[ Action, Voice ] .028

[markofthebrave]

[So today? Katara cuts short her usual routine with a cheerful wave and ducks out on her housemates. Aang showing up pushed so many things out of her mind, and now they were all crowding back in, along with the strangeness of Zuko's return.

She misses the Straw Hats. Going camping right now sounds wonderful. And she really wants Aang to meet them! She thought about trying to contact them over the journals, but... didn't really want to interrupt. Besides, it was better... to get used to people being gone.

She can handle this by herself. Katara is not given to introspection, but at her favorite spot by the South bridge, Katara has gathered a fair amount of smooth stones, and is alternating between stone-skipping and staring at her conversation with Nephry. She only knows one way to deal with this, and that's facing it straight on and adapting.

Water is the element of change. Water adapts.

And so, to find some way to remind herself of this and gather up the courage and mental clarity to sort things out, Katara will eventually step off the bridge and walk a ways beside the river. Once there, she closes her eyes and very slowly begins to practice basic forms, the water streaming about her in constant change and accompaniment to her thoughts, until she can almost see it in her mind's eye, overwhelming the flames.

Much, much later, she takes a seat, and makes a filter. She only hopes that she truly means what she says.]


Nephry, it's Katara. If you'd like to meet sometime today, or later this week... I'm ready now.

Comments

[markofthebrave]

[Bwah.

...and they have only talked once, Kurt, c'mon.]

A what now?

[bamfing]

[He looks a little startled too. Maybe it was something else? Magic?]

What you were doing with the water... I thought maybe you were a mutant, like me.

[markofthebrave]

Well... [Something about the way he said 'like me' makes her a little bit more considerate in her response besides asking 'what's a mutant?']

We're from different worlds, so it only makes sense that people who have different abilities would be called different things. I've never heard of that word before, though. What's a mutant?

[bamfing]

[Ahh, that question. He looks down at the ground, shuffling his feet a bit.]

In my world, there is something called an X-Gene... those of us who are mutants are born with it. When we're old enough, usually becoming a teenager, our powers manifest. It's completely random and there's no telling who will be able to do what. For most people, it's a very scary time. Nobody wants to be a mutant, after all.

[markofthebrave]

An X-Gene? [...Katara would vaguely remember a conversation about genetics with Leto, but this doesn't ping that memory at all. She's trying to figure out why Kurt seems so upset about this.]

Is that like... a birth mark that gives powers or something?

[bamfing]

[He's a bit surprised at her coming up with that. Did she just have no understanding of genetics? Hmmm...]

No, nothing like that. The X-Gene... it's a mutation of the genetic code, right? You could say it's an accident. I really don't understand it all myself. But really, we shouldn't exist, though.

[markofthebrave]

That's ridiculous. If you shouldn't exist, you wouldn't exist. [This still doesn't ping her extremely rudimentary knowledge of genetics, but what it does remind her of is her conversation, all those months ago, with Sigmund, and how he wanted to know how people without powers were treated.

From what Kurt was saying...]

So people having powers in your world is pretty rare?

[bamfing]

[Well, she doesn't get what he meant by accident. He should probably explain it better.]

Yeah, like I said. It's an accident. When a person is first conceived, everything about how they will grow is in their genetic code. Whether you would have brown hair, blue eyes, dark skin, or even be a girl, right? That's how it's supposed to be. But for mutants... when all that happens, something else happens. So we end up... different. But it only happens to very, very few people.

[markofthebrave]

[Blah blah blah, science, blah blah blah. She latches on to what the important part is there.]

...So just because it doesn't happen to a lot of people, you think it's not supposed to happen at all?

[bamfing]

It's not what I believe, no.

[markofthebrave]

But it's what everyone else believes?

[bamfing]

A lot of people, yeah.

[markofthebrave]

That must be hard... but when you look around Luceti, and you see so many different people from different worlds with different kinds of abilities... it's like maybe that X-Gene is your world's way to catching up to all the other kinds of worlds.

[bamfing]

Well... it could be. [He's not sure how he feels about that.] Does everyone have powers in your world?

[markofthebrave]

[She shakes her head.] No, not everyone. And we don't have powers like teleportation or magic or anything like that. Just bending.

[bamfing]

... bending? But you were using some kind of power to control the water.

[markofthebrave]

[She nods.] I'm a waterbender.

[bamfing]

Very cool name for it, no pun intended. My friend Bobby just has 'ice manipulation' powers.

[markofthebrave]

[She smiles.] I know someone who works with just ice too, but his powers are connected to his sword.

So people have all different kinds of powers, in your world?

[bamfing]

Oh, all kinds. My friend Scott can shoot lasers from his eyes, Jean has telekinesis, Professor Xavier is telepathic, Mister Logan heals super fast, Miss Ororo controls the weather... I could go on, really.

[markofthebrave]

Telekawhatnow?

[bamfing]

Ahh... right. Telekinesis. You can move stuff with your mind, yeah? USually Jean can only move about one person in the air at the time. And the professor, he can read people's minds. See their thoughts, memories, and such. Very powerful.

[markofthebrave]

I can't really move stuff with my mind... [This is said automatically as she's processing Kurt's information - eye lasers? Mind reading? Manipulating things just with the mind? It sounds like he and his friends are very dangerous. She wonders if they have a war too, and how they put their powers to use for their world, but she's too busy processing and thinking of how she'd go against those things to start asking her questions.]

[bamfing]

Yeah, well neither can I. All I can do is this. [He teleports a few feet away.] Which is very useful for awkward conversations.

[markofthebrave]

[She laughs.] Starting them or ending them?