markofthebrave | [ Action, Voice ] .042

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[ Action, Voice ] .042

[Even Katara can only deny the effects of the dreams so long. It wasn't so bad at first when they were just vivid and of a different Luceti... but this other world, with these strange people she feels connected to, and the strange consistency of them, as if they were actually telling a story...

...and she knows the dreams have been effecting her dad too. And that it hasn't been good. So... she's going to take today to do maybe what she should have done from the start.]

[Filtered to Sokka]

Hey, I need to talk to you. What time can I come by?

[Filtered to Zuko]

...can we meet later?

[Filtered to Chouji]
I know this is weird, but have you been dreaming that we--

[Filtered to Shikamaru]
Did we ever--

[Filtered to Masaomi]
Don't take this the wrong way, but I had a dream about us, and we were fighting. You broke my rib, but it wasn't a bad thing and I can't stop thinking about--

[Filtered to Nami]
...have you been having dreams that we were friends, once?

[Filtered to Ginko]
Ginko... have you ever heard of parasites that... live in the dark and steal sight from people's eyes, and can be drawn out by moonlight?

[Filtered to San]
I dreamed you had come into my house for food, that you drew a knife and nearly attacked Sokka, and I had to knock you down.

[Filtered to Sanji]
Sanji, did we ever...

[Filtered to Jet]
I - you - there was a dam that -

[Katara abruptly shoves away from her journal, scribbling through her filters madly. Checking with Sokka and Zuko would be enough. She didn't want to go and get people upset or excited about something that may or may not be true. She hesitates for a long moment at the doorway to her father's room, contemplating knocking and asking him-

What have you been dreaming about, Dad? They haven't stopped. Do you think they mean something?

-but eventually she just writes a note that she's going to spend some time practicing, picks up her yari, and heads into the forest. She's almost hoping to see one of the beasties everyone's been talking about. She could do with a good fight against something she can actually touch.]

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[She lifts her free hand and touches her face - where Zuko's scar would be.]

He's hard to mistake. [And she drops her hand.] And even though I've never seen moves quite like that... I still know his style.

Aa, I guess you'd know.

If it's just a dream, it probably doesn't matter. And that was the only one you had of him, right?

[Or maybe just the most unnerving one? Even if it's not real, he knows it could still cause problems.]

...not exactly. And the thing is... a lot of the stuff Sokka dreamed about was the same.

[She digs into her pocket and takes out their lists and hands them to him.] Take a look?

[And realize too, that this is for you to see, not for you to talk about with anyone else... especially-]

I just found out. And I haven't told Dad yet.

[He hasn't even discussed what he saw yet with his dad, or Noel, or even Chouji. He knows not to talk about someone else's dreams.

He takes the lists from her and looks them over, starting with Sokka's before moving onto Katara's, then holding the lists side by side to compare the two, even though they were short enough to be memorized.]

That's really, really troublesome.

I know. [Why do you think she went out walking? And speaking of - she holds out her hand to take the lists back (she knows he's probably memorized them already anyway) and get them to keep walking. Forest. Beasties. Best not to stand still.]

I'm guessing you didn't dream of any six-legged flying beasts.

[Because... you weren't in those dreams.]

Edited 2011-05-07 06:20 (UTC)

[Don't need to tell him twice. Or at all. He passes them back and keeps moving.]

'fraid not. It's a shame too. That would've been kinda cool, actually. [There's a bit of a smirk at that. Flying? Now that would've been awesome, even if it was a dream.]

So - nothing on those lists reminded you of your dreams?

[Because if more people had shared them... more people who weren't Zuko, or Jet or...

Zuko, her enemy. Jet, her...

Prepare yourself for more specific questioning.]

[He figured it was only a matter of time.]

Aa... the last one, actually? Most of my dreams didn't happen in Luceti - just a few.

[The smirk fades slowly after a few seconds, then he looks back over at her.] In the dreams, I hated it here.

[She walks along in silence for a few moments, turning that over in her head.]

...but this is our home. They're just dreams. Even if it's because of a Shift, I don't understand why...

[A pause, and then she continues] Why it feels like the fights in those dreams mean more than anything I've ever experienced here. Why someone I've never seen before seems more important to me than... [than my own life.

And she shakes her head.]

Dreams don't often make much sense, anyways. There's a lot we'll probably never understand about them.

[Walking - one foot in front of the other. Don't say it-] Unless they're not dreams.

Why would you say that?

[What else could they be?]

I'm not saying they're real or anything. It's just- I dunno. They're too detailed to be fake, you know?

[He gives a frustrated snort.] Maybe it's like... like when people go into the woods sometimes. You've heard about some of them coming back and acting kinda weird for a while, right? Like they have different memories.

...yeah?

So yeah, maybe it's like that. [He's close to rambling now - despite what he said before, it's like he's trying to make sense of it.] Maybe it's a Shift that's making people remember lives they never had.

Or maybe we're-] It'll stop soon, if it is.

[An assessing, sidelong glance.]

They're bothering you too, aren't they.

[An unspoken: You can tell me.]

[He doesn't say anything for a while, fingers twitching in his pockets - for a cigarette; for a lighter, but I don't smoke - before he pulls them back behind his head again.]

I killed somebody in one of mine.

Oh.

[That's - a strange thing for him to dream. They've fought before. But. Killed?]

That sounds like a nightmare to me. [Pause.] Do you want to tell me about it?

Most of them were like that.

[Different, but too often the same, and he'd wake up to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

Shikamaru's jaw tightens, but eventually he works the words out again.] It's troublesome to explain. It's a long story, but I'm missing a lot of parts to it.

...so you think it actually is a story? Not just random fight scenes?

Mine are. Aa, more or less, anyways. I think. A lot of the same people keep showing up in them. It's just... out of order, or something.

Some of them, anyways. [The ones I don't like.]

Dreams are like that. Out of order, I mean.

Yeah.

[He thinks about leaving it at that - dreams are weird, what else is new. Let's just get back and ignore this, right? They should be getting closer to the village now.

Instead, he finds himself veering off to the left instead, keeping towards the very edge of the paths leading into town instead of walking into it.]

Tch. It's still stupid though.

[Katara takes this as a cue that he actually does want to talk about his dreams - it's hard to tell with him sometimes, and though she doesn't mind nosing about for her friends' best interests, she saves pushing for when it's vital - and this isn't vital. This is just dreams.

...but since he wants to talk about it, she'll do her best to give him the opportunity. It's rare - it's so rare - that Shikamaru gets rattled enough to want to talk about things, she almost wants to skip the talking and go straight to the reassuring.]

What is?

[It's not so much that as he doesn't want anyone else to see him so bothered.]

That they don't go in order. If they were gonna do it like that, I should've just got the end instead of going back to the middle. [What he presumes was the middle, at least. Maybe it was actually the beginning?] I get the feeling that the end was supposed to be satisfying, but it's not knowing what happened before it.

Like killing him wasn't good enough.

[Which is scary. Shikamaru can barely be motivated to hold a grudge, most days. Hating a person that much, or even attacking them with the intent to kill... it's not something he thought he'd be capable of, ninja or not.]

['Like killing him wasn't good enough.'

Just hearing that from was a little disorienting. Shikamaru just... wasn't like that.

...then again, in her dreams, she'd been fighting with a passion she didn't recognize. Fighting to protect someone whose name she didn't even know. Fighting like it meant.. everything.]

Did you recognize him? The man that you killed.

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