fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room; Saturday Afternoon.

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Fourth Floor Common Room; Saturday Afternoon.

Cal had slept in for three reasons: the first was simply that it was a Saturday, the second was because yesterday had been a very long day, and the third was because he had trouble sleeping anyway. It was being in a new place, with a lot of new people, in an entirely new situation. He was used to it, of course, so he was used to losing sleep over it at first.

Besides, it was nothing a little coffee couldn't fix. He rubbed the back of his neck as he drifted down the hall and into the room with the couches and the TV and the kitchenette and started rummaging around for what he needed.

While...trying not to step on the tortoises.

Wait...

Cal frowned at the little golden tortoises swarming at his feet right now.

Hopefully that was something a little coffee could fix, too.

[[ open common room is open ]]

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"Blue," Cal said, almost automatically. In truth, he didn't have a favorite color, but blue seemed to be the one to go with.

"No reason; I was just wondering." It wasn't pink, no, but purple could still be kind of girly. Or...

"Purple's a color that's supposed to denote royalty, you know."

"And there's nothing wrong with that!" Ino chirped. "It's also commonly related to spirituality too."

Which was interesting considering her family's talents.

"Yeah?" Cal asked. "I hadn't heard that one."

Actually, it sounded like something Zora might have mentioned, but, odds were, Cal hadn't been paying attention to her when she did.

"Oh, yes. I'm better at the meanings of flowers though," she admitted, "did you know you can insult people with flowers?"

"I does kind of make sense if you think about it," Cal said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Really don't like someone? Send them a stinkweed."

She tugged at her hair. "It's a lot more complex than that," she said reprovingly.

"Is that so?" Cal tilted his head with an expression of pure and undivided attention now focused on the bouncy blonde. "Do tell."

"Well," she said, warming to her topic, "Candytuft is great for this 'cause it means 'indifference' so giving it to someone is a bit of a 'whatever', right? And a yellow carnation is totally disdain, same with Rue, which, obviously from the name, Wild Sorrel means 'ill-timed wit' so if you're thinking that they were tasteless or something you'd send them that. Trefoil means 'revenge' so, it'd be a warning. See? It's fun."

"I like the warning one," Cal had to admit. "The others just seem...wasted effort. I mean, if you were indifferent or hated someone, why bother?"

"Because the other plants that are with it would alter the meaning," Ino explained, "so you could say that, like, for a business agreement 'I'm indifferent to this proposal, but am still your friend.' Or, 'I hate the person you've been lately so can we talk it out?' It's not just one plant most of the time, it's the combination that makes it tricky and clever."

"Couldn't you just...tell them, though? That a lot simpler."

Ino gave him a bit of a Look.

"You could also say 'I love you' to them too, but people chose to do that with flowers as well. What's the difference?"

"A hell of a lot more people probably know the 'I love you' one," Cal pointed out. "I really don't think that many people would get a...what was it? Yellow carnation? And go..." Here, he gasped dramatically. "Oh, no! Cal hates me!' if I sent them one. They'd probably think, 'oh. What a nice flower.'"

"Back home people would know," she said, wrinkling her nose at him, "flowers are covered in the Academy. And a yellow carnation is pretty basic."

"We definitely didn't have any classes like that at...er," Baker & Inglis was pretty well know, in Cal's world, anyway, as an all-girl school; odds were that Ino would have never heard of it, but he didn't want to take any chances, so he faltered slightly. "...my old school. All this time, people could have been sending me hate letters via flowers and I'd have never known."

"Would they be sending you hate letters though?" she asked, tilting her head. "That's the real question! And well, I guess I didn't think about it. This is the first civilian school I've ever attended. So, I don't really know what other schools would teach."

"Well, I've never gotten flowers before," Cal said as he shrugged, "so the whole point seems kind of moot. What other kind of classes did you take there?"

She blinked at him. "Never?" Ino echoed, wondering how that happened. "Well, let's see, we did history, geography, taijutsu--that's hand-to-hand combat to you--, tactics, strategy, ninjutsu, weapons training, cooking, culture, flowers, sewing, basic first aid."

A beat.

"All the basics really."

"Definitely got your bases covered there, yeah," Cal commented, looking impressed, although mildly so, and wondering where the kitchen sink was.

"Well, you've got to know it all to be a ninja," she said off-handedly, nibbling on another Oreo.

Yeah, Ino was kind of getting eyed skeptically a lot by Cal in the short span of time they'd known each other, wasn't she?

"Ninja?"

Call it her bubbly contribution to breaking his brain!

"Well, yes," Ino grinned at him. "That's what I am after all."

"I...was not aware of that," was all Cal could really think to say, and, well, it was quite true. He tilted his head slightly, wondering exactly what sort of ninja things she could do.

And here all he got to do in junior high was play field hockey.

"I wasn't expecting you to be," she told him, "'less you're from my world the forehead protectors don't mean much." And hers was around her waist, besides.

Cal's eyes went immediately to Ino's forehead, too. The fact that the only thing covering was a lock of hair did not particularly help her in the Oh, yes, of course, I believe you department.

"Forehead protectors?"

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