Kindred Crush(ers) (Liesmith)

[Winter]

Arlise did not read people particularly well, but she could see the cogs turning in the woman's mind.

The glance down at her legs would have tipped her off even if she had not seen the evident signs of curiosity in her - Samiya's - eyes, and Arlise merely quirked her head as if to ask for comment. Perhaps she considered the danger presented by Arlise's legs. Perhaps she believed Arlise's legs had grown larger since that scissor series, as they had. Perhaps she wanted to ask more about how she had beaten a woman with so much more experience. Ultimately, she did none of those things, and Arlise let it pass to tap her chin and repeat her name with her own French lilt making it musical.

"Samiya. A pretty name." She could not quite place its origin, but she had enough problems in the past with conjuring different languages - she did not want to complicate matters further. As she once more spared her own momentary glance at the shapely, shorter woman's full figure, she expected it strangely suited her, too, for reasons she could not have defined if she were asked.

She pondered Samiya and her outfit at least once more, the finger still tapping her chin. She did not want an entire conversation about her - she had walked over because of her interest in Samiya, and her curiosity demanded that she filled in some blanks. "Are you a gymnast? Or were you? That routine looked brilliant."

[Liesmith]

Yeah. No. Samiya’s gaze went flat at that little note about her name, the sort of banal remark that was virtually guaranteed to kill her interest in a conversation faster than anything.

If that was where this was going, she was about to walk away.

All that held her was a combination of her own reluctance because Arlise Christiaens was far more fascinating in person than she’d expected and something about the way the redhead was looking at her. That tapping finger, the roving eyes. There was something on her mind and Samiya’s curiosity was such that she didn’t just want to walk away without finding what it was.

For all that, she probably wouldn’t have waited long but then she didn’t have to – even if her first reaction to Christiaens’ question was to arch her eyebrows sarcastically. Because she felt the answer to that was pretty obvious.

But then the redhead added her second question and that brought a more thoughtful twist to Samiya’s expression as she contemplated her answer.

Just because she felt like it, the tattooed girl turned a swift, handless aerial, landing with a flourish.

“Was,” She allowed with a grin, throwing her arms up and crossing a leg behind the other in a quick salute before straightening up, “Before I switched over to lifting. It was getting boring anyway and I thought I might as well jump before they push me.”

Another off-hand shrug.

“Something about getting fat.”

Samiya rolled her eyes meaningfully, her expression and tone showing just what she thought about that suggestion. Sure, she didn’t and hadn’t fit the traditional image of a gymnast, but then neither had plenty of the girls at national level and below.

It hadn’t ever stopped her excelling.

[Winter]

Arlise wondered if Samiya performed that move every time people asked her about gymnastics. If so, the redhead would ask her regularly.

Had she been a man, the Belgian beauty might have needed to avoid an obvious reaction below the belt in her tight gym shorts. She loved watching a beautiful body flipping through the air with such ease, and Samiya had a body she had never seen move with such grace. Arlise appreciated the more lean, delicate bodies - save for her sister's - but something about a body built not completely unlike her own albeit on a shorter frame only added to the appeal. She couldn't perform such athletics, and her face remained alight with awe as she quietly and rapidly applauded.

While having the company of a wrestler with those talents certainly appealed to her - and she would befriend her if she had her way - she almost felt disappointed that her new acquaintance had left that other world. The question as to why hovered on the tip of her tongue before Samiya volunteered an explanation. The Belgian's pretty face contorted with disbelief and irritation in equal measures.

"Fat!?"

The redhead incredulously repeated the word loud enough for at least a couple of nearby figures to wonder if someone had called her fat, but if they did, she didn't notice them. She again skimmed over Samiya's body, trying to conjure a world where anyone could find someone so fit and strong fat. "That is the silliest thing I have ever heard."

She waved a dismissive hand, declaring the idea so ridiculous that it didn't merit her spending time on it. "Ugh, anyway... you must have very strong legs of your own then, no?" A compliment to kick that ridiculous idea of being fat further down the trail. "They certainly look like they are."

[Liesmith]

Yeah, Samiya liked to think that’d been her reaction too; but if she was honest, it hadn’t ever been quite that simple. She’d always been thicker of build than the bulk of the girls on the team and she’d been told all about how it was going to hold her back, how she was fat and a piggie who ate too much.

Sometimes it hurt, even when she tried to ignore it. She’d got really good at ignoring it by the end.

Then it hadn’t helped things at all when she’d started growing. Or when it hadn’t stopped her leaving them all in her dust on the mats.

Which was also about the time when she’d realised that whole ‘performing for judges’ thing, it wasn’t for her. She liked her competition up close and personal, not taking turns to see who could do the prettiest moves or waiting to see who won on points.

So she just let Christiaens grumble, idly wondering just what it was that had the redhead so upset. It wasn’t like they’d been talking about her figure, though she was sure they’d have said much the same things about the Belgian woman too.

She shrugged, irritated, twitchy, at the other’s comment.

“Yeah. Well.”

The tattooed grappler left it at that, let the silence deepen for the beat before the other wrestler waved the subject away.

As Samiya wasn’t looking to waste any more of her day on ancient history either, the change of subject was more than fine with her.

In fact, her gaze sharpened considerably, her interest piqued by the redhead’s turn of thought.

“Duh,” the ex-gymnast’s tone had turned suddenly playful, “Gymnast, remember? Strongest legs you’ve ever seen.”

Playful, at least, until the last part where she turned coldly serious. Samiya’s confidence in her body was rock-solid and her legs were her most dangerous assets. She’d back them all day and any day against any odds.

[Winter]

Ooooh, Arlise had found the spark.

The woman seemed enthusiastic about her gymnastics - minus the foolish opinions of idiots - but Arlise had not heard that impishness in her new acquaintance's tone until she mentioned her legs. The already-intrigued Belgian's smile tore into an outright grin, and she snickered. She had clearly struck the right chord, and once again, she feel back on the changed subject as an excuse to peer at the woman's legs again... obviously, only to express her interest in them as the subject of the conversation. Samiya must have stood... a hundred and sixty centimeters or so, and the redhead mentally made the woman taller and herself shorter in her mind's eye to figure out how they compared purely on size.

"But yours are better than any gymnast's I have known. The eye test told me that," she finally said, pondering her sister's twigs in comparison, too. Her sister's... what, year of failure as a gymnast surely had not granted her the same legs. But Arlise had wrestled at least a couple of women in her time with a true gymnast's background, and she remembered those battles as hard-fought. She and her opponent had often ended up rumbling around on the canvas like a tangling and untangling ball of yarn, each of them seeking to snag the other between her thighs. Even then, those had often been slighter women than Arlise herself.

...Come to think of it, Arlise had enjoyed those clashes quite a bit. She had enjoyed some submission clashes during her time with LAW, of course, but she could not remember clashing with anyone whose own legs could have ended the match before it even began. The Belgian beauty found herself quickly mining the nugget of inspiration in her head.

"Could I try them?", she blurted, almost without thinking of what she said. It... did not make sense in English, she realized, and what sense it did make sounded like she wanted to eat them or ride them like a rollercoaster. Mmmm, she should end that train of thought. "Or, that is to say - can I see how it is you use them?"

[Liesmith]

‘Better’. Samiya liked that. She liked that a lot.

“Yeah, well,” she sniffed, definitely not preening under the redhead’s deserved praise and attention. Certainly not shifting her stance subtly to show off the objects of their discussion.

“Just because everybody thinks we’re all built like twigs or should be, doesn’t mean we are. I started lifting ‘bout the time I quit competing, then did a bit of Crossfit before I got into wrestling. I’m not just a gymnast.”

Though probably it’d done more than anything else to build her legs, if Samiya was honest. Lifting and Crossfit had further honed them but, in terms of sheer explosive strength, gymnastics was hard to beat.

Bit like her, she thought with a grin.

Her momentary reverie was shattered though as Christiaens’ voice cut right through it, her words sending Samiya’s eyebrows rocketing skywards.

… Try her thighs? Um…

Fortunately, before she worked out exactly what the redhead meant and why she needed to kick her in the face for it, Christiaens clarified. Samiya relaxed again, letting out a slightly self-conscious chuckle but with a keen interest now burning in her gaze as she measured the other wrestler.

Eyeing her neck in particular.

“Sure,” the Schoolgirl Assassin said, her smile turning a little menacing, “I’m always happy to show someone what these legs can do… We sparring or are you just gonna take it?”

She shrugged lithely, that Cheshire grin widening.

“I mean, comes to the same thing in the end, right?”

[Winter]

Had Arlise triggered some posing? Oh, she believed so.

The redhead hid a sly smile as she watched Samiya shift so one of the complimented legs stretched further. If Samiya wanted the Belgian to look - as if she had not already - she would do so more than happily. She looked so intently, pondering their curves and how snugly they might fit around similarly curvy body types, that she almost missed her newest acquaintance's discussion about the other factors that had crafted those legs into such beauties. Her eyes finally lifted to listen.

She caught up with the conversation well enough once Samiya finished, however, to nod along. Weightlifting, CrossFit. The various ways women built their legs intrigued her, especially in contrast to her "by necessity" methods from her time in Belgium, surviving paycheck to paycheck. Her training had involved a lot of poor gyms, a lot of jogging up and down stairs, a lot of excuses to use her legs while helping her mother at home. She certainly felt proud of her own accomplishments with so few resources, but she certainly thanked LAW for their facilities as much as for the opportunity to wrestle on the big stage.

Her Freudian slip as she yanked herself from the world’s deepest thoughts about legs thankfully led to no Freudian revelations. It led to an agreement that she internally celebrated, all too oblivious to the threat in that agreement. “I think a casual spar. There are no strikes, only some testing of technique, and we go at... half speed.” She did not have quite the right word, but she supposed that made enough sense. The less Arlise needed to think about actual strategy, the more she might enjoy jockeying with those legs and the attempt to lock Samiya in a final embrace before the shorter woman could do the same to her. Besides, work in the gym had already exhausted her, so if she were to fail…

She sat that thought aside for the moment and eagerly stepped into place before Samiya. “We start on our knees?”