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.

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Ravi instantly feels so very sorry for her.

Hand over his heart, he's not sure he's felt this sorry for someone since being in that coffee shop with the beautiful girl who'd never seen Star Wars. How can you live your life not knowing what you're missing out on? How on earth can it ever be complete? He feels like offering her his deepest condolences, but then she keeps speaking.

"So ghosts?" he clarifies. "Ghosts in specific spirit form," he says, considering it. After a long moment, he gives a shrug. "Neat," he admits. "So, what animal would you be?"

You couldn't miss something you've never experianced.

Moana watched him, wonder what was going through his head. He was very strange but Moana decided that she liked it. It was nice to meet someone who was different.

"I don't know yet. My grandmother was a Manta ray. When I find out i'll get it tattooed on me too." She paused, looking over at Ravi. "What do you think?"

"This all sounds very much like a young adult novel," he shares with her, his eyes wide and a touch amazed at the fact that he hasn't actually sat down and thought this out yet. Honestly, it has all the bearings of a good lunchtime discussion, to the point that he's just a wee bit disappointed that he hasn't actually figured it out.

"I don't know, I need time and consideration," he says with a knowing nod. "What about you? Manta ray? Follow in the family's footsteps?" It's hardly a poor choice, seeing as how sleek and effective they can be.

"Young Adult Novel?" Once again it was a phrase that Moana didn't understand. She knew the words separately but together it sounded like he was talking about something else. It was amazing that they were even speaking the same language sometimes.

She thought about it but after a moment she shook her head. "I don't know how you choose but when varies. I wasn't pushed to choose because my role is different on the island." She had others things to think about, now that she was thinking about it... "Maybe a turtle. They're the ancients of the ocean after all."

She's always felt connected with the ocean.

Ravi's been thinking about it the whole time she's been speaking, which possibly isn't very attentive and smart of him, but now that she's brought it up, it's hard not to. "Maybe a fox," he says. "They're wily and clever. Or a mongoose," he says, eyes widening. Truthfully, he's probably something boring like a loyal dog companion, but if he's going to be a pet, maybe he can work himself around to being a cat. Far more independent, at least.

"You do get to choose, though," he says, which seems interesting. "At least it's not reincarnation, I'm not even sure what I'd deserve at this point."

Moana listened attentively and realized that he might not have heard everything she said. It was frustrating and a slight frown tugged at her lips as he continued talking about either tattoo's or pets.

"Well that's what the tattoo is. It's the form your soul will return as. That's why you chose it, it's something you feel. Some in my village said they had visions about it." Though her grandmother made it sound as if not everyone chose appropriate tattoos. If Moana discovers hers, maybe she'd get one, though she wasn't sure if they had the ink here.

"Where I come from, if people came back as their tattoos, I would be chased by so many dragons on various vehicles," he says with the pinched look of a man who's had to do work on far, far too many bodies with tattoos that made him question why. Maybe it's just that he doesn't want to mar his own. "I think your people definitely have more respect for the things they choose," he says knowingly.

"Yes, there is a lot to it. I don't know if I'm explaining it very well. I just know what my grandmother told me." She wasn't sure how real it all was anymore. She believed in the legends but her father made it seem like it didn't matter. Thinking about it now was more confusing because she had no one to ask.

"Why dragons? Aren't those monsters?" Why would someone get a tattoo of a monster? That made no sense to Moana.

"I mean, yes, but they're really cool monsters," Ravi feels compelled to argue in favour of them, not just because he'd read a lot of books as a child that often glamourized the use of dragons for multiple task. "Or eagles," he says, eyes wide, thinking that Gandalf would probably absolutely advocate for an eagle.

Honestly, if he didn't think he'd regret a tattoo almost immediately, he would absolutely get one.

"Are they? Don't they eat people?" Most monsters in legends ate humans. Personally, Moana found it really cool also but she wondered if his legends were different from hers.

"If you want a tattoo of an animal I'm sure we can do that." In case he was interested.

"None that I've met and if there's an eagle that eats people, I'm going to assume that they definitely live in the Pacific Northwest. Dragons, sadly, have remained fictional through my life, a fact which I am still disappointed to have to live with every day," he sighs.

"I don't know if I trust this place for tattoos," he says. "Very high chance of infection, no laser removal clinics."

"They aren't real?" Moana pouted, her lips twisting slight. "What if they are real and you just haven't seen them? Just because it's a story doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere." She hadn't seen anything outside of her island but she knew there was something out there.

She believed in something more.

"I can do what we did on the island. We use ink from eels and it isn't dangerous." At least she didn't think it was, it was just another part of her life.

"If they are hiding somewhere out there in the world, I take personal offense that they haven't revealed themselves to me," he says, which is true because if zombies are real in his world, then why shouldn't he also get dragons out of it? It would only be fair, honestly. "Eel ink," he echoes. "And the needle? The sharp pokey thing that puts it on your skin?" That's the part he's more concerned with, not so much the source of ink.

Although, "Where do you suspect we have eels here?"

Moana smiled up at him. "Do you? Maybe they're hiding on purpose then." She was teasing him, just a little bit. It was easy to feel comfortable around Ravi, probably because most of what comes out of his mouth didn't make sense.

"You can make ink out of some plants too. I'm sure I can find something. We used a rock with a stalk attached it it." It was an easy way to go into the skin without going to far. The tools they used were set at a specific distance, making it easy to use and constantly the same pressure since it functioned using gravity. "I know how to make it."

Moana shrugged. "The water maybe? I don't know what's in the lake." She's only fished a handful of times.

His eyes widen with mild horror and he decides he's never going in the water again, worrying now about sea-snakes and land-snaked and just too many types of snakes, honestly. "Well, don't do it for me, I'm too indecisive to want a permanent tattoo, I'll regret it within months," he says knowingly, which is a sad truth about himself that he's learned to live with.

"Maybe you could set up a tattoo shop, though? I'm sure others would like it."

Moana looked over at her shoulder and then down her arm. "I might get mine... if it's right but I'd have to find someone to mark it for me." She didn't think she could do it herself since she had decided that she wanted it across her shoulders and then across her shoulder blades. That way it'd be visible, even when she wore her dress.

"Would they? That seems a little silly. I'd rather teach people to dance." She liked dancing and doing fun things. "Or swim. Did you know that a lot of people here don't know how to swim." It was weird.

"I mean, I'm good with a needle, but terrible at art, so that rules me out for local tattoo artist," Ravi says, which had never really been a dream of his, so he can live with that. "I'm not sure dance coach would elicit the same excitement," he says.

"I mean, I don't think anyone is going to drown in the river, but it would probably be helpful to know how to swim in case of a flash flood," he allows.

"You don't like to dance?" Moana asked curiously.

She knew that dancing wasn't a useful skill but it could still be exciting. She did find it really weird that so many people here didn't know how to swim. That didn't sit really well with her but then she was also from an island. From what she's learned, most people are from much bigger places; some that don't even see the ocean.

"Not unless I'm incredibly drunk or high," Ravi says, thinking of that godawful stage floor dancing he'd done while on utopium, grimacing even to think about that night. Honestly, he knows that it had been in the name of science, but in the name of science had yielded him a too-clingy girlfriend and so many headaches the next morning, like a spider had crawled into his brain and laid headache eggs.

"I am more than happy to sit out the dancing and observe," he allows. "I think it looks wonderful. I'm terrible at it."

"Okay." She'd wait for a moment when either of those conditions were met and then ask him again. He'd probably be better than he thought, if he just gave it a try. Plus she'd try and teach him so it wouldn't be so bad.

"You might see me dance. If you're lucky." Moana flashed him a smile. "I should go find the chickens owner though, I don't think he likes the pen we put him in." She pointed over to the chicken who was running into the side of their makeshift pen and was doing a decent job of trying to break it open.

Ravi gives a solid wave goodbye to the animal in question, but also to the girl. "Well, if there's a party, I know who to find on the dance floor," he assures her with a firm nod of his head, thinking that at least he'll be able to enjoy the sights. "I'll leave you to your chicken returning," he says.

"Good luck with him not drowning."

Moana flashed him a smile after gathering the chicken in her arms. "Thank you." She then turned on her heel and disappeared into the back area of the inn. She was pretty sure she knew who the owner of the chicken was.

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02 SNOW & CHICKENS

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