markofthebrave | [ Action, Written, Video ] .057

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[ Action, Written, Video ] .057

[Sneeze and you break it filter to CR at around 4 am this morning.]

I'm back. I'm fine. I hope everyone's okay. Good night.

[So then Katara wakes up much, much later and will be just puttering around the house for a while for those who are inclined to catch her in serious conversation. She sends notes to Trafalgar and to Gelda to let them know that although she's back she feels like she needs to take a few days off... she's still very tired, and as of yet not feeling like being around people.

All that changes, however, on Wednesday. She needs to get out of the house, she needs to do something life-affirming and fun... and isn't it fortunate that she's been working on building several ~~insane~~ ~~monstrous~~ intense snow tracks for people to go sledding on? She decides to go check on them and to bring her journal with them.

Finding that their structural integrity hasn't been too damaged without constant maintenance and that the cold weather still holds... she decides that today is the day to show them off.]

Hey, everyone - I've been working on something the past few weeks and if you like sledding then... [She trails off and flips the journal over so that the journal feed will reveal three sledding tracks. She's made good use of all the snow in the past month or so, the clearing is very nearly bare of it - instead, there is the very large one, made completely of tunnels and requiring snow-cut stairs to ascend and once dared will necessitate a few on-the-walls themselves turns, there is the slightly less large one that seems to be composed mostly of sheer drops, and there is the normal-sized one that is essentially one long spiral down to ground level.] then grab your sleds. Don't worry, I've had a few people test them and they've held up just fine! It's south of the barracks, by the river.

[OOC: If anyone wants to come sledding, please do! Threadjacks of all sorts are welcome!

Also, if I could get those who attend the school, work in the clinics, or attend combat medicine lessons to give this a quick glance and offer input, that would be awesome! \o/!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[...and she can't help but wonder if he had anything to do with the orders Itachi received.]

...and he'd been working against your village instead, that whole time?

That's likely the case, yes.

[This was a recent development at the time he left his world, so there's a lot they don't know yet.]

[Katara rests her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand and runs through what she knows about everything again, putting it into logical places...]

What a mess.

You said it.

[Another sigh. It's only when he looks away from the Winter scene outside that he remembers the napkin he was doodling on earlier.]

That's all you need to know about Sasuke, besides that he's dangerous. There is this, though.

[He'll slide the napkin over to here. There's several symbols drawn on it ~~just ignore the bottom two, which aren't~~, along with the village names scrawled in under them - such as Konoha/Leaf, Stone/Iwa, and so forth. Suna's image might look a little familiar, if she remembers seeing it on Temari.]

[She stares down at it.]

...village symbols?

[He shrugs.] That's a few of them. I wasn't sure how interested you'd be in them, but thought you might be curious.

[She'd asked about Sound's symbol, after all.]

Yeah, it's better to know...

[She pulls them closer to study them.]

Which one of these are Konoha's allies?

[He leans forward in his seat now, heels stuck in the floor to push him up.]

Believe it or not, nearly all of them at the time that I left. [He points to two of the bottom symbols] Grass and Waterfall are small shinobi villages, just outside my country's border. We've been allies for over twenty years, ever since the last war.

[His finger drifts up to the symbol in the center, and he pauses.] Rain was like that too, but I'm not one hundred percent positive on how they stand right now. Nothing dramatic [to borrow her word], but they've had a change in leadership recently.

[He scratches at his chin... Even as he's looking at this, he can think of a couple of other villages he missed.]

I see...

[She looks down to memorize the symbols.]

[He'll add the others he's thinking of later - he honestly knows little about them, so he won't have much to say.]

I already told you about Oto - the Sound. [His finger moves up the napkin now, to point to the remaining doodles.] These symbols here now represent the major villages, from the Five Great Shinobi Countries.

[Yes, important capitalization and all.]

As of when I left home, all five countries are allied. Probably for the first time in history, although we haven't been for long. It was barely a week, for me.

That's because of the war you were talking about?

That's right. [Akatsuki is a threat to everyone.]

...it's good that you were all able to come together to face the threat. That doesn't always happen.

[It nearly didn't, from what he understands.]

Hopefully it will last, afterwards. There's been many wars over the last sixty years... so it might not be an easy thing. But [an just barely, he brightens, sincere belief in his thoughts], I think it can be done.

[She smiles in response to that.]

Good. I'll hope so for you.

[He doesn't thank her outright, but his eyes soften at that, warm and appreciative.]

Anyways. [He tugs the napkin back just a little, grabbing his pen and doodling a few more symbols.] There's a few other marks you might see. I'm not as familiar with their villages, but I haven't heard of them giving people a lot of trouble.

[He'll slide the napkin back to her again, now with more notes. A random symbol is drawn again, this time with a line crossing it out. Missing-nin. They've talked about these before, so they don't need to go into it again.

Hot Springs. Frost. No symbols, but he scribbles some notes about the samurai from the Land of Iron. And after another second he adds this one too, tapping his pen at it before putting it away.]

And these guys, from Whirlpool. Their village hasn't been around for years, but the way time works here, who knows. I've been told back in the day, they were close allies of Konoha. [She's probably seen their symbol on the back of his flak jacket before, too.] That's it, unless you have other questions.

Edited 2012-03-02 01:56 (UTC)

[She takes the napkin to study the symbols again. She doesn't have a perfect memory, but it's good enough. She'll remember this all right. Katara shakes her head.]

No, but this is good to know. Even if it's probably better to play it safe if I bump into one of them - who knows when they could be from.

[A nod. He's glad she picked up on that - it's why he took care to mention how new and fragile some of those alliances are in the first place.]

Better to play it safe than sorry.

[A nod.] I don't know if I'll be going on this mission again anyway.

There's other ones to sign up for.

[Other places to see people. But that's not really the point behind what he's saying,]

Yeah, I know.

[She'd been incredibly effective on this one. But... she wasn't sure this was the kind of thing she wanted to be effective in.]

[ANYWAY.]

So how are things with the new roommate?

[What is transition]

[But no, he gets why. He knows she doesn't want to talk about these things - to her it's probably better to change the subject than to politely keep it short, when the conversation can take turns you don't like.

So he'll play into it, turning his head annoyed-like.]

Tch. I ask if you have other questions and you ask something as mundane as that?

I don't need to worry about these guys - they're not here. Unless you want me to ask you more about Sasuke and if you've run into him here, and if he's going to try to kill Itachi again or anything else you don't want to answer...

[She pauses to shrug.]

It's not as if I knew you took one in, after all.

[Not that she's holding it against him - she isn't - but a little warning would have been nice all the same.]

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