OPEN | BELIEVER

[JOSIE]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]Every part of the lodge seemed to be steeped in old memories. Damaged sections of walls, worn sections of couches, initials carved into the wood. It was well-kept, well-loved, and it gives her chills at times. Walking around this place and knowing that others had lived in it first. Her childhood home had been in her family for generations — it was a place that she could see herself raising her own kids one day, or it had been, before she left — and she knew the stories behind each piece of furniture. The rocking chair that her grandfather had made, piece by piece on his own, the bookshelf her father had been repairing for twenty years. Here, she brushes her fingers across doorknobs that have been worn down by years that she didn't know. She feels lost, if she's entirely honest, but all of that love is something she can appreciate. It makes her want to take care of this place.

The room that she's found the most comforting is in one of the corners. It's wide open and cleared of almost all furniture, but there are soft mats on the floor and a few spare dummies left propped up in the corner. They look about ready to fall apart, and she smiles a little as she wonders who had painted such a terrified expression on one of them, wonders if someone had laughed every time they knocked it down. Part of her is reluctant to pick up the tradition, but she supposes someone had left them behind for a reason. Their use would be necessary, in the end. So the director slips off her jacket and shoes, leaves them tucked neatly into the corner near the door, and stands the dummy up in the center of the room. It doesn't take too much before she's worked up a sweat, strands of wiry hair clinging to her temples. She doesn't stand still even when she's just practicing her punches (one-two cross hook combos) and it's left her a little sweaty. She'll regret it later, once she's stopped moving and the chill sets back in. For now, she just pushes it off with a few more punches.

[ELLIE]

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[div style="text-align: justify; width:490px;font-size:9.2pt; line-height:1.4"]Ellie had never trained to defend herself. Truth be told, the only weapon she ever held was a knife, and that had been for produce, not slashing at a person. It wasn't that she frowned on those who were capable of it, because she was very aware of the two kinds of individuals there could be holding the blade, but that was not an activity she could envision herself partaking in. It wasn't even that she doubted her own physical capabilities- Jo wasn't especially tall and could more than hold her own, but she was...Jo. She was rather skilled in many things, and it very much suited her to work so with her hands. Ellie simply didn't envy her, and while she knew the world contained many threats, particularly now that she was one of the Directors here, she could not imagine her hands forming fists, or raising them against someone else. It was just...not in her nature, the way it wasn't in an ant's nature to make completely independent decisions. She was more than content leaving that business to others, whose hands were far more capable than Ellie's, although that did not mean she turned away from the act. She certainly didn't walk away upon finding Jo engaged with one of the dummies, slightly sweating from her training.

"Do you ever imagine dummies as anything else? It just seems it would get dull, that's all."