fandomhigh | Ungulate Yoga, Tuesday, period 1

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yoga

Ungulate Yoga, Tuesday, period 1

"Um," Duke said.

The moose stared at him. And chewed.

"Are you our ungulate for today, or am I in trouble?"

The moose stared. And chewed.

". . . Okay, I'm just going to teach class now."

Stare. Chew.

"Right, so." Duke faced the students. But kept his eyes on the moose. "Today we're doing some relaxing yoga. So grab some cushions and bolsters and prepare to destress."

The moose stared.

And chewed.

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Like you're being watched by a moose

Alexis Rose

Karolina Dean

Freya Crescent

Danny Williams

Stark

Beaker

Steve Rogers

Alara Kitan

There's lots of good yoga for stress relief and relaxation! Try out some channel cleaning breathing for a start. Then spend some time in child's pose. Or happy baby pose. Grab some pillows and give reclining hero pose a try maybe. Or reclining bound angle pose. And finish off with a nice, relaxing corpse pose.

All while getting stared and chewed at by giant, antlered beast who'd be perfectly at home during an ice age.

Alexis was trying very hard to focus on relaxing- a theme with this class- but mostly she was looking like she was very tempted to go talk to the moose.

Listen, her room right now was great but she'd also been through it this session, okay?

Yeah, Karolina's ability to focus on relaxing was shot. She'd been a student here before she'd been faculty, and the presence of the moose kind of instinctively made her feel like she'd screwed something up. Or worse, that she was about to find herself with some kind of a ridiculous paperwork task.

Also, you know. Moose were huge and kind of hard to relax around, regardless of whether they worked in school administration or not. So... All of her relaxing was going to be happening with furtive glances at the animal in question.

Maybe Freya was missing some key element here, but she didn't find the moose all that unnerving. Then again, she fought dragons and was from a society where insanely powerful windstorms were used as protection and marriage ceremonies took place under the watchful gaze of a giant ancient flying sea serpent and monsters roamed anywhere cloaked in mist...which was the majority of the whole planet.

So one moose who she'd only had brief interactions with this far in trying to figure out the deal with her status as a student was hardly bothersome. Which meant she could focus and enjoy learning the poses and executing them with the ease that had blessed her through most of the class thus far.

After all, for all she knew, this was apparently just normal for yoga.

How exactly were they meant to relax around that terrifying example of megafauna? How? Duke, explain.

Danny squinted at the moose, sitting cross-legged in what he didn't actually know was a real yoga pose.

LOOK THIS WAS NOT DUKE'S FAULT, OKAY?

"Nice form," Duke said, trying to show the moose he was actually teaching something. "That's a good pose for meditation."

IT WAS ALWAYS DUKE'S FAULT.

"Not feeling the most meditative," Danny replied, still giving the moose the stink eye.

That was probably a good plan. Duke was doing that, too.

"Oh yeah?" Duke said, trying -- and failing utterly -- to play it cool, even while continuing to side-eye the moose. "A little stressed lately?"

LOOK WHAT YOU WERE DOING TO THEM, MOOSE.

Danny just gestured to the moose because it proved his point. It did it by existing in his space.

Dammit, Danny, couldn't you be cool for a second?

"Ah, yes. Our honored guest. I'm sure it is also just here for relaxing yoga."

DANNY'S ANXIETY WOULDN'T ALLOW FOR IT.

"...are you on something?" Because what the actual hell, Duke?

The moose was certainly very large. But it didn't appear to be threatening. Perhaps disapproving? He'd certainly seen larger and more frightening creatures.

If he'd had 2 eyes he might have kept one on the moose just based on the reactions of those around him. Instead he was just going to try and relax.

So long as you don't mind him spending the whole time staring suspiciously at the moose

"It's... it's not just me, right?" Karolina hazarded in a hushed tone, approaching Duke at one point during the class. "Isn't that the office moose?"

"It is not just you," Duke confirmed. "I mean, I'm not all up on the latest moose identifying techniques, but I'm pretty sure that's the moose from the office, yeah."

"I feel like I'm about to get a bunch of unnecessary paperwork dropped in my lap."

This was, historically, a legitimate fear for the guidance counselor at this school to have.

"I'm pretty sure I'm about to get assigned another absurd class to teach," Duke said. Still side-eyeing the moose.

One did not simply look away from the moose.

Karolina was having kind of the same issue, yeah.

"But, hey," she said, quirking a small smile at him. Totally about to change the topic, and not entirely just so the moose didn't catch them talking about its administrative track record. "Uh, wasn't that your girlfriend I spied in class last week?"

"That was Octavia, yes," Duke said, nodding. And eyeing the moose. "She came back last week. Just got -- dropped back off by the multiverse."

Karolina's smile widened just a little. "And, how are you doing?"

Whether she meant just him, or him and Octavia both, was up to him.

"It's --" Duke started. Then didn't know what to say. "We're . . . surviving."

Yeah, that dimmed Karolina's smile down real fast. But she gave a little nod.

(With another glance at the moose. A very quick one, though!)

"I'm sure there's, like, an adjustment period. Especially if, um... you were right about where she was."

"I was," Duke said. "For, uh. Seven years on her end."

Karolina's eyebrows went way up. Almost comically so.

"Oh wow," she said. "Okay. That's -- yeah, that's definitely going to need an adjustment period."

"Yeah, right?" Duke shook his head. "Who even knows what actually happened to her during all that. She's told me some of it, but -- yeah, I don't know if I'll ever get the whole story."

"You just said it's only been like a week, you have to give her time," Karolina replied gently. "But, yeah. It's possible she'll want to keep it to herself --"

Even Karolina herself hadn't told anyone all the details of her visit to her parents' home world.

"-- and you'll just have to... support her the best that you can, if it's what she needs."

"That's what I'm trying to do, yeah." Duke flashed her a small, weak smile. This wasn't really the time or place to get too into his worries about Octavia. "It's just, I don't know. Frustrating."

"I bet," Karolina replied, knowing it didn't cover the half of it. "But, you know, my door's always open if you wanna vent."

A beat.

"Or if she does."

"You know, I suggested that to her, actually." Duke smiled faintly and shook his head. "Not sure how likely she is to take you up on it, but hey. At least she knows it's an option."

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Ungulate Yoga, Tuesday, period 1

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Stress relief and THE MOOSE

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OOC