A Corner of the Preserve, Sunday Afternoon

[intraspective]

Ino's comprehension of Christmas didn't run much past shiny presents and such but she definitely had the looking like a kid on Christmas morning thing down pat as she half-danced half-bounced her way into the preserve with Zack after the dishes had shooed them out of Café Fina for the day.

And admiring her shiny armlet with her shinier Thunder materia in it. It wasn't technically a Christmas present, but it was the best present ever.

She was going to get to do magic!

There was nothing cooler than that. Well. Except for the next two weeks, uh huh.

"So," she said, grin evident in her eyes, her voice, her bounce, her face. "How does this work?"

[For the modded with permission puppy only, please!]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

"Pretty much," Zack agreed. "I'm trained with my sword more than for any sort of magic specialization, even if I do kinda swear by my materia at times. Someone else might be better with magic. Just like anything, I suppose. Either you're a runner or you're not."

A beat.

"And yeah, ethers taste almost as nasty as potions do. You'd think they'd put some sugar or something in them, to hide the taste, but I guess they're more worried about function than flavor."

[intraspective]

That meant Ino was going to give the ether a nice long look and sigh. Before uncapping the thing and downing it as quickly as possible.

Euuurgh.

"I can get that, but still--ewwww," Ino complained lightly, making a face. "So--I don't totally suck at magic then? For a baby at it? I'm going to be gleeful about that, I promise."

Once she shook the bit of sulk out of her system. Why couldn't she be awesome at it? Geeez!

"And I'll get better with practice, right?"

[puppy_fair]

"If you don't get any better with practise, I'll ask you why you stole my cursed ring," Zack replied, laughing a little. "Feel better? Or do you think you'll need another one?"

[intraspective]

"Cursed rings halt progress?" she asked, tossing the empty bottle back at him for lack of anything to do with it.

Ino considered his question. "Better? I don't know--it's kinda hard to gauge it when I ain't never before! But I feel a lot better from running on empty!"

[puppy_fair]

"Cursed rings halt progress," Zack agreed with a nod as he swiped the empty container from mid-air and then pocketed it. He'd toss it in the trash later. "I don't know what it is about them, they just keep you from getting stronger at all, no matter how hard you train. But they make you stronger in the here and now, so they're fine if you're not planning on ever fighting anything stronger than whatever monsters you already know you can handle."

He tossed her another ether.

"Hold on to that one. I don't imagine we'll be actually fighting anything today, but this is Fandom, so it might surprise us on the way to catch our portal, huh? If you're feeling better, that'll be good enough for now, huh?"

[intraspective]

Ino tucked it away in her pockets and nodded, mentally making notes that cursed rings sounded like they sorta royally sucked to her.

She nodded. "Yeah," Ino said, grinning again. "And I don't think we'll be really fighting much at home? 'Cause we won't leave the village or nothing so--that's plenty time to get any rest I need, right?"

[puppy_fair]

"More than enough," Zack agreed, chuckling. "A nap will do the trick, anyhow."

Zack, of course, was not a big fan of naps. So he burned through ethers as if they were oxygen.

"Think that's enough for today? Have you got everything you need for the trip?"

[intraspective]

"Just got to grab a different coat," Ino said, looking down at hers. "This is too warm for Konoha--'less you think I'll need it for Midgar?"

It was winter in Konoha, but winter in Konoha meant lots of rain and not much snow.

[puppy_fair]

"You... Might need it for Midgar, yeah." Zack gave the coat a critical sort of look for a moment, and then he shrugged his shoulders. He was standing there in his short sleeves, and the weather didn't seem to bother him one bit.

Which was odd, considering how tropical Gongaga actually was.

"There's probably some kind of vague attempt at snow, right about now. Midgar doesn't get much, but it does get cold enough there that when it does snow, it sticks around for a little while."

[intraspective]

Ino would really like to know how people like Zack avoided getting cold, geez.

"I'll grab my other one just in case," she said, shrugging and grinning. "And meet you down at the Causeway?"

Unless he desperately wanted to come with her, or something. Ino was pretty good either way.

[puppy_fair]

Zack had pretty much everything that he was going to need, but he was easy, and he'd probably take this opportunity to swing by the pond to watch the flamingos doing their little dances on the ice some more, anyhow.

"Sounds good to me. See you then!"