[ Action, Voice ] .055

[markofthebrave]

[These decorations have been up for a few days now, and while at first Katara thought they were pretty they have now succeeded in making her grumpy. Yes. Very grumpy. Grumpy enough to make a post about it, in fact.]

How do they expect us to sleep with all these lights in our window? I've put a double curtain over it, and the light is still keeping me awake. Does anyone have any ideas?

[You might catch some muttering about: "Moving to sleep down in the basement" or "It's not too cold to camp out in the forest" before the journal shuts. She'll get back to it in a little bit, she just needs to finish making the grocery list.

Once she finishes with any replies that she may receive, Katara heads into town. The lights really are pretty. And so are the wreaths and the snowmen and the... unfamiliar sprigs of green over the doorway to the grocery store really kind of... isn't. Why is that even there? Katara pauses underneath it to examine it more closely...]

Comments

[ voice ]

[repudiate]

Yeah, it's for Christmas alright. Doesn't mean the Malnosso still can't take advantage of that just to annoy us.

And I wonder.. if anyone could turn it off, it would be the people who put them up to start with, right?

[ voice ]

[markofthebrave]

Yeah. I don't really think they care about that - it's not that the lights aren't pretty, but there are those of us who grew up without any lights like this at all. It's worse than the weeks when there was Midnight Sun Madness, because that was at least natural light. This makes me think I forgot to turn something off. [It's driving her crazy.]

And probably.

[ voice ]

[repudiate]

... Midnight Sun Madness..? Is that some kind of natural phenomenon back in your world?

But still, I get your point. I'm used to sleeping out in the city, so it's not that much of a problem for me. Try sleeping in a hotel room with a street lamp right outside your window, been there, done that.

[ voice ]

[markofthebrave]

In the summer times, in the South Pole there are a few weeks when the sun doesn't go down. It's always a pretty miserable time of the year, but we make the best we can out of it. Even so, the electric lights are just... different. I can't imagine how miserable that must have been.

[ voice ]

[repudiate]

Huh? You lived on the South Pole? [ ... ] I thought nobody lived there except for some scientists and penguins.

[ voice ]

[markofthebrave]

That's right - I'm from the Southern Water Tribe. And we definitely have penguins, but scientists are in short supply. [...] Unless you count my dad and Sokka, and he probably would.

[ voice ]

[repudiate]

Must be some difference in your world then.. I think it's a pretty interesting idea though, people living on the South Pole. Pretty rough circumstances, but it would be different from living in just any regular city.

And I take it you wouldn't?

[ voice ]

[markofthebrave]

Yes, it was a very different from living in a city.

No, that's not it - I wouldn't need to. He'd tell you himself.