[ action ] taking place just before and just after 4th Wall

[markofthebrave]

[Katara has now had some time to adjust to this strange new place. She's stalked the people she supposedly knows. She's read back in the book. She's gone so far as to attempt the new technology that would take her to the ocean and back and found how truly trapped they were.

Now that everything was a little less raw, the crushing certainty that she was trapped here with people who claimed to know her, people who claimed to be her family, demanded a response.

She couldn't just run away. It was a failing of hers. The only reason she'd run was if it was to form a better plan of attack. But how could you attack when the threat was... being known? Or... being known enough. There were questions and she wanted answers.

So while Katara wasn't overtly looking for anyone who claimed to know her, she was willing to let herself be found, and wandered into places where that would be quite easy.]

Comments

[markofthebrave]

"Just... trying to get a feel for the place."

She followed long quietly.

[markofthewise]

"Good feelings or bad?"

Bad, probably.

[markofthebrave]

"It's very strange in many ways," she said cautiously. She had her suspicions, but she wasn't sure she knew how to address them, or if it was the right time and place.

[markofthewise]

"I wish I could tell you it makes more sense as time goes on. In some ways it does, but the more answers you get, the more questions you end up with."

[markofthebrave]

Her lips pressed together and she shook her head faintly, "People from the future and the past... technology like nothing I've ever seen before... and none of that explains why we're here."

[markofthewise]

"Sometimes I'm not even sure the Malnosso know that one." He watched his feet as he continued to walk, forehead creased as he considered it for himself. He wasn't even sure why she, this version of his sister, was here. "Sometimes I think it's just an accident. A big accident, like an icicle falling to the ground. All the pieces crash and shatter and even if you wanted to, scrambling to put them together wouldn't fix it."

[markofthebrave]

She gave him a long, measuring look. "That makes as much sense as anything else I've heard."

[markofthewise]

"It's not one of my best metaphors." He shrugged. "I don't know why you'd even want to put an icicle together again. And you'd have no problem doing it if you did want to."

[markofthebrave]

She didn't like, couldn't understand, his casual reference to her powers.

"It wouldn't be the same icicle."

[markofthewise]

It was a second nature that he found very difficult to shake. Even though he was trying.

"You mean like stepping into a river a separate time? I guess. If you want to get philosophical about it."

They were at the smithy, so he pushed his way on in. The other workers were in the back room, meaning they had the area to themselves.

[markofthebrave]

She followed him in and, after extending her miserably truncated senses, asked, "Do you think that's what happened to me?"

[markofthewise]

He turned to her, perplexed. "What do you mean?"

[markofthebrave]

"I'm not the same icicle."

[markofthewise]

"... ah." He faltered for a moment. It hit close to home. Too close to home. It was nowhere near the same, he realized. But he knew he wasn't the same icicle either. It's why he and Suki didn't work.

And yet...

"Maybe you're not. But. You're made up of all the same pieces. Those are the parts that matter. To me."

I'd have been better off if I realized this a few days ago, with Suki.

[markofthebrave]

Katara searched his eyes. She'd become very good at telling whether or not someone was lying as a matter of necessity. She wasn't completely certain of it. But she was willing enough to think... yes. He was telling the truth.

She wasn't sure she knew what to do with that. So she glanced away, frowning slightly.

[markofthewise]

He didn't know what else to offer. So he began undoing the bandage on one hand, since there was no one else around.

"Can you heal this? I know it's not much, but. It makes it hard to do my work."

[markofthebrave]

She looked back at him, her frown more pronounced, "What are you talking about?"

[markofthewise]

He opened his mouth to explain, but shut it as some pieces came together. "You... you don't know how to, do you? With your bending."

[markofthebrave]

Heal? With bending? "I don't know what you're talking about."

[markofthewise]

"It's something not every waterbender can do. But you can. I mean, you should be able to. Just..." He stared at his hand, where the skin was torn and not yet entirely scabbed over. "I'd teach you how if I knew."

He did know. Once. But all of those bending moves that his Avatar self knew were completely gone now.

[markofthebrave]

She stared at his hand and then looked up at him. She needed to hear it. "How do you know I can do that?"

[markofthewise]

"I've been here three years." He looked back up at her. "I haven't been alone."

[markofthebrave]

She wasn't stupid. She'd put it together. She was a different icicle.

Katara's lips firmed into a flat line, "I'll try. I'll do what I can. But if it works, I want you to tell me about her. Deal?"

[markofthewise]

He hesitated. He wanted to save her from the existential crisis he'd felt before. He hated how it felt, even afterwards when it was just a memory. But. He wouldn't lie to her about it.

So he nodded. "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

[markofthebrave]

She nodded, "So... how does this usually work?"