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

[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?"

[puppy_fair]

"We can make it work," Zack agreed, nodding. "There's a chocobo ranch past the mountain range just on the other side of Kalm when you're leaving Midgar. I bet somebody there would be able to help you out with that. I've helped clear monsters out of their pastures on more than one occasion."

So they kind of owed him, right? Maybe?

[intraspective]

Ino blinked, then blinked again.

"I could seriously get one maybe?"

[puppy_fair]

"Well... I don't see why not, if you're really going to take good care of it," Zack replied, shrugging. "And when it gets older, having a chocobo around would come in way handy for getting around, too! I mean, yellow ones can only handle running across the plains, but other breeds can even cross mountains and stuff."

[intraspective]

"The yellow ones were the ones I was thinkin' about," she admitted, "but they're cutest."

Ino was clearly in this for practical reasons, could you tell?

"And if I did get one, I would take care of it, geez." She was a bit hurt that he'd think she wouldn't.

[puppy_fair]

"I don't doubt that you would," Zack insisted, glancing her way and offering her a bit of a smile. "You were awesome with Mr. Chocho that weekend, and you were just a little kid, remember? But there's probably lots to learn, so it would be best to get all that stuff figured out first, right? And you'll have to get seeds for chocobo greens, too, or he'll go hungry fast."

[intraspective]

Ino nibbled on her lower lip and considered that.

"Maybe next time we go, we can look into all of that and see what sort of work it'd take?"

Because she also remembered Reno telling wee her not to feed the thing flowers and that they liked apples.

[puppy_fair]

"Hey, sure! It shouldn't be too hard to get out to the Ranch again. We can hitch a ride out there. There's always some traffic or other headed at least as far as Kalm, and it's about a day to hike from there."

Taking into consideration the fact that the plains were always crawling with monsters, of course.

"Or I could ask Tseng if any of his Turks are headed that way. They have a helicopter, and it wouldn't be too hard to just drop us off!"

[intraspective]

"You think they'd be fine with that?" she asked, a bit dubiously. "It's probably less of an imposition for us to get there another way, right?"

[puppy_fair]

And you'd have to pardon Zack now, Ino, for wearing the wide-eyed, open-faced pout of a guy who couldn't imagine he'd be imposing on the Turks at all if they were already heading that way.

Unless it came down to him pulling on Tseng's ponytail again, which... was totally a possibility, and if that was the case, he'd completely understand if they didn't want him on the flight in the first place.

"Hitchhiking it is!"

Brilliance!

[intraspective]

"It's a good plan," she said agreeably. "And we can decide from there if anything's going to come from it."