This place had held up fairly well when they found it; half submerged and in dire need of cleaning up. Whatever had happened, an amazing number of the plants had survived, enough so that they where able to revive much of what would have been lost to extinction. There were variants of plants here that her own clan had once raised; cousins of the seedlings she had been working to plant and grow the last few days. Some needed to be in the submerged areas, others were the salt adapted fruits and vegetables that they had grown to supply the village for generations. Now, they only existed here, in delicate seedlings that might not take, and could spell the end of entire evolutionary lines of fauna. The only thing she could do was tend to them best she could; an ammature doing a master's work. 

There was far more to be found in the greenhouse though; the surviving plants made for interesting study, and many of the poisonous flowers would make for excellent additions to her personal stores. She'd already started inoculating herself against the weaker pollens and saps; she would move on to the heavier ones soon as she was sure what exactly they were. Some of what she'd found was... terrifying. She'd harvested a few buds of her anemone to test the substances on first; and she's run across some that even the anemone couldn't handle. Those... she was quickly moving to locked vaults, safely away from anyone that might be lured by the pretty flowers and odd colors; accidentally prick a finger on a thorn or get any of the toxic dust on their skin. Without some dedicated medics with proper knowledge of these plants, they were just too dangerous to be left out in the open.

Outside of her studies and work, she was just enjoying the greenhouse for what it was; the salvation of their budding village. It would be months before they could plant crops above ground; but there was enough stocked grains and fruits to keep them healthy until a harvest could be reaped. Between that and the fish in the bay beyond the lake, they wouldn't starve before they had a real chance to get stabilized.

The greenhouse was really the one place she hadn't visited. She had familiarized herself with everything else in the village, had taken time out of her busy schedule to go meet with the Yanagi twins and thank them on behalf of everyone for all of the hard work they had been doing - and to even hint at the Special Jounin promotion that they were looking at in the future if things kept progressing as they were.

Now? Break time.

And what better way to enjoy a nice long break than to go explore the one place she hadn't yet? Of course, she wasn't going to take the greenhouse lightly; she had absolutely no idea what was in there, and for all she knew she might stumble across some man eating plant that would spell lights out for her. Yeaaaaaah, no. She could think of more heroic ways to die than fighting off some plant that would stun her, eat her, and grow larger to eat the person who came after her.

As she stepped into the greenhouse she looked around, taking in all of the different plants and surprised that there were any at all; those who had destroyed Korigakure had done a damn good job of it. But, she wasn't going to knock a good thing. She picked up on the familiar sense of Mizuko nearby. Grinning mischievously she tiptoed into one of the darker areas of the greenhouse and around it; moving to come up behind the female. She tip toed up behind her, ignoring the fact that she likely already knew she was there - Kouki did smell strongly of an ocean after all, a damn near give away where ever she went - and wrapped her arms around Mizuko's midsection in a hug as she placed her chin lightly against the females shoulder. "Surprise!", she said with a grin. "Find any man eating plants yet? I plan on avoiding those..."

Hm? Oh, Kouki. Her afternoon just got a hell of a lot better, that was for sure. She'd been getting pretty bored, given she was basically at the watch and make sure that the water systems worked properly and that she trimmed any death or dying bits from the older plants. Grunt work, but not something to leave to someone without some level of training. "Nothing man eating; although I've found plenty of dangerous ones. Stuff I can't even handle safely; so I've been working on a restricted area; only someone with proper equipment and cleared by me can go in. In a week or so when the late winter blooms hit, that room will be lethal to just about everyone."

She shifted back some, allowing their bodies to press together a bit more, and letting Kouki take a bit of her weight. Instant relaxation. "How are the new kids doing? I've been stuck down here doing this for so long I've barely even had a chance to find out they exist."

"Ah. Probably going to have to post a guard on it... or I'll rig a seal no one will be able to break. We've got some bratty kids running around, and I see them trying to do something stupid, I really do." It was nothing at all to support the other female, and she was glad to do it; the closeness was relaxing, and felt right - great way to end an otherwise stress filled day.

She thought back to the Yanagi twins and what she had walked in on when she had found them in the Meditation Gardens. "Eh, they're alright... but I have a feeling we're going to have some issues with some of these Korigakure survivors kids. I went looking for the Yanagi twins at their house, their mother directed me to the gardens. When I arrived there was this gang of kids trying to start trouble with them - they handled them easy enough, even though the odds were by no means in their favor." She shrugged lightly. "I thanked the twins; Kurai didn't respond, but from what I gathered from the people in the market that's normal for him - not to be taken as any sort of disrespect. Hikari's did - she loves this place." She rested the side of her cheek on Mizuko's shoulder after she finished speaking: she loved this place too, it was the perfect little slice of paradise.

"I wonder if we could find where the old hospital was in the old village - never know, some parts have survived, maybe that did too - it'd be nice if we could get our hands on some antidotes for those nastier plants... or have some medic arrive." They definitely needed one; one that could provide more than just house-hold remedies, and voodoo magic to heal the sick.

"Some of them I recognize, vaguely. They're related to some of the nastier stuff my clan raised. If they're not too far apart after so many generations, they won't have antidotes. I wish I had grabbed the old books and the like; but I had no way to carry them. Maybe... one day it would be worth it to go back and see if we can salvage anything. We kept our stuff in water-tight vaults built into the bedrock, so they should still be safe enough if nothing breaks them apart. Not looking forward to that trip; but it would be worth it eventually. But that's for another day, far in the future. I think I may have found a clinic or something similar when I was exploring the lake yesterday. It had a symbol on the door that I believe the surface dwellers use to designate medical treatment. We can go check tomorrow, after the sun is back up. The water is still settling, it's too murky to risk a night dive, even being able to breath water. Too much instability, and if an aftershock hits, we could end up trapped."

Alright, she was done with what was on the table in front of her; just a few hearty seedlings that needed the special sunlamps she'd rigged up with a lot of luck and chakra. They should be fine, and they were bred to grow extremely fast; so they would be ready for replanting in a garden in a month or so. "Walk with me, I need to do a final round and then we can go do something more... interesting." She was hesitant to slip out of the embrace, but it was too hard to walk like that; Kouki would end up stepping all over her anemone/feet and that was never fun. A major mood killer, too. She gestured toward the lit areas of the greenhouse, away from the areas where the shadow plants and areas that hadn't been revived were. A quick check, then find somewhere they could relax alone.

God, she hadn't even thought about going back to the old village in quite some time. She could see the benefit of it of course, especially if those vaults were were water tight. However, she wasn't okay with Mizuko going alone, demons and darkness dwelled in all of their heads, even if their closeness had begun to heal each other, and that was something she wasn't going to let her face alone. "Hmm. When we make that trip I'm coming with you.", she said simply and then let the topic drop since it wasn't something to be dwelled on for long.

"Yeah, I was thinking that too. Besides, a well needed break is needed before we do anymore work." That, and the 'something more... interesting' that she had brought up had Kouki's attention completely even as she released the female from the hold she had on her so that she could walk properly. She followed after her while being especially careful not to touch anything: being poisoned and passing out was not something she wanted to do right now. "Kind of a pity though... had we found some man eating plants in here we would've had some excellent guards - just put them in front of the door and let them do all the work.", she said with a devious, and yet playful grin.

"I don't plan on going alone. If not for needing at least one of us here to keep them safe, I would take you both." Moving on to the plants, "It wouldn't take long to back breed some of those. There's stuff in here that's only a few generations away from being as sentient as animals. I saw some venus flytrap looking bastards in the dark section; if they're not dead we could coax them along a bit. Easy enough to supersize plants, and if I cross them right, they'll be perfect to plant outside and wherever we need special protection." First table, fruit tree saplings, growing inches a day in the rich soil that she was chakra enhancing. Hell, if not for the gigantic chakra pool that came with being a Jinchuuriki, she would have burned out days ago. She was feeding her chakra into the water, the soil, even the air itself; giving the plants the energy they needed to speed grow. She was gunna be weak as a kitten by the time they had stable crops ready for planting, but it was worth it. "We'll have some familiar foods; the kelps and sea fruits my clan grew handle the fresh water just fine thanks to the volcanic soil. It's full of salts and such that make up for what they would have gotten from the water. We'll have a nice kelp forest at the mouth of the bay within a year, more then enough to harvest for materials. Some of the trees they kept before survived enough to revive with some work; I've found a few citrus trees that they somehow kept alive; so we won't need to worry about any of the nastier dietary problems. When spring hits, the natives can show us where they harvested berries and such from in the forests, and we can get sample planted here. Stability will be lovely."

Next table? Flowering plants; not all of which she was sure did anything but look pretty. Some seemed to be related to medicinal plants she was familiar with, but she couldn't be sure. "Medicines and flowers; nothing too strong. Mostly saps that soothe burns or stomach aches. A few that help with clotting the blood, or preventing clots. I don't know if I just haven't found the big dogs yet, or if they were destroyed; but I can't believe this is all they had medicinewise and called this a medical greenhouse."

Beyond that table where potted plants, recovered trees and clippings struggling to heal and grow once more. "These are the ones I'm not sure will make it, but with any luck they will. The small oak and willow saplings would be devastating to lose; the salicylic acid is we can harvest from the bark would be a nasty thing to lose. Some of these others seem to contain antibiotics in their sap; but they're close to death. I'm not sure I have the skill to revive them. However, I can recreate most of that using my anemone; if I bud it properly we can replace them."

And then they would be hitting the darker areas; against one wall was what had to have been some kind of study alcove; but she'd been using it as a spot to sleep when she got too weak from chakra drain. A curtain covering the entrance, and a pile of blankets on top of a down feather mattress they'd managed to recover from one of the lesser burned houses. It wasn't anything special, but better than the floor. "Not much else of interest. I either don't know what it is, or it's too dangerous to show. Otherwise, just the spot I've been sleeping in when I haven't made it out of here at night. Pushing so much chakra into the place that I've been fighting off burn out for days."

She couldn't help but be very surprised with everything that Mizuko had managed to save; she had expected this place to be dead, or nearly so, but Mizuko had done wonders in repairing the plants that she could. It brought a smile to her face. "Hm. I know that in the hospital in Niwa, or so I had heard anyway, they had their own greenhouse for the most dangerous things that they kept there - one more thing for us to look for whenever we go check out that building."

She followed after her as she continued to show the other areas of the greenhouse; including some plants that might or might not make it; and then finally to the darker area - and what Mizuko had been using as a makeshift bedroom when she had tired herself out. Her head tilted slightly and she wrapped her arms lightly around Mizuko's mid section again. "Hmm... perhaps you need a break then, I've got plenty of chakra to spare; and I'm more than willing to help."

She rested her head back on Mizuko's shoulder, grinning. "Now, what did you mean when you said we'd do something more interesting when you were done?"

"Hmmm... wouldn't hurt to try this out. See how the stronger plants handle it first, make sure that dragon of yours doesn't make your chakra harmful to anything. It would be nice to be able to take a break once in a while; chakra burn is not something I want to experience." She wanted to shift back into the embrace and just stay there, but better ideas where had. Or possibly had, if things went right and no one bothered them. Well, Isao could, but otherwise it would ruin a perfectly good chance to have some fun.

"Weeeell... I'm pretty sure you can... imagine... plenty we can do together more fun then classifying plants. We've got the greenhouse to ourselves far as i can tell, and no one knows where we are, unless you told someone you were coming down here. We could... spend some time... 'catching up', as it were." She was already tugging off the extra gloves she'd been wearing over her normal set. Those were coming off as well, but that took a bit longer; she had to make sure things didn't catch and whatnot. "Sound good...?"

Kouki couldn't help the grin that spread across her face, and it likely wasn't going to go away anytime soon. The idea of some alone time without any sort of interruptions sounded marvelous. "I didn't tell anyone I was coming here, I just simply said I was taking a break for the day." Yup, she had kept it simple and to the point: unless it was Mizuko or Isao she felt no reason to tell anyone where she was going, at least not yet.

She looked back towards the direction of the greenhouse door for a moment, contemplating sealing the damned thing so that they wouldn't be bothered; it was definitely very tempting. "Hmm... half tempted to seal the damned door shut...", she said, her grin still on her face and her voice exceptionally playful. "In fact... I'll be right back." She gently released Mizuko from the hold she had had on her and then disappeared for a moment as she headed back over in the direction of the door. She sealed the thing from the inside, ensuring that no one would or could bother them - if anyone showed up they would simply find a door unable to be opened.

She wandered back when she was finished. "That's much better..." 

Mizuko raised an eyebrow; she was sealing the door shut already? Well then, they were on the same page then. Perfect.~ This would be... lovely. She finished taking off her gloves and moved to her boots; there were hidden clasps that kept them up without being extremely tight. Kicking them off without much trouble; she reached for Kouki and pulled her close, letting her tentacles just attach right off. Physical contact... yeeessss.

"Come... let's use this time while we have it. I'm betting we'll be missed eventually; specially since I have seen the sun in three days..." Not that she cared; but hell, she missed having them around. She lead her to the little makeshift bedroom; closing the curtain behind them and shoving some of the blankets aside to give them some room. It got oddly cold down there at night; although that was also a sign of chakra burnout, so she could have been wrong there. "There is one little plant I missed showing you, but that was because I already moved it to the safe room. Took me... two days to figure out what it was, and when I did I was all over that. Call it... a 'mood booster...'" 

This was gunna be fun...

[Aaaaand skipping ahead because no one wants to see what comes next.]

.oO(Lol, I bet there are some people thread stalking who wanted to. =P)

Kouki was laying on her back staring upwards at the top of the greenhouse; this place was rather magical in its own sort of way even if it was incredibly dangerous due to some of the plants in it. However, she couldn't even think about this; nope, she was far too content and comfortable and happy at the moment - she felt as if there were no more secrets between herself and Mizuko now and that felt just as it should have: wonderful.

She had released the seal on the greenhouse's door just in case someone needed them for one important thing or another - since they weren't busy um-yeahing and didn't have to worry about someone bothering them. "Hmm... ", she felt her stomach beginning to growl. "Think it might be time to hit the markets and get something to eat..." She looked over to Mizuko, grinning. "You hungry?" A lunch, or dinner, or hell maybe even breakfast, because she had totally lost count of time on how long they'd been busy, sounded excellent right now. But, she wasn't really in the mood to move if Mizuko didn't want to.

Hnnn...? She was still mostly asleep, curled around the other female in a way that only someone with no bones, or lacking them in some ways anyway, could. Maximizing contact while not being constricting or uncomfortable; anemone all kinds of attached to flesh right now. So much win; just... blissful in a lot of ways. She could have stayed like that forever; but the sound of Kouki speaking was enough to get her brain to start waking up enough to actually hear words. Food? Food sounded...

Graaawrl

Really, really good right about then. Holy crap; how long had they been at it before they finally passed out? Days? Weeks? Months? Or was it only hours? If her mind wasn't too fried; Kouki had appeared right about sunset... and by the darkness beyond the curtain, it was still dark. Or dark again. She really needed to get a clock or something in there. "Hnnn... something. Anyway. Food sounds great right now." She slowly began to disengage; gently pulling tentacles away so that she wasn't ripping skin as well, and shifting so that they could both move without it being too awkward. "Anything in mind, or just whatever looks good?"

Hnn, moving hadn't really been an all that interesting thing to do - even with her own stomach growling - at first, but upon hearing Mizuko's growl she was all for making sure she ate, and eating herself. It was the one downfall of having the dragon sealed inside of her; she was always hungry. She could out eat most men and never gain a single pound from it - in fact, not eating tended to make her lose it so fast she started to look sickly thing if she didn't eat.

"Hmm... I want riceballs and jerky, but anything and everything works right about now. The dragon makes me hungry, exceptionally hungry: and you sound like you're starving." Kouki waited patiently as Mizuko detached herself before stretching nice and long which resulted in several small pops and cracks and a groan of satisfaction. She got up slowly as to not making herself dizzy and then stretched again with a grin. "We should also find out exactly how long we've been down here - people might think we've gone missing." Not that she honestly cared in the slightest - but there was one person she didn't want to worry and that was Isao.

By the gods, that sounded good. She could sympathize about the hungry thing; she was in the same boat a lot of the time. "I know that feeling. I don't think I've been anything but hungry since I met the Reef Hunter. If not for my passive filter feeding, I would have been a lot worse off before. I just have to be in water with some kind of food source in it, and I can survive well enough; but I prefer eating normally. Given they managed to save a lot of the fishing trawls, we should be able to get something at least. I haven't seen much jerky in the markets yet; most of the deer herds are still being rounded up from what I've heard."

She threw an arm over Kouki one last time, nuzzling into her neck before she finished working herself up; sitting on the edge of the bed and stretching out much as she could. Laying down and stretching would end up with weird problems; since she could stretch her anemone a fair amount. Lopsided feet... never fun. She grabbed for the first pile of discarded clothing, finding about half Kouki's clothing, and one of her gloves, plus her base body suit. The glove was ignored for the moment, as it wasn't needed until they got outside, and he forced herself to stand up. "Ugh, clothing. Do not want. Need new mesh anyway; it's starting to fall apart from too much usage."

The nuzzling caused Kouki to grin, and it took the reminder of the fact that Mizuko was hungry to keep her from crawling right back into bed and saying fuck teh world.

Yes, clothing; she wanted no part of this either. But, it was a must. She wasn't about to run around half naked, or fully naked as it were. She dug out her clothing and slipped it on, or at least slipped on what she cared to wear. Undergarments, shorts, and her tank top later and she was covered enough not to care about the rest. She wasn't even really worried about shoes: if anything she could just coat her feet in scales and not have to worry about stepping on anything. Yay, dragon hax for the win! Besides, she needed to practice on using some of her dragon abilities, and not wanting to get fully dressed sounded like a damn good reason to do it.

"Mmm.. might have to go make a special trip back to Niwa to grab a whole bunch - stock up until we get a decent flow going through the market." She pushed her messy black hair out of her face and tied it up into a ponytail. "Unfortunately, I seem to have gained my dragons choice of food - which involves a lot of meat. Bloody thing tried convincing me to eat someone once because it was so hungry; so I like keeping my inner beast fed and quiet."

"I'll go sometime next week; we have supplies to last for another few months; but no one wants to eat the iron rations and bitter sea bread we'll be stuck on in a few weeks. Better to get some meat and fruits for the people; last thing we need is a scurvy outbreak when the few fruiting trees are bare."

She wasn't surprised by this revelation about the dragon influencing Kouki's eating habits; she'd noticed something somewhat similar after she'd bonded with Kinsachi. She'd used to be a fairly light eater; at least for her build and whatnot. She spent enough time on the reefs to where she wasn't physically eating much more then a few loads of sea bread and some of her family's fruits, with the occasional fish thrown in on the rare occasions she would eat with family or something. Now? She was putting it away whenever she remembered to eat; a dozen fish and handfuls of little crabs and shrimp; anything she could get her hands on at the time. "We're gunna need to have a special trawl just for me out there; the way I've been eating since Kinsachi happened; I could put away a cargo hold full of live fish a day and still come back for more. The only reason I haven't is because I can sit in the bay for a few hours and just clean out sections of the bottom feeders, while filter feeding the rest. Not sure how much longer that's gunna last before I end up cleaning the entire bay out, though."

She started making for the door finally; resisting the last urges to just sink back into that bed and drag Kouki with her; they needed the food, and they could always come back once they'd made sure they weren't being hunted down or something. Really needed to figure out how long they'd been down there, eventually.

Kouki snorted softly. "As much as I hate to say it... if I try denying my beast meat it will take charge and eat someone. So a trip to the market is definitely in order before we end up that desperate." Yeaaaah, no. She had no intentions of doing this - even if she were fighting someone and went beast mode on them she might bite their ass but she would never actually eat someone. 

Kouki followed after Mizuko, her mouth already watering at the idea of some much needed food, even as her beast began to wake up at the idea too. 'Course, her little beastie wasn't hungry enough to try eating anyone yet - especially not Mizuko. It was the one thing her and her beast seemed to get along with; when it came to Mizuko and Isao both were equally as protecting... in very violent blood-gets-shed manners.

Once outside Kouki glanced skyward; still wondering how long it had been since they were in there; and still unable to fully bring herself to care. "Hmm... we could really grab a lot too. Make special bags to carry it, I could just go beast mode in the forests so we're far enough away not to cause a panic from a giant dragon appearing, load up the bags, and I could just fly it all out of there."

"Mix and match. Have them deliver it to the dock, you load it onto my back in dolphin form; carry it across the lake to an empty spot. Switch places. In and out in a few hours. Otherwise, I was gunna take the long way around the coasts and crap; get and idea of what's actually south of us, and see if I can get an idea of where to send the ships now that they're not locked into the norther seas by the ice flows." She didn't much like the idea of leaving Isao by himself; but he was the closest thing to a proper leader of the three. She was a warrior, and Kouki was still learning how to function at the levels they were dealing with now; and they trusted his strength. No beast aside, he was plenty powerful enough to handle just about anything that came through the region.

"Well, I don't get the urges to eat people; but grouchy me is still dangerous. I'll start projecting sound and not realize it until I liquefy someone's internal organs."

"That'll work, and it'll save some time too." Her stomach growled and she rolled her eyes as her inner dragon lifted its head. Suiro could be a gentle giant sometimes; but she still worried Kouki slightly - she was a beast after all. "Plus, it'll give me some more practice on controlling that annoying change... 'least I stopped growing tiny little dragons scales at random." Not that she minded much; but falling asleep under a tree or something and sprouting scales in front of random strangers tended to make things a little... edgy.

She then grinned and poked lightly at Mizuko's side. "I'll just have to remember not to piss you off.", she said playfully.

"I bet they look good on you. Anything looks good on you, but dragon scale just sounds like it'd be awesome. But we all know I'm weird, so don't be too freaked out by that." Hnnn, twilight sun; given where it seemed to be... early morning? Huh, maybe they hadn't been inside all that long. Or else they'd gone right through two days. Where was everyone?

"You can't piss me off. Some people, no matter what they do, can never do that; weird quirk of my personality. You? Definitely not. Safe from that, at least; and I bet your dragon would protect you well enough." Hmmm.... that was baking bread she was smelling... fresh bread at that. The trawls must be back, and someone found fresh sea kelp. Hopefully it would be better than the bitter rations they'd found, and not years old. How the idiots running the old place managed to stock up half spoiled and too old to be worth the time it takes to eat it rations she'd never understand. "Bakers are working... so morning. I don't smell fish cooking, but... I think I hear the people down at the docks. Very early morning. Let's see if we can score a tuna or something, find Isao and have a decent breakfast, yeah?"

Kouki grinned. "Can't freak me out that easily. I dunno, I like covering myself with scales, I think I look neat. Plus, it's useful since I can't feel extreme cold or hot while doing so. I can feel it even less when I'm fully in dragon form." Kouki then chuckled at Mizuko's next words; glad to hear that she couldn't piss the other female off even if she tried, which she had no intentions of doing of course.

"Eh, probably... though, I can hear Suiro in my head, she likes you... so I'd likely poof into dragon form, she'd take over, and expect her belly scratched or some shit. Rather pathetic...", she said with a chuckle "... grown ass dragon rolling over because it wants its belly rubbed or some shit." The mental image was rather amusing and it caused a grin to spread across her face.

She focused her attention then on the sounds she could hear and smells she could smell: it was definitely seeming like it was early morning. Kouki shrugged at Mizuko's suggestion. "Sounds good to me... I hope he isn't still up in the offices. Might have to drag him out and force him to come have some fun."

"If it keep the crazy dragon happy, you can't much complain. Better to roll over and demand belly rubs then start spitting boiling water at people." Small groups of people crowding around screaming fishermen were starting to appear; but these where the smaller catches, or the less profitable fish and shellfish that the majority of the populace would but to dry or smoke for ration supplies. The good stuff was on the docks themselves; and she could see some big fuckers hanging from the lines. Good news, for the young town. So long as the fish supplies held out, they'd survive well enough.

They reached the first of the bakers; in most places the bakeries and such wouldn't be so close to the wharf and docks; but the kelp they made their bread out of needed to be as fresh as possible to keep it from rotting or turning extremely bitter and nasty; so better for the bakers that worked with it to be as close as possible. The first batches of the day where coming out of the ovens; and it didn't take but a smile and a few ryo passed alone for her to grab them a few loaves to snack on, and to take to Isao soon as they got some fish. "Here, still warm."