The Beach, Sunday Night

[intraspective]

Her arms burned with the effort of handling an unfamiliar weapon and sweat beaded down her spine as she spun slashing up and then to the side with the spear before taking a step back and beginning another movement.

Under her feet, the water rippled as she stepped, almost danced across it, the spear her partner and the twilight growing around her. As practise went, this killed two birds with one stone. How long could she keep moving on water and giving her arms a work out?

Ino didn't know. She was planning to find out. A low cut, slicing at the water with the gleaming blade of her spear, and Ino narrowed her eyes in concentration as she swung the blade up, straining with the weight of it.

This way, she didn't have to think about anything but the water under her feet, the spear in her hands, and the effort it took to manage two things at once.

That was, after all, the point.

[Open if you wish!]

Comments

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

Walking on the beach at night was something Tully liked to do from time to time. It was very relaxing, and sometimes he imagined he could just step onto that path of reflected moonlight and head off for Fiddler's Green or somewhere.

He never expected to see a girl standing on the water wielding a spear.

"The hell?"

[intraspective]

Hey, someone was there. She twisted, not stopping for a breather and changed her angle so that she could see who it was.

Huh. Silhouette: not helpful.

"Training," she said, dryly.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"You do much fighting, uh, on the water?"

[intraspective]

"Not really," she said, with another slash then cut of the spear. "But there's nothing wrong with training for it."

Which she wasn't, but Ino wasn't going to explain the difference to someone she didn't know.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Is that a common ability where you're from?" Or was she some kinda spear wielding messiah?

[intraspective]

No, that was Cable-san.

"What?" Ino asked, executing a turn and then a lunge. "Water walking? Yeah, pretty much. If you're a ninja."

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"You're a ninja?" he asked, surprised and impressed. Didn't they all wear black pajamas and face masks?

[intraspective]

They did not wear pajamas.

Unless it was to sleep.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Sorry. Just not something you meet every day where I'm from. Though maybe it was only a matter of time around here."

[intraspective]

Ino took a moment before answering that.

"I've been here for almost two years," she informed him, almost lightly. As lightly as she could, anyway, while focusing on three different things. "And, yeah, ninja go to high school too. What's your world like?"

Maybe she could get him talking about himself?

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Well, as far as I know no one in my world can walk on water. Unless you believe the bible. And even then it's only one man in history who could. My world...I'm not sure how to describe it without comparing it to something. There's ghosts, and magic, but nothing flashy. No zombies, or spontaneous singing. No food raining from the sky."

[intraspective]

"I liked the Pop Tarts," was her absent-minded contribution as she continued her exercise. "How do you have non-flashy ghosts and stuff?"

Weren't they by definition flashy?

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Well the only one I've known just kind of showed up as a breeze, and a disembodied voice. Not a loud one either. Thought that might be just 'cause Johnny Red Dust was kind of soft spoken in life. The magic, it was...I've got two good luck charms, that've always gotten me out of trouble. But it's all coincidental stuff. The kinds of things skeptics would have no problem not believing."

[intraspective]

"So you don't know if it's magic or not?" Ino wondered.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Sure I do. Given to me by a genuine Medicine Man and everything." he said sincerely.

[intraspective]

"Like that Coyote guy was?" Ino asked, lunging and then drawing the spear up slowly.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

Tully had only been in the guy's shop once, but it had looked legit. Well the part that didn't sell the touristy stuff. "Yeah like him. Johnny was a Navajo, not sure what nation Coyote was from."

[intraspective]

"Nations?" Ino asked, because seriously she had no clue.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Yeah the nations of...Is there an America in your world?"

[intraspective]

"Nope!" she said cheerfully. "And I couldn't name very many of the ones in this world either."

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Okay well in America there's...We used to call them Indians, these days we call them Native Americans. They're the people who were in America before the white man showed up. There were different nations of them."

[intraspective]

"Oooh! So you took them over!"

Ino, you took American History, please pay more attention to your classes.

"So they lost, right, but they're still 'round 'cause killing would be bad."

That sounded unconvinced.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

"Well I didn't." And he wasn't a believer of the sins of the father blah blah, so he didn't really care if his ancestors had had anything to do with it. "But yeah that's the gist of it." He decided not to get into the Massacre at Wounded Knee and other similar incidents.

"Johnny was part of the Navajo nation. He and my father fought in World War 2 together, and he was kind of like my god father."