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!]

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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.]

[And so Katara cries, because the reality of it is crashing down on her, because she can feel it tightening in her stomach, she can remember his life in her hands and she wonders - if he hadn't betrayed her, if he hadn't gone after innocent people, would she have made the same choice?

And she cries because she wasn't strong enough to save him, because Longshot had to lose another friend, because the whole war was stupid and pointless and the Earth Kingdom should have been their allies, a place of safety and instead Aang had - been hurt - Jet had died, everything had just gone wrong, and now it didn't even matter because they weren't even in the same world anymore...

And eventually the sobs will stop and the tears will dry and Katara will wish that she could have kept on crying, because she really doesn't want to have to deal with what happens next.]

[Nami isn't going to move. In some ways, it's easy for her to offer comfort like this - but it's the only thing she can do, not knowing Katara or her world as well as she might like. Which means when Katara finally starts to exhaust herself, she's at a loss ... because she wants to help. But Nami has no idea how, apart from just being there.

She'll wait for the physical cue; when Katara starts to pull back of her own accord, Nami will let go and sit back. But before then, I'm afraid you're still caught in a hug, Katara.]

[That's all right. Hugs are good. Katara likes hugs. And she'll just sit there a few moments more before shifting away.]

I guess I knew that it had to have happened. But I still hoped...

[So many people have died. And I never got to apologize. ...or even decide if he deserved it.]

[Confirmation brings it home, though.

She's not saying that. Or anything else that sounds like a platitude, because what good will it do? Instead, she'll lean down to collect Katara's mug from the table, offering it back to her with a small smile.]

Here.

[If you weren't 15, she'd offer to make it stronger. But the tea, at least, is still warm.]

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markofthebrave - 2010-03-28 07:58 (UTC) - Expand

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