"Whoa, what are those?"

Yessss. "They're poi! You can spin them to make pretty - actually, it's probably easier to just show you -" 

Xeya looks around the room (mostly empty, nothing fragile out, standard ceiling height) and picks up and turns on the cheapest-looking of the three sets, wrapping the leash of each around her hands in a practiced motion until there's a bit under a foot of length from her hands to the bulbs.

She takes a step back so there's nothing in her danger sphere and begins spinning them. She starts with simple intersecting circles of pulsing blue in front of her, and then moves on to a more complicated pattern that moves around her body. "You do this with them!" 

"Oh, neat, it's like juggling but you can't drop anything?"

"Yeah! Or, well, I just got a set of throwing poi and you can drop those, but mostly the things to watch out for are hitting yourself or something else with them or getting the leashes tangled up." (She demonstrates both of these in intentional ways; the poi bounces off her outstretched arms and then reverse directions, and then the leashes wind and unwind around each other, moving the bulbs in a shrinking/growing horizontal orbit.) 

"Like that, but not on purpose!" Grin. 

"Are they heavy, they don't look like they'd hurt that much if they did bop you."

"These ones are light and squishy! Good for learning, really hard to hurt yourself with. But the light units are a lot simpler and they have a harder time holding momentum..." She puts down those ones and picks up another set, doing the same around her body pattern at almost twice the speed.

"These ones can be ouchie. I hit my face a lot when I was learning this pattern." And her tits, but that's more embarrassing and she's showing off, not flirting,

(The light pattern here is indeed more complicated; blue/cyan pulses forming interlocking rings of light.)

"Is that something people wear masks about or should I start asking people with black eyes if they've been learning - you said 'poi'?"

Ehehehe. "Poi, yeah. I've never gotten a black eye from it or seen someone wearing goggles about it, but I suppose there's no harm in asking! I guess it be easier for taller people with longer arms, I know they have to be more careful spinning indoors." (Xeya is about 5'3")

She winds down her current pattern. "...do you wanna try? I'm ok at teaching the basics."

"- oh, sure, that sounds fun!" He's nearly six feet tall and looks like he picks heavy things up for a living.

Eee! Xeya actually bounces a bit.

She looks up at him, and then further up at the ceiling. "Weee should probably do this outside. Or somewhere with more open vertical space, if the house has it?" 

"The middle 'dining room' is pretty tall. And doesn't have a dining table since that would make three and be silly."

"It would be! Gosh, this building is a confusing delight." She wraps Moon&Stars around her arms so she's free to scoop up Learn&Glow, then looks at him expectantly. 

He will lead her out of the room, though he keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure she's following him closely enough.

This a good strategy because (as he may have noticed) Xeya can be a bit spacy!

She does a lot of peering around curiously as they go through the house. 

It's a house! It's kind of janky and cluttered in the way that only a former triplex occupied by an endless carousel of college-aged persons can be, with posters and dents in the wall and a surprisingly robust spider plant over there and a couple of shared video game systems associated with a TV someone pulled off the curb for free at some point and a rug that looks like it was made out of ripped up old T-shirts. None of the furniture matches. There's a suncatcher over there. The fruit bowl has four apples and a banana in it and only one of the apples is going bad at this moment.

It's so lived-in! She loves it...

Xeya pauses to stare from time to time, but she is excited about this and won't let herself get lost in thought. 

He stops when she does, till they're in the relatively tall open space of Not A Dining Room Because They Don't Really Have Everyone Sitting Down To Dinner At The Same Time Such That They Need Three Dining Tables.

Cool! (She doesn't actually notice that he's stopping, she'd be embarrassed about it otherwise.)

She examines the room happily. "Oh, this is perfect! Okay, so..." she puts down Moon&Stars and also Glow, walking up to him with Learn in hand. "Can you hold out your arm for me?"

"Which one?" He offers both.

"Right now I just need to measure one! A good starting leash length goes up to here on your arm." She presses the bulb against his outer arm below his shoulder and holds the full length of leash along his arm, seeing how far it goes. (This amount of touching a stranger without permission would be embarrassing if she were less focused on what she was doing! But she hasn't noticed, yet.)

"Ueah, we want this to be about two bulbs longer, give me a sec..." She fiddles with the handle end for a bit, letting some rope pass through the knot assembly, making a bunch of small fiddly adjustments before she's satisfied.

After confirming the new length on his arm, she grabs the other one "It's surprisingly disorienting if they aren't the same length, so it's best to lay them out side-by-side to match them" and repeats the process.  

 "Okay! We can start with whichever hand you want. I think in some ways it's easier to start with your off-hand, because it means adding in the second one comes a lot more naturally, but I think people who are less coordinated find that approach more frustrating to start with so it's up to you, really."

"I'm right-handed and not particularly uncoordinated." Here is his left hand.

"Okay, for the simple grip, it's easier if I just - can you hold your hand out like this?" She demonstrates: palm up, fingers slightly open.

Like so?

Yep! Xeya flattens the loop of nylon that makes up the handle and slides it between his middle and index finger. Then she opens the top of the loop and pulls it down over his fingers before sliding the whole assembly up his fingers until it's secure between his middle and upper knuckles. "There! Basically impossible to send it flying, if you hold it like this."

She takes a few steps back and slides one of her heavier poi onto on her right hand, mirroring him. "Okay. Now - to start, let's just do a little bit of a pendulum thing. Swing the bulb back and forth in front of you - see how high you can get it without losing control." Like so!

Vwoop vwoop?