markofthebrave | [Voice, Action... of a sort] .010

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[Voice, Action... of a sort] .010

Aang didn't come out for breakfast today. When I went in his room to check on him, all his stuff was gone. ...I guess this means he went home, right?

And all the stuff in the kitchen is different - does anyone know how they're supposed to work? ~~Or how they got in here without waking us up, because -- seriously, creepy.~~

[Filtered to Longshot 60%]
Hey - haven't seen you around in a while. How are you doing?

[Filtered to Erza 62%, OPEN to Gaang members]
Hi, Erza! I've got a few questions about magic, and you're the only one I know here who does it. Do you mind?

[Filtered to the Green Lantern 62%]
John Stewart, the Green Lantern. I spoke about it with my brother, and we decided that we were more comfortable if you didn't bring us up.

[As for action? Katara is not going very far today. In fact, she is stuck inside, doing healing sessions with the invalid and making sure he stays in bed, and trying to figure out how all this crazy new stuff works. If you think she'd open the door for you and let you in, feel free to stop by and give the girl ~~something else do~~ a helping hand!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Eyeing the water with a vaguely disconcerted look. It's not like she hasn't seen it done before, but now Nami wonders how this is going to feel. Still, that won't stop her.]

Okay. [And she'll put her mug down.] Do I need to do anything?

[...think healthy thoughts?]

[Katara laughs a little.] Just be still.

[It will, in fact, feel good. When Katara places her hand on Nami's head, a cooling sensation will flow from the touch down her back, through her body. It's soothing and a little bubbly, as Katara searches for what had contaminated Nami's system. It was easy to detect the flares in her chi where her body had cornered off foreign particles - showing green in her senses as poison - and was fighting them.]

...your body is fighting off some things that shouldn't be in there. I'm going to try to help speed that up.

[And so Katara lifts her other, now water-coated hand, and puts it on the back of Nami's neck. What follows may feel a bit strange for Nami as that cooling sensation centers in on different points of her body and tightens until something snaps. Each 'snap' is the purification of a foreign particle, being overwhelmed by the purity of her enhanced life-force. Katara will do this as many times as she can without wearing herself out, and then remove her hands with a small smile.] That should help.

[There's a small flash of eagerness on Nami's face when she does feel that pleasant sensation - and the look on her face is probably quite comical because yeah, that does feel weird.

She'll hide her disappointment that this isn't a miracle cure, though. (Hey, she was hoping.) She doesn't feel any different when Katara is done, but she trusts the other girl's word that things will improve. Nami just gives a rueful smile.]

I guess I can blame the ash after all, huh?

[And the water goes back into the basin. She was very careful not to strain herself, and Katara moves to sit back down.]

That was part of it. [She hesitates.] The poison probably didn't help. And it's easy to see that you were very tired. The best thing for you is probably to rest up.

[She gestures towards Nami with a cracker and a wry smile.] And it looks like you're doing that.

The poison ... I guess not.

[And she'll give a sheepish smile.] I don't have much choice. Robin is uh ...kind of merciless like that.

...and sleep is good. I just ... didn't really feel like it at the time, I guess.

[Katara takes a determined and almost vindictive bite.] It seems like this place does that to people.

[She glances around the room, not really wanting to get into what this place had made her do. The day had been long enough... and her gaze falls to the floor as a grief that has absolutely nothing to do with Luceti passes over her face. Katara takes a deep shuddering breath... and reaches for some more food.]

Edited 2010-03-27 05:03 (UTC)

[...

...it may be because Aang has gone home again. She knows that. But grief seems a little too deep an emotion for a friend that has gone home, and Nami hesitates, watching her closely for a moment.]

...Katara?

Edited 2010-03-27 05:04 (UTC)

Hmm? [Katara glances up at Nami and - hesitates. This isn't the sort of thing that she could talk about with Sokka or Toph... and it would be embarrassing to go to Ginko about something else... but she knew that it wasn't something she could keep locked up either. She had to start to let things go.]

...I got some bad news about home today. About... someone I knew.

[...oh. That's ...

...]

I'm sorry.

[A long pause.] His name was Jet. He... we...

We didn't know what had happened to him. We had to leave. I couldn't help him. [He told me he'd be fine.]

[Oh, Katara.]

Do you want to tell me about it?

[She doesn't mean this vague explanation.]

[She hesitates. Was it really fair to start at the beginning when it involved Longshot? But how could she explain about Jet without telling how they'd met?]

...it's kind of a long story.

I'm not going anywhere.

[...]

And neither is anything you have to say.

[Her eyes cut to Nami, sharp and quick, and the decision to trust her is made almost as quickly. Katara settles a little further back in her chair.]

The thing that you have to understand is that my world has been at war for a hundred years. The Fire Nation has done terrible things to people. The Air Nomads were destroyed first. Not just the benders... their entire civilization was just... gone. Burned away, because the Fire Nation was afraid of the next Avatar, scared that he would stop their plans. [And they were right to be afraid. Aang would stop them. Had stopped them. It's a bitter victory, but oh - is still sweet.]

Once they thought that the Avatar had been taken care of, they started to expand. My tribe at the south and the west-most part of the Earth Kingdom were attacked next. [Once her people had been as proud as the people of the North, as prosperous, their waterbending as powerful. Now... Katara's hand goes to touch her mother's necklace.] Their soldiers have no mercy. It didn't matter that no one had ever done anything to them, or that the people they attacked weren't soldiers. They just... came through and burned. My own village... they only left after they were sure we couldn't be a threat to them.

[There's a sudden sharp smile here.] They underestimated us. Two years ago, my father took the men of our tribe to war against the Fire Nation and stood between them in their attempt to conquer the Earth Kingdom. It would have fallen long before now if it wasn't for him - so many lives would have been lost.

Because they didn't care if they were attacking villages or soldiers... they left a lot of orphans behind. [The hand touching her necklace falls into her lap.] Jet was one of them.

[There are parts of that tale that she wants to ask after; gaps that she can spot. But that isn't the purpose of Katara telling her this story. Nami puts her curiosity aside - for now - and just listens quietly. Her mug of tea is cooling on the table. She pays it no mind. A quick smile at the obvious pride she has for her father, but it fades at ler last sentence.]

...go on.

We met Jet while we were traveling through the Earth Kingdom. We'd been having a lot of problems with Zuko following us, and so Sokka decided that instead of flying we had to walk. Which worked out great... when we walked right into a Fire Nation camp full of soldiers.

It wasn't good. We were completely outnumbered - I was barely a bender at all, then, and Aang only knew airbending. Sokka hadn't really fought anyone either... and then Jet came, swinging down from the tree tops. He took out practically the whole camp by himself, but he wasn't alone. He had a collection of other kids with him - he called them his freedom fighters. Well, Pipsqueak wasn't a kid, but...

[Katara shakes her head and tries to return to the point.] He was their leader. He'd taken them in from all over the Earth Kingdom - he made sure they had food, that they learned to fight... and he gave them a reason to keep on fighting, to fight against the Fire Nation. He was strong, and brave and...

[And handsome. And he listened to her, admired her bending, made her feel special. When he looked at her... Katara's face softens for a moment as she remembers. It's amazing how she couldn't let herself think of this before... but now that she knows that he's dead, now that she knows that he tried to change and that fighting by Aang's side killed him... those memories have regained some of their sweetness.]

[...sounds to Nami much like someone has a crush. Or had one. She sits back in the chair with as little noise as possible, sort of bracing for the part of the story that has to come next, eyes watchful.]

...and a liar. [This part is never going to stop hurting.]

I was just starting to learn waterbending with Aang. And Jet was so impressed with it. He invited Aang and me to go and help him liberate the valley...

He wanted to use my bending to fill up water behind a dam. He said it would destroy a Fire Nation encampment. [She wipes the tears angrily from her eyes.] And it would have done that, all right. It just would have taken an entire village with it. Innocent women and children - colonists who'd never done anything except want to live there, Earth Kingdom villagers - he didn't care. He wanted to 'liberate' the valley of every last trace of the Fire Nation...

...and that's exactly what we would have helped him do. We couldn't stop him from destroying the dam. The village was flooded. But Sokka had never trusted Jet. He heard Jet's plan and he warned the villagers in time. Some of their homes were destroyed... but that was it.

[Homes can be rebuilt.]

[No, she wasn't expecting that part, admittedly, and the idea that Jet would wipe a village out like that sits very badly with Nami. She's quiet a few moments; watching Katara cry over this hurts, and she's tempted to break the story then and there and just pull her into a hug.

...but Katara wouldn't be so upset over his death if she hated him, would she?

She doesn't know. But...]

...there's more, isn't there?

[Katara takes a deep breath.] A few months later we were in the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se. Appa had been kidnapped in the desert, and we were looking for him... and when I was by myself in the city, Jet came up to me.

[Pause. She remembers just how angry she'd been.] I attacked him. I told him to leave us alone. [I would have hurt him if he wouldn't.] But insisted - he had changed. I didn't believe him.

[Tell it to some other girl, Jet!] Then Aang and the others showed up - and Jet told us that he had some information about Appa... and they decided that we had to give it a shot.

I don't blame you. [Softly. Trying hard not to interrupt the flow, but ... she'd have done the same, she thinks.]

Was he on the level?

[Katara sighs, and shifts in her chair.] In a way. It turns out that the whole thing was a trap set up by Long Feng, the head of the Dai Li. He'd been using the Earth King like a puppet, somehow making sure that no one in the city knew about the war... he didn't want us to interfere.

So he brainwashed Jet. He used him to get us to go to an abandoned stable and try to send us halfway across the world to get Appa back. And we would have gone too, if Jet hadn't run into some of his freedom fighters in the city... they remembered what happened to him differently. I tried to use my bending to help jog his real memories and it worked, a little. He was able to take us to the Dai Li's underground headquarters.

But while we were down there, we were separated. Aang and Jet were off by themselves... and Long Feng 'activated' Jet, turned him against Aang... [And now Katara looks away.] But Jet found a way to overcome it. In the end, he turned against Long Feng and fought by Aang's side...

...and that's how it happened. I didn't see it. I got there too late. But I saw the rock that had slid towards him - it was twice his size, and he must have connected with it pretty fast... his insides were all mashed up, and the Dai Li were closing in...

[She's not quite crying now, but she wishes she was, because this band in her chest is tight and her eyes feel hot and it hurts to breathe.] He said he'd be fine.

[She's quiet for a long moment, watching Katara struggle with it. How does one respond to a story like that? The fact that Jet lied is obvious, but why he'd lie to someone who could ...

...]

...could you have helped him?

...Not with the time we had. If I'd stayed... if I'd tried... if I had more time...

["It seems to me like what you can do is very different than what you think you should do."]

...no. I don't think so. I guess I'll never know for sure.

[I walked away and I let him die. And at that thought, Katara's hand goes up to cover her mouth and her shoulders hunch as she starts to cry - shuddering, impolite sobs.]

[...so therefore he told her he was fine so that she would leave. And get away safely? It's a guess. But there's no real time to consider that further. Nami is a pushy sort, and she doesn't give a damn about personal space in a situation like this.

The moment Katara's hand goes up to her mouth, she shifts from her own seat silently and crosses to the couch in one quick move, arms wrapping around the other girl tightly without a word.]

[Voice, Action... of a sort] .010

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