sixthiterationlogs | 014 Finding to many things [OPEN]

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014 Finding to many things [OPEN]

WHO: Moana.
WHERE: All Over.
WHEN: November 4th – 15th
OPEN TO: EVERYONE.
WARNINGS: None.

[ooc: Let me know the day and where you tag her. It is all open to run into her at any time or in between any action!]

Nov 4th – 10th | Letters Everywhere | 6i & 7i

Moana spent a great deal of time on her own.

She traveled between the two villages; checking on the boat, Itiiti and the ocean while also making an appearance at the inn to try to help everyone get ready for whatever winter horrors were about to befall them. Moana really hated the winter. She wore shoes, remembering Rory's threat of frostbite, but otherwise wore her island dress with a cloak pulled over her shoulders. Moana was against jackets because it restricted the moment of her arms.

When the first letter arrived, she was outside, collecting the milkweed stalks that she used to make fishing nets and rope. The envelop was red, almost missed among the collection of leaves that it had fallen into; what made it stand out was the familiar flame insignia that was sealed on the outside of the letter. Moana paused in her task to read it, her eyes narrowing at the block letters.

"What?" She looked around her to see if anyone was around to notice her outburst before continuing to read the letter. This was insane. She ripped it up, hiding the small pieces of paper among the red fall leaves. She thought it was over until she received a second letter the next day. This one was waiting for her when she went to get water for the inn. She frowned at the letter and then soaked it until it fell apart in her hands. The letter hadn't technically done anything wrong but it was receiving the brunt of Moana's frustrations. Two letters destroyed. Moana hoped that it was over.

The third day, Moana found the letter in the kitchen when no one else was around. She gapped at the red envelop, wondering how it had ended up in the kitchen. Someone must have seen who dropped it off. Moana pushed her way into the common area of the inn but didn't see anything that was out of place. With a frown, she threw the letter into the inn's fire, watching as the fames quickly engulfed the paper.

Three days in a row and Moana was now dreading tomorrow.

November 7th was uneventful. Moana spent the day weaving at the inn. People walked in and out of the common area at a steady rate from early morning to late evening. Nothing happened until Moana returned to her room; she found another letter resting on her bed. This was insane!

This time she didn't destroy the letter but took it with her. She shoved it into her pack and left for the other village: 7i. The path was familiar to Moana but it took her time to travel across the breach and then to her destination on the other side. Her goal was the peach trees though she wasn't sure what she was going to do once she got there.

Standing beneath the peach trees, she read the letter again, this time out load. "Steal an item of true value from another person." She looked up at the trees with a frown. "Another person." She echoed the sentiment as if it was somehow the key. She didn't want to keep finding these letters and she wasn't sure what else to do. She couldn't bring herself to steal something of true value from someone else but she had something that didn't belong to her, something that held true value to its owner.

Moana took the dormant Heart of Te Fiti and slipped it into the red envelop. She quickly scribbled a note with a pencil she had swiped from the inn weeks before and placed it at the base of the peach tree. The letter she left was short and to the point, she hoped that it was enough.

'This isn't mine and it is truly valuable. I don't know what game this is but please, let this be enough to leave the others alone. -Moana'

Nov 11th – 15th | Green House Glasses | 7i

Moana was hoping for some uninterrupted peace now that she had dealt with the fiasco with the letters. She felt a little lighter, breathed a little easier, and smiled a little brighter. She didn't think it had anything to do with the letters exactly but she felt less doom and gloom about the onset of winter. It probably wouldn't last but she would enjoy the feeling while it was here.

It was during her adventures around the 7i village that she stumbled upon the glass panes and frame for the green house. Of course, Moana had no idea what it was for but she was fairly sure that it hadn't been in this house the last time she had walked through. She tried to lift one of the panels of glass only to have it tip on top of her. She used her body to soften the fall and keep the glass from shattering but she wasn't sure how to get up without accidently breaking it.

"Help!" She called out, unsure if anyone was going to hear her.

After what felt like hours, Moana wiggled her way out from under the glass, cutting her palm in the process. It stung but she was too distracted to focus on it. Instead, she ran from the unassuming house, hoping to find someone to inform about her discovery.

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"Yes, it feels as though it has been many moons since we last spoke," Ned replies, nodding his agreement as he draws closer. He's already noticed the envelope, of course, but he makes a good show of pretending he's none the wiser as to what might be taking place. "I believe the last we spoke was when I was planting the Weirwood sapling just sound of my home, if I am to remember correctly."

He had, of course, seen her about the village - but he or she were always otherwise preoccupied with other things. He had reminded himself to go and check on her, but something always seemed to interrupt his ability to do so.

"And I do take on the burden of responsibility myself; I should have come by to see you. I hope you can forgive me for failing to do so."

Moana shook her head. "No, you're fine. I've been busy with the boat and then the voyage. I haven't had a lot of time..." She looked a little nervous. "Sorry." She should have come to see him but Moana was constantly giving herself things to do. She helped out at the inn, as well as worked on her own projects which varied depending on the day. She recently took time to teach Jax how to fish and make a spear.

"How is the tree doing?" She shifted a bit, trying to hide more of the letter behind her back. Ned was a lot like her own father, which meant that he probably knew that she was trying to hide something.

"Did your voyage prove to be fruitful?" Ned asks, tone still one of innocence and simple curiosity. He shakes his head, however, at her apology. "Please, there is nothing for which you need to be sorry. It seems that, even here in a village with no outside exposure, there are still things that keep us occupied and busy. I do promise, however, to make a more conscious effort to come and see you. Though I hope you know that my door is always open to you, too."

Ned's features begin to lighten to something more amused than scolding, and he no longer tries to hide the fact that he's well aware of the envelope.

"It is thriving, despite my fear of it failing to take root," he says, gaze shifting to the letter. "Might I ask what it is you are so intent on keeping secret?"

Moana's head chin dropped an inch. "Not really. There isn't anything out there. I turned back before we ran out of food." That wasn't the only reason that she had decided to turn around and head back to the village. "When I was out there I had a dream. Except it wasn't a dream. I was home and I returned the heart of Te Fiti. That's when I decided to turn back."

She was needed here, not out on the water heading in random directions.

"That's good." Moana commented on the tree before her expression fell. "It's a secret." She's pretty sure it's a secret. "I think..." Moana didn't sound that confident. "I got this letter and it told me to do something. I don't think anyone is supposed to know about it."

"So as far as you were able to tell, the sea leads nowhere." Then all of Ned's suspicions about them being stranded and, in essence, ship-wrecked (without the vessel, of course), are likely true. He wonders how much of the water upon which Moana sailed was constructed by the Observers, or if any of what they experience is, in fact, reality. The implications of such things is enough to make Ned feel as though is skull is cracking in two, so he'll keep that to himself for now. Instead, he shifts his focus to Moana.

"A letter? Do you know who sent it to you?"

"No. Not no where. It stretches... like the shore." It hadn't felt normal, not like the ocean that Moana knew. It was just a feeling but, after everything that's happened, she wants to trust it. Her hand moved over her heart as she spoke and for a moment, she forgot about the letter that she had been trying to hide.

"Oh. No. I mean... It had that flame. You know, the same that was on the things we woke up with." She turned behind her and gently pulled the wax flame symbol off the envelop. "This." She paused the wax piece over to Ned in case he wanted to look.

"It stretches like the shore? How so?" Ned inquires, brows stitching together loosely. He wonders if it indeed leads somewhere, and if that somewhere might be an attainable feat with more extensive preparation. He is not of a seafaring people, however, and he knows to bow out of realms in which he has no knowledge. If a Greyjoy were here, he or she would know how best to travel the sea.

Though, from what he's learnt from his children, it's best if he never sees another Greyjoy in all his days to come.

"Aye, give it here." Ned reaches out for it, turning it over in his fingers to examine it. It's a familiar sight, one he hasn't seen since his arrival in the village, but it reminds him of the messages sent by raven back home. The intact seal of the house was a method to prove secrecy and authenticity, and he doubts that a flame sigil showing up here, embossed in wax, was any less important. "Where did you find it?"

Moana wanted to explain it to Ned, the way the ocean moved and felt beneath her boat but she couldn't. You'd have to be a sailor to really understand and she knew that he wasn't. His place was in mountains with wolves not on a boat with fish. She chewed at her lower lip before suggesting an alternative to his question. "Walk along the shore, then you'll see what I mean. It's the same on the ocean. Like some sort of magic." That was the best way for her to explain it.

She really hoped that it was enough for Ned to understand. In their past conversations he could make those leaps easily though at the time Moana hadn't known what she was talking about. Now she knew and couldn't convey it the way she wanted too.

Her eyes dropped to the seal as Ned inspected it. She didn't want him to know that she had replied to the letter at all. "I kept finding it. First it was outside, then waiting for me in the kitchen and then another in my room. I kept destroying the letter and it kept coming back. I don't know how but no one saw anything."

Moana's meaning is a bit beyond what Ned can grasp, but he understands that a topic as vast and meaningful as what the ocean means to her - and to her people, as he recalls - is something she will never be able to convey with words. He understands that there are limitations to what she can explain, and it is no fault of her own; if anything, it is a fault for his limited and land-dwelling understanding. So, he simply nods, accepting that it is something he will never truly comprehend.

He believes, however, that he has some inkling - even if he cannot feel it in his bones the way he suspects she can.

"Were you alone each time? Could it have been left by someone who'd gone unseen? Before you could notice, perhaps?" he asks, continuing to turn it over in his hands, trying to ascertain its origins. It's unsettling to think that it had been delivered much in the way their gift boxes are, without a sender and without a courier. "Have you opened it?"

"I was alone." Moana confirmed as her dark eyes dropped to the space behind her. Every time she had stumbled across a letter, she had been alone. "Anyone could have stumbled across it but-" Her voice cut as she turned to look back up at Ned. "Each time it was me. I was the one who found it and the letter was the same each time. It's like it was meant for me." She didn't want to over play her importance but she couldn't shake the feeling.

Moana paused again, trying to organize her thoughts. "I tried to find out who left it but I couldn't." One of the letters had been left in the kitchen and Moana had searched for the person who might have left it there. She hadn't been able to find anything.

At his second question, she nodded her head. Moana had already answered this question when she told him that it said the same thing each time but she hadn't told him what the message had been about. "It was asking me to do something. I didn't want to do it. So I destroyed the letter. The next day, another one appeared." Her fingers reached behind her, curling protectively around the envelop that she had left beneath the peach tree. "I thought if I didn't do it. Then the letter might go to someone else. So I thought of a way that might stop it." She didn't know for sure but she loved the people here and she wanted to protect them.

"It very well might have been, given what we've seen in the past. Even with things as innocuous and beneficial as the gifts. They are left for us, specifically, though we've never once seen the courier," Ned replies, eyes falling back to the envelope. They trace the outline of the flame with some more consideration. There is something deeply unsettling about it, about the insinuation of flame as a sigil. It can warm and keep living things alive, but it can just as easily take life away and leave nothing in its tracks.

"Might you tell me what it asked of you? You needn't if you'd rather not, of course."

Moana looked conflicted. She trusted Ned and she wanted to tell him but she worried about what he might think. Most of the people she talked to didn't agree with her ideas and this one was just as crazy as the others.

After another thirty second pause she grabbed the envelop behind her and held it out for Ned. Inside he'll find the Heart, the note she had left and the note that the overseers had left for her. She waited in awkward silence, feeling the heavy weight of the air on her shoulders as she watched Ned read and sort through the envelop.

"It might not count." She muttered after a moment, talking about the stone.

Ned eyes the envelope with some hesitation, not wanting Moana to give it over out of fear of disappointing him or because she feels obliged to listen to him. When he feels that she's come to the answer on her own, he reaches out for it and takes it, casually investigating the contents. She reads the message that was delivered first, ignoring the strange chill that sits at the base of his spine as he reads the words. He folds it up and reads her message, running a finger across the etched surface of the stone. He replaces it all back into the envelope and, instead of simply handing it all back her, he approaches and envelops her in an embrace.

"I am humbled by your willingness to do what you can in order to help protect the others. There are not many in the world, this or the next, that would approach life with such selflessness. I'm sorry you've had this weight put upon you."

Moana waited as Ned inspected the contents of the envelop. She felt the seconds stretch and pull uncomfortably as his eyes shifted from left to right with each line of written text. She didn't know what he'd say about her letter. It was a stupid idea. It might not work or count but Moana didn't have it in herself to do nothing.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that Ned's reaction surprised her.

She stood stunned as he hugged her before returning the embrace with one of her own. "I don't..." The words stumbled awkwardly from her lips as a new feeling filled her chest. "Thank you." She would rather it be her than someone else but she found it difficult to say anything about the topic.

For as quickly as Ned embraced her, he lets her go, though he places a hand on her shoulder, the other coming up with the envelope between them. He ducks a bit, to be able to look her more directly in the eye.

"You've a good heart in you, Moana. One that is compassionate and kind. Whereas many would've lost it in circumstances such as these," he gestures to the village around them, their environment, "Where it's easy to curl in yourself, shield yourself from everything around you, you've kept onto it. And even now, you let it guide you to make a choice that is fairest and the least harmful for as many as possible." He offers a bit of a smile, handing out the envelope to her. "If you'd ever a worry about your ability to be a good chief, this should be enough to alleviate those fears."

Moana slowly took the envelop back from Ned while meeting the intensity of his gaze. She didn't think that what she was doing was special. In fact, it was stupid. It wouldn't work but she wanted to try anyway.

"You think so?" Her voice was light and curious.

She could feel the warmth in Ned's voice as if it was something tangible that she could touch. How did he do that? "Um... thank you." She wasn't sure what else to say.

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014 Finding to many things [OPEN]

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