[ 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]

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?"

[markofthewise]

"Well, you coat your hands with water. And just sort of. Put it against the par that hurts. I usually have to be quiet then. But you're doing this thing where you encourage the uh, chi inside me, to do all the work."

[markofthebrave]

"...okay," Katara said. She reached up a hand and water gathered around it with quiet efficiency. "Hold out your hand."

[markofthewise]

He held out his hand and was quiet. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to be her first experiment. But if he couldn't trust her with this, then what was the point?

[markofthebrave]

She didn't know how this worked, but what he was describing was somehow... using her bending to reach inside someone, not with blood, but with water, reaching for a person's energy to heal.

It wasn't long before it tugged at her and the water around her hand started to glow.

"How..."

[markofthewise]

Sokka had nearly flinched when she started, but he kept a brave face.

Once that familiar glow started to shimmer, he was able to smile.

"... you're doing it. You're a healer, Katara."

[markofthebrave]

"...I didn't even know something like this was possible. She never said--"

Then Katara stopped talking and concentrated on finishing the job.

You're a healer, Katara.

[markofthewise]

Sokka waited until she was done. The 'she never said' made him curious. He wanted to know. He had to know. But he knew better than to interrupt. His sister - his Katara, had driven that home. But more than that, he knew it wasn't the time.

When she was done, he turned his hand over to look at it.

"... thanks, that feels a lot better."

[markofthebrave]

She stared at his hand. How... strange. How amazing.

"I'm glad," she said quietly.

[markofthewise]

He offered his other hand in turn. He could see that although this was a big moment for her, that she wasn't reacting quite as exuberantly as he anticipated.

"I think I've gotten used to bring reckless be because you're always there to patch me up again."

[markofthebrave]

She got to work on his other hand. "I was... always able to heal you, then?"