markofthebrave | [ Action, Voice ] .058

[ Action, Voice ] .058

[Somewhere in all the excitement of the past month, it... sort of didn't occur to her that she's now been in Luceti for two years. That's had some time to sink in now, along with the new announcement and - home. Actually getting to go home. Even if it's just for a day...

...but then it means that the Malnosso were lying to them, doesn't it. They do have the power to send them home. And all this time, they'd said it was random...]

[Filter to those who had been here when she arrived: Two years back or more.]

Hey. I think that I just... wanted to apologize. I know that when I got here two years ago, I wasn't very respectful about all the things everyone had tried to do in order to get out of here. It must have been so hard to hear that then, and to keep hearing it from every New Feather that we get when we know that we've tried everything we could.

But we have to keep trying. What they're doing, no matter what they say, no matter what they promise us, is wrong. We can't give up hope that we'll find a way out - we have to keep looking. There's a difference between waiting and giving up, and I know it's hard, but so many of you are still doing that, still trying to find a way out while making things as comfortable as you can for all the new people who are stuck here as we are, and I admire that so much.

So, thank you.

[/filter]

[And then, taking a deep breath, she'll continue:]

And hey, if anyone was using the sled tracks I made, I haven't had a chance to check on them since the ice storm. I'll probably be decommissioning them tomorrow and just turning it all into a giant snow hill, so if you go out there, please be careful, all right?

[Thursday is one of the days Katara goes to spar with Nami, so after making this announcement after school, she and Nami will meet up by the river to do battle with their staffs. Feel free to stop by and watch these two sexy ladies practicing, if you like.

If not, after dinner, Katara heads off someplace she very rarely is. The remembrance garden. This place has always made her uncomfortable... she's not sure it's right, but it's... something. Better than those things that reminded her of gravestones. And the perfect place to pour over her journal, flipping back until she finds an entry of Aang. It's been so long since she's seen him... she's all but forgotten what he sounds like. She feels almost bad about it, but... she misses him so much and yet... it's easier not to miss him.

And eventually, when her time in the remembrance garden is done, Katara will return to her house for an hour or two of bending practice in the back yard.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A noise of agreement; Buffy's first Valentine's had ended in bruised ribs and house arrest. She'll gladly take awkward housemate chemistry after that.

She followed. "Not that I'm...not, y'know. Happy. With what I do have. I'm just not too happy. I'm not, say, blinded by my happiness."

And in response to that, Katara laughs. "You don't have to explain that to me. If you weren't happy with him, why would you stay with him?"

Especially in a place like this.

"Why would you fight your way back to be with him? No..." and then her smile turned wistful. "...at least you know what's real while you have it."

Buffy could answer that question for another man. Sometimes, it had very little to do with happiness. But hadn't she put that behind her? Years and years and years. Maybe her taste was finally improving.

Others in the village, she knew, would disagree.

"The things you were saying earlier, Katara. About not giving up. About still trying..."

Because trying and loving are so connected in her mind.

Katara tilted her head and looked at Buffy curiously. Was this the reason the other girl had wanted to come speak with her?

"...I need help."

Wow. Those three words were surprisingly not so difficult to say. "Or -- I will need help. Once I figure out what it is I need help with. It's...complicated. And mostly on the confidential side."

Buffy needed to enlist souls that Sparrow would not expect her to approach. He would have the market cornered on her friends and surrogate family; none of them would approve of her plan's particulars. So the Slayer had to cast her net a little wider.

Katara blinked rapidly in response to that - okay, that had been completely unexpected. But those were three magic words as far as she was considered - she could never turn down someone who needed her.

Provided, of course, that she agreed with the kind of help that they wanted her to provide. "Okay. I won't tell anyone."

That's the easy part to promise. But even so... "But I'll need to know what I'm helping with before I can agree to anything."

Although, really, you're halfway there, Buffy. Someone to help, something to do... it doesn't take very much at all.

"...Don't worry." Her tone shifted. Warmed, almost. Buffy cupped her fingers around her mug and slipped easily into her Mother Hen of the Slayers voice. Inviting, yet firm. Confident but with a bare hint of collaboration. "I'd never ask for anything without a decent briefing."

She took a sip. "There's the version that everyone knows. Right? Buffy Summers -- she defeated the General during the invasion. The stuff of Luceti legend. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you already know that much?"

...this is so much better than talking about love. Katara's shoulders hunch a little when she leaned forward to listen. "Yes, I'd heard about that."

It was why she'd sought Buffy's advice, that first draft.

"I took something from him. Before he...well, after I killed him."

Buffy owned that word, tonight. She was far more apt to avoid the k-word, if she could. Not now. "Something that I think he cherishes rather a whole bunch. Not just his life -- though, there is that. That can't be denied. Something of sentimental value, too. I can't be sure, yet, but I think those two things combined might make for some sway over him."

And while she didn't quite know where to take that sway, she knew that some sway must be better than none at all. All she knew was that whatever had to be done wasn't something she could do alone.

It's a long moment before Katara responds to that. It was new information - surprising information, really, but it makes a certain amount of sense. She'd never seen the General, but if he were like the other Malnosso, then they were all trapped here themselves... if Buffy had something of his from his home, or something of his that helped him remember someone he loved...

...it was terrifying moments like this, when Katara realized that the people they were fighting against, the people she had killed, were people just like her. She'd made her choices. They'd been trying to kill her, and the people that she loved, so she'd killed them instead. But the thought that the General had something he considered precious was a bit like finding out Ozai had a favorite pet. (He hadn't, of course.)

"If it was me, and someone I fought had taken away something I valued," by an effort of will, her hand does not go to her necklace, "if I ever had the chance to fight them again, I wouldn't be interested in talking. I'd just want to take it back."

"I don't wear it on me. Besides, it's -- he's sent me a message, before. Through someone."

Derek, actually. Through Derek. And Buffy fidgeted at the memory. "The General's not interested in talking to anyone, I don't think. But I believe...and I've been told that if anyone's got a chance, it's me. It's not a chance I want to waste. What you can do, Katara. What you're capable of? It's...amazing. Spectacular. Not to mention the fact that you are, yourself, an impressive young woman."

This speech came with so many echoes of so many speeches given to young, fresh Slayers. Found around the world. And Buffy Summers sitting there, trying to sell her Organization to them. Sisterhood and World-saving.

"I would be happy. No. I would honoured to have you with us on this. Whatever it turns out to be. I won't lie to you. It's pretty much still at the drawing board stage, right now. I don't know if we should be trying to bribe him or coerce him into some kind of joint move against the Malnosso or maybe even just trade what I have for more information. But I want help. Other opinions. Other voices. Other people."

Because bandying these strategies alone, in her own brain, had been maddening.

Wow, that was really... a lot to respond to. Katara was flattered at Buffy's estimation, but at the same time she knew that in comparison to other people here, she... well, she could hold her own at best, for a few minutes, at that was more than nothing. Bending was who she was, and she hadn't felt spectacular for a long time.

"Thank you." She fiddled with the cocoa mug in her hands for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts. "There's something you should know, though. My choices are my own - I'll go and do whatever I think is necessary, with or without back-up."

She looked back up at Buffy, her gaze clouded. "But I won't do it without at least telling Sokka. And if he learns about this, he's going to want to be involved, especially if I go along."

And if he can't talk her out of it. Which... probably will be the case, once she makes up her mind to help someone.

Unless, of course, Sokka already knows about this - which she wouldn't be surprised to hear, considering how close he and Buffy seem to be. She wouldn't even be mad about it. Being on board with something alone during the planning stage is one thing, but once it moves into action... that's not something she'll keep from him in a place like this. If he disagrees, that doesn't preclude her lying and cheating to do what she thinks is necessary, but she's learned that he'll have her back, regardless. And that's one of the few things in the world Katara has come to completely rely on.

My choices are my own; Buffy could not have appeared more delighted at that stand. This was the spectacular element that she approved of in the young woman. It was a quality she was keen to work with. Alongside.

But then her face showed a flicker of disappointment. "Sokka's a...good man." But Buffy wondered if he was, perhaps, too good. She certainly didn't fear any deal being struck between Sokka and Jack but she did wonder whether Sokka would share the pirate's grim take on what had become the Slayer's driving force in this place.

"If you do tell him -- can we tell him together? It seems like the kind of thing he should hear from both of us."

A confession, then. The Slayer hadn't shared her aspirations with the good man in question.

Edited 2012-03-04 19:38 (UTC)

Man. It was strange to hear him referred to as that. But they weren't kids anymore. They hadn't been for a long time. And niggling at the corner of Katara's awareness is how her choices effect others - particularly Sokka. They could have all died when they went to face Aku. She'd do it again, but. She is also vaguely aware of the changes Sokka went through after that, and how it might be connected...

"That's probably the best idea. Because I won't do anything like this without talking to him. And he's your friend, Buffy. He should hear it from you."

"He's not gonna like it. I'd bet my bottom dollar that he's not gonna like it. But -- he had a right to know. If I were home..."

Buffy wrinkled her nose. She hadn't quite settled on the notion that Sokka filled a gap in her life left by missing Scoobies. It was odd because -- truthfully -- she was emotionally much more tied to a few other villagers. But Sokka had a spark of something. Familiar and comforting. She'd sooner tell him than many others, despite the risk.

"The only other person who knows this much is Albert Silverberg. Have you met?"

"Once or twice." She shifted in her chair a little uneasily and lifted her mug to her mouth. "I was friends with his brother."

And that ended spectacularly right before a battle.

"...Was? Caesar's still here, isn't he?"

She didn't know him well but she had, of course, worked with him on a few drafts. When her own preferred strategist couldn't go.

"He is."

...

"This isn't really something I've talked about. Let's just say... I thought we were friends. I'm not sure, anymore, if he ever did. We had a falling out."

And even though Katara had done her best, months later, to make it so that she could at least work with Caesar again... it wasn't anywhere close to the same. She didn't trust him anymore.

The corners of her mouth dipped into a frown. Oh. That wasn't an alien feeling.

"I'm...sorry to hear that."

She waved a hand. "It was a long time ago."

She has a strategist she trusts instinctively now. Even if the ache of being so wrong, and losing who she felt was a friend, and that whole horrible public confrontation never really went away.

"So Albert knows... because you've told him? Or because he has some sort of plan?"

"Because I told him. Because he's been aware of how things went with the General since the invasion. He knows more about the politics outside of this barrier than most."

Slowly, Katara nodded at that. "I see."

Then she paused for a moment, running what Buffy had said through her mind one more time.

"What was the message the General sent to you?"

"His...his regards," she spat. "Through a friend. A very close one."

That. Didn't sound like it related to what she'd taken from the General to Katara. If the General had been obsessing over it, surely he would have mentioned it?

"...it sounds to me like he was just messing with you."

It was not so much the object itself but what Buffy had found inside of it that mattered; but, of course, the conversation hadn't strayed that far yet.

"Maybe. I've been messed with before, though. And the General and me talked quite a bit before I -- well, let's just say that I don't think psychological warfare is something he even approves of."

[ Action, Voice ] .058

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

what are pronouns?

I don't know. Isn't there a rhyme about that?

:| i need it for sure.

it is the best rhyme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)