sixthiterationlogs | 02 SNOW & CHICKENS

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02 SNOW & CHICKENS

WHO:Moana
WHERE: Inn & Fountain/Around & Near
WHEN: January 9th [Morning - Evening]
OPEN TO: Everyone!
WARNINGS: None
STATUS: Closed

Early Morning

Moana continued to try and get used to the cold. Nothing she tried worked but she was stubborn. Her toes curled beneath her blankets and she peeked out from under her covers with a grumpy stare. The jacket she'd been given was draped on top of her blankets but she found that no matter what she did she was never warm enough. With a groan she stood, pulled on more layers than she was comfortable with and walked from her room. She liked the inn; there were always people around and noises reverberating from the main room. It was the sort of noise she was used too and comfortable with. Some nights she almost believed that she was back at home though the feeling was always short lived.

She'd offer an awkward smile to anyone she made eye contact with. Things weren't great but she saw no reason to let it keep her down. At least that was the appearance that she was trying to keep up.

Late Morning

Moana grabbed something to eat and then rushed out of the inn like she'd done every morning since her arrival. What she didn't notice about this particular morning was a little chicken that had followed her from the inn.

Today she began to walk around the town. The snow and her boots made navigation difficult and Moana found herself stuck and flailing in a few snow drifts along the way. One thing she was beginning to notice about the snow, was the more she sat in it, the warmer she felt.

After her short walk around she paused outside the inn and inspected a particularly high drift of snow. She didn’t have many tools, nothing that could dig but she had hands and they had gloves on them. She began to push at the snow, build it up and create something of a wall around her; she then dug into the compacted snow, making something like a cave inside of it. Her hands were cold but the rest of her started to overheat as she worked. She ended up tossing her jacket off and eventually the long sleeve shirt she wore beneath it. This weather made no sense, how can she now be over heating when it’s so cold, Moana found it hard to attribute only to the work she was doing.

Afternoon

The snow was slowly melting as temperatures rose above freezing though Moana didn’t noticed. What she did notice was an unfamiliar chicken walking along the dugout paths. She watched it for a moment blinking. It couldn’t really get into too much trouble, the snow blocked most of its path, or so Moana reasoned. Except it was headed towards the fountain…

Imagines of Heihei flooded through her mine and she pushed herself from her little cave leaving her things behind. "Oh no!" When she caught up to the chicken it was just about to fall into the fountain and just like Heihei it didn’t seem like it knew how to swim. “Ah!” She dove for the chicken, pulling it from the fountain while just avoiding falling in. She placed the chicken on the edge of the fountain and exhaled. "Don’t do that!" Except then it took another step towards the water’s edge causing Moana to flail, fall in and then once again scoop the chicken from the fountain.

She was starting not to like this fountain.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, if the gods plan for this chicken to drown, I hope they send us some oil and a deep fryer, because I like to think that the gods have a plan for me to enjoy chicken wings, at some point in time soon." The feast on pseudo-Thanksgiving had been incredible, don't get him wrong, but still, he's used to being able to pick up junk food at any whim (thank you, America), and it's hard getting away from that.

"We should probably escort it home," he admits. "I will allow you the great honour of carrying it," he says, trying to bluff his way out of getting hen-pecked to death.

Moana looked up at him. "Since they didn't we should get him home." She stepped forward, her long dark hair sticking to her shoulders and back where it was still very wet. She'd have to grab her jacket or risk catching a cold. She bend down and picked up the chicken, placing it in the crook of her arm. Moana wasn't afraid of being pecked, if you held them correctly they were usually comfortable.

"I don't think I've fried anything." She looked up at him, her eyes transparent and curious. "What does that taste like?"

"Heaven," Ravi sighs out blissfully, because honestly, he doesn't think he ever really believed how much he'd missed fried food, but the lack of mozzarella sticks, chicken wings, and a varied assortment of other fried wares has quickly proven to show him what an absolutely abhorrent diet he had before this, unless Peyton or Liv or Major had been taking care of him and making sure he didn't rot out with sugar and oil.

"How have you not eaten fried food?" he demands. "Did you live on a vegan eatery?" He gestures for her to start leading the way, wary about her being in the air too long with that wet hair.

Moana turned and headed back towards the Inn; it was fairly close which was a blessing for Moana considering her daring rescue of a wayward chicken. Her chin turned up towards him as he spoke and a light smile played across her lips.

"I'm from an island and we didn't have a lot of oil besides coconut oil but that was used in other things." They didn't have enough or the inclination to fry anything. "The island's name is Motunui. Have you... heard of it?" She has yet to run across anyone who has heard of her island but she thought it might be worth asking. She was hopeful but also realistic.

When the Inn came into view so did her jacket which she had left in the snow. It looked like a dark stain against the pure white fluff it rested on.

He gives her an apologetic look and shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but I haven't," he confesses, "but that's more because I sort of gave up on geography when I went into medical school. There's only so much that my brain can keep in there, which means I had to ditch a lot. I sort of started with childhood embarrassing memories, relatives I don't particularly like, and moved into sports knowledge, geography, and I abandoned the occasional pun," he jokes.

"I'm from Seattle," he offers. "Have you heard of that one?"

Moana didn't know about the world outside of her island. She knew that something was out there, it called to her to go to it, but she didn't know what that something was. She didn't think she'd ever learn what that something was.

She listened to him, her dark eyes wide and curious. His words bring a bit of a smile to her lips though it's small. "I like jokes and I think I have a few embarrassing childhood memories too." Everyone does to a degree though hers was more centered around Heihei than anything else. She's spent a third of her life defending that bird, even with her helps it's a miracle that Heihei was still alive.

"Seattle." She shook her head. "No. What's it like there?"

"Rainy," is his dismal confession, because as much as he'd loved London, it was proper British fog and rain. American rain was always so much more depressing in a way that he didn't know how to put his finger on, but maybe it was just that he'd spent so much time in Atlanta that he'd discovered what the sun looked like. "It's nice, enough. Close to Portland, so you get the inevitable bleed of insufferable hipsters, but! On the plus side, delicious coffee," he says with a knowing nod of his head.

And of course, a burgeoning zombie problem, but Ravi didn't think they needed to go into that.

"My island had rainy seasons." Except they were still warm and she rather enjoyed them. "They helped the crops grow."

Moana didn’t understand most of what he said but she really liked listening to him. She heard the inflection of his voice as it dipped and rose with each new phrase. Her imagination ran away with her, inventing fantastic and ridiculous things to go along with what he was describing. She knew that she was probably wrong so when he paused she filled the silence with a parade of questions.

"What’s Portland like? What are hipsters? Are they the people who live in Portland? What’s coffee, is it a food?" Her expression was eager and her dark eyes bright at the idea of learning a little bit more. Since her arrival Moana has been learning everything she could and she was eager to know more.

"Trust me, if you don't know what a hipster in, bask in that knowledge," Ravi says with a determined nod of his head to make sure that she understands that they're a sort of scourge that he wouldn't wish on anyone, so he's glad that so far, they haven't been accosted with any here. "And rainy season to help the crops go? Absolutely useful. Fog that just blankets you for no good reason? I think it's a test to weed out the easily depressed," he says.

"In London and in Seattle," he adds. "If's why the people who live there are so bloody strong." His eyes widen, though, when she mentioned not knowing coffee. "I don't even know if we have coffee here, how can you not know coffee?"

"Okay." She didn't completely understand but she saw no reason not to trust him. That, and Moana had a feeling that this was once again another joke that didn't quiet make sense. "I like the fog." She commented though what he was talking about wasn't exactly the same sort of fog that she was thinking. It made it hard to see but it was also very relaxing; it all depended on how you looked at it.

Her chin tilted up towards him, her head canting to the side as dark hair tumbled around her shoulders. "Maybe I know it by a different name? My island is very small. I don't think we grow anything called that." She really didn't know.

"You still haven't told me what it is."

"It's a caffeinated drink that comes from beans," he explains, reaching back to all the information he's ever been given about coffee in the past. "Basically, it's a pick-me-up that can get you very addicted, very fast. It's why I had a lot of withdrawal symptoms when I first got here," he says with a knowing nod of his head.

"Do you have something like that? Perks you up when you drink it? Eat it? Chocolate is also a sort of derivative, but a different bean."

"We have the Kava root that we make a drink out of. It’s usually for celebrations or ceremonies." What Moana didn’t know was the root that she was talking about was actually a minor narcotic. "We have beans but I have a feeling it’s something different than what you’re talking about." Most of what they ate on the island gave them energy so she wasn’t sure how to compare coffee to what she knew.

"I might have it by a different name. It’s really hard to tell here."

"With coffee, it's an every day sort of thing. Morning, mid-morning, late-morning," Ravi lists. "And you know, so on until you reach the point that if you drink any more, you're likely staying up all night jittering." Or, in his case, still working because he happens to have incredibly important projects on the go.

"Tell you what, if I ever find some, I'll bring you a cuppa," he promises, patting the chicken, as if that's the sort of thing you do to seal a promise. "So, is this one of the providers of my morning omelettes? They've been very delicious."

Moana smiled at him before laughing softly. "Yes, I think so and I look forward to trying coffee if I have the chance." She stepped up next to Ravi and held out her hands. "Do you want me to take him? I'm not sure where he goes but I think it's in the inn, as long as he's inside his owner should find him."

She was also wet and hoping that the fire was lit so she could dry off and warm up. Moana was becoming very aware of how water made everything colder.

He has the feeling that if they bring the chicken back and randomly deposit him in some random room, the odds are that they're going to meet with someone who's less than pleased about their new feathered friend. "I don't mind holding him. If he starts pecking, I might run into some troubles, then," he does admit, balancing the chicken until it's in the crook of his elbow.

"Maybe he won't try and drown himself in the inn's sink, I'd hate to have to do an autopsy on a bird."

Moana’s eyebrows rose before she shook her head. "I think you’re safe. She’s awful docile for a chicken." Which was good for them; most chickens are easily panicked. She turned and waved him to follow her into the inn. She was sure that this was where the chicken had come from; it was the only place she was with any regularity. "I remember their being a coop out back, maybe someone brought it in from the cold."

She looked down at the chicken once she reached the door and then looked back up at Revi. "You don’t really think it’ll be able to get to a sink do you?" She knew he was kidding but she was really worried anyway.

Ravi turns the bird a little bit to the site, as if to confirm that it is, indeed, a hen. He's only teasing, really, trying to get a smile, because he's still scientist enough to know what sort of bird he's dealing with. "I think this bird is going to be safe," he assures her with a nod of his head. "I'm more concerned about you," he points out.

"Do you often save drowning chickens? Or is that a new past-time?"

Moana's lips twitched into a bit of a smile as he moved the bird around. She pushed her way inside, welcoming the warm touch of the air. It wasn't really that warm but compared to outside it was a heavenly sauna of sunshine and heat.

She blinked at his question, looking very confused before quickly replying. "Oh no, not all the time. You know sometimes birds need looking after. Even one's that aren't to bright." The chickens were usually smart enough to stay away from the ocean. "She reminded me a bit of Heihei, she's a chicken from my island."

Ravi settles the chicken a little nearby, trying to use whatever spare materials are lying around to construct a miniature pen to keep the chicken in, just until Kate or someone else returns so that he can prevent it from making a break to try and kill itself again.

"Do you just have the one chicken? Or is it a special chicken?" Ravi asks, wondering if chickens are an endangered species on her island or if this Heihei just happened to be a magical, special chicken.

"Oh no, there are a lot of chickens. Heihei is just my pet, you could say." She moved over to where Ravi was and began to help him build a pen. It wasn't really all that difficult, they just needed something that appeared solid to the chicken which in this case was a mixture of chairs and pieces of woods; both of which the Inn could have back once the chicken was returned to Kate.

"Have you had a pet?"

Ravi opens his mouth to agree, but then closes it. "Not really," he admits. "I mean, I had the lab rats, but those were more of a job and an experiment. I had a dog for a while," he says, but the whole story of Minor is one that he doesn't really want to relive, because it just brings him back to the whole crisis at home, which isn't something he likes to do.

"Why is your chicken a pet? Did you eat the other ones?"

She watched him with a bit of a half smile before shaking her head. "We ate some chickens but we preferred to use them for eggs and eat the fish from the ocean. It was only when chickens stopped laying eggs that we'd eat them." Heihei was a special case, Moana had gotten very attached to her just as she had Pau. She was very vocal about keeping them both, even if it was sometimes awkward.

"Did you want a pet? What happened to your dog?"

The dog story is convoluted and complicated, something he doesn't think that talking to a near-stranger about is probably wise. "We had to give him away," he says, which is a better thing than saying 'Major sent him away for fear of being discovered as a kidnapping would-be-murderer'. "I loved the dog, I was thinking about getting another one for myself," he confesses.

Maybe in another time, another place, but right now, the concept of a pet seems to be a little outside of his priorities, given that it's more important to eat and survive than to be caring for an animal.

"We'll find a pet." Moana has already made up her mind on the matter. "It shouldn't be to hard when the weather warms. Maybe a chicken? They're very good pets." You can get eggs from them and they don't take up to much extra food.

"If we're really stuck here we should do what makes us happy. You can't survive and be unhappy." In her mind it didn't work that way.

"Because life is about living, not just surviving, no matter where we are."

"I've got enough to worry about without any pets on my plate. Actually, that's exactly why I shouldn't get a pet. They're going to end up on my plate," he clarifies, seeing as it's not like Ravi is under any delusion that he can somehow keep an animal without needing to eat it at some point, if desperation kicks in.

"I've got my lab rats again," he assures her, hoisting the chicken up to place it a little inside some of the little sticks. "They're not pets, but they occupy my time."

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