Main Campfire, Monday Evening

[puppy_fair]

Okay, so today had admittedly not been the most productive day that Zack had ever had. He'd skipped work today after having the meaning of Memorial Day explained to him by the gym teacher, and then he'd handwavily headed down to the graveyard. Angeal wasn't there, no, but it was about as close as he was going to get, and the time to just sit quietly and pay his respects had been good for him.

Now, to wrap the day up, he'd grabbed some marshmallows, bars of chocolate, and graham crackers, and he was working on getting a decently sized fire going.

Okay, so Zack's idea of a 'decently sized' fire was possibly not what most sane people considered to be one. He'd heaped the logs on kind of ridiculously high, and then he'd lit that sucker with a Fira spell. The result had singed his eyebrows a little at first, but hey, all the better for making s'mores, right?

... Once he blew out the marshmallow fire.

[Open!]

Comments

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

Bruce shook his head at the marshmallows. He rarely ate things that were pure sugar. "As long as you're prepared, I suppose. How effective are your ice spells?"

[puppy_fair]

"I've gotten better with them than I used to be," Zack replied, as though this answered anything at all. He grinned and popped another marshmallow onto his toasting stick before continuing. "I used to be able to drop a shard of ice a couple of feet across onto something out of thin air. Now I can manage shards of ice that are twice that size. And I can cast one after another, if the water from one isn't enough."

Mmm, Blizzara.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"So I should stay even farther away from the massive fire just in case you need to drop giant ice spikes into the area," Bruce noted. "At least I know this now rather than later."

[puppy_fair]

"Oh, it's not that bad, is it?" Zack looked thoughtfully from Bruce to the fire, and then shrugged. "If I didn't think I could keep it under control, I wouldn't have made it so big. Honest."

He was a very responsible crazy military kid. Truly.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"If I didn't have some faith in you, I'd have called the fire department already," Bruce said.

[puppy_fair]

"Well, then you can consider me totally reassured," Zack decided. "Are you sure you don't want something? There are graham crackers and chocolate pieces, too."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"No, thank you. I try to eat fairly healthy. Gooey sugar and chocolate don't really count towards that," Bruce said. "Do you have anything else?"

[puppy_fair]

"Well, there are sunflower seeds," Zack mused, patting down his pockets. "With the shells on. I keep a bag of them with me for my gerbil, but they're pretty good for just snacking on, too."

Mr. Winkles would not approve.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I'll let your gerbil keep its food," Bruce said. "I wouldn't want it to go hungry, after all."

[puppy_fair]

"Are you kidding, man?" And then Zack pulled out the bag of seeds. It was a surprisingly large bag, considering he was keeping it in his pocket. "I've got like ten of these things, back in the cabin. He won't miss them at all."

The gerbil that peered out of the pocket where once there were seeds looked less than pleased. Fie upon thee, filthy humans!

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"... You keep your gerbil in your pocket?" Bruce checked. "You don't worry that it's going to get squished in there?"

[puppy_fair]

"Nah," Zack replied. "I have really big pockets."

This was an understatement. He could probably keep 98 other gerbils in there pretty comfortably. Another one beyond that would probably be pushing it, though.

"And I'm kind of on the move too much to keep him in a cage. He used to have a hamster ball, but after he escaped with it, I decided it was probably better to just keep him with me."

To the evil rodent's eternal dismay.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"You didn't have him in there when we fought during Fight Club, did you?" Bruce asked.

He didn't know what to think about fighting a guy with a gerbil in his pocket.

[puppy_fair]

There was a pause, there. And a moment while Zack looked up at the sky, thoughtfully.

"Nope, I'm pretty sure I remembered to leave him in my room that day."

Pretty sure. But Zack sometimes had the memory span of a gerbil, himself.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Remind me to check if we ever spar again," Bruce said. "I wouldn't want to give you a lesser fight because I'm worried I might kick an animal."

[puppy_fair]

"If I have the presence of mind to remind you to check," Zack noted, "odds are I've already had the presence of mind to take him out of my pocket."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Fair enough," Bruce said. "If it helps, I never carry animals on me. My pockets aren't nearly big enough for them to be comfortable."

[puppy_fair]

"That would make a bit of a difference," Zack decided. "I mean, when I say my pockets are deep, I'm not exaggerating. But most people don't wear pants that are quite as versatile as these."

Yeah. It was totally all about the uniform. The uniform and its baggy, baggy pants.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"How deep are they? Could you fit a weapon in them?" Bruce asked.

[puppy_fair]

Bruce was looking at a boy who came from a world where anything from a megaphone to a pair of gloves to a prosthetic arm could be slotted with materia and used as a weapon. And that was why he was getting a kind of weird look, just then.

"That," Zack replied, "probably depends on the weapon. What did you have in mind?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

That wasn't exactly the answer Bruce was expecting. "Maybe I should rephrase the question. What kind of a weapon could you hide in there if yo needed to?" It might also give some insight into what kind of weapons Zack would be likely to carry.

[puppy_fair]

"Some guns, I guess. Knives, things like that. I really don't tend to, though. My sword and my magic are more than enough, and I need the space in my pockets for things like potions, anyhow."