intraspective | Room 504, Saturday Evening

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Room 504, Saturday Evening

Ino had woken up at her normal ridiculous hour, freezing, and taken a long look outside before deciding that her clinic shift could go screw itself because Ino? Ino was not going outside in a blizzard. Even if, she'd realized as she'd hauled more blankets on to her bed and crawled back under the covers, the clinic probably had power and was warm. Clinics had things like back up generators and stuff, right? Eh, not worth the odds of getting lost and dying, no.

When she woke up a few hours later—warmer, but then enough blankets to drown in helped with that—Ino peeked out and swore when she realized what she really should have realized before. Her poor plants! It was funny how that got her out of her nest of blankets faster than anything else had as she went to work tacking up blankets over the window and wishing like anything that she had some way to keep her plants warm.

Poking her nose out the hall said that it was even worse out there and she shut her door tight and the shoved blankets at the bottom of it to keep any cold air from getting in. Then she went digging through her kit that she dragged around on missions and came up with a few glow sticks—snapping them got her some light, and if it was green light, well, it was better than nothing. Even if it was an absolute bitch to read by.

So, Ino spent her nibbling on chocolate and granola bars (she had ration bars but Ino was saving those for if this went on for longer than a day or two) alternately reading by glow stick and exercising because that got the blood moving and she could pretend she wasn't cold for a bit and fussing over her plants.

And hiding. But seriously, she was from the Fire Country. Snow and cold were not her friends. Ino curled up in about twelve blankets with another granola bar, another glow stick, and the play she'd picked up in Gaia.

Today sucked.

[Closed door but open post, yes.]

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Ino was just going to push her door shut behind him, this time leaving it unlocked--Zack would probably want to leave at some point, after all--but kicking the blankets back up against the bottom of the door and clinging to the cider for all she was worth.

It was warm! Waaarm.

"If this keeps up for longer than a few days," Ino said, sipping her cider and sighing. "I'm booking it back to Konoha 'till it's warmer here."

That probably said something about her opinion on the weather, right?

"And, no, this is awful for the jungle. The jungle is screaming. Can't you hear them?" Ino's eyes were amused, though, as she oh-so-absently tried to drape a blanket over Zack's shoulders. Shut up. He needed it. Even if he thought he didn't. "I don't know--if it's not too long most of them should bounce back. But some of them are... I hope they make it. Some of 'em ain't native to this world or to mine."

If they died, she was going to have a fit. At least she'd managed to get rid of the drafts in here?

The floaty glowy thing was totally giving more light than her glow sticks. Which were still tinting the room a interesting shade of green. Ah well.

Zack accepted that there was a blanket being draped over him- And he didn't even protest that he didn't need it, because, honestly, it was kind of cute the way Ino had snuck it on, and all.

He tilted his head a little, and then gave her a wry smile.

"I can't really talk to plants or anything, so I don't know so much about the screaming. But I do know that I've seen a few fireplaces here and there through the dorms. You don't suppose they'd be better off near those, maybe?"

She was a ninja! She was sneaky! Or something!

"Well," Ino admitted, "the screaming is more a construct of my imagination than anything solid but I generally guess that if I were a plant that lived it's life under a sun lamp in a nice warm room and then all the power went out and I-the-plant began to freeze that I'd start screaming."

Ino had possibly had too much time to mull over that. Thinking was bad sometimes.

"There's fireplaces?" Ino hadn't known that, no. "That--might help. At least the really delicate ones." Setting her cider down (after stealing another sip) Ino gave her plants a long look. "The Sun's Glory, for sure. They only grow in one city in the world that they came from. If they die, I've got some more seeds--but..."

"But it would be a shame to have to start over again, right?" Zack gave her a bit of a wry smile. "Tell you what... You pick out the plants that need warmth the most, and I'll help you carry them someplace a little less chilly."

It would be like exercise!

In the cold hallway.

Ino was already moving to pick out the ones that she wanted to get the heat. "Most of my ferns are pretty sturdy ones," she replied, "so they can stay here--if this goes on longer than a few days, I'll need your help to move them if you don't mind, but they should be okay for now. These, though, are Sun's Glory," she gently picked up a pot with absolutely gorgeous red and gold flowers in it and cradled it in her arms. "A friend who left gave the flowers to me when his world was in serious trouble. He wanted the flowers to survive even if the world ended."

She smiled down at the blossoms. "He helped save the world and I got to keep the flowers." So, they were going to be kept safe and warm. "These first."

And then the strange glowing plant that Liir had given her. It changed colour as she picked it up carefully. "I don't know if this is sensitive to cold," she admitted, "but I'd rather it was warm. It was a present."

Zack nodded and held out his arms. Whatever she wanted to load onto him, he'd take without complaint.

"Gifts are totally important, that way," he agreed. "It's too bad there's no safe way to cast a Fira spell in here. It would make more sense to build a fire where the plants are, instead of running laps with them, and all. But we'd have to open a window to let the smoke out, in here, and that would kinda defeat the purpose."

For a very, very brief moment, Zack wondered if it would be a bad idea to summon Ifrit, just to ask him if he'd mind chilling out with them for a bit.

Because that would so go over well.

She looked down at the plants in her arm and considered his suggestion.

"We could open the door to let the smoke out?" Ino wondered. "That would be easier than carting them around. We could probably make some sort of spot for a fire to be."

Zack was going to have to ponder this even more now, yes.

"Let the smoke into the hallway, you mean?" Well, there were worse places for smoke to go. "I bet I could probably find something that burns without putting off too much smoke, come to think of it. If worse comes to worse, I could make a run out to Turtle and Canary!"

In the blizzard. Zack was both very brave and very stupid.

Ino stared at him.

"...you could also get horribly lost and never come back."

So cheerful, really.

Zack blinked, and then rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's not that far from here, is it? I mean, I pass right by it on my way to work every Sunday."

It was right across Loon Drive! A quick jaunt around the Salle, and... He might get stuck in a snow bank. Hm. That would be problematic.

"I could tie some string to the door and follow it back?"

Right, Zack.

Ino set the plant down and put her hands on her hips.

Well, where her hips were, through the sweaters.

"I would rather have every single plant in my room die than have you get stuck in a snowbank and go missing for days on end."

He was an idiot.

"How 'bout we start with seeing what we've got in here?"

Zack gave her his most sheepish smile, and then shrugged his shoulders. It had totally been worth a shot.

"That works, too. Maybe we can funnel the smoke out the windows with blankets or something, if it comes to that. What's your wastepaper basket made of? Think we could start a safe little fire in that?"

Ifrit was starting to sound like a better and better idea, actually.

"It's metal," she chirped now that he wasn't going to go out and be stupid.

"That ought to be safe enough, yeah? As long as we only got it on while we're awake and everything?"

Ifrit wasn't that bad an idea, really, right?

A deity of fire with flaming horns and a banana hammock. There was no way that could possibly go wrong!

"I think the metal should totally be safe enough! Maybe we can put it on top of something else, so that it doesn't get too hot for the floor, but that's easy enough to fix. I can run down to my room and grab mine, and then we can turn one upside down, if nothing else."

It wasn't like the building they were in was flammable! Wait.

"Might be one in the common room that we can kidnap," Ino said, grinning at him as she grabbed her trash can and eyed the contents. All paper stuff. Kleenex. All burnable stuff. "We'll need more fuel, too."

"Paper," Zack replied, nodding sagely. "Burn the homework! It's all for a good cause!"

No, Zack, that probably wasn't a good idea.

"I bet I have some old copies of the school paper or something, sitting around. Those would burn."

"I bet there's old magazines and stuff in the common room," she said, glad for a plan and moving her plants out of the way so that they could make this fire in the center of her room. "And, worse comes to worse, I got some notebooks and stuff that I don't really need."

Ino had a bit of a notebook obsession, really, with all the notes she took.

Zack grinned and nodded.

"And I bet if we get into really dire straits for fuel, we could find out what other stuff burns, too. But at the moment, there's not really any shortage of paper, right?"

Right!

"And Mr. Winkles has wood shavings, back in my room! That... we don't really use, because he lives in my pocket, and all."

Yep. There was an aggravated squeak as Zack patted his pocket, right there.

Ino's eyes dropped to stare at the pocket.

"...I suppose he'd probably better off than I am," she sighed, lips twitching as she fought the urge to laugh at that. Poor Mr. Winkles! "But right--heat! Fire! You need to get your trashcan and stuff."

She grinned at him. "And then we can be waaarm."

Okay, she could be warm. He didn't mind this as much as she did.

Zack? Grinning? Good.

"Warm's good! I'll be right back!"

And off he went, taking the stairs about three at a time with the blanket billowing out behind him like some sort of budget superhero costume. The actual process of going to grab his wastebasket was probably about... Oh, one minute. He'd had to stop somewhere in there to find the key to his door. And to grab some sunflower seeds for the gerbil.

"Knock knock," he announced, upon his return.

Ino had used that one minute to clear a space for the fire and to dart over and into the common room to grab every magazine and newspaper she could get her hands on.

Those, she'd placed in a pile and was cheerfully ripping some of it into shreds to use to start off the fire when he came back.

She grinned a the picture he made: trash can, blanket-cape; he was totally her hero.

(Dorkiest hero ever.)

"You may enter," she said grandly. "And--I was going to say close the door, but I guess we need it open a bit? So don't."

Zack was about three seconds away from wearing the basket like a helmet and striking a pose.

Don't make him do it.

"Open door it is, then," he agreed, making his way in and squatting down by the paper that she was shredding. "Do you want me to put this right here, then?"

But he'd look so cute!

"Over with the other one," she said, tilting her head at her clear space. She had floor! This was amazing! Okay, she normally had floor. It just usually had some paper or a plant or something on it. Shush. "And I think we're 'bout ready to start lighting it up?"

Fiiire.

Mmm, fire! Zack, complete with blankie cape, was now putting the pail upside-down on the floor, and then carefully balancing the other one atop it.

"Looks to me like we're about ready," he agreed. "Do you have anything to light it with?"

Ino lightly lobbed a match book in his directions. "Old fashioned," she noted, "and yet still useful."

Lucky them!

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