Pascha takes to working out in the gym where he runs into Farrah and forms a fitness bond.
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2025 8:21 pm
Pascha had never given much thought to fitness in the past; his high metabolism and love of running had kept him fairly trim for his entire life. He had lean muscle without really going out of his way to try for it. In a way, he supposed he was very lucky. But when it came to building on that muscle and gaining upper body strength, he quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be so easy for him from that point on. He had to really work and sweat and he left the gym exhausted only to wake up sore the next day.
It was a good kind of sore, but he would have been lying if he’d said he hadn’t been tempted to skip a session or two. It was hard work when most things just were not actually difficult for him. And there was no instant gratification; there was no amount of working out that would make him bigger and stronger overnight. This was already his fifth session and he didn’t look or feel much different. Well, other than being tired and sore! But he was much less sore after his last session than after his first. Maybe it was making a difference after all?
Even if it wasn’t, Pascha was determined to keep at it. Sure, he wanted to be someone strong and dependable, especially in case he and the boss got into trouble they couldn’t just run away from, but that wasn’t the only reason he had begun this regimen. He needed something, anything, to take his mind off of his stupid hurt feelings.
Pascha had spent days after learning Hasan had left for home just being miserable and going through the motions. He didn’t talk much, he ate less, and he didn’t even work on his projects. He was a complete wreck and he was sick to death of himself and feeling sorry for himself. He needed a new hobby, something to distract him from how he was feeling and the self-destructive thoughts he was having. He could definitely say that working out had that effect; he wouldn’t have thought something so physical would do such a good job of quieting what was going on in his head.
It wasn’t perfect, though. Especially not on days like today when the gym was empty. There was no background chatter to drown out the stray thoughts that tried to creep up and wrap around his throat from time to time. Even worse than that, he couldn’t ask anyone to spot him if there was no one around. He was almost tempted to try some heavier weights anyway, he almost convinced himself it would be fine if he just did it for a little while. Pushing himself harder usually worked much better at keeping him distracted so he wanted the challenge. But in the end he decided against it; he knew better. He didn’t want to do anything stupid and hurt himself. What if he got pinned under a bar and no one happened by to help him? Better to be safe than sorry; there were other exercises he could do. And maybe, if his thoughts insisted on being loud, he could think of a way to bring music to the gym on quiet days. That would be great!
She finished her final lap on the indoor track of the gym. Today was a makeup day of sorts for skipping out on the one before. Her last weapons training with her personal guard proved to be more strenuous but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. Before the invasion, her regimen was mostly the same as the one she followed back in Mars. After the invasion, and with the spontaneous spar she had with Viktor also in mind, Farrah wanted to add more time and activity to it. So she did, steadily. There might also have been the little quip a different frosty-haired Hyoden might have made that bore only a miniscule amount of weight. “Frail body my butt.” Rah muttered to herself. She hadn’t caught her usual winter cold yet, but she did not believe herself to be that frail for it! The same went for her wrist. Between the doctor having to reset it and her own healing abilities, her wrist was well enough that she was clear to ease back into full use.
Even before she became next in line to rule, there was still the expectation from father and those involved in her care that she would train. She’d only really started training when that change came around, and with it came more intensity and higher stakes. A high metabolism always kept her on the leaner side and she had to work when it came to gaining weight and muscle. Without either, she surely would have perished during any one of the grueling trials she faced – and passed to secure her place in line – in her teens. Since then she’d done as any other Martian warrior did: continued. Improved. Persevered. Rah figured out early on that she’d be adequate at most when it came to fight and strength. Agility and dexterity helped to fill in some of the gaps, and her ability to influence metals was also very useful in most situations. She was okay with that. There was always room for improvement but like a lot of things, it was something she refused to be told what to do about. At least by most people. Like with the occasional spar and the skirmishes that seemed to be plaguing their peaceful academy, she felt more than physically capable for what the next, distant chapters in life had in store for her. They’d be addressed with the same kind of resolve.
Had it not been so bloody cold she would have taken her jog somewhere outside with the sun and the fresh air. The indoor gym was acceptable given the season and was going to have to be the place to be until it got warm enough. She stepped into a matted area and set her water bottle down before she started her stretching. First her arms, then her legs. It was while she was alternating between stretching her legs that she spotted the male with short blonde hair. Looking around as she switched legs and bent and held her left foot behind her, she noticed it was just as empty as it was when she first got there. Rah chalked it up to it just being a slow part of the day for the place; there were plenty of people that used it. She’d been in her own world for a lot of it, nothing too eventful outside of switching things up and trying a new and different jewelry design.
She stepped into an empty space next to the blonde area and flashed him a grin as she went to the stand of dumb bells. He’d caught her eye a time or two during their classes, but it felt like a more recent thing to see him in the gym. Not a bad thing in the least. Rah looked over to Pascha for a moment before making her little joke. “It’s quiet. Makes you wonder if everyone knows something we don’t.”
Pascha had warmed up with several more dynamic exercises before settling into his usual routine. Well, as ‘usual’ as it could be after only five sessions! But it helped to have some kind of routine to follow. Bicep curls, goblet squats, shoulder presses, rows, flys, lateral lifts, side lateral lifts, step-ups, lunges, crunches, pushups, and squats… A lot of things that would have sounded like gibberish to him before! But now they sounded like steady progression and burn and that good kind of sore that he was slowly getting used to.
It was in the middle of a set of goblin squats that someone else appeared and cracked a joke that made Pascha laugh, openly and expressively. It felt like it had been a while since he really, really laughed! But laughing and squatting at the same time wasn’t great and he straightened up to catch his breath, still grinning at the dark haired woman.
”Maybe they do! I just hope the wall doesn’t come down again; Mr. Marco was really mad!” Pascha liked Marco a lot, even if he was kind of grumpy, so he definitely didn’t like it when people made the maintenance man angry. Grumpy was okay; Mr. Marco was always grumpy. Kind of like Ellis, well, before Ellis had left. People always left. If it wasn’t for all the strange happenings at the school, Pascha might even take it more personally than he already was.
Not liking where that thought was going, Pascha dropped into the next squat before his mind could linger on it for too long. It really did help. And so did seeing someone else. Someone friendly, at least friendly enough to make a joke when she saw him. So Pascha was definitely eager to keep the conversation going a little, even if it meant he might huff and puff a little.
”Either way, I still have a lot of exercise to do today! No skipping! Anyway, my name’s Pascha, it’s nice to meet you!” And it really was, even though he didn’t know the red eyed woman’s name yet. Maybe he was a little too eager to make new friends. Not that he wasn’t really happy with knowing the Boss, Ivy, Stefano, and Gweniveire; they were all really great! But that didn’t make it hurt less that Izzie and Ellis had left him behind.
And Hasan. Pascha ignored how his heart still clenched when he thought about it. When he remembered making a fool of himself, singing his heart out to a man he couldn’t have. He tried to shake the thought and focus on his breathing instead. Breathe in on the rise, release slowly through the effort. Just like he’d read. There was no room for feeling sorry for himself; he had to concentrate. Everything would be fine that way.
She’d reached out to select a weight but her hand stopped just over it to the roar of laughter from the blondie nearby. He must have found what she said really funny. Was it? A little, but at most she anticipated a chuckle or some clever response, maybe about everyone going to the ‘other’ gym. Was there another gym? Rah didn’t know. It was only yesterday she learned this place had a whole amphitheater so yeah, maybe! But it could have just been something she said that reminded him of something. Sometimes that happened to her. Like how the mention of ice reminded her of the time Ivan sent Adelaide on a one-way trip down an ice slide with only her frilly dress to protect her little derriere from freezer burn! The memory earned a wheeze out of her.
This dude obviously knew how to live a little! It messed up his reps but he only stopped and didn’t seem bothered by that. Farrah looked back over to him and returned the grin. What he followed up with was so true and she gave a shake of her head. “I’d be mad too! But my bet is we’re safe from that happening again until at least March.” It was best that it didn’t happen at all, but if Sethos did it September, and Winduria did it just days ago, then hopefully they had more time before some Tyrannosaurus Rex headbutted their way through some second story floor during Lady Beckett’s lit class!
Thinking on it… she’d seen and personally experienced more architectural destruction at Utopia in three months than she had in her lifetime before arriving there. What an interesting if not disconcerting observation.
Quickly she elaborated before she gave the yellow-haired cutie-patootie the wrong idea. “Not that I know it’s gonna really happen! Just a wild guess!” There, disaster averted!
She took his dropping back into squats as her queue to grab the weight she was originally reaching for. With her cooldown stretches out of the way and her blood still pumping from her jog, it was time to get down to business. Farrah got into position and started doing squats of her own.
A couple reps in she heard him speak again and Rah turned her head to look over. He was introducing himself, and what a sunny sounding name to go with the sunny personality he had! Pascha seemed for sure the kind of person she’d prefer to chit chat with in the gym. “I’m Farrah but you can call me Rah if you like!” She crouched down, weight in hands and held in the center, then stood back up. “It’s nice to meet you too Pascha!”
It was just likely that they came into the gym on different days, but she still wanted to know. “Do you come here a lot? This is a makeup day for me.” She started, then took another breath before speaking again. “My weapons training left me more sore than I thought so I took a day.”
“But I’m better today! What do you like to do in here?”
Reply
