markofthebrave | [Action, Chickening Out Written, and Voice] .015

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[Action, Chickening Out Written, and Voice] .015

[What with Zuko's unexpected and somewhat... well, dubious bout of hopefully-it-will-be-win and please don't burn their house again, Katara has an unexpected bout of free time. This is both a good thing, and a bad thing, since with the craziness of her first few months dying down, Katara has started to feel homesickness pressing down on her. Couple that with Sokka's keeping secrets, his friendship with Ty Lee, and learning chi blocking, the extra time to think is not... exactly... happy.

So here she is, at the bridge by her house, standing at the arch and staring out over the water.]

[Filtered to Ginko 70 percent]

Ginko, have you ever-

Is there a time where

I need

[No. It wasn't fair to bring anyone into this. She'd figure it out the same way she always did.]

[Voice: Filtered away from Zuko, 70%]

~~So... has anyone else noticed anything strange going on tonight? There isn't a new experiment going on, is there?~~

[And pretty much immediately after this comment Katara is going to find a way to erase this voice post if it kills her. She didn't mean to upset anyone! It was just - so weird.]

[...And sometime after dinner, she'll be returning to her practicing routine outside of the house, in case she's due for a talking to ~~you know who you are~~.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I grew up by the ocean. Anywhere we ever lived - we had to stay close to it, for food and supplies. [Her voice is getting a little thick with nostalgia.] All you had to do was step outside the village walls to be close enough to hear the waves. You always knew it was there.

It stretched out forever, as far as they eye could see.

[He grunts. Huh. Seems like he's not the only one who occasionally drowns in nostalgia. Thinking of days gone by when things were simpler, when they just were... not wrong. Not like now.]

Things change. [Whether it would pull them further away from the things that seemed right or somehow guide them back to them, he couldn't say. He's not optimistic, though; it's just not in his nature. He glances at her, then rests his elbow on the railing and his chin in his hand.]

Tell me about your ocean. [He really is rather curious. This waterbending she does is really... strange. He hasn't has a chance to talk to many about their different worlds and damn his curiosity for making him actually seem... almost social, God forbid.]

[Katara blinked. She thought she just had.] Well. We live on the South Pole. So the water is always cold. There are some natural springs inland which are warmer.

...in the spring, when the ice caps start to melt, the men of the village would go on whaling parties. We use up every part of the whale for supplies - bone to build with, skin for canvas, meat and oil for cooking and for supplies, teeth for swords... and at the end of the hunt, we thank the spirits for their bounty, the whales for their lives. There's a huge bonfire and ceremonial dances, feasting...

[Talking about this makes her miss home more - and not just home. The way things used to be.] Of course, for the past two years we just had to make due with what we could.

[Ah, so she knows the cold and ice. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Hyourinmaru rumbles approvingly. ~~Idiot, easily amused dragon.~~ He snorts. Same stories, different variations and they always amounted to that things were easy once.]

Things can change quickly. [And sometimes it's so gradual that you don't notice it until it's too late.]

Yeah. [And now she's thinking of just how quickly things can change - alive, dead. Here, gone. And then - the good changes, unexpectedly, just as sudden - like a boy found in an iceberg.]

[Now he feels like he has to say something, since he was the one that forced the conversation.]

Doesn't always have to change for the worse, though. [And... he doesn't feel that at all. They're empty words, hardly worth the effort taken to speak. He's not sure if he could find some changes for the better in recent past. ~~No, he's not cynical. Not at all.~~]

[She nods, a private little smile on her face.] Yeah, I know.

[A long pause and then:] One day you can just be going along on a fishing trip, and the next minute you can discover a boy in an iceberg.

[Okay, now that's interesting.]

A boy in an iceberg?

[And she shifts to the side to actually look at him as she talks, even though speaking about Aang makes her miss him so much it actually hurts.] That's right. One day, my brother and I were out fishing and we got caught up in some ice rapids.

[She shakes her head.] I wasn't much of a bender then. I got mad at something Sokka had said... and ended up cracking this iceberg. When it opened, there was this... perfect sphere inside, and a boy sitting in it, meditating.

[She's caught up in the story; he can tell that much easily. He turns to face her, echoing her movement.]

Who was the boy?

His name is Aang. [She smiles.] He'd been trapped in that iceberg for a hundred years.

That's a long time to trapped in an iceberg, of all places. [A short pause.] He one of the changes?

The best. He was the Avatar.

[He can't really help the look he gives her. She was the first to lecture him about not explaining things, after all.]

And the Avatar is...?

[Katara blinks.] Oh - I thought I told you. [She shakes her head.] Sorry, I've told so many people...

[Deep breath.] I told you about how my world is divided by elements, right?

[She may have. There's been... a lot that's happened. ~~And Kel drew a blank.~~ He nods and recites the elements quickly.] Water, fire, earth, and air.

[And now he's guessing. She's connected to water. She told him that there were benders for each element. That didn't seem all that noteworthy to her.] The Avatar is connected to all of them? [Or maybe none of them or he was wrong entirely, but the elements seem such a huge part of her world that that wouldn't make sense to him.]

[~~S'cool. I don't remember either, and neither does Katara~~ But hey, she's impressed. He's the first person who's gotten that on his own. She nods.]

That's right. The Avatar is the only one who can learn to bend all four elements. He or she is the one to keep balance between the nations. They're also the bridge between the spirit world and our world.

I see. [And, really, he sort of does. Finding the Avatar must have been... quite the event.]

I take it he didn't stay in the iceberg, then.

[Her tone is unmistakably warm:] No he did not.

[He doesn't miss that at all and, despite what some people say, he's not completely emotionally stunted. ~~Not completely but...~~]

He's a friend.

[She grins at Hitsugaya, sharp and quick and genuine.] That's right.

[And she misses him so much she finds it hard to go on-] He was here for a few weeks, but then he got sent home. Heh. Guess the world couldn't do without him again, even if he did get sent back to the same time he was taken from.

[He shrugs one shoulder.]

Maybe it's better that way. [Despite worrying over Hinamori and having Matsumoto at his side here, he couldn't help but feel that way. Home is home, war or not. But then again, at home, Hinamori is dying. Matsumoto would still be gravely hurt. So would he, for that matter.]

[He turns to look out over the water -- he's not dismissing her, but she had something, staring at the water like that. It couldn't give answers, but the movement and the sound is soothing. He's just thinking now, mulling over what she said -- and then abruptly changes the subject. It's for their own good. He's starting to brood and she's looking... small.]

When you healed me, you mentioned Nala. That's one of the spirits here, isn't it? [He's been listening and reading, thanks very much.]

It's definitely better that way. [She'd send everyone home if she could, even if staying here by herself was the consequences. As far as she's concerned, although she's loved meeting the people, Luceti is evil.

When he turns away, she does the same, leaning her elbows on the rail. She's glad for the subject change. Talking about Aang hurts.]

That's right. She's very nice. I got to know her pretty well my second month here.

[Strange. It seems very strange to him that people brought here against their will could contact native spirits -- but, really, there was nothing saying that the spirits themselves were native.]

Did you seek her out?

Edited 2010-05-10 20:59 (UTC)

A little bit of both, I guess. [She shrugs and sobers a moment, though she tries not to show it.] A friend of mine had been hurt. Really badly. So I was doing a lot of healing.

And while I did, she just... came in the house and started talking to me. She wanted to help. So I kept talking to her, and I let her. But if she hadn't come talk to me, I would have probably gone looking for her anyway. It was pretty bad.

[Action, Chickening Out Written, and Voice] .015

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[action] tl;dr, i am so sorry but not really

[action] /loves you and your tl;dr

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