minute and see how you do on your own. You ready?"

Once she gave some confirmation Harvey eased his grip on her and drifted away gracefully. He turned so he was skating forward again. He also hung back for a moment so she could catchup next to him and he could skate at her side. He made sure to adjust his speed to match hers but avoided her wing span so she may not knock him over later.

"It's really easy once you get the hang of it. See how I just seem to move side to side? See, normally I'd say its like skiing with wheels under your feet instead of skis, but I figure you haven't really ever done that either..."

Harvey took his hat off briefly and futzed with his hair to avoid hat hair later. That was why he was so often spotted removing his usual fedora and running his hand through his hair. He hated taking it off and have it looking all matted and unattractive. The ball cap he wore seemed to want to do that to his hair more so than his fedora she he took it off and ran a hand through that thick hair of his more often. He also had a younger look to him in such casual clothing. There was an old joke over at GCPD that Harvey probably wore jeans no more than once a year and he likely has owned the same pair for over a decade. One of those was true.

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Glancing away from her feet for a moment, Shayera sees that it's true - there's not really that many people in the rink. She smirks and says, "Well, maybe when I'm sure I have my feet under me then." And she's got to assume that as time passes the number will go down even more.

Though it seems that Harvey is keen on the idea of getting her confident on her skates sooner rather than later. Not that she isn't game for that - when he asks if she's ready, she simply says, "Bring it on!" This time she's a bit more prepared when he lets go, even though it's with both hands this time. For a moment she hesitates, but then she's carefully shifting from one foot to another - very slowly and certainly not with much smoothness, but only a little wobbly and with long, deliberate strokes.

"Nope, I've never being skiing," she confirms, listening to him even though the bulk of her attention seems to be on keeping balanced and moving forward. She tends to concentrate very heavily on what she's doing if it's hard, and now is no exception. With her hands now free, they join her wings in reaching out when she's unstable, and yet at those same moments an entertained smile comes to her face - the closer she comes to falling the bigger it gets, though she does her utmost to keep herself upright. Successfully, too - though at first there's a moment or two when she actually looks like she may be at risk of toppling over, she stays on her feet.

In fact, after several moments of (relative) steadiness she dares look away from what she's doing and turns to Harvey. The pleased grin is part self-satisfaction for how well she's doing thus far, but also partly at the thought that, of all the things he could have chosen to do with her tonight, this is what he chose. "So why skating?" she asks, as she's not one that enjoys wondering about things when she could easily get the answer.

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Harvey shrugged at her last question.

"Nostalgia I guess. I haven't done it in years, I guess some part of me wanted to revisit the past a little."

Harvey moved evenly and coolly with little effort or concentration. He had quickly gotten back into the swing of it. Twenty years ago he could have done with with his hands tied behind and blindfolded. He thought of that young man for a moment. He was handsome, a little quiet, and quite full or valor. He was courage without caution, a sharpened knife without the right handle, but still full of heart all the same. Harvey shook his head at the thought of that twenty something he once was and looked over to Shayera.

"What do Thanagarians do for fun? Play any games? Sports? Something I'm sure? Humans got more than's probably good for us."

Harvey wasn't exaggerating. Humans did have quite the diverse and vast many things to do in the name of recreation, though your definition of recreation could certainly alter the number. He kept skating along. He felt odd in such casual clothing, it was a little off putting for him. He could not recall too many times in the last decade or more that he didn't have a tie on. Even when he didn't wear one he usually still wore slacks of some sort and here he was in jeans. The ball cap was mostly there so he wouldn't feel naked. Harvey always needed a hat.

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"Well, this is definitely outside the box for me," Shayera comments with a grin. She's not sure how fast people normally get the hang of this mode of transport, but she hopes that she's doing okay. At least she hasn't fallen yet - she's gotta figure that's a common outcome just because of how unsteady she feels, and she tends to have pretty good balance so that aspect is probably harder for a lot of people.

She can't help but laugh at his question, "Oh, humans have nothing on Thanagarians - most of us are very competitive. If it can be turned into a game where someone wins, it's been done. If it's at all fun to watch, it's a formal sport. I don't think anyone thought of attaching wheels to someone's feet though - probably because we don't think about moving on the ground much. Most of our physical games are airborne. My favorites tend to be the aerobatic sports." And she doesn't think that this activity could be more unlike those - at least not without much, much more practice first.

As focused as she is on her balance, it isn't until a moment too late that she notices that a woman who has had a few too many to be skating as fast as she is has turned into a collision course. The impact is enough to knock them both off their feet, though Shayera's instincts take over and she shifts as she falls to ensure that the woman lands on top of her. There isn't enough speed involved to do her any real harm, but she knows that the same may not be true of the woman - better to provide something soft to land on than to allow the woman to hit the ground, or worse land on top of her.

Grunting when she hits the ground, Shayera's ended up on her back, with the giggly but embarrassed woman hastening to scramble off of her and mumbling something apologetic in nature. And since she's using Shayera as something to hang onto while she tries to get up, the Thanagarian finds herself having to wait before she attempts to do so herself. Still, Shayera's quick to say, "Don't worry about it - I'm fine. Just try to be more careful, okay?"

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"Well, the only "formal sport" I know of associated with roller skatin' is Roller Derby. And really, its a woman's sport. I don't think I ever heard of male leagues. You'd love it."

Harvey began to sway side to side more and used his body and gestures to better illustrate it all as he explained it to her.

"Them girls beat the shit out of eachother. I seen one stab another once. Anyway, they skate in circles and there's all kinda different positions to play as, but the goal is to take out the other team. They mostly crash into eachother side ways, but yeah, pretty violent little sport. Then again, I can't complain about watchin' girls in skates and short skirts rammin' into each other. Pretty fun stuff. Some people might call it "unladylike" but I think I prefer a woman that can put some hurt down on me or anyone else if they're botherin' her over a woman that will just be polite and try to tear me apart in another way."

Harvey shrugged.

"Beatin' me up's a lot more assertive, direct, and I think respectful than playin' some kinda politics game with me. I appreciate a woman of grit, I guess."

Harvey looked back and saw that she got knocked into.  Harvey skated back to her and offered a hand up.  He grimaced at the drunk woman.

"Go home, lady, yer drunk."

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The description of 'Roller Derby' causes Shayera to lift an eyebrow in both surprise and curiosity. "That sounds very Thanagarian," she comments, trying to picture what he's describing in her head. In fact, she's pretty sure that there was a game like that on Thanagar - airborne, of course, but similar in nature.

As he shifts from explaining the sport to what kind of woman he likes, she can't help but smirk. "You do realize you're describing me, don't you?" she asks with obvious amusement. Because, well, putting the hurt on anyone who bothers her is kind of what she does. Fortunately for everyone, she's not generally easy to bother. Unless you're a criminal, of course.

But she's clearly not too bothered by the drunk woman, only a slight grimace crossing her features at the impact, and then only for a moment. It's not like there was any harm done, after all, and though the woman is clearly irresponsible for skating while she's drunk, there was no ill intent. Still, she is displeased enough that she doesn't blame Harvey for the tone he takes with the woman.

Accepting the offered hand, it isn't until she tries to get up that she proves just how necessary the help is - as good as she was at keeping her balance before, physics is just not very kind to a new skater trying to get back their feet. And for Shayera that problem is probably a bit worse than usual - her wings make her both top heavy and back heavy so her attempts to get back up on two limbs that keep trying to roll out from underneath her without whacking anyone (especially Harvey) with one of her wings is more than a little bit tricky.

By the time her feet are solidly under her, she's completely certain that she wouldn't have managed to get up on her own very successfully at all and is surprised that she didn't pull him down with her even though she was trying really hard not to. "Thanks!" she says sincerely looking just a little weary, adding, "Remind me not to do that again."

Still hanging on to Harvey's hand for balance for a moment longer, she frowns and shifts one of her wings in front of her to look at the feathers on the trailing edge and, sure enough, one is bent in the middle. With only a slight grimace but no sound of complaint, she uses her free hand to pull it out before folding her wing again - it's a long feather, about two feet from end to end and gray-brown in color. Letting go of Harvey's hand, she holds it in both hands to examine it for a moment and comments, "Primary flight feather - that's a shame."