sixthiterationlogs | Sink or swim you gotta give it a whirl

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Sink or swim you gotta give it a whirl

WHO: Joshua Faraday, Vasquez, Open
WHERE: Around the villages
WHEN: Niddle of December
OPEN TO: All unless marked
WARNINGS: PG, updated as needed

Horses are horses are horses: Around the villages

They're horses. Yep. That's what they are. Long legged horses, with weird tails, and patchy things on their backs... and horns. Okay they're not horses, but they have horns, and he's told one day he can ride them, and so he's going to work with them the best he can.

Which means getting them adjusted to a rope harness. One at a time usually, dealing with their attitudes and confusion, and being as friendly and gentle as he can be with them. Often feeding them treats of peaches from a can he found in the kitchen, and trying to coax them into listen and following and not fighting back against him.

It will take days, weeks even, but much as he might be all attitude with much of life, with the kirin he is tender and kind, working the best he can to get them to work with him and not against him.

Cold air and hot headed: Springs

Part of it all is trying to get his thoughts straight. A large part of it is the long hours of working on the homestead that they're trying to put together, working with animals, and land even before the winter hits, and the lumber and gathering that will help them set up their home. So a couple of times a week he grabs a bag with his change of scrubs in it, ignoring the color that does little for him, and heads for the hot spring.

Stripping down in the cold air, hurrying into the soothing warmth of the water. Staying there as long as he can until his skin starts to prune and the ache leaves, not realizing it's more than just the warmth helping.

Eventually he'll rush out of the water, grab the sheet he brought with him to use to dry off and hurrying into his clothes as fast as he can before he loses the warmth of the water.

Homestead: For Vasquez

All that Joshua's been doing is giving him time to think. Taking time to think about what he wants, and how he feels, and what the hell this place means to him and who he thinks he is. What life he wants as well, though that he's focusing on more than the rest. All that he's been doing to tame the kirins, and cope with the land, and work on ensuring the house is ready for winter.

But he can't avoid it forever. Not his feelings and not Vasquez. He isn't going to turn himself into a wolf, after all.

Eventually he heads back for the house, knowing Vasquez is there and heading upstairs to try and find him.

"Alejandro? You here?"

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Glancing up, eyes widening a bit as he realizes that he's not alone. Stunned a moment though he manages to give a nod. "Sure. Course you can," he says. "I mean, none of this is private land or anything. You okay though?"

He nods at her arms, frowning. "Looks like you had a run in with something." Not yet knowing about the springs and what they can do, worrying the sediment in them might burn.

"A bit." Kat exhaled a tired breath as she peeled away the first layer of her clothes. She kept her underwear on and sank into the warm heated water. "Someone I know found a wounded peacock cat. I've been taking care of her but her claws are sharp." Kat exhales an unsteady breath as she lets her arms fall beneath the surface of the water.

"I don't come here often but I've been told that the hot springs have healing properties. I thought it'd be better than getting an infection." The supplies at the hospital were so low and Kat didn't really want to test whatever effects the peacock cat had. There was something about it that relaxed kat and that worried her.

She wasn't a 'randomly relax' sort of person.

Joshua knows most of this place is new to him, but there's time when he feels as if he's making the mistake of still trying to assume that this is normal. Normal to what he knows. None of this is normal, and that's a new one.

"A what cat?" His nose wrinkles, head canting and considering that. "What is it? A baby tiger?" He's known a few barn cats, but never really dealt with them so he doesn't know what they can be like.

Though then she goes on about the healing properties, and he can't help but to perk up then. "This water?" He splashes his hands back and forth through it, curious about how that feels, if he would feel it if he needs it. "What all can it heal?"

Kat's mouth curved into an amused smile. "I thought it was strange too." She admitted as she gently cupped some of the hot water and poured it along her scared arms. It didn't take long for the angry red lines to pink and begin to heal.

"It's a fairly normal cat but its tail is like a peacocks. There is something in the oils that is... pleasant but I've been trying to avoid touching it until I'm sure it isn't harmful." Kat has had a few giggly afternoons thanks to the euphoric properties of the oils that can be found on the peacock cats tail feathers.

"I haven't tested it too much but I'm usually here for sore muscles and things like this." Kat shifted and moved close enough for Joshua to take a look at the cuts on her arms. They'd usually take about two weeks to fully disappear but with the water, they were closed and already fading.

For a long time Joshua just sits there, quiet and watching what she does. Taking in how the water cascades over the wounds, and then over skin with little marks at all. His jaw hangs, mouth gaping a bit as he just stares. Not even being weird about a lady as undressed as she is, but the magic of the marks leaving.

"So all of these things, they're not just weird looking, they're magical?"

Of all of this, including being apparently back from the dead, this is the part he's been trying to ignore the most. That it's not just weird animals that look like nothing from back home, but that they're beyond odd.

And that included the water he's sitting in.

Slowly he runs his fingers through it, letting the water drip from his fingers as he tries to get his brain to wrap around it all.

"I... I can't..." He sighs, shaking his head as he sinks back against the wall of the hot spring. "All of this is so odd to me. Not sure what to think of it."

Kat didn't like being touched. She'd been beaten and abused too many times to have that level of comfort with a complete stranger but she had no problem with nudity or walking around in her underwear. From an objective point of view, she was lovely. It'd been an issue but also an asset she'd used in the past to get information. In this case, she was showing him her arms and had no problems with doing that and then retreating back to a comfortable place for her to sit and enjoy the swirling water.

Her short hair clings to her cheeks and neck as she runs her fingers through her hair.

"The hot springs? I don't know of any other but they are magical. I have heard that the peach grove in the other village has similar properties and it's likely because the water there is the same as the water here but I don't really understand it." All Kat knew was that it worked and she needed it with the new kitten.

"We don't have antibiotics. This is the best way to stave off infection."

Sitting back, a bit confused by the things she's talking about. His head canting as he frowns heavily, considering the things she's saying.

"What... what are antibiotics?" He knew infections, but he's never heard of that before. "Most I know when they get infected, you accept they're gonna die."

"It's medicine." Kat replied easily.

She closed her eyes and let the heat of the water surround her. It was an enjoyable sensation and for the first time in weeks, Kat let herself relax. "After the discovery of antibiotics, people stopped dying when they got infections. In fact, that is very uncommon."

In her time period.

"Well, I'll be," he says in a low voice, eyes narrowing slightly as he considers that. "Ain't that good to hear." And it is. He can think of quite a few men that live. "Take it a broken leg ain't so likely to mean your death either?"

Kat shook her head though the motion was very subtle. She was finally starting to relax and it lowered her desire to move. The cuts on her arms were healed and the oil from her cats feathers had been washed off her skin.

"No. The leg or limb is set back into place and it'll heal. I had a broke arm once." After she'd been taken and tortured.

A lot of people mentioned things they missed in this place, but not everyone talks about these useful advances. More than candlelight seems less important than not dying from a cold.

"Isn't that amazin', and good to hear," he says, glad for it. "Nice to know the future is going to be that good. Lost a friend once to a broken hip. Infection set in and he just never made it."

"It gets better." She agreed in a soft voice. There were always things that came up but technology and the general standard of living has been improved compared to Joshua's time. It was a perspective that Kat had never considered before but it was nice. Even when things are bad, they used to be worse and they were always getting better.

Sometimes that was an easy thing to forget.

She opened her eyes and looked across the springs at him. "Do you want to know anything else about the future?" Kat didn't know if their worlds were the same but it didn't hurt to tell him what she knew and it was nice to talk about something positive.

"I'm glad to hear it," he says, meaning it and still amazed. Everyone talks about these motorcycles and ways of getting food, and he can't help to wonder if some of them take this for granted that they don't die from things like a broken arm anymore.

He considers that, head canting slightly as he considers what to ask about. "Why is it that so many don't seem to expect to have to hunt and kill their own food? How much has that changed." Survival things. That he's curious about.

"Well. Large cities have been build and the wildlife has been chased away. There used to be balance between people and the earth but... convince changed that. Now food is delivered to stores and purchased. There are still farms but not in the sense that you're probably used too." She exhaled a tired breath.

"But that really depends too. I grew up in a city that was pour and finding food was difficult. People couldn't hunt so we had to get more creative or we had to steal." There wasn't much else they could do.

"Being able to freeze and ship food helped too... I think."

These are things that Kat never thought she'd have to explain to someone.

He frowns then. "Like when we started running off those buffaloes," he says, knowing that is becoming an issue in some parts. "Why people keep moving out and up towards the border. Like this place up there,' he says, nose wrinkling.

Sitting back into the heat of the water, marveling at how much things had changed. This place doesn't show that, not to this degree. "I grew up like that. Fighting for food, having to eat little because we had mouths to feed. I'm sorry you went through that though."

Kat shook her head. "It wasn't just me. There were too many people living on top of each other and not enough of anything." It was just how it was and it was like that for everyone.

She looked down at her arms and exhaled a tired sigh. "I'd love to stay but I should probably get back." Her wounds had healed and that was the only reason she had come to the hot springs.

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Sink or swim you gotta give it a whirl

I lost this somehow. Sorry

That's cool

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