The Preserve, Late Monday Night

[intraspective]

The preserve, really, ought to have been fully dark considering how late it was, but Ino had brought a few portable lanterns and set them up around the perimeter of the clearing. She wore short sleeves despite the cold, and had her cards on her. Getting the kunai from the locker would’ve been too much hassle with everything else.

In her hands was a scroll and she was idly tossing it from one hand to the other as she waited for Reno. Because that was totally the way you treated quality literature. Of course.

The knapsack she had slung over one low hanging branch contained two other scrolls and she left them where they were for now.

[For the partner-in-crime, please!]

Comments

[intraspective]

"Totally willing to see if it'd work," she assured him, catching the scroll easily. "I just don't know how long it'd take to figure it out. I'm still pretty novice at this sort of sealing, so yeah... just 'long as you're not expecting anything real quick. And I don't mind running around for something like this, you know? Not when it's so important to people."

She tugged at her hair. "Oh, the water's a bit harder to get in the scroll, at least so far. I'm managing over a hundred pounds of it, but much more than that and I'm just... not with the working of it, yet. I'm still trying, but I figured, yeah, you might want to know that."

[raspberryturk]

"Even a hundred pounds in a five-pound scroll's a big deal, Ino," Reno pointed out, mulling it over for a moment before digging into his pocket. He had to have a spare materia or two floating around in there somewhere.

Ah! He held out a small, green, marble-shaped thing toward her.

"It's a Heal materia. Doesn't do a lick of spit unless it's put into a socket on an item, but when it is, it does pretty much the same thing a potion'll do, from my world. Fix up cuts an' scrapes an' broken bones, that sorta thing. I dunno if you can channel it to do other stuff. Never really tried. I think materia is what materia is, and if you want somethin' else, you gotta merge it with other shit, too."

A pause.

"But hey, it's somethin', if you're willin' to work with me to try an' figure out if we can put a slot on a scroll, yo."

[intraspective]

Ino still felt it wasn't enough. She went to take it from him, to inspect it curiously.

"'Course I'm willing," she said, mildly piqued that the little marble thing could heal as well as she could. "Maybe on the sides of the scroll..."

Ino contemplated the scroll thoughtfully. "I think that's going to have to be pretty much the only spot we can try it. Most of it's just paper, after all."

[raspberryturk]

"Cool." Reno shoved his hands back into his pockets and leaned back against the nearest tree. "I got some old armor I don't use no more, it's slotted. I can give it to you sometime, and maybe we can pick it apart, use the slots on that in the scrolls or somethin'."

[intraspective]

"Is it just something as simple as attaching the slots and hoping something works?" Ino wondered. "Because, seriously, I've barely got an idea 'bout how your materia stuff works."

[raspberryturk]

"More or less, yeah. Takes a little work to get real good with something, but even a kid can use low-level materia easy enough," Reno agreed. "I mean, if you suck with the equipment it's in anyhow, yeah, you're gonna suck. But Heal materia? That's basic. That's the kinda stuff you wanna have, or you're gonna get creamed, yo."

Reno didn't tend to use his. Reno was sometimes a nibshit.

[intraspective]

"By the big bad demon houses you've got?" she teased, tossing him the materia back for the moment. "Seems like it'd be a good job stealing this stuff from people if even kids can use it."

[raspberryturk]

Reno caught the materia and pocketed it again.

"Eh, not everyone can get their mitts on it so easy. Materia's more expensive than potions, too, zoto." He pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. "Thing is, people are so worried about killin' the planet even worse, they're afraid to borrow a little here an' there now and then to help pick up the pieces. I ain't seen someone who wasn't tryin' to destroy the planet use the stuff in a while, now."

A pause.

"I ain't tryin' to destroy the planet. Just sayin'."

[intraspective]

"If you were," she commented dryly, "I doubt you'd care so much 'bout what I'm working on to help your planet out. It's so strange, I can't even imagine how things would kill the planet like that--those little marbles of energy, or whatever--that they're so powerful. Won't people protest though if we try to use them to help?"

[raspberryturk]

"These are the same people who are starvin' to death in Edge, makin' shitty little lean-to buildin's out of whatever they can pull from what used to be Midgar. They're the same people who, somewhere out by Corel or Gongaga, are slowly dyin' because there ain't no way to get them to the water that's in Midgar, and there ain't no way to get the water to them, either. If we can make this work," Reno said evenly, "they're going to have to just fuckin' suck it up and deal with it, yo."

[intraspective]

"I was just curious," she said, glancing at him before tossing the scroll into the air and catching it. "I don't know how your world is, not really, so you're going to have to deal with impertinent questions."

[raspberryturk]

"Hey, I can deal, I can deal." Reno heaved a sigh and shrugged, leaning back more heavily against the tree. "I'll make it work. If you can make this work, I'll make it work, yo. Give it off to the World Regen group, or whatever. The people trust them more'n they'll ever trust me anyhow. Either way, it'll work."

He sounded far more confident than he felt. But that was usually the way of things, wasn't it?

[intraspective]

It was practically the way she lived her life, so Ino could work with that.

"It'll just take a bit of time, yeah?" Ino considered that. "You staying for the summer, or going straight back after grad?"

[raspberryturk]

"Ain't decided yet," Reno confessed. "I don't wanna leave. This place is... I dunno. I'd sound like some kinda sentimental mook if I said Fandom was like home. But sooner or later, I'm gonna have to. Might be a matter of gettin' out quick. Like pullin' off a bandage, yoto."

[intraspective]

She nodded.

"Hey, Reno," Ino asked. "Do you think this place has made you stronger, or weaker?"

[raspberryturk]

That was a question that caught his attention pretty quickly.

"Stronger or weaker how?"

It also seemed like the sort of question that was up for interpretation.

[intraspective]

"Just...," she searched for the words, "for being able to do your job. Even though, I guess, your job description's changed. But if it hadn't..."

[raspberryturk]

He heaved a sigh at that, gave a little nod of his head, and decided that now was as good a time as any to make himself comfortable, taking a seat on the ground.

"I'd do it, if I had to. It's what I do. A job's a job, yo." A beat. "And I could do it, too. Went back to Gaia a few months back and took a bomb to an overpass I was standin' by. No time to think about the consequences. You get the job done."

That was the important part.

"I think I'd feel it more after, though, if I had to do it again. I'm just startin' to be able to square my shoulders up again."

[intraspective]

She sat down where she was, scroll in her lap, and sighed.

"Found out I'm back on active duty," she told him. "So I guess I'll be finding out soon."

[raspberryturk]

"You worried you're gettin' soft in the head, or that you're gettin' rusty?"

This was a very important distinction to make. It meant the solution was going to be far more difficult.

[intraspective]

"Both, I guess," she admitted. "Found out I was rusty last time I went home. Been working harder, so I know I've improved since then, but I don't know how it'll compare at home. And as for in the head... I don't know. It depends on the missions I get. Some wouldn't cause anyone issues--stuff like playing courier and defending ourselves if we got attacked, but others..."

[raspberryturk]

"Say no more," Reno replied, holding up one hand. "I think I know what you're gettin' at, there."

He drummed his fingers against his lap, mulling it over for a moment. And then he grinned.

"Clearly, this means we gotta duke it out sometime. That helps with the first part, anyhow. The rest..." He shrugged. "My way of dealin' with that don't work for everyone."

[intraspective]

"Give me a few missions to try and knocks some kinks out first," she said dryly. "And straight on fighting isn't my strongest point anyway--not strong enough for it."

"And, I know," Ino admitted, "that your way might not work for me, but at least you get what I'm talking about. And that helps too."

[raspberryturk]

Reno nodded, leaning back against the tree and reaching for a stick. Something to do with his hands. Snap. Time for a new stick.

"Sometimes, just gettin' it off your chest helps," he agreed. "I got an open ear, if it does ever get to your head, okay?"

[intraspective]

"Okay," she said, ducking her head. "At least you don't go off 'bout my questionable morals and ethics. Even that helps. Most people here do at least a bit."

[raspberryturk]

"I got a feelin' that my morals and ethics are a little bit more questionable than yours, zoto." Snap. Next stick. "Don't worry about it too much. Someone else has an issue with you, you ask 'em how long they'd last on your world while bein' the nice guy, yo."

[intraspective]

"Not very long," she laughed. "And I don't know how my morals match up to yours. You've got more experience in not having them, I've just been taught not to have them."

[raspberryturk]

Reno eyed her for a while, and another stick died a terrible, horrible death.

"You do the job. No matter what." A pause. "Because you're Turks, zoto. Ain't nothin' else matters. Not the people you're roundin' up. Not what happens to 'em after. Don't matter if they live or if they wish they died. You do the fuckin' job."

Reno's morals, in a nutshell.

[intraspective]

Those poor sticks.

"Yeah," Ino said, leaning so far back that she was more laying then sitting on the ground. "Like that. Only--you guys don't start out as Turks, right? Not from the cradle."

[raspberryturk]

"Not most of us. None of us who are still alive, anyhow," Reno agreed, shrugging. "You gotta kinda dig to figure out what you're still doin' it for, sometimes. For me, it was easy enough. But for some of the others, I think it took a little more doin', zoto."

[intraspective]

"Do you regret doing what you do?" Ino wondered, staring up at the sky.

[raspberryturk]

And, at that question, Reno offered a bit of a tired smile.

"If I ever let myself regret it, Ino, I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror. Or sleep at night. Or breathe without feelin' bad about it."

[intraspective]

Enough questions then," she said. "So you don't gotta think 'bout any of it."

[raspberryturk]

"I appreciate it, yo." A pause. "Thanks again. I mean, for all the work you been doin' with these scrolls. They're gonna mean a lot, I think, to the people back on Gaia. We just gotta make it work. Make 'em more portable, or user-friendly, or somethin'."

Something.

[intraspective]

"They're not used for things like this back home," she said. "Just weapons and in the middle of battle. Tenten can whip these things out and aim the weapons in them while she's releasing them so that they'll hit the enemy. I can't do that, and I'm not sure she'd have ideas 'bout user friendly--to her, they are, you know?"