Room 504, Sunday Morning

[intraspective]

Ino was busy.

If you could call having cranked the music up with her door wide open and cross-legged on her bed reading busy.

(Ino was also inconsiderate of her neighbours and their sleeping in habits, yes.)

And reading was busy even if it was simply the same information she was pouring over in an attempt to glean new details from (so far: not working) and giving her something to look at while she struggled to come up with something to say to the e-mail she'd gotten on Tuesday. She needed to answer it, but it made her feel like crying, so she wasn't. Happy thoughts only. At least for the moment.

One thing, she thought with a sigh. All she wanted was one thing that was simple.

... she could go get a hot chocolate. That was about as simple as it got. Hmmm.

[Oooopen door and post.]

Comments

[intraspective]

"Would there be walls where we'd find the Malboro?" Ino asked. She didn't know. She knew roughly what a Malboro was and that it was about a million years out of her league but...

[puppy_fair]

"Either walls, or sheer drops from rocky cliff faces, usually," Zack agreed, nodding a little. "Or a bit of both. Both is totally possible, too. The one that I've run into on missions so far was in this underground cavern thing."

[intraspective]

"Ooooh." Ino looked thoughtful. "Might not be such a smart idea to get him drunk then..."

[puppy_fair]

"He'd have a loooong way to drop," Zack agreed. "And since we'd both be all dead, we wouldn't be able to get him."

A pause.

"Of course, SOLDIER are pretty good at surviving really long drops, too."

[intraspective]

"Still," she said, lips twitching. "Think of what he'd land on. There could be spikes at the bottom of the drop. Ow."

Owww.

[puppy_fair]

"He'd get better!"

... What? He'd totally just nap that off in an inn somewhere. Wasn't that how it worked?

[intraspective]

"Zack!" Ino was laughing though. "But seriously!"

[puppy_fair]

"If we were being serious, here, we totally wouldn't be talking about crowning Malboros," Zack pointed out, leaning over and giving her a shoulder-bump. "Or is that something that you've got your heart set on, now?"

[intraspective]

"What if I do have my heart set on it?" Ino asked, peering through her eyelashes at him. "What would you say?"

Note: she didn't.

[puppy_fair]

"I guess I would have to say my goodbyes to people before we go," he laughed, shaking his head. "Man-oh-man, Ino. That would be rough."

[intraspective]

"But we'd be together forever!" she said, falling back and looking tragic. "It'd be romantic."

And then she was giggling like a fiend.

[puppy_fair]

"But first we'd totally turn all green and woozy," Zack pointed out, laughing. "Malboro breath is bad. Like rotting fish and onions and... something really smelly that I couldn't put a finger on at the time."

Because he had been all busy being poisoned. By bad breath.

"Bad breath is totally not romantic!"

[intraspective]

"Says the man who thinks puppy breath is okay," she laughed. "I suppose that's true. We'd be better off perishing against something else in that case."

[puppy_fair]

"Something that smells better?" Zack laughed, thinking that one over. "We could make a chocobo angry. You totally don't want to see a chocobo angry."

Angry chocobos were like adorable, feathery death on two spindly legs.

[intraspective]

"I don't want to get one angry," Ino said dreamily. "I want to keep one for my own. So cute!"

She could have a chocobo chick!

[puppy_fair]

"I'd summon Mr. Chocho again, but I'm totally not going to try to march him out of here a second time," Zack laughed. "I like breathing."

[intraspective]

Ino giggled and glanced at him.

"How 'bout a baby chocobo?" she tried. "Like, super teeny Mr. Chocho?"

[puppy_fair]

"Super teeny? Where would you keep him?" Zack was still grinning, it should be noted, so it wasn't as though he had ruled out the possibility. Not by a long shot.

[intraspective]

In her hair, duh. Natural habitat for baby chocobos.

Ino wriggled to lean against him. "I dunno," she admitted, "it depends on how teeny they get and how fast they grow, right? But he could probably stay in the room for at least a little while?"

[puppy_fair]

"And poop on the floor, and eat your plants," Zack laughed, shaking his head. "Chocobos live on greens, you know. They'd be worse for an evil plant invasion than a Fira would be."

[intraspective]

That did give her pause, yes.

"...But they're smart," Ino said, in the tone of one who really wants to sound reasonable. "I'm sure if I told him that he couldn't eat certain plants but that the others were okay... and it'd only be the one of them... and how much could a baby eat?"

[puppy_fair]

"Well, you've seen them full-grown, too," Zack noted, "or at least mostly. Even Mr. Chocho wasn't as big as they can get. If he gets all used to living inside and then he hits his growth spurt, then he'd be kind of confused by he's suddenly not sleeping on your pillow with you, you know?"

It struck Zack as kind of mean, but Zack was sort of just stupidly sensitive to that kind of thing.

[intraspective]

Awww. Ino did think that was overly sensitive but it made her smile more than anything else.

"I'd talk 'round to people who're used to dealin' with them before that happened," she offered, "and see if there's ways to make the transition from baby-in-the-room to not being able to stay with me all the time? Even if that means I've gotta, like, sleep with him outside for a few nights so the big bad outdoors don't upset him."

[puppy_fair]

Zack considered that statement for a minute, and then relaxed a bit, his inner puppy-ness appeased for now.

"We know you can totally handle a few nights outside," he agreed, smiling a little. "I could join you! We could make it into a chocobo camp-out party!"

[intraspective]

"See?" Ino said, smiling. "It could totally work, right?"