Checking on home

Levi let the blue haired god and the woman know that he was in agreement with the Shinkou and pressured her a bit into complying with his "so what do you say" line. Ryal let her question sit until she said her name and in doing so she twirled her hand and gave a short bow. If Ryal was paranoid he probably would've stiffened at the twirl however he didn't because her question made her seem non-threatening for some reason. "That's right, a mutual... acquaintance introduced us." He started his reply trying to hold back a smirk when thinking of Alice so that this Jamie didn't get the wrong idea. "You can call me Ry." He would finish giving her the same letters he gave Taishi. More than Alice yet less than Brooke and Ryu but that was more to avoid confusion than favoritism. He would then look to his short friend to see what he had to add, perhaps he wanted a nickname too. Ryal wouldn't rob him of that by speaking for him.

WC: 175

Levi had to chuckle when Ryal mentioned the mutual acquaintance, at least it sounded better than "that crazy bitch Alice". The short Nara listened as the woman introduced herself as Jamie, followed by a bow. He didn't intend to do the same, it would only make him look smaller than he already was. His blue haired partner used a nickname to introduce himself to the woman which made Levi regret he never took the time to think about a badass alias he could use himself to go by. Shorty? No, not cool enough. Nara? Too specific. Frodo? Didn't really make sense. Oompa Loompa? Simply too rude. "I'm Levi, just little old Levi." He figured it wouldn't hurt giving his real name, it wasn't like people would remember him anyway.

"So, about that food?" All the talking had made him hungry.

(WC: 140, TWC: 841)

Jamie waited for them to speak their fill, and then sighed. "So you two do know each other, and I presume there's someone else somewhere around here? Or is your 'mutual acquaintance' not around?" Jamie wanted to cross her arms, but instead left them firmly planted at her sides. The constant posture would hopefully convey... something positive. She honestly had no idea what it should convey, let alone what it would.

Jamie paused for a moment. "I've got some preserved shark and some semi-fresh ferret that's still gotta be cooked. We can go do that now, if you're willing to follow."

[[OOC Note: if you want to interrupt, seriously feel free to, I just wanted to get more done in a post.]]

Jamie turned partially around. Enough that she could walk towards the tree, but not enough that she was unable to see at least one of the two. She would turn her head between them as she talked, in a way that she hoped would convey trying to be polite, not skepticism.

"Mind if I ask about your lives a bit?" She paused, and turned her head. "I've basically only known Tenga life and life in our refuge town. Always nice to learn more about the world."

[[832]]

It seemed that Levi couldn't hold back his feelings about Alice as he laughed at the mention of the child. The blue haired male would return the favor when Levi called himself "little odd", that's one way to make an impression. Especially when he went right to asking about food afterward; Ryal shook his head lightly. When the woman spoke again the Shinkou was frank. "No, she's probably dead. She disappeared on us a while back so we continued with our travels." Although he didn't know if or when the brute would appear there was no need to scare her by admitting that there was still another member just not the one she was thinking of. She already seemed stiff and paused after he replied. Luckily her next sentence was about food and she was asking them to follow her again. As she turned Ryal decided why not, if there was some secret fight she was drawing it out. He began taking steps toward her as she asked about their lives and explained that she was curious about the world. "You know nothing about Ame?" He asked genuinely interested in how clueless she truly was.

He wasn't trying to call her bluff it's just with her height and mature face he figured she had to have some knowledge. Someone who actually lived in the area could tell him something other than the rumors other travelers swapped.

WC: 236

"Shark? We can eat them?" Levi was visible surprised by the mention of what kind of food she was able to prepare. A bit earlier Jamie had inquired about their so called mutual acquaintance to which Ryal already replied but to avoid any further suspicion the short Nara decided to put his own two cents in as well. "It's as my blue haired buddy over here says, for all we know she is no longer amongst the living and in all honesty the world would be a better place if that were to be the case." He sincerely doubted someone would be missing Alice now that she was no longer around to threaten them.

By now Levi had followed the woman to where she was supposedly keeping her food before telling a bit more about himself. "Ah, finally someone is interested in my story. Well, I grew up in the Land of Fire. Stuff happened, I left, travelled around the world, ran into the crew et voila, here I am." For now he figured not to share too much information, he could never be too sure who she was. 

(WC: 189, TWC: 1030)

They both seem to hate whoever introduced them. Jamie thought, as she continued walking towards the tree. Maybe they each met her on not-the-best terms? And they worked to escape?

Jamie approached the tree, and reached to break off a few branches, dropping them to the ground after she did. Shortly after, she would slip off her backpack, listening to the rest of the pair's words while she began stripping leaves off of the branches.

I'm not a complete idiot, I do know ABOUT other places. I know some really general things about Amegakure, Konohagakure, whatever have you. I was more curious what life was like in your towns. So for you, what life was like in Ame, and for Levi, what life was like wherever in the land of fire you were born. Jamie took a deep breath as she began laying the stripped sticks into a small pyramid. Although now I'm kinda curious why you left Amegakure, though I kinda get it if you don't want to say how. I didn't leave my home on the best of notes, and if I'd actually done any of the things they accused me of, I'd probably be pretty tight lipped about the whole ordeal.

Jamie, knelt down to the ground such that she stood on both feet with her knees sticking out forwards, reached into the backpack she had slipped off and pulled out a lighter, about to start the fire.

[1073]

Ryal grinned at Levi’s comment on Alice while the Shinkou wouldn’t have gone that far it was amusing. He then shook his head at the male’s innocent excitement when hearing that sharks were edible. “You can eat almost anything that isn’t poisonous.” After they’d started walking and he’d asked Jamie about Ame Levi continued his excitement in wanting to tell his story. But it was weird with that energy you’d expect to get more than the cliff notes. As the woman went breaking branches off a tree the blue haired male would take a seat on a nearby rock. Speaking Jamie explained that she wasn’t a blank slate and was trying to learn how their daily life compared and contrasted. Unfortunately, he couldn’t answer that, or perhaps he simply wouldn’t, as she worked the woman asked more about the neighboring village. Although Yuumei could tell him about any realized Shinkou that ever lived Ryal couldn’t imagine that daily life differed much between minor villages. So he told her the truth, “There was nothing spectacular about life in my village. Ame was destroyed before Tenga and then rebuilt by some genin and destroyed again not long after by Kumo. The Raikage took those he deemed worthy of living back to Kumo, I was simply going back for the hot spring.” The woman mentioning that she’d left her home as a criminal was interesting, she was the first he met to say such. “So then you are willing to talk about it?” The golden eyed god asked with a focused look, intensified by his vertically slit pupils.

WC: 265

It seemed like the woman still had some follow up questions regarding both Ryal and Levi's life. Maybe she was simply curious, or perhaps Jamie wanted to know more about the people she was talking with and took an interest in their stories. The Nara allowed his blue haired partner to share his story first before starting on his own. He listened attentively since it was the first time Ryal talked this much about his past. "Hm, I could use a hot spring myself" he thought out loud. For as long as he could remember he never had the chance to experience one.

Once Ryal was finished with his story it was Levi's turn. "I had a pretty good life to be honest. Was even a high ranked officer in a squad for a bit. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. No wait, different story. What I meant to say was, everything changed when my friends and I got ambushed and I lost all of them. After that I decided it was time for me to leave and see the world, which had always been one of my dreams." Levi figured that much would suffice for a backstory. 

(WC: 200, TWC: 1230)

Jamie nodded. There were growing signs that these two were ninja, though neither had confirmed anything. If that was the case, it did not sound like they were inherently bad people, though they could also just be watching what they said. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right? Jamie hoped her first reactions to the two's talking were correct: that Ry was a refugee without a home, and that Levi was a wanderer. Perhaps a wanderer that was wandering without leave (she chuckled when her brain tried to pronounce WWOL). Either way, this gave her hope that they were decent people. There was still the chance they were criminals, and she was screwed, but chances to not reality make.

"I'd heard about some of the troubles faced by Amegakure, sorry you had to go through that, especially if you were in the village when it fell. At least I had left awhile prior." She said the last bit with a lump in her throat. It had not been a happy day to leave. She missed Tengakure, even if she knew it was nothing but rubble by this point. She could still remember exactly how to get to her old workshop. She would not even be surprised if she managed to find it in the ruins. Maybe find some of the trinkets she'd never quite finished.

"Being ambushed is an awful experience. Honestly, that's what started me being exiled from my new home." While talking, Jamie began tending the young fire. "And yeah, I'm willing to talk about my past. I didn't commit any crimes, so I don't see why the fuck not" she said, with a voice filled more with exasperation than anger. "I was an engineer back in Skyscraper. Engineer and a steel smith. Pretty common combination, considering how often we needed to custom build replacement parts for the machines. When we went to war, I was vocally against it. So were a bunch of my peers. Nothing ever... happened to us, but it kind of ruined our reputation.

"Then, there was a big evacuation. I followed most of the rest of the people to this once place. Tried to keep working as an engineer, and as a smith, but there was less need there. Skyscrapers require a lot of maintenance, you see. No other type of building really has that sort of need. Plus people hated me. The population was still in the war mindset. So I tried for other work. Found some. Not the most enjoyable. Dangerous. But oddly fulfilling? I lasted awhile, and then dropped out. Went back to smithing. The war was over. Skyscraper was gone. People cared less about the fact that I had not previously been very amiable towards the war.

"Well, not everyone. Part of the evacuees had been a new ninja force. They were super loyal to the idea of Tengakure. Dissent was an unforgivable crime, to them. One night, I woke up to a banging on my door. Shouts of 'Police, open up!' I was walking towards the door when someone threw me to the ground and restrained me. Didn't stand a chance." Jamie pauses here. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small rotisserie and a few chunks of coal. Pouring water from her canteen into the rotisserie, she places the coal under the boiler and uses a small piece of wood to ignite it. She begins talking again as she unpacks a prepped ferret carcass from her backpack, only having to unwrap it from the cloth it was resting in. "We'd been frame. Me, my friends, anyone who was particularly vocal about being against the war and held even a modicum of power. Said we were stockpiling weapons, including high pressure explosives. Said that what I had was the worst of all: plans for a war machine." Jamie laughed. "I was vehemently anti-war. Why the hell would I want to build a war machine? Especially in times of relative peace??" She placed the ferret onto the rotisserie and strapped it in with some wiring. "Utter bullshit. But I saw at least a dozen of my friends executed in front of a crowd. Made a show, their mouths gagged so that their screams of innocence would go unheard." She flipped a lever on the rotisserie, and it began to turn on its own. "I survived by a fluke. They waited too long to kill me. They'd lost control of the narrative. Well, they'd lost control of some of it. There was doubt, now. So they exiled the rest of us." Jamie let herself plop down to the ground, properly sitting on the damp grass. "And now I'm here, cause I'm out of places to go." She stared into the fire.



[[1868]]

Ryal’s eyebrow rose when Levi said he was a “high ranked” officer, he had to be exaggerating seeing as how Alice threw him to Taishi like a pet. He then covered it up with a joke before finishing his story. It sounded like he wasn’t a part of Konohagakure and able to leave without a problem but that could be a lie. He also sounded like an orphan but the blue haired male hadn’t figured the woman wanted his full autobiography so it wouldn’t be weird if the short male also thought that. The woman might’ve found his joke funny as she chuckled around the time he said it. Once Levi was done she spoke again offering her condolences for the fall of Ame to which he nodded. She would then move on to giving them her own as well as a bit of Tenga’s history. It might be presumptuous to say but her use of profanity made Ryal think she might be getting used to them. She continued to work as she told her tale, she laughed as she thought back on being framed. “Damn, that’s depressing as fuck.” Ryal replied, it was hard not to get bummed out by that story. “It sounds like you had a fulfilling career though.” He added not really sure what to talk about after that.

WC: 223