wipesfaith | 02 [action/voice]

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02 [action/voice]

[For all his trouble, Jean got a horse. Which is great, because he's curious to explore what lies far beyond the village and he ain't walking all that way. (What can he say? Some losers from back home have gotten into him a little bit.) First, though, he needs to find a saddle and bridle - apparently, he should have made out with a few more people if he wanted riding gear too. But his pride is worth more to him than that anyway, so he doesn't mind searching through the Item Shop for what he needs.

By the afternoon, he can be found at the stables on the east side of the village. He has spent the past few days visiting Benoit, letting the horse grow accustomed to him as he cares for him. Now that he has something more sophisticated than a rope lead, he's willing to take the horse out farther than the immediate vicinity of the stables. It was already obvious to him that Benoit lacked training. Before he can think about riding him anywhere, he'll have to muster up some serious patience and start from scratch. After fitting him with the sadle and bridle, so he can start getting used to the way it feels, Jean will lead him out to a decent-sized clearing in the forest to get down to business.

Toward the evening, after returning Benoit to the stables, he makes his way back to Flame Building. Residents may have noticed a recent addition outside the building, in the form of a small pen that now houses a little lamb. He'll stop by to check on it for Marco - make sure it's not dead, not that he'd be terribly broken up if it were, because he's never indulged in lambchops before - before finally heading in.

Later, he'll flip open his journal to voice a message.]

[Voice]

Hey. I guess I'm still pretty new here, so I'm just wondering...what's worth seeing beyond this village? I've seen a map, but a map can only tell you so much. There's an...ocean out there, right? [He gets the feeling that some might find his next question a little stupid, and he swears he's sane; he just comes from an insane world.] Is there seriously salt in it?

It's weird... This whole place could probably fit inside Wall Rose - that's what's left of human territory back home - but it still seems like so much...more.

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Well, I wasn't planning on going tomorrow.

And I wasn't expecting the salt to be a problem, I'm just saying...why salt? Doesn't that just seem weird? [Or is he the odd one out...]

[There was a short laugh. Cliff never knew what to expect around this place and figured that it was better to be safe than sorry.]

I don't know the science of it too well myself, but it's pretty normal. Besides it stinging your eyes if you do decide to go for a swim later, it's best not to worry too much about it.

I hadn't even thought of swimming in it... I just want to, you know, see it. [Because he can't really imagine what it looks like, aside from something like a really big lake.]

...Where would that much salt even come from? [Yeah, he's still hung up on this.]

'Dissolved solids'... I think. The ocean can slowly break things down with time, and I'm talking about everything from glass bottles to giant boulders. And, water evaporates. The solids don't.

[Headscratch. He was an engineer, not a marine scientist.]

That's all just a guess. There might be a few books for ya in the library if you wanna know that badly.

[...But that still doesn't explain where the ocean gets it from. Is there that much just sitting in the ground somewhere? Shit...]

It's just that...salt is such a valuable commodity back home, so it's weird to think that there could be so much in one place.

[...interesting word choice there, stranger. Color the big guy curious...]

You in some kinda disaster situation where resources are scarce?

[Because it was the only thing he could think of. Space-bound vessels always made sure to have a full supply of the basics, like water and salt. Running low on either was usually the result of major damage-- possibly from a combat situation.]

You could say that. Food shortages have been a problem for years now, but salt has always been scarce.

[But then it would be accurate to say that the whole world has been a disaster situation for the past hundred years.]

Gee-- that sounds like a rough set up!

[He didn't envy the man. No siree.]

[The tip of the iceberg, man. --Not that he knows what the hell an iceberg is either. But he doesn't really want to talk about his own shitty world too much, so after a vaguely affirmative grunt, he'll redirect the conversation.]

So is it common for people to go swimming in the ocean where your from?

[Good save-- Cliff wasn't gonna press for details, but he was starting to wonder about what kind of world ths guy came from. At least now there's an out.]

--Yeah. It's pretty common. People also go sailing, fishing, diving...you name it, and somebody has probably already done it.

It's not too different from what you could do in a river or a lake, but I guess with the ocean there must be a lot more space.

The river that goes through my hometown was mainly used for trade and transportation purposes, so swimming in it wasn't exactly encouraged.

Probably isn't safe to swim if there's boats going through it all the time. Can't blam the policy makers on that one.

People use the ocean for that sorta thing too, but you're right. It's a heck of a lot bigger, and deeper too. But, it's not without it's own risks, like everything in life

It must be easier to drown in, if it's that much bigger and deeper. It sounds like if you went out far enough, you wouldn't even be able to see land anymore. [Which is hard to imagine.]

Right on both counts. And, to make it really neat, you might be able to find more land on the other side of the ocean.

[He had never been able to share that particular thrill, but he recalled the frustrations and rush of landing in undeveloped territories. There had to be a few similarities between the two concepts.]

Other lands with more people, huh... It's like having a bunch of different worlds spread out across one.

Hm. Never looked at it like that. But, the guys who explored it would probly agree on that one.

Is there a lot of unexplored land in your world? [He makes it sound like there are still people exploring it - possibly a group of them.]

...It would be weird to find a new piece of land and learn that a whole other group of people have been living their this whole time without you even knowing.

Unexplored planets. [He chuckled. It wasn't often that he spoke about the details from his own world.]

I was just imagining how the explorers in the history books must've felt on their travels, is all. And, actually, they found lands with people living on them all the time. Just like you said too, with finding people living in places that you never expected.

...It's kinda like that for planets too, actually.

Oh... [Kinda resenting that chuckle and feeling sheepish now. But how the hell was he supposed to know?]

So all this stuff about different worlds isn't all that surprising to you.

[He wasn't. Cliff just had a brief moment of nostalgia as he thought of the stars.]

Different worlds? Not so much. Now, different dimensions? That's a whole 'nother can of worms.

[Don't worry, Jean is just defensive of his sensitive ego, and he hates feeling like an idiot. But here he is, wide-eyed at things that his own world might contain, when there are others who have known so much more.]

What do you mean "dimensions"? [The only definitions he's familiar with are the ones that deal in either measurements or spatial awareness.]

I mean exactly that. [Calmly, although he had a few biases in his use of terms.]

A different world, to me, sounds like we're on just another planet like Earth or something else in that system. You could travel to another one if you had the right tech and the right plan.

This place? We couldn't do something like that even if we got outside of this little dome. So, it's another another dimension.

Huh. [He thinks he gets it. Sorta.]

So this place is kind of parallel to other worlds, is what you're saying. They've never gonna meet or touch.

Yeah, basically. So long as we're on this planet, we're stuck.

...Aow, it ain't always so bad. If the cards fall right for ya, it can be something like a vacation. There's no reason not to try to enjoy this place.

[He already knew that.]

"Try" being the operative word. Not that I don't enjoy all the free food and the easy lifestyle, but it's hard to be at ease when there's a war looming over you head and those weird experiments that can pop up out of nowhere.

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