sixthiterationlogs | open | the rain is a part of how life goes

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open | the rain is a part of how life goes

WHO: Kamala Khan
WHERE: around 6i village, peach grove, Inn, House 6; wherever the flowers are blooming.
WHEN: during the rainstorms, July 1-7.
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: N/A

It is rain day. Okay, it’s not actually rain day. That was a thing in Reims, but they’re not there anymore. They should stay inside while it rains. That guy Mark even advised them to do it! But, Kamala struggles with the advice because it’s rain day. She feels like she is going to vibrate out of her skin. She is not sure she can take this until predictably she finds an excuse. Frank makes it easy as usual. He is setting a bad example for her to follow. How can she resist? She is supposed to be a rebellious teenager, after all. Rebelling against strangers is easy too.

Another help? There is mystery to solve. Flowers have been blooming all over since the storms started. She can’t help wanting to figure out the meaning of it. She spends every storm essentially following the trail of flowers for as long as she can. Of course, that can’t be all she does. Sure, she’s basically on a kid’s adventure that the children she used to hang out with in Reims would appreciate, but she is still living in a household. She wants to contribute if only to make her parents proud later when they’re reunited… and maybe tease Aamir a bit.

When the trail goes cold, Kamala opts to go borrow the fishing kit from the Inn and see what she can catch out there. On other days, she goes picking peaches in the grove. They have an animal now. They have keep it fed, right? Plus it’s fun. That’s important too when you’re missing home. Along the way, she’s naturally collecting samples to study with what she can borrow to study them with… aka a magnifying glass so far at House Six and the Inn respectively. Look she will work this out even with limited resources. Just try not to judge her while she’s at it, okay?

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It doesn't surprise him, to find someone else taking advantage of the rain along the edges of the lake--and it doesn't surprise him to find that their stature is not a trick of perspective, up close. It's the girl from the fountain, no longer quite so shaken up, making herself useful while others wallow at the inn.

The lightning is a concern, sure, but with so much else for it to strike, it's a chance worth taking. Rain means moving quietly without much effort. Rain means opportunistic predators gone to ground.

Rain means fish, closer to the surface and all but senseless. Owen's kit includes a net, and he's been idly casting line along the edge of the lake, making a slow journey around it in search of runoff from the storm. It's harder to make enough noise on his approach, so he sends Kero ahead with a sound clicked out behind his molars. The reptilian creature isn't bothered by the rain at all, its feet finding perfect purchase on the slippery stone beach.

"How long have you been out here," he asks when he closes the gap, her silhouette given enough detail to start judging what she's got on against the elements.

Kamala turns towards the clicking noise in innocent curiosity. She smiles at what she finds. Of course she thinks Kero is cool right off the bat. This is the same girl who looked at a dog the size of a cow with a tuning fork on his head and ran towards him making cooing noises. Owen is an added bonus. She waves in greeting, looking more at ease by far. The terrified kid who knew how to survive monsters is far behind her for now even if some instincts aren't so easily discarded.

"Uh.... a while?" She lost track of time at least an hour ago. What she does have on is pretty clearly soaked through. "I like it out here."

"I like it more when I'm dressed for it," he says, hedging the truth of a me too. Even in their mid-summer, it isn't good for her to be in those wet clothes, and they're far enough from civilization that the weight and chill of her clothes could cause a problem before she found it again.

Owen hefts one shoulder of his pack, then the line over the other side that already dangles several fish. His head cants back toward the farthest flung house, an odd copy of the one he's set up in to the south.

"If you want to head in there," he says of it, "I've got some dry clothes in my bag, and something to make you a poncho with. You can show me what you know about cleaning fish while you warm up a bit." Whatever she doesn't know, he can teach her, and he considers her a moment before sweetening the deal: "Once you're set up right, you can help me find a runoff and I'll show you how to shoot a fish in the water."

Kamala smiles bashfully. Owen does have a point there! She's very underdressed for the weather. They had so few resources in Reims that she barely gives it a thought. Well that and she's used to having healing powers. His line makes a great distraction. Kamala beams at him without bothering to hide that she's impressed. That's why she's pretty much sold on his plan even before he sweetens it.

From there? Kamala gives out a happy squee. "Really?! Oh my God, I'd love to learn that! I'm so on board!" She'll go ahead and pull her line in now and appropriately attach the hook to the rod. "Ready!" She's going to walk-run towards the house in question. Owen will keep up. She's sure of it.

It's Kero who shoots off with her; he tends to do that, probably some lizard-brained reaction to movement. By the time Owen catches up, water starting to run under his collar despite his own measures against it, his scaled companion is wheezing on the porch. As Owen mounts the steps, Kero all but slithers back down, rolling himself in a brown puddle.

"That thing just ain't right," he mutters, pulling the door open. It is eerily like his house in the southern village, minus its wires and projectiles. He shoves a window open to let in the summer air, give them a better ear-out for anyone's approach.

When he gets to the clothes on offer, he can only shrug in the exchange. "Just my old scrubs, but they're dry and they'll roll up better." He gestures to the rest of the house, a little leery of seeing how far down to the fixtures the similarities go. "Should be somewhere to change, I'll get the stove going."

Kero joining her definitely makes it more fun. She does feel the tiniest bit of guilt that it tires the little guy out. She walks on past him to get inside, snickering a little at the comment. She still thinks it's cute, but okay. Maybe it's a girl thing.

She keeps it to herself since there are other pressing matters like getting dressed. Kamala takes it with a grateful smile. "Thanks! I appreciate it." She's off to find that place. It actually isn't all that hard due to the similarities. Once she's out of sight, Kamala realizes just how dumb she's been. Her clothes are practically glued on with cold water. She takes her time prying them off and rubbing some warmth back into her skin. There's no way she's putting her underwear back on so this is the best thing she can think to do.

God her mother must want to murder her somewhere. She emerges after a decent amount of time passes with a stack of wet clothes and wild hair just barely pulled back back in loose twist. She should really work on getting some hair ties. "So maybe I could have planned this better." She admits when facing Owen again. "Thanks for letting me have your scrubs."

Without a stash of wood, he settles for the litter of sticks and leaves on the porch, with a bit of old paper from his bag. Kamala returns while he's breaking down a chair with a hand ax, more snapping pieces under the blade's weight than cutting them. It takes fewer fingers to balance it between the edge of the stove and a pulled up table, than it does to swing the tool.

Crack, clatter; he notices her as he scoops the pieces up and feeds them into the grate.

"It's easier than telling the big man I let you get pneumonia," he says, wiggling free another chair leg to set for the ax. He pauses, watching her twist back her hair. "He's not the reason you're out in this, is he?"

Her first thought is this guy really is good at the whole survival thing. Kamala definitely leveled up with Frank's help. It's less of a comfy fit with her. "He is pretty intimidating." Kamala concedes casually. She may no longer be the physically powerful one out of the two of them, but it's still hard for her to take him seriously as the powerhouse now. "Hm? Sort of? It's mostly just the fact that it's rain day. I'm used to doing stuff on rain day. We'd soundproof houses and help people move." She shrugs. "It's weird to be in a house alone so I found something to do."

In a situation where survival is dire enough, most people who are still alive are pretty good at it--or someone who is really gives a shit about them. Owen's slotted Kamala closer to the latter, though she was at least trying to fish, and his meeting with Frank didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence in his caretaking skills.

Well--in his own survival instincts. In his ability to apply his own oxygen mask before helping anyone with their own.

Having not gotten much more of the story from him either, Owen still wonders if the strategy she speaks of is for Clickers, or at least something like them. Frank seems to have taught her a few things; not planning to clothe and feed anyone in the man's eventual and stupidly heroic absence, all Owen can do is impart a few more skills. "When it gets colder," he suggests, feeding the last of the chair into the fire, "might want to find work to be done at the inn. Fish are in the sink," he adds. "Pick one you want to eat and we'll clean it."

Kamala blinks at the advice before carefully filing it away. "That's good to know..." It's hard to imagine reaching winter here. Kamala knows there is a chance it could happen even if that isn't what she wants at all. She latches onto the idea of doing something to distract from reflecting upon it. Kamala smiles big and flashes the okay sign. "On it!" She takes off to the sink like the overeager kid she is.

Kamala stares at them like this is the hardest choice of her life before making the easiest call. "We should probably pick the biggest one."

"Probably." Bigger fish takes longer to clean, but that's kind of the point. She'll be warmed up and safer from catching cold the longer they keep to the dim kitchen. Owen yanks at the curtains over the sink, letting in what light there is to work with.

"I'll dig out a cutting board, see if you can find me a set of silverware--even the spoon."

Before he goes through the cabinets--already suspecting one of holding what he wants, considering how they match to the color--he shrugs out of his own jacket, finding his thermal layer dry enough to peel off. "You can have this too," he says, holding it out. "At least until you warm up."

The blue flowers are, for lack of better verbiage, electrifying. Maybe she's an idiot for going out in the middle of a thunderstorm but Jean suspects she's done stupider things in her life. Unplanned Space Travel is still going to beat out most everything for a while.

However, she's not the only one gathering flowers. After she figures out that the Blue Lilies give her to ability to zap things (no telepathy but, offense? Yes?) she gets a little single-minded until she sees someone else out there apparently doing what she's doing. Hmm.

"So I guess I'm not the only idiot who's outside in the rain, huh?"

Kamala isn't expecting anyone, but Frank, Owen, or maybe Jessica out here. They are the weirdos who still think of rain as safety from scary monsters. They roam freely during the rain. It's safe to say right now they are living their best lives. That's why she takes Jean's comment in stride.

She smiles, getting up from the flowers, and waves at Jean. "Hey! I prefer to think of it as being the one bold enough to uncover the secret of flowers. What about you?"

"I'm going to go with that because it was better than seeking a thrill because I've lost my identity," Jean says. She has a laugh, though, and the flowers are pretty even if gathering them is a little...dangerous.

"It's so weird to me that we don't have powers but we can touch one of these and boom - live wire."

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open | the rain is a part of how life goes

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