Archive of Our Own ^beta

You have been circling the block for 15 minutes with no luck. At this point, you’re seriously considering walking back to the bike rack (and the puff pastry in the adjoining café) and just forgetting the whole thing.

Surely, it’s a sign. You should give up on yoga.

You’ve already struck out once. And a lack of Ben Solo aside, it’s not any more likely to work out today than it did last week. You’ll have a bear claw and a macchiato and tell Leia you made an honest attempt. It’s all for the best. Not being able to find this yoga place is just the wise hand of fate at work.

And to be honest, if only to yourself, when you reject the sign, it’s not so much catching sight of a man with a yoga mat hanging from his shoulder, as that said man is kinda gorgeous.

He walks confidently around the corner, up the stoop next to the café terrace, and in through the double doors (where you already looked).

“Um… Hey!”

It’s probably just a case of bad signage, and you already biked all the way here and you did promise to see it through, right? You run to catch up to him.

He’s black, with a glowing complexion and high round cheekbones, like he’s been carved out of rosewood and polished. About your height, but broader, toned shoulders peeking from a Right to Play tee shirt with the sleeves cut off.

He stops just past the threshold. “Yeah?”

“Uh, right, yeah, sorry. You do yoga?”

He looks to the teal mat over his right shoulder, and then back to you, mat strap tight in his fist, like he’s not sure you’re not mocking him.

“I meant— I’m looking for, um, Force For Light Yoga. It’s supposed to be in this building?” And aren’t you supposed to be smooth? “I mean. It is. Supposed to be in this building. But I can’t find it, and I was hoping you could. I’d be very grateful,” you smile, as kind as you can.

His smile is just like yours only heart-stoppingly beautiful. “It happens that I could.” His eyes find yours and he tilts his head to gesture to the end of the hall. “Come on.”

The building was clearly once a very elegant townhouse, back when the neighbourhood was exclusive, and exclusively residential. It shows its age. The brick structure still boasts heavy masonry outside, crown moldings on the walls and neat arabesque tile floors, but all of these have been tiredly preserved rather than restored. The place feels worn soft and smooth. You liked it immediately, infinitely better than the artificial and uncomfortable “lifestyle centre” where the other yoga studio had been.

You’re certain you’ll be returning to the café at least, with the sunny terrace and the rumble of coffee shop murmurs pouring from the front rooms. The baked goods smell so good you resolve to get that bear claw no matter what happens in class.

Your guide walks past the staircase, though the directions Leia had given you said Force for Light was on the third floor (which you never found).

“So are you trying yoga for the first time?” He half-turns to catch your eye, his beautiful face welcoming.

“Not quite the first time.”

“Oh?” he stops halfway down the hall.

“Well, I tried this other place last week,” you step back to let someone through. “It didn’t— it very definitely did not work out.”

“That’s too bad,” he says, sincerely regretful that you didn’t find the right studio on the first try, and wound up here instead. “Who was the teacher?”

“This kid, Ben Solo.”

He shrugs and shakes his head like he can’t place the name.

“Skinny, tall, brooding and very bendy. No?”

He leans against the wall across from you. “That’s kind of a lot of people, in these circles.”

“Ha!” you bark. “Yeah, I bet. He’s my boss’s son. It’s how the whole thing started actually— My doctor recommended I do something to relax and Leia said both Ben and her brother Luke teach yoga.”

“Oh! Luke’s nephew! Ok, no wonder: dude goes by ‘Kylo Ren’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call him by his birth name.”

“That explains why he was so pissy with me, then.” You roll your eyes. “I still remember when he interned at his mom’s magazine and whined about the publication design. I am not calling him some ridiculous name.”

“Hey, ‘Kylo Ren’ is not that bad, considering. At least his true spiritual name isn’t a vaguely racist, haphazard Sanskrit phrase.”

“Is that a lot of people, in these circles?” You try for a laugh and he obliges.

“White people,” he shrugs with a conspiratorial smile. “What can you do?”

“Well, putting your studio somewhere other than Starrskill Bend is probably a good start,” you gesture at the building all around you. He smiles back with clever eyes, like you’re starting to get it.

“It’s a shame you didn’t feel Ren’s class, though. He’s supposed to be one of the best Bikram teachers around. Maybe ever.”

“And doesn’t he know it.”

He peals with laughter then, deep and with shoulders shaking.

“It wasn’t just because of him, though,” you continue when he pushes off the wall to lean against the banister next to you. “I wish someone had told me that hot yoga rooms are that ripe.”

“What, you mean yogis don’t sweat rosewater and sandalwood?”

“No, no! No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’ve been in locker rooms filled with teenage boys. I suffered them for years! I have smelled the armpit of humanity, dude.” You hold until he stops chuckling. “This place smelled so much worse. You know how old bakeries don’t need starter cultures, because the yeast is imbued in the walls? The sweat of bodies was in those walls. In. Those. Floors! And that was before class even started!”

“Torture!”

“You laugh!” and he does, even more. “You laugh, but I got heatstroke. Heatstroke! I lay there, face down, hyperventilating. While people all around me gazed steely-eyed at the horizon and grit their teeth so their big toe wouldn’t slip from their sweaty fingers. When they all lay down I thought I was saved, and then they all started over!”

“And yet,” he grins, “you have survived.”

“No thanks to anyone there! Everyone was so into getting the pose, holding the pose, aligning the pose… Ben kept talking about the alignment. And everyone twisted into slippery teetering pretzels I had no chance of achieving even though my joints felt like rubber. I had to get out of there before the class ended. I know you’re not supposed to, but there was no way I could have stayed. I’d have died. Bikram, definitely not for me.”

“Well I’m glad you want to give yoga another shot anyway,” he smiles at you, sweet and earnest.

“I’m pretty sure I’m glad, too.”

“What gladness, then.” An old lady, tiny and spectacled, ambles down the hall with an unwieldy tray full of coffee cups. Mat-guy is quick to step back to let her through. He knows better than to try to help her.

“Hey, Maz!”

“Hello, yourself! Aren’t you late for work?”

“You know I don’t work at FFL. I’m just helping out.”

“And very helpful, you are, obstructing my hallway to chat up some young man.” She shifts her tray and shoots you a crooked smile.

“Well, it’s him I’m helping out, Maz!” he returns, full of cheek. “I’ll stop by later for some tea, alright?”

“Sure, sure!” she starts heading for the front room. “Don’t you two have too much fun!”

“What, while sweating and contorting?” The sparkle in his eye and the pull on his cheek hint at a wink that doesn’t happen. “Never!”

You emerge from the back door to a quiet leafy courtyard. On the stoop, there is a set of ornate metal stairs painted verdigris. They climb four flights to a roof terrace.

“You guys couldn’t put up a sign or something?” You ask as he starts climbing.

“There’s one by the side passage,” he points.

“Missed it.”

“I’ve told Luke it should be up front.”

He starts climbing and you follow him, glad for the view ahead: strong thighs, great ass, broad back. Gym shorts have no business looking like that— not tight, exactly, but fitted, as if they’d been tailored to his body.

Back at Solo’s Shaucha School, your clothes stood out mostly for existing, when everyone else was flashing so much skin. Now, you’re starting to worry your sweatpants seem slovenly, or make you look like an amateur.

Well, you are an amateur. There’s little to do but shrug.

The terrace is fairly large, covered in the same four color arabesque tiles, weathered matte. It wraps around a high mansard roof where a glass door has been put in.

Mat-guy holds it open for you. “You can leave your shoes in one of these cubbies.”

You walk into a wide, shallow room with sliding doors at either end of the back wall. Near each is a basket neatly stacked with yoga mats you can rent for two dollars. Force For Light’s abstracted phoenix logo is painted, white on grey, behind the tall counter at the center. The walls are whitewashed and only slightly tilted in.

There’s a pleasant give to the hardwood floors under your bare heels, and the space is soaked in the smell of a potted jasmine and the long stalks of tuberose in enormous standing vases. It feels so much like your mother’s patio it hollows out your chest.

Mat-guy leads you to the counter and grabs a clipboard. “Lemme just put you down on the sign-up sheet. Name?”

“Poe. Dameron.” You watch over his shoulder as he writes in neat, regular print. “Accent on the o. Damerón.”

“Poe, like the poet? Age?”

“32. Like a poet, sure.”

He grins again, wide and bright. “But not the poet? Not The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart?”

“My proper name is Porfirio.”

“Pore-fear-ioh?”

“And that is why I go by Poe.”

He chuckles ruefully. “Okay, fair enough. Some of us are tragically monolingual. That is a pretty distinctive name.”

“It’s inherited,” you explain. “Both my grandfather and my great grandfather were Porfirios.”

“Which one was the poet?”

“What? Oh, neither. Porfirius— early Christian Roman poet.”

“Literally a classic, then,” he shoots you a smirk. “It’s a good name. It’s a lot of name, but it’s a good name.”

“I certainly think so. Proper, old-fashioned Spanish name,” you say, thinking of your grandfather’s carefully groomed beard and the old photos of his pack of cousins, all sharp linen suits and Panama hats. “The kind you find in founding charters and old mission histories.” You lean on the counter, watch his neat strong hands and his neat strong print. “How about you? What’s yours?”

“Oh,” his grin widens and he puts down the clipboard. “My name is a non-name, it’s so generic. Jack Finn, nice to meet you.” He puts forth his hand.

You shake it. “A pleasure, Jack.”

“Finn, please.”

“Finn.” And perhaps now your hand has lingered too long on his. You let go.

Finn turns back to the clipboard with more questions. “Okay, any injuries or medical conditions?”

“I had a serious AC sprain on my right shoulder. But it’s been like 5 years, I think.”

“You’re probably fine then. And which class are you taking?”

“Oh, uhh, what does Skywalker teach?”

“You’re taking Luke’s Astanga class?” Finn is skeptical.

“What, shouldn’t I?”

“No, no, I mean. You should— look, whatever. You should take what you want. The last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from trying any class. The only wrong style of yoga is the one that doesn’t work for you.”

“But.”

“But,” Finn agrees. “If your problem with Ren’s hot yoga class was that the students were too intense and his class rigid and not very friendly to beginners, Astanga is probably not the style for you.”

Finn gestures to the low ottomans near the door and two of you sit down.

“Astanga is hardcore. It can be unforgiving. Luke is Mysore trained. He leads his class just like they do over there. Same series—same poses— every day. The students have to memorise the order because it’s independent practice. Luke just supervises and adjusts students into the asana. And you can’t move on to a new one until you’ve completely mastered the one before. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except they’re not arranged from easiest to hardest.”

“Well, that makes a ton of sense.”

Finn shrugs a bit helplessly. “Astanga is like OG, old school yoga.”

You laugh and he bumps your shoulder.

“I’m serious! It’s what asana practice originally was. It’s purist. And for some people it’s still what works best— it might be for you. If you want to try it you should come on the weekend, when Luke does vinyasa krama, a guided class. You can start learning the series.”

“Alright. I’ll think about doing that. You have any thoughts on what should I try out today, though?”

“I might have some, yes.” He juts his chin towards the door on your left. “Rey’s 7:30 class is Vinyasa Flow. That’s as freestyle as yoga can get. And she’s a really good teacher. Luke’s star disciple.” He smiles at you, with his teeth and his cheeks and his eyes. “And that’s the class I’m going to take.”

Your answering grin is more dazed than you’d like, but he just claps your thigh and gets up. “Come on, man. We got a few minutes, let’s get you set up.”

Rey looks exactly like your mental picture of a yoga teacher: slender, limber, small. Lean corded muscles are wrapped in cropped leggings and a drapey top, long brown hair pulled up in a bun and large doe-eyes attentive. She sits, serene but authoritative, at the front of the room with two standing vases behind her. There is Devanagari script painted on the wall, but no many-armed gods or seated Buddhas on the altar.

“Alright, people, settle down,” she begins, holding three incense sticks in one hand and a cheap lighter on the other. Her voice is steady, but not what you expected. Her timbre is bright and quick, rather than soothing.

The accent also throws you.

“We’ll start slow. Come sit at the front of the mat.”

You’re perfectly happy to start slow, but Finn and a few of the more experienced-looking students roll their eyes and groan.

Rey dismisses them. “Come on, people. You start slow, you get far.” She sets one incense stick by the vases, one by the door and another by the French doors facing the back.

“Easy pose: legs crossed and back straight. Settle your weight on your pelvis, and your pelvis onto the ground.” She paces back towards the front.

“Close your eyes and draw your gaze inward.”

You comply and listen for her as she moves among the mats.

“We’ll be going from the outside in. Start with your body.”

You feel her behind you, and then with two fingers on your shoulder blades, she straightens your spine. You did not even know you were slouching.

“Scan through it carefully. Is any part of your body ready for a challenge today? Does any part of it need care and patience? Make a mental note and move on. This isn’t a judgement of yourself or your body, just something to keep in mind.”

You think of your legs, steady and reliable, your deft fingers; of your sad, tense neck, of that carpal tunnel brace you haven’t been wearing to sleep.

“Move further inward; notice your breath. Don’t disturb it just yet. Observe. Approach it with sincere curiosity, like you would a friendly stranger.”

A bright toothy grin meets your mind’s eye, a warm hand on your shoulder. You like friendly strangers, after all. You convince yourself you can feel him beside you, a few feet to your right on his teal mat, the shape of him and the warmth.

“Start with the physicality of it. Does it come from your belly, your chest, up on your shoulders? Is your throat clear? Does the air flow easier through one nostril or the other?”

She said not to alter your breathing, but you can already feel it slowing down to match the cadence of her speech. You try not to. You try to not. But noticing and doing nothing more, you suddenly discover, is not at all easy.

“Notice how long it is, how deep, how fluid…”

A soft silent buzz, a hollow where white noise should be fills the room after she quiets.

“Now, make your breath slower and deeper. Begin to breathe in slowly, so you can breathe in longer. The longer you breathe in, the longer you breath out. Build up towards Ujjayi breath, slow and deliberate.”

You hear some of the other students’ breath, suddenly impossibly loud, like they were wearing respirators.

“In and out slowly through your nose. And if you can, close up the back of your throat like you mean to fog up a mirror.”

You try it, and at least in the exhale there is a sound like what you’ve been hearing, slightly faster and not as loud. (You harken back to your uncle’s voice lessons, breathe with your body, sing through your face.)

“Every breath in and every breath out sound like the coming and going of the sea. Let your breathing lead you in. Use it to find some intention for today’s practice. Something beyond your body, beyond your goals for it and for yourself.”

You’re a bit stumped, because you only really want to fix yourself. To be less wound up, maybe get some decent sleep. Completely self-involved. Except. You do need fixing. Is it selfish if you need it to function? You’re trying to avoid burn-out. So you can keep giving Leia and the magazine the kind of effort you meant to, back when you started.

Make it selfless, and sincere, and concrete: more than good wishes, good deeds.

And you see it then, a very everyday future where writing and researching aren’t exhausting, and your stories don’t feel pointless. Where you walk your dog and go out with a cute guy and visit your dad. Where you take well to shouldering the responsibility of being a watchdog or a gatekeeper, or any of the other things you learned you were supposed to be back in college. Where thinking about how problematic those roles really are makes your writing more nuanced rather than more hypocritical.

When you can see it, in all its detail, its time and place and its name and its face,

Its date on the masthead, its kind, weathered face in sensible pantsuits and elaborately gathered greying hair, its abstract mass, the readership both you and she are ultimately responsible to.

offer it up to the cosmos with the mantra ‘Om’. “Deep inhale,” Rey says, and you’re not entirely sure when her voice stopped giving instructions so much as narrating the inside of your head, but the group’s collective deep breath brings you back out.

“OM.”

The music is objectively terrible. It’s not Hindu prayers set to sitars, which you half expected, but it is still terrible. Bland-major-key-electronic-music-from-a-car-commercial terrible. You get that the point of it is that it’s easy to ignore. And it would be, for anyone who’s less of a music pedant than you.

Rey has no problem talking over the repetitive beat and guides everyone through some simple range of motion warm-ups for wrists, arms, neck, and spine. She brings everyone to all fours, and from there to the infamous “downward facing dog”, absent from Ben Solo’s class though you’d seen it in pretty much every popular depiction of yoga ever. Rey is careful to call the pose by its Sanskrit name, Adho Mukha Svanasana, and encourages everyone to flex knees and point toes to limber up the legs and hips.

“You guys ready for the real warm-up, now?”

You catch Finn’s gaze and he mouths “You ready?”

You’d better be.

‘Real warm-up’ in a class like this apparently consists of a looping series of push-ups separated by standing stretches, more Adho Mukhas, and a spinal stretch which seems to be its upward facing companion. Rey calls this series “Surya Namaskar” and then clarifies “A”, so you’re already expecting the B version when she interrupts the class.

“Before we go any further, has anyone got any injuries, aches or pains I don’t already know about? I should have asked before.”

“Just the usual,” jokes a woman two rows ahead, with thin, tidy locs tucked into two spectacular victory rolls.

“No one else? No? Alright, then, any newcomers?”

You raise your hand, as do two women, thirty or thereabouts, who placed their mats near the door. She looks at you and quietly gestures a checkmark before turning to them. One of them seems solid, if a bit out of shape, but the other is so skinny she looks like she might break.

“Okay. You two, look at Ahsoka,” Rey gestures at the woman with the victory rolls. “She’s a very serious yogini. But she’s nursing a rotator cuff injury, so right now she’s doing the gentler version of this transition.”

She tells them to set down their knees and where to bring their elbows and how to keep their spines straight while Ahsoka demonstrates the movements.

“Other yoga schools would tell you to follow this with a cobra pose, but here we would rather you leave that for a backbend class, so come back to table pose. From here, tuck your toes down, lift your knees and stretch your legs to lift your pelvis completely skyward. This is downward dog,” she says, stressing the friendlier English names for the asana.

“Once you’ve got more strength in your core and upper body,” she gestures to the shaggy-haired boy on the mat next to Ahsoka, “your sun salutations will look like this.”

The boy runs through each step with one of those sonorous breaths, keeping right angles and straight lines. When he shifts into a push-up (sorry, ‘chaturanga’), he seems to almost float back, toes barely skimming the mat. Rey annotates some of the poses for the class, the new students a good excuse for a general refresher: Look at how the hips neither droop down nor jut up, notice how nothing touches the ground except palms and insteps, how the whole body tries to rise, how the tailbone points completely up—

“Is the transition clear?”

The women nod; the rest of the class agrees.

“Thank you, Ezra,” Rey says, and the boy sets his knees on the mat and rises to sit back on his heels with a friendly smile.

“Eventually —and there’s no pressure here— eventually maybe you you’ll be able to do something like this: Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“Make it inspired.”

And so, Finn, already shirtless but not yet really sweaty, comes to stand at the front of his teal mat, shaking off excess energy. He does the same arms up pose on the inhale, bend down on the exhale— though he doesn’t bend as far as Ezra, who had touched his forehead to his shins. Then he looks ahead, gaze steady, and sets his palms firmly on the ground, arms stretched and shoulders forward.

And, on the exhale. Without jumping. Or launching off. Or teetering. As if he weighed nothing. As if this was something human bodies do:

He lifts his feet off the ground, tucks his knees to his chest, tidily places himself in a handstand.

On the inhale he unfurls his legs slowly, joint by joint until he’s perfectly vertical and perfectly steady. And just when you think he could hold the pose forever, he begins to exhale.

His elbows bend deliberately, and he throws his shoulders, his chin, further forward. For an instant on the way down he’s perfectly suspended, toes and chin well off the ground, his body holding at a shallow angle. He touches down, then, toes barely thudding against the mat, to land on chaturanga. He stretches his chest in upward facing dog, tucks his toes down, and back he goes to downward dog.

“Thank you, Finn,” Rey smiles as some of the other students hoot their approval.

Finn sets his knees down and brings his hips to his heels. This one you know: child pose.

Still catching his breath and without bothering to get up, he turns to look at you again and mouths a question. “Did you see that? Did you see that?”

You cannot hold in your smile.

“Amazing,” you mouth back.

Surya Namaskar B adds some standing poses to the looping push-ups and stretches. That you can keep up just fine gives you new appreciation for your strong, muscled legs.

The poses have a stance that feels powerful, immovable. You get exactly why these are ‘warriors’, and you marvel at your own capacity to hold them, firm and stable for endless slow breaths, lunges frozen into stone. You’re usually all about flying off quickly.

At some point, you’ve stopped consciously noticing Rey’s cues. You’ve pushed them to the background as easily as the car commercial music, the incense, and your own sweat. You don’t notice when the chaturanga transitions become sparse in the pattern of asana, sun salutations coming to their end. You barely realise that you’ve turned on the mat and your low lunge leaves you facing the back windows; you barely wonder that you’ve turned back when you do its mirror image. You forget even to be distracted by Finn’s ass in extended side angle pose when you come into it on the left leg.

Right now, you are in your body and on your body. You are your body.

The entire class comes to move as one. Everyone’s breathing is a single loud rumble, a rolling wave, a rustling breeze. People seem to pour their limbs from pose to pose as if slow dancing with themselves.

You are a good deal more clumsy about it— you mostly don’t know what each asana is called, and some cues are given in an obscure shorthand of body parts and verbs: “ribs in” or “breathe with the hips” or “turn the inside of your thigh.”

But you’re managing.

You attempt to copy Ezra’s floating transition and Rey nods an encouragement. There is a pleasant burn on the back of your arms when you go back to downward dog. Rey takes the opportunity to poke thumb and index finger into your ribs, and the meaning of “use your muscles as a corset” clicks into place.

Sweat is an even sheen on your skin, rather than a pouring stream. You forget to hesitate to take off your shirt, and literally nobody notices that you do. Most men in class already have, and many women are down to sports bras or have tucked or tied their shirts up. There is no self-consciousness.

Every one of you is in your body and on your body. You are your bodies.

At some point, Rey brings the class down from the standing asana to a series of planks, chaturangas, and something called a ‘tiger curl pose’ which runs a bit like a slow motion, asymmetrical mountain climber. The series ends with dolphin pose.

“Orca of death,” Finn mutters to you.

He is mostly a respectful student, if a bit goofy. He doesn’t speak out, as a few of the others have, but he does smile, murmur and point out things when he catches your eye. And he’ll dramatically make a face every time Rey adjusts his posture or stance, quick as he is to comply.

“Quiet, you,” she tuts at him. “Dolphin is the great equaliser,” she then informs you and the other newcomers. “You suffer through it on your first class, you suffer through it on your ten thousandth.”

She explains the alignment carefully and encourages all of you to deepen the pose as much as you can. It burns in your arms, your shoulders and your upper back when you do. The effort feels completely worth it, though, because after that you manage something called bakasana, or crow pose.

You’re thrilled.

It’s an arm balance, which means you lift your feet off the ground and hold yourself up with your arms, in this case, with your knees tucked against the back of them, above your elbows. It feels like you have conquered gravity by staying perfectly still.

Next to you, Finn works on a similar balance, but with unbent elbows, and transitions to another handstand and then back. A few of the people up front, including Ezra, are also working with crow transitions, unbending their legs to fall back into chaturanga, or stretching them forward over their arms and shoulders, like their hamstrings don’t obey the laws of physics.

In the row between you and them, a man with an auburn ponytail bends his head to the mat from the arm balance and rises to a headstand. The hem of his baggy board shorts drops down and reveals a large patch of pasty thigh, and you suddenly understand why the cut of Finn’s shorts is a good idea.

Rey warns Ahsoka away from arm balances, and she spends the few minutes Rey gave them “to play around some,” tucking her shoulder beneath her bent knee in a low lunge, forearms on the mat.

Rey uses this time to give the newbies a more thorough rundown of chaturanga, some tips on keeping the elbows aligned, and recommends they spend some more time in dolphin pose.

Finn has moved on from crows and transitions and is sitting back on his heels, with knees and shins on the mat. He places his palms on the floor and tries to lift himself to a handstand from this position, pushing and grunting. Rey goads him kindly when he only makes it halfway up before collapsing on the mat.

This moment feels so much like grade school recess; you are so completely hooked.

Rey manages to settle all of you down to sit at the front of the mat and gets back into the rhythm of leading a class.

(A Matthew Dear track interrupts the string of forgettable electronica and you take a moment to be offended that someone lumped it into that playlist.)

The oblique instructions make a comeback, too, with Rey telling you to “tuck your navel away beneath your diaphragm” and “spread out your vertebrae” before entering a series of seated stretches. You lean forward to touch your toes with your legs together, then with either foot against inner thigh, and with either knee pointing up and your shin hugged behind your arm.

The next series includes more forward bends, now with feet sole to sole, now with legs spread, and then some side stretches. Another chaturanga-upward dog-downward dog leaves you lying on your back, where you work the same types of stretches one leg at a time. It feels like a very deliberate winding down, letting gravity do the work for you.

Then Rey tells everyone to sit up, knees bent and spread as far apart as the mat is wide. “Walk forward with your hands until your shoulders can go no further down. Here, thread your arms beneath your knees, and if you can, touch the outside of your ankles.”

Most of the class remains there, including you and Finn, but a couple of the bendier students tuck their shoulders fully beneath their knees and stretch both arms and legs out to bring their chest to the floor. You are honestly in no hurry to ever achieve that pose.

Rey encourages everyone to breathe through the work of the forward bend. “With every breath, let yourself sink deeper into the asana, surrender to it.” She counts ten breaths for this instead of the usual five.

“Slowly and gently, bring your arms back in, look ahead and up, and slowly come to lie down, face up on your mat. Everyone ready for final sequence?”

Bridge pose (a standard butt lift) feels amazing on your quads and abs, a deep, satisfying stretch that undoes not just an hour’s worth of yoga effort, but an entire day of sitting down in a terrible office chair and a worse bike seat. The shoulder stand that follows is a bit more unsteady but the rush of blood to your skull feels almost cooling.

“On the exhale, settle back down, rolling each notch in your spine onto the floor, one by one, very slowly. There is no air between your back and your mat.”

You pull both shoulders up and in to get rid of the nook between your shoulder blades, shift your hips a little, try to find a spot for the back of your head that won’t stress your neck.

“Savasana: corpse pose. When you’re ready, spread your limbs on the floor, toes out, palms up. Deliberately surrender to gravity. You are no longer the one holding you up.”

Rey turns the music down and you say goodbye to car commercials. She walks among all of you lighting more incense, opening the French doors to the cool evening air.

“Scan through your body.” You hear her kneel behind you, but it’s still unexpected when she takes your head around the temples and, very gently, pulls back. Your ears come free from your shoulders and your head feels like there is no other position it could sensibly be in. “Release all of the effort, the fatigue, the achievement, of your practice.”

She gets up silently and leaves you to your moment. Your entire body is tingling.

“Start with the largest muscles, the ones that keep you upright, make you stand proud: your core, your back, the long, strong muscles of your thighs. Let them go, you do not need them just now.”

You feel them, whispering with blood flow, how able they are, how solid. You send them your thanks until the tingle quiets to a satisfied hum.

“Then the smaller ones, further on your limbs: the dextrous muscles on your arms, that write and draw and gesture. The muscles on your legs that dance and leap. Let them go, you do not need them just now.”

You feel your nerves firing up and down your limbs, out to the furthest tip of you and back. How little some of them are, and how skilled. And how sweet to let them go completely still.

“The muscles that move your head from side to side, that tense your jaw; the ones that make you frown, yes, but also the ones that make you smile. Let them go, you do not need them just now.”

You let your mouth go slack. You’re really not trying to, but you think there’s a smile there, too slight to erase, too slight to matter. The rushing tingle rises up your neck like a flush. It crawls beneath each of your cheekbones and up your temples and meets on your brow. Between your eyes, the hum bursts up and out, as if something both poured and shot from that spot skyward.

“The very smallest muscles, the ones that move your tongue inside your mouth, your eyes in their sockets. Let them go, you do not need them just now.”

With your skull and your face thrumming, you let your eyes roll back beneath their lids, a slide show of colors painted on them.

But they are not painted, you realize. They are not flat, solid projections on your eyelid. They are deep. Bright blurry whales floating in the dark behind your pupil.

Your retina is firing, stimulating itself since nothing else will.

“And then, let your breathing go as you have your body.” It does not need to be sonorous. It does not need to be long. It does not need to be deep or slow.

A rush of cool air comes in your nose and comes back out warm and humid. You slow it down. Then more. And again. Until you can’t feel it.

Let it return to its natural state, easy and automatic, as it was at the beginning of the class when you set out to meet it.

Your breath is so very quiet, so very slight. You barely hear it, it carries so little air.

Your ears start to seem hollow, filled just with the sounds of themselves. The rushing of blood, the rustling of hairs. The charged quiet of an instrument’s resonance chamber, unplucked, unblown, unstruck.

And finally, let your thoughts, your emotions go. Realise that they are external to your mind and to your Self, that they are transitory.

There is a black circle in the middle of your whales. It is stark, neat, and perfect. And it is always in the foreground.

It is the end of your optic nerve. There is no color where there is no retina. Your eye is seeing inside itself.

In your ears, there is nothing but the tinnitus of city life, grown so common you no longer have to try to ignore it. It is exquisitely present now.

The mind is a spring. Ideas, feelings, thoughts— they are the flowing current. If you cling to them, the water stagnates and clouds. If you release them, the water stays fresh and clear. Clarity lets you see the ground beneath both current and spring. What is true, what is permanent,

Your senses are awake to themselves, to the very truth of them.

You are perceiving yourself, and thus aware of your being.

what is truly the Self.

Of where within you it is still.

Here, there is no emotion, there is peace.

Of where within you it is silent.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

Of where within you it is always.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

And there is where you find me.

Hello.

You wiggle toes and fingers when Rey says, curl your limbs when Rey says, turn onto your side when Rey says. You are almost ready for it when she tells you to push off the floor and come to sit in easy pose with your eyes closed and your palms together above your heart.

“Take a moment to thank yourself for the moments you’ve just dedicated to this side of you. Take another to thank your fellow students for sharing their moments. For displaying for you their might and their flaws and their joy.”

And you do. You’re so grateful for Finn’s sunny smile and Rey’s bright voice. For bendy Ezra and rigorous Ahsoka, and for the new girls (who are not half as strong as you and must be twice as brave).

You are thankful for Leia Organa and even for Ben Solo.

Rey leads a loud and steady Om. And when you pitch it just right, you lose your voice among everyone else’s. It’s just a single solid syllable flowing from everyone’s mouth.

Your eyes are wet, and your cheeks. The salty drops are lost in the sweat, probably nobody will notice. And if someone does, it won’t matter to them.

Or it will. That would be wonderful.

The last time you found it corny, but something within you feels greeted warmly when Rey says:

“Namasté.”

You stand on wobbly knees, a rushing sound still your ears. You’ve rubbed your eyes a couple times. Oh, man. How are forward bends so hard? How is everything else so much?

You follow Finn’s lead to roll up your mat and hang back while the room empties.

He runs a microfiber towel over his face and chest before putting his shirt back on. You have been using yours as a towel and have to put it on sweat-soaked.

“Ugh, man, wasn’t this supposed to be cold yoga? It was supposed to be cold yoga.”

“Not dry yoga, though,” he quips back, pulling his strap around his rolled mat. He hefts it over his shoulder and grabs yours for you. “You all set?” he leads you out the door, smirking at your sore walk. There’s a tired ache on the front of your hips and your hamstrings feel as if they’ve given out.

“I’m starting to think I might not be made for yoga, buddy.”

Finn laughs. “Come on, man, that’s bull. ‘I’m too stiff for yoga’ is like ‘I’m too hungry for dinner.’”

“Maybe, but getting dinner doesn’t cause pain.”

Finn laughs some more. “You just gotta hang in there. You’re pretty fit, you’ll catch on fast. You just have to offset what pedaling does to your body. You’re a cyclist, right?”

“Uh, yeah. How did you know?”

“Strong quads, short hamstrings. And your sprained shoulder— you got bumped by a car, right?”

“Yes. Tumbled off and right onto a divider.”

He winces.

“It sounds worse than it was, I promise. It’s a common riding injury.”

“I know.” He explains: “I’m a personal trainer— you sort of learn to pick the workout from the body type. Like, look,” he discreetly points at the man with the board shorts. “Kanan. You can tell yoga is his only real exercise because he’s got great muscle tone on his upper back, but none to speak of in his chest. Chaturanga is a triceps push-up, with pretty much no pectorals.”

“Huh. So you really don’t work here?”

“Like I said, man, I just help out.”

“You help me out,” you say, and bump his shoulder.

“The customer is always right, right?”

“Exactly!” You’re staring at his mouth, but you swear it’s an accident when you bite your lip. “Where do you work, then? Really work?”

“Oh. First Order Fitness, over by 7th.” Finn points vaguely in their direction.

“I’ve heard of it! The weight lifting nazis?”

He laughs all the way down to his ribs. “The bodybuilders at least, for sure. There’s a lot of long distance runners and triathletes there too, equally hardcore. They give me so much shit about the yoga. They started calling me ‘traitor’ and I’m not super certain it’s a joke.”

“So you’re not a yoga teacher at all?”

“Nope.”

“Are they mutually exclusive, or…?”

“No, no, not at all. Luke’s been on me to sign up for a Teacher Training, actually, but I dunno. Even if I could afford it, I think I would still rather stick to what I know.”

“You’d be great,” you say, with a squeeze to his shoulder. “Some of the stuff you did there was amazing.”

“Not really,” he scoffs playfully. “A great practice” and he concedes this with mock modesty, “doesn’t make a great teacher— look at Kylo Ren.”

“Rather not,” you smirk.

“This is what I’m saying. I could never lead someone in towards themselves like Rey can. Sometimes I’m not sure I even can meditate. I’m fine where I am, really. I mean, I only got into yoga back when Rey and I started going out.”

“Right.” You blink. Did they finish going out, or… Is he telling you he wants you to back off? He holds your gaze but you have no idea how to interpret that.

“Come on,” he says. “Put that mat away, I’ll walk you down to Maz’s.”

A fragrant cup of strong black tea is waiting for Finn with the barista. He drinks it black, scans the room, asks if you want to stick around and get something.

“Who do I have to talk to to get a bear claw?”

Finn turns to the barista and she starts ringing up the order. The two of you find a table.

“What did you think of Rey’s class, then?”

“It was great.”

“I’m glad you liked it. She’s an amazing teacher.”

“Yeah, well. You’re a good student to her.” You can picture her competent hands adjusting him, and his response, always playful and warm.

He grins like you just paid him the highest possible compliment.

“You didn’t do too bad yourself. That was a neat bakasana.”

“It was, wasn’t it.” You take a big bite of your pastry, just to hold in your grin.

“So FFL met your expectations, then.”

“No— I mean, I didn’t even know to expect this. How could I? It was enormous.” You let your body still and your gaze unfocus. You let yourself realize it is possible. “The experience was so… So.” you gesture, trying to encompass everything. “I think I cried in savasana.”

He squeezes your hand and lets go, something in his eyes inordinately tender. He lets you have some quiet. Sips his drink. Keeps breathing. It is all very kind. You take a deep breath and it smells of incense and tea.

When you can face him again his gaze is soft and so is his generous mouth. “You work for Luke’s sister, right? It’s a shame you didn’t get to meet him, even if you didn’t take his class.”

“Yeah. She talks about him a lot.”

“What’s she like?”

“Scarily competent.”

“That’s the best kind of boss.”

“Definitely. She’s kind and relentless and inspiring. I’ve worked for her since before graduating college. She’s the reason I even became a journalist. Her and my mom.”

“Is she a journalist too?”

“She was.” Your voice grows wistful. “Very serious investigative reporter. She’s my hero. And I don’t just mean because she took care of the family and supported us through thick and thin. I mean she changed people’s lives for the better.”

“And that’s the best kind of hero.”

“And your boss?”

“My boss is scarily competent, and she is definitely relentless. But she is not kind. And what she inspires is mostly fear. But we know how we’re expected to perform and it’s all very rigorous. We all know our jobs and we do them well. Phasma runs the gym like a very tightest ship.”

“I meant Luke, actually.”

“Oh! Well.” Finn shrugs. “Luke is not my boss. I just help out.”

You roll your eyes.

“He’s… He’s very grounded, I guess. Everything he does is purposeful. He used to run a huge ashram, filled with tons students, people who actually called him ‘guru’. He won’t talk about exactly why that place fell apart, but his priorities are different now. He keeps things small, where he can care for everyone himself.”

“That’s the best kind of teacher,” you say. And it’s good. He deserves one.

“Listen,” he says leaning closer, “I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime. Get a drink or something.”

“Uh—Yeah! Yeah, that would be great, I— it would be great.” Nerves tremble in your laughter. “You know, I had half convinced myself you were dating Rey.”

He winces a little, sucks in a deep breath. “I— uh. I am. Actually.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Three years now.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Yeah.”

“So. You must really love her.”

“Yes.” He hesitates to smile, but has to.

“Oh.” You blink, slowly.

“Look, I’m fucking this up. It’s not supposed to be dramatic. I like you, and I want to get to know you, so long as I have the chance. But I understand if you’re not cool with it.”

“So.” You stop to gather your thoughts. “So you guys have an open relationship, or…?”

“Not ‘open’, not exactly.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I’ve never had this conversation before, and I have no idea how to have it. We don’t just go out with anyone.”

“Should I be flattered that I’m not just anyone?” You didn’t mean to be snide and it didn’t come out snide, but you still wish you could take it back.

“If you want to?” He doesn’t look like he feels attacked. “What I meant is that Rey is cool with me asking you out. I promise. I mean, you met her; I brought you to her class.”

“Right,” it suddenly occurs to you— “Was she vetting me?”

“What?” he laughs. “No, dude. I don’t bring men to class so they can get her approval. No matter how invested she is in my doing this.”

“Of course you don’t. That would be weird.”

“Poe,” he shakes his head, “is anything not weird?”

Plenty of things aren’t. They usually bore you.

“If it would clear up things for you, you should talk to Rey. I promise she’s okay with it. She likes you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t do threesomes.”

Finn grins. “Neither does she.”

“Does that mean you do?” you flirt back.

“It turns out I’m an open-minded kind of guy.”

You open your mouth to say something, but you have no clue what might be.

“Could you just think about it? Absolutely no pressure. I’ll give you my number. You can call me, or you can decide it’s not for you. Just let me know and I’ll leave you alone. It’s completely up to you.”

He reaches out a palm to ask for your phone. You give it to him.

You arrive exactly two minutes late for Friday’s 6:30 class, disappointed to have missed Finn even though that’s what you meant to do, and surprised to discover that the class is Ahsoka’s.

“Hey! I didn’t know you were a teacher!” You set your mat next to the three other people there, forming a single row.

“Kid, I studied under Luke’s father. I studied under Luke’s father’s guru, in point of fact.”

“Jesus. However old you are, you don’t look it.”

“That’s a much better comment than it could have been,” she grins magnanimously.

Luke’s father. Leia never talks about her birth dad. You know her biological mother died in childbirth, and she talks gushingly about Luke. But beyond him, when Leia says ‘family’ he means the Organas, who adopted her. She means the ex-husband she can’t really seem to leave behind, and doesn’t actually want to. She means her exacting son. You wonder about this man who obliquely helped to shape her, who directly shaped Ahsoka. What could he possibly be like?

While you muse, Ahsoka uncorks a long, thin ceramic jar and retrieves a single incense stick, thicker and coarser looking than the standard fare. The sharp smell reminds you of your aunts burning copal and the citronella candles in the patio.

“Now that we’re here, we can welcome the new addict among us.”

“I’m hardly an addict,” you protest. “This is my second time here.”

“It’s twenty to seven on a Friday.”

You concede the point.

The class starts a bit late, but you don’t really mind much. You settle into the pace and the poses.

Her sequence has familiar bones; it’s clearly of the same type as Rey’s. And yet it still feels distinct. If Rey’s class felt like an untested path with unexpected turns, Ahsoka’s is almost the opposite. The movements are much less like a dance, and yet every new asana feels like the only logical segue to the last.

The other students are far more proficient than you, but Ahsoka is still patient and illuminating. The length of the breath is always rigorously controlled, the pace slower. Her voice is low and her rhythm ponderous. Her playlist is full of classical chamber music, timbres sweet and melodies pleasing. You hate to say it, but you miss the car commercials.

Today’s achievement is half of a headstand. You’re apprehensive your neck will resent it, but Ahsoka sets up the pose neatly for you, teaches you to find the crown of your head, and offers her knee for you to lean against. She promises you won’t need the wall, and you don’t. You push the bones on your elbows hard onto the mat when your toes sweep clean off the floor, and you keep your knees to your chest. You wonder if this strange sort of plain-faced lightness is what Finn feels during those spectacular handstands. The thought makes you smile, and you forget to mind that you have no idea what to say to him.

You come out of savasana with a startled shudder to find all the other students have gone. Ahsoka sits in a loose lotus near her incense, eyes closed and chin down.

“I’m sorry, Ahsoka. Did I fall asleep?”

“I’m fairly sure you didn’t.”

“Then why didn’t you bring me out of savasana?”

“I thought you’d rather stay there. And I’m sure you have no pressing engagements.”

“I could have,” you mutter weakly.

“It’s not that late.”

“If you say so.” You sit up, cross-legged, and watch her watch the incense. You see her chest rise with each inhale and sink with each exhale. You feel the rhythm in your ribs, gradually opening up to match it.

You’ve completely forgotten yourself when you hear the laughter outside and startle. A small pack of grinning yogis set their mats on the tile and take turns to go into complicated backbends, arm balances, and inversions.

“I’d actually forgotten it was this week,” Ahsoka frowns. “They do this every month.”

“What, goofing off on the terrace?”

“It’s a photoshoot. They do it to post online.”

Indeed, you see people trading smartphones before settling into some showy asana, trade back to return the favor. Some change position to make the best of the late summer sunset and the skyline.

“I take it you disapprove.”

“Yoga is the obliteration of ego. Nothing there,” she points at this activewear clad circus troupe, “will take you in that direction.”

Ahsoka shakes her head and picks up her little jar of incense. “I’m glad you came to my class, Poe. I’ll see you next Friday.”

She leaves the room but you stay where you are, looking out the French doors. You barely notice when you decide to open them and step out.

Finn’s teal mat is around the corner, and he is on it. He’s laying on his back with his legs in the air, supporting Rey, who is —somehow— sitting on the soles of his feet.

She’s tucked her legs into a lotus, and you can see from the strain on her back that she’s holding herself very carefully. She feigns carelessness, though, setting her elbow on her knee and her chin on her palm.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty comfortable here.”

Finn’s response is to twist one leg slightly over the other, turning Rey left as if she sat on a spinning office chair. She yelps and reaches to grab his ankles.

“Don’t! drop me!” she commands.

He chuckles and moves her back. “I would never drop you.” His smile is steadfast.

“Don’t scare me either!”

He makes no promises there, but he does offer her his hands.

An older man stands off to the side of them, shaggy-haired and grey-bearded, taking occasional photos. It’s Skywalker. You recognize him not because his features are anything like Leia’s, but from the exhaustion in his eyes and the kindness in his smile. He watches Finn and Rey with sharp eyes and a lenient posture. You know exactly how that mentorship feels.

Rey untucks her legs and lets them drop. Finn grabs her ankles and she grabs his, and with a neat tuck, he sets her down standing beyond his head.

She turns to stand facing him and he sets his elbows on the floor, close to his chest. They check with Luke, who nods. She leans down so they can lock hands, bone to bone, and match their breathing. She nods just slightly and, exactly when their chests contract, she leaps into a straddle jump and quickly brakes to stop on a handstand. They hold for a bit, until Rey’s arms stop trembling and the pose feels steady. When Rey breathes out heavy and her shoulders settle still, it’s Finn who nods. She tightens her posture and he stretches his arms to lift her, like he’s bench pressing the world’s most aesthetic barbell.

They hold for two or three breaths. It’s beautiful. Finn is broad and muscled and firm and bright. Rey is slim and muscled and firm and bright.

Fine, so maybe you would watch that sex tape.

They’re grinning when Rey’s entire right side slackens and she drops with a sudden squeal. Luke steps in to catch her hips but lets her manage her limbs by herself. She catches herself and crumples into a playful tangle next to Finn.

“It was longer than last time,” he pants.

“We’ll get it,” she takes his hand. “Strength is not the problem, it’s the balance.”

He nods his agreement.

“Hey, Finn!” Luke Skywalker calls, his voice a shock. He’s grabbed Finn’s ankles and is tilting his weight forward “HEP!”

“Are you crazy, old man?” Finn yells, but lifts him anyway. “We don’t have a spotter!”

They don’t, because Rey has walked away from them and towards you, standing in the shadow of the rooftop. She grins slyly.

Skywalker, suspended on Finn’s legs like an oblivious Superman, scoffs. “Come on, kid. Don’t tell me you can’t carry your poor old teacher.”

“I can carry you. I’m not sure your pelvis can carry you.”

You chuckle and Rey catches you, but you honestly can’t find it in you to feel awkward.

“So you took Ahsoka’s class?” she asks, collapsing to sit on the step off of the French doors, patting the spot beside her. You sit down.

Back by the terrace corner, Ezra laments as he paws at his phone. “It came out super blurry!” He’d been attempting to get a good picture of Finn’s one arm handstand— or rather, his attempt at it.

“But can you see his hips?” Luke asks as the three of them huddle over the screen. “That’s what I meant about tilting off the plane.”

They set up for another attempt. Finn catches your eye as he rises to the handstand, but after a small smile, his focus is back on Luke.

“How did you like it?”

“Like— like what, sorry?”

“Ahsoka’s class.”

“Oh, right. It was pretty great. I liked the small class size, it felt very introspect—“

“YES! Look, guys, this one came out awesome!”

Rey grins. “Yes, well, I hear yoga can be very meditative when it isn’t Instagram Jam night.”

“Yeah. Apparently Ahsoka prefers the latter.”

“Believe me, I know,” she rolls her eyes. “She’s not wrong, though.”

“Isn’t she? I mean, I can see that this isn’t any kind of deep spiritual event. But people are having fun together. It builds community.”

“It can, but that’s not why we’re doing it, and that’s the sad part,” she explains. “A lot of yoga teachers come to practice here, especially on Friday nights, when only the zealots show up.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

“You are very welcome.” You can’t tell how many ways she means it. “The point is that there are a lot of yoga professionals here. And the way yoga professionals promote themselves is on social media. On Instagram, very specifically. Hang on.”

She scans the terrace and gets up to retrieve her phone. When she returns, she shows you an endless scroll of arm balances in gardens and inversions at the beach. Some photos are tagged too heavily to even make each apart.

“So, we set up Instagram Jams. We gather as many teachers and advanced students as we can. We do this intense, thorough sequence to warm up and then make the best of the backdrop, and try to get enough pics to post for a few weeks. A lot of it is just getting some impossible asana or another,” she pulls up a picture of a man lifting his hands off the floor in a headstand.

“It’s not always like that. Luke’s favorite pictures are of his teaching, not his practice,” she points at where he’s still coaching Finn, this time for the transition he couldn’t manage in class last time. “But if you ask Ahsoka— and a lot of others— the best parts of yoga just cannot show in pictures. How could insight and meditation and absorption of the senses fit in a selfie? And they’re right. We’re not doing yoga right now, we’re just marketing it. Marketing us.”

“But then, isn’t it still worth it?” you try to convince her. “If it lets you do this for a job, this thing you love.”

“Maybe. But this thing you love changes once it’s a job. I don’t think Ahsoka could love it if she couldn’t do it on her own terms.”

“Can you?”

“I’m sure I will always love it. It’s given me too much to ever resent. But it definitely gets weird once your income hangs on yoga. That kind of worry is pretty much the reason Finn isn’t a teacher yet.”

“Yeah? You know him better,” and it is worth it to remind yourself she does, “but he gave me the impression that he wasn’t looking to become one.”

“He says that, and it’s true. But nobody sets out become a yoga teacher. It happens to you— it’s serendipity. Not everyone tries yoga, and not everyone who tries it stays. Not everyone who practices is curious enough to want to train as a teacher. But when you are, it’s not usually because you meant to.”

“But not everyone who would want to can afford it.”

“A lot of people can’t,” she nods, “Though Finn could. Luke would jump for joy to have him in a Teacher Training. He’s offered to let him take one for free. Finn just won’t agree.”

“Is it really for him, then? If he hasn’t taken up the offer?”

“It’s because Finn is Finn,” she answers with a fond smile. “This studio supports itself. The students’ fees pay rent and utilities and teachers by the hour. But if Luke tried to make a living off of it, he’d price out the students he most wants to keep. He really makes his money from trainings. And so long as that is Luke’s source of income, Finn won’t be taking him up on the offer.”

“He doesn’t want to take the place of a paying student?”

“Exactly. Luke could get him to relent, I think, if he offered to let Finn work to pay it off. He could easily take over several classes a week once he’s certified. But Luke won’t do that. because Luke is Luke. And that would mean exploiting a student.”

You smile. “They’re two of a kind, then.”

“They’re impossible, is what they are. Finn won’t be a registered yoga teacher, basically, until he’s saved enough money that he won’t feel he’s getting an unfair advantage, however long that takes. And Luke will find a way to give it back.”

Over by the corner, Finn has rolled up his mat and left the choice spot to Kanan, who’s trying to land on crow straight from Adho Mukha.

“He’s done it before, you know,” Rey informs you casually. “He walked away from an athletic scholarship because his school kept turning a blind eye to hazing. Had to work through college instead. He will not let himself do something he thinks is to the detriment others.”

“That’s very noble.”

“That’s one thing to call it.”

“Are you saying you wish he wasn’t?”

“No. Obviously, no.” She bites her lip and sighs. “I respect his principles. They’re fundamental to him. I just hate to see him deprive himself.” Her eyes find Finn where he is now, leaning against the verdigris railing.

“There are things in life that deserve to be explored, Poe.” Her smile is kind, and then it is sly again.

“Hey. Are you still warmed-up from class?”

“Some, I guess. Why?”

“Want me to take a picture?”

“What for? My most exciting pose so far is just crow.”

“Like you said: for fun, for community. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Your Warrior II is excellent.”

The two of you find a mat to borrow and set you up facing the sun. Rey adjusts your pose far more minutely than she would in class, and snaps several pictures at once when she’s satisfied.

“Are you on Instagram? I’ll tag you.”

You smile back as you leave the pose. “I’m PoePorFavor. I warn you, my Instagram is mostly pictures of my dog, food porn, and vintage bicycles.”

“I’m Rey_Of_Light, with underscores. Mine is just motorcycles, pincha mayurasana, and Finn.” She grins, wide and cheeky. “And now one of you.”

You’re halfway home when your phone vibrates with the Instagram notification. You look good in the picture, drenched in pink-orange sunlight, purposeful and decisive.

Which you aren’t.

You did not manage to avoid Finn today, like you wanted. You’re going home with a few more kind grins in your memory. Though you also didn’t have to talk to him, like you feared. You did not have to tell him how much you can’t make up your mind.

His contact is still on there for your thumb to hover over while you hesitate. You don’t call. You don’t delete it.

You ride home wishing you could go back to your asana practice, to regain that clarity. You don’t know that you don’t need to.

You have doubts, that much is clear. And that is fine. You’re allowed your doubts. But enjoy them while they’re here, because someday soon you will ask me, and I will end them. I already know.

There are things in life that deserve to be explored, Poe.