[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[Today the journal opens up on a rather water damaged looking apartment on the top floor of the Ground Building. Yes, the apartment has been trying to fix itself, but each night she tends to destroy it once more. Thankfully with the warmer weather the mixed breed will be returning to sleeping at the bottom of the lake once more, but thinking of her move she's gotten something else on her mind.

She opens her large, fanged mouth and speaks in a slightly gravely voice.]

Talking book. I have heard tell that in this land is the ocean. This is true, is it not? In which direction is this ocean?

[It's always been a dream of her's to see an ocean. Her extra long, scaled fingers grip the book tightly just thinking about it. She had put off searching for it until she felt she had secured herself a safe territory, but she's learned that Luceti probably won't let that ever happen.]

Is it as any ocean you have visited in your world? Or is it unique as are many items in this world? What of fish? Large monsters of the sea? Does there exist a place where one can stand and not see the end of the water?

[Tell her stories of oceans, Luceti. She's planning a trip and is full of excitement.]

Comments

[Written]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

The ocean is to the northeast, past the mountains. I only stayed on the sand so I don't know what kind of sea life there is, but it looks like the oceans from my world.

[Ginia pauses to reflect on the night. She went to the beach at night, but it was still very beautiful and relaxing. Quite the memorable night in a lot of ways.]

Back in my world, you could hire a boat to take you far out into the ocean. Eventually there'd be nothing but water around you and the sky above. Swimming out there was amazing. Warm water, fish and other sea life moving all around you, it's an incredible experience.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[Xzana would have loved to read all that. Would have been excited by it except for one small problem.

She can not read. So the book is moved this way and that. As the dark haired woman tries to make sense of what's written.]

I am unable to read human maps. [That's what this is, right? A map? She did ask how to get there after all. Picture maps she can understand, but she doesn't understand these pictures. Is it upside down? She'll give the book a turn to see if that helps.]

[Voice]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[....oh. Give Ginia one moment as she grabs her laptop. She quickly retypes her previous message into a text-to-voice program, switches on the audio feature on the journal, turns on the volume on her laptop, and presses play.

The voice is feminine, synthesized, stilted as it reads the words flatly, but it's clear enough.]

The ocean is to the northeast, past the mountains. I only stayed on the sand so I don't know what kind of sea life there is, but it looks like the oceans from my world.

Back in my world, you could hire a boat to take you far out into the ocean. Eventually there'd be nothing but water around you and the sky above. Swimming out there was amazing. Warm water, fish and other sea life moving all around you, it's an incredible experience.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[Ah! Better! She understands that! Even if it sounds like no human she has heard before. Maybe she wasn't speaking to a human?]

A place where there is nothing but water? Ah--[She does not know the human speech to express her excitement. A rather gravely grumble mixed with a high pitched roar is the result of her attempt.]

Were the fish as large as a house? I have heard tales of such fish.

[Voice]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[There's a pause before Ginia replies, the light clacking of keys filling the silence before the next message is read.]

Yes, whales, though they aren't fish. They're mammals. [Ginia wonders if the person she's talking to would know what mammals are. She quickly types in a response to be on the safe side.]

Mammals are animals that have hair (as opposed to scales or feathers) and nurse their young. Humans, dogs, and whales are all different types of mammals.

[Voice]

[geniustheveil]

[Ocean stories it is! Actually, she doesn't have as many travel stories as she'd like, but the bookworm and incognito soldier of water definitely knows about the ocean.]

The ocean is to the northeast. If you were to go out there, you could find vast areas where you see only water. It's very beautiful, especially with the sun shining down on the surface.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

I have never seen the sun set on an ocean before. I have on a small lake and the colors were as you say beautiful. [To see something like that on the larger scale of the ocean? It would be like magic.]

[Voice]

[geniustheveil]

[A guy who loves the water is definitely someone she can relate to.]

Is that what you want, to see it? Because you haven't before?

I'm sorry if that's a strange question; I just sort of feel like I understand.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

Yes, I wish to see the ocean and hunt for the fish larger than myself I have heard tales of. [As Xzana doesn't just love the water; she lives in it most of her life.]

In my home we have an ocean, but it is far from my birth. I had not yet traveled long enough to discover it before I awakened in this land. I wish to see this place where one could look and not see land.

[Voice]

[geniustheveil]

I don't know what sort of fishing the oceans here have, but I know people have sailed ships on it before. You might be able to go out with one of them, sometime.

[Voice]

[hollower]

[Oh, now this is something Perona can certainly comment on. Being cooped up in her apartment during the daytime is incredibly boring...especially when things going on in Luceti were of very little interest to her. But talk about the ocean and sure as hell will a pirate appear. She misses the sea...homesickness didn't even begin to describe her longing to be out on the water again.]

The ocean here like the mother sea? Peh! That little puddle can't come close to the length of the seas back home... The Grand Line itself spans the entire planet, not to mention the four blues! [The different regions of water and ocean outside the Grand Line itself - east, west, north and south.] Water surrounds most of the land on all sides... You can't compare what Luceti has to what I know. The things I've encountered on the Grand Line itself you wouldn't believe...horohorohoro...

Someone people from my home don't even dare believe the stories told of the most dangerous sea.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[Wait... was this woman saying...]

Then the world you are from? It is nearly completely covered in water?

[Want.]

I did not know such a place could exist.

[Voice]

[hollower]

Yes, that's right. A sliver of land circles the world vertically - that's the Red Line - and the most dangerous linear stretch of ocean circles the world horizontally. That is the Grand Line. [Perona waves one finger in a circle, to stress her point.] Other than that, in the four blues...islands dust the waters all over.

I was born on the Grand Line itself, but I can't recall the type of island, or the name. [Or much of anything about her youth, actually. Perona mostly remembers being on Moria's ship most of her life.] Though for a decade I sails the seas as a key player to a great Pirate Warlord - living on the greatest and largest ship on my planet.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[Sailing and ships -- boring don't care.]

I wish I have lived in your world. What creatures live in your oceans? Are there large fish? What of dragons?

[Voice]

[hollower]

Dragons...mhh. From what I recall dragons were eradicated long ago - by a great samurai. I knew him somewhat. [Or his zombie, at least. Ryuuma was seriously cool from what Perona remembers. He was an exquisite swordsman, and a gentleman most of the times... Moria must have picked a good shadow for his body - a strong one.]

But the fish are bountiful, of course! There are many types, each differing depending on the region where they're found. And then there are the sea kings...great ocean beasts that are hundreds of times larger than a great war ship. Each one of those monsters are violent and dangerous, some more than others, but they're simply one of the many challenges of navigating the seas of my land. Great sailors can challenge them, but only the best can overcome them.

The nest of the sea kings lies on the Calm Belt...where no ship dares to enter. A ship on the calm belt is doomed to be sunk and its crew killed and eaten by the beasts within the waters...horohorohoro... [With no wind and no current to escape the water, a vessel lays stationary in the water until one of the hundreds of thousands of sea kings decides its hungry.] The mother sea is vast and beautiful, but she is unforgiving and without mercy to the weak and the witless.

[You need to respect the water, not just adore it. Living in her world is not easy. It's dangerous and difficult. But what would one expect in a world of pirates and thieves?]

[Voice]

[windandrain]

[Well, that voice this one remembers, and fondly at that.]

There are many oceans in my world, and there are countless places where you can sit and look out at the water with no land in sight. Oceans, great lakes, seas, some of them are even inland. The sea here though, it's sadly nowhere near as large as the one surrounding my homeland.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[She is slightly disheartened to hear that the ocean here is not as large as she may be hoping that it is. Yet, hearing that there are indeed big ones in other worlds keeps her excitement up.

Even more so because it is a God who has chosen to take time out of her day to speak with her.]

I have yet to see such a place. To sit and see nothing but water seems like only a dream.

[Voice]

[windandrain]

Well, you can do that here.

[Saori's voice is encouraging, because if nothing else, Xzana does deserve to fulfill such a simple dream.]

Easily. I don't know what in the sea here, though. I've never swam very deep, but the surface is very beautiful. Wind, waves, it's exactly what an ocean should be.

[Voice]

[elongatedsmile]

[For one who once lived so far from the ocean and could not leave the water for more than a few minutes at the time? It was a big dream to her.]

The waves, they are like a lake's wave in a large storm I have heard. Only with a calm order to them at times. Is this true?

[Voice]

[windandrain]

That's right, just so. Have you truly never seen an ocean before?

Voice

[that_is_asecret]

[It was strange not to have seen any ocean whatsoever, but he supposed some beings resided in deserts and wastelands]

Yes, I have traveled many miles across the water. There are indeed places where one can look all around and see nothing but the ocean, pure blue as it were. My world is populated by a variety of creatures in the ocean, sea dragons, leviathans, krakens, merfolk, many more.

Voice

[elongatedsmile]

Sea dragons? [OH THANK GOD! She was tried of people thinking so many of the creatures she knew to be that of fiction. Being a dragon herself she was curious about some of her kin she could possibly find on her trip to the ocean.]

What are they like?

Voice

[that_is_asecret]

Well, they are rather violent creatures for the most part. Easily provoked, and quite capable of destroying a ship should it suit them. They fall into the unintelligent dragon category. According to some, they can also be quite delicious.

[All said very cheerfully]

Voice

[elongatedsmile]

[She snorts. Having quickly gone from very excited to speak with this person to very annoyed and insulted.]

They are not unintelligent! [She doesn't care if she's never met one! Totally going to side with the dragon over the human looking thing in this book.] Perhaps you are the one who is too unintelligent to understand them!

[And wait- wait a second. Did he just say?] Do you eat dragons? [She bristles slightly. Knowing it's not at all unheard of for a village of humans to kill a dragon and use it's body for food, but to hear it mentioned so casually! And she from a world where her kind have started to slowly die out!]

Voice

[that_is_asecret]

Oh dear, I believe I have hit a nerve have I?

[Always good to know which buttons could get someone angry]

My apologies. That is just how it is on my world. There are many intelligent dragons, but a few breeds of them are the equivalent of sharks or the like.

[This one would be fun to play with]

Do I eat dragons? Why, would that be an issue?