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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:56:11 GMT -6
The creature shook his head, though it didn't look like a refusal so much as an attempt to revitalize himself. Either way though, he resisted her suggestion; she could see little sign of him actually slowing his pace. She could not frown given the limitations of her robotic features, but if she could have, she would have in that moment.
"This is not an idle suggestion," she said to him. Her voice was firmer than it had been before. "We are not stopping. This is merely meant to set the proper pace. I will ask you to speed up again at a later point, and we will be doing this repeatedly. This is not strength but endurance training, and if you do not pace yourself properly, we will not be able to make progress."
It was perhaps a sign of how much he had tired already that he did not set up any further protest to her suggestion. He slowed to a walk immediately.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:56:27 GMT -6
She wondered if he had merely thought that this jogging would comprise the entirety of their exercise here, rather than the variable pace that she had intended to set, and was merely protesting that she was ending it too early--- which, if that had actually been her intent, really would have been premature.
There was, then, a lesson here to be had about communicating one's plans. The creature was no dumb beast, and she knew already that he was well capable of understanding what she was saying. In fact there had been no reason not to do so, beyond the fact that it had not occurred to her. In terms of practical experience with training, Rabbit actually had very little; Aster was a trainer of creatures himself, and Rabbit had existed until now more to provide an extra set of hands around the property… or, perhaps more relevantly, off it, and in town.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:56:40 GMT -6
Her databases could be relied upon for techniques and basic guiding principles, and Aster was available to offer advice and answers from his perspective, but Aster couldn't be there constantly, and her pre existing databases only offered so much. And neither had great or extensive knowledge on working with creatures of comparable intelligence with humanoids, though Aster certainly had several in his companionship. It was more that he tended to let them do as they liked, and the creatures he relied on to fight or work for him tended to be of a more animal level.
"I apologize for not informing you sooner," she said. The creature, which was still walking, and whose head was no longer held so high as it had been, now picked his head up again to look at her. She registered some little surprise in his features. Was it that he was being addressed at all, or was it a specific reaction to the content of her speech?
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:56:57 GMT -6
She didn't ask the question, however, and thus received no answer. The creature continued to stare at her for a long moment, even as he walked on. Rabbit grew puzzled at this; had she really said something very strange? Eventually he subsided into looking ahead of himself again, so Rabbit told herself to think no more of it, but she did wonder if it would happen again.
She let him walk two more laps before informing him that it was time to begin jogging again. He didn't complain, but he certainly wasn't eager for it as he had been before. Rabbit mentally took note of how long it had taken them to get to this point, and the signs he was displaying of how relatively tired he was, compared to what she knew as his baseline. This information would come in handy as their sessions progressed, and would help her track his progress.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:57:16 GMT -6
Yes. He would not be so easily wearied forever. So long as they were careful, there was no reason for overt concern. Let her monitoring be only for the prevention of any mishap. It could not be for anything else.
The session went on in this manner, with Rabbit directing the creature as he ran alternating periods of walking and jogging around the track. Since the purpose of the exercise was to have him active for a longer period of time, Rabbit shortened each successive bout of jogging, and let him have more downtime walking in between. At some point he seemed to notice this change, and glanced at her again, but since she was not sure whether he was posing this question, she did not answer. She did say that she would explain, but she figured she may as well explain afterwards. There would be time enough.
And the creature was in fact growing quite visibly tired. He had been before, but the condition progressed, such that by the end of it he was breathing quite hard.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:57:38 GMT -6
It was not an easy thing to look at; the creature had some measure of pride, and preferred to look refined and effortless where his abilities allowed him to do so. The only times she had seen him in an ungainly state were when he had injured himself, and when she had been teaching him to swim. The latter had probably occurred because he did not know how to move gracefully in water at the time. He had become much better by now, to the point that the lumbering wading movements he had used before were nowhere to be seen.
Thus, there was something… unsettling, perhaps, about seeing him disheveled. Rabbit could not put it into words. But it was also precisely this sort of proud bearing that necessitated this gym exercise to promote a speedier return to strength, for otherwise the creature would not push past certain limits of his own.
However, she was true to her own word that he must not strain himself either. When she deemed him sufficiently exhausted, she called the session to an end.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:58:13 GMT -6
"Please take one more lap around, and then leave the track. I will prepare water for you to rehydrate you after your exercise." She did not know whether this particular creature sweated; the biology of half breeds were always something of a mystery, and even knowing their exact parentage did not always offer answers. And the parentage of this half breed was only known to them in a general sense; two of the three had been specially modified creatures in their own right, neither of whom Aster or Rabbit had ever met.
But nevertheless, strenuous exercise taxed the hydration reserves of most creatures one way or another, and the gym provided specially formulated supplements to be mixed in with their water, to help augment the training process. It would certainly do the creature no harm to partake in it.
He had been walking to begin with when she asked him to take his final lap, so there was no need to have him walk it off any further. Once he was finished with the lap, he came directly to her. Maybe he had been thirsty already, or realized he was thirsty now.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:58:32 GMT -6
Fortunately, in the intervening time, Rabbit had prepared his drink for him. Much of it was still regular water, drawn from a fountain at the gym facilities. The only thing left to do was to add the supplemented water distributed by the gym itself. She had held off on this only so she could ask the creature what flavor it preferred, as she had two different flavors.
As he approached, she held them up. "These will help you replenish your energy," she explained as he looked them over with a curious eye. "This one is unflavored, and this one is the flavor of blood." As far as she could tell, he was strictly carnivorous; he had had one Tat-lung parent, so Aster told her, but he had yet to express any interest in consuming gems. And given that he was amply able to communicate his needs, she took that as a sign that he didn't wish to.
Not that there was a gem flavored water option to begin with. So perhaps the point was moot.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:58:49 GMT -6
He looked between the two options, the indicated the blood flavored water with the inclination of his head in that general direction. "Very well," said Rabbit, and poured it directly into the pail.
At the sight of the pail, the creature sighed a little, but he was tired and thirsty enough that he drank it anyway, whatever his issues might have been with it. Dipping his muzzle into the water, he took great long draughts of water. She could see it in the outline of his throat as he swallowed.
"Is it to your tastes?" she asked.
He glanced up at her, but didn't stop drinking long enough to reply. It may have just been the fact that he was too thirsty for him to stop, but it might well have also been his way of telling her that the answer should have been obvious. She supposed it was, given the fact that he was drinking with such enthusiasm. At the very least, the taste was not unpleasant, or else he might have stopped by now.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:59:11 GMT -6
She let him drink as he liked for a moment, then said, "I think it would be best if you slowed down. Drinking too quickly will upset your system, and not all the water will be properly absorbed." This came from her databases, and was the kind of information that was deemed to prove useful for training in a general sense. There had been the expectation that perhaps the animals under a TROD's care would have to go through strenuous exercises. Perhaps it had even been written with the gym in mind.
She had not seen any other TRODs here. But then, she had not seen anyone besides herself and the creature accompanying her. And she did not often see TRODs in other places either, come to that, though on occasion she still met another one running errands in shops.
How many of them were training creatures, and how many were simply caretakers of large collections, or a second pair of hands to do the shopping?
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:59:27 GMT -6
She did wonder. But this was a kind of pointless rumination, and she knew it would serve her no purpose to dwell on it. The creature glanced up too, as if he could sense her thoughts wandering.
"I will provide more water," she said. "For now, that will be enough." He had drunk quite a considerable amount, and his breathing was no longer quite so labored as it had been before. She had the sense that he was recovering--- good. He had tired himself out thoroughly, but if his ability to bounce back from that effort was good, then it was a sign that he was healing well.
"We will come back tomorrow," she said.
The creature blew a sigh, and Rabbit noted for the first time that there seemed to be some semblance of… exaggeration in his expression, the way that Aster might express displeasure at the prospect of an unpleasant chore. The two of them had never reminded Rabbit much of one another before.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 13:59:56 GMT -6
It shouldn't have been all that surprising for Rabbit to see that the creature was capable of emoting in such a human-like way, since it was certainly intelligent enough to have complex emotions. At first Rabbit wondered whether it was simply because she had expected his mannerisms to be more animalistic in nature, as they had different ways of conveying the same feelings. But that could have been explained by the fact that he had been around people all his life… presumably, anyway. But the more she thought on it, the more she felt that it was the casual nature of the gesture. Without her quite realizing, he had begun to relax, to the extent that he could do this in her presence. Or he was too tired to be on guard. That was a possibility too. ----- Rabbit was as good as her word in that regard, though robots generally had little propensity for lying. The next day saw them back at the gym facilities. Words: 165 (26)
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 14:00:13 GMT -6
The creature headed at once in the direction that they had gone before, not eager for the session but not resisting that it was happening either.
It was Rabbit who caused the delay. She went to the front desk; Aster had thought to have her pick up some things while she was here, to save him the trouble of having to do it himself at a later point. He had mentioned that there were points on his membership card and that these could be exchanged for items that helped with the training process here. He already had some of these items, and he had offered the packs of fortified water to Rabbit to help with her endeavor, but none of the other items he had were relevant.
He had evidently felt the deficiency, or perhaps he had plans to do some other training here soon himself. The ones she selected, and which the woman at the front brought out for her, were more suited to training for strength and endurance. Indeed, the two often seemed to go hand in hand.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 14:00:34 GMT -6
The creature watched her at first with only mild curiosity; he was not very put off by the delay, likely because the training itself hadn't been terribly pleasant for him either. It seemed that he would not be the exception in this regard. But that curiosity turned into real interest as he saw what she was carrying.
She noted his interest, and said, "These are not for you."
The creature's eyes widened, and his head went up and back, as if he were very surprised. Exaggeration again, Rabbit thought.
But she hadn't expected him to thrust that head forward again and steal one of the weights from her. It was why she didn't manage to react in time to stop him. By the time her cognitive processes had caught up to the events that had occurred, he was already severely lengths away, running to the training room.
She recognized that he was headed where they were meant to go, so she didn't attempt to stop him from going, and merely followed at a walking pace.
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Post by Noa on May 19, 2019 14:00:56 GMT -6
But when she got there, he was still holding the weight in his jaws, watching her with a certain air of expectation.
"You aren't helping me carry these, are you?" she said. Her voice was generally toneless, but right now even her words had the air of someone asking a rhetorical question.
The creature's tail swept from one side to another.
"Return it please. It is not meant for you," she said, holding out one hand. The creature did nothing of the sort. Perhaps it had been too much to hope that he would be compliant. 'Obedient' was not a word she would have used to describe him; he did comply with a good number of her requests, but generally only when he could see the benefit, or at least the reasoning behind it. Although, until now, she would not have described him as having a significant sense of mischief either.
Did he really mean to use it? She held his gaze for a long moment, then came to a decision.
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