markofthebrave | [ Voice, Action ] .017

[It's the second day of a heatwave, and it's amazing how little things like weather can drive man-eating butterflies, flying trees of burning pointy doom, and missing friends from a Southern Watertibe girl's mind. ...OK, maybe not that last one, but she's feeling this heat in her bones, man, and it's driven her to put on her Fire Nation outfit and just lounge around, trying not to think about the horrible things she's seen week... which of course makes her think about the horrible things she's seen everywhere.

But the best way to get rid of bad memories is to think about good ones... and when that fails, make them.

And so, Katara Has An Idea. She grabs her brother, he agrees, and they make their way to the center of the square and set up a table. It's laden with fruits and sugars and stacks of glasses.

A little bit of waterbending later? And that fountain is now completely iced over, meant to resemble one of their 'Great Wonders of the World', an ice oasis in the middle of the desert.

When they're all set up, Katara makes a voice entry.]

Hey, everyone! Come on to the fountain for free fruit slushies!

[Feel free to come upon them on any part of the process, stop by for a slushie, or take a look at the pretty ice-fountain! Either Sokka, Katara or (eventually, as I have to run out right now) both will answer!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh! [Why, yes. That's a name she knows - for any number of reasons.] You must be Caesar's older brother! [And she smiles.] It's very nice to meet you, Albert.

Correct. I trust your reaction means that he has left a favorable impression.

[Woah, formal speaking. Katara blinks and adjusts, quickly sizing him up as if seeing him for the first time. Now she's scrambling to remember the way Caesar had spoken about his brother, and to realign her perceptions accordingly.]

For the most part, yes. He was very helpful to me when I first came here, and explained a lot of things about Luceti that I couldn't get just by reading the guide.

[Good. That meant that Caesar was actually taking the time to be informative.]

Awhile ago now, I imagine. How long have you been in Luceti?

[A shadow flickers across her face and is gone.] About four months now. What about you?

A little over two and a half years. [But he knows that will not mean much when more people are staying in Luceti longer.]

That's a long time. [Katara has immediate respect for anyone who's been in Luceti that long and hasn't gone out of their mind.]

It is, I suppose. Though nothing in comparison to the Malnosso.

[The Malnosso, on the other hand, have clearly gone out of their minds. She crosses her arms.]

Yeah, well I guess when you're stuck some place and can't die, more things than time tend to lose their meaning.

Or you could simply not have cared in the first place. [Since he got himself a drink from Sokka, he will just sip it before continuing.] It can be rather disconcerting to hear how flippantly death is discussed here.

More disconcerting than being trapped behind a giant bubble in a strange world and locked in with other people from different times and worlds?

It depends on who you speak to, of course. Different worlds isn't an unheard of idea where I come from.

Really? I hadn't heard that. Do you mean like... worlds within worlds? Or more... like this.

Worlds that exist separately from each other and cannot be traversed through ... ah, "space travel." Magic would be required to link the worlds.

I don't believe it's so rare an idea here; I have heard of worlds where dragons or other creatures exist on a separate plane than humans.

Well, yes, but that's not the same thing as this place. At least in those worlds, the same... situation or set of rules applies.

In my world, there's the spirit world and the world where men live. The Avatar is the bridge between those two worlds, and even though he can go back and forth between them they still affect each other. It's not like my world has affected your world, right?

We have no way of knowing whether there are any effects between worlds from our current vantage point. To dismiss the idea, especially when there is now proof of a world where we may all coexist, would be to ignore possibilities of vulnerability. For example, there doesn't currently appear to be any way to dismiss the idea that people from other worlds may be transported to another's through an experimental Shift.

...But I digress.

[You do indeed. She's not sure what the point was that they were talking about before - now she's stuck on the fact that... it's true. There's no way of knowing if other people from this world could fall into hers.

And that means...

Aku.

She shakes it off, but it's a visible effort.] Well, there's only so much we can do about any of that - especially since we don't even know that it's true. [She glances to the fountain, takes a little comfort from the fact that it made people smile.] And we can only work with what we can change.

[Clearly he had planted a troubling thought in the girl's head. Hm.]

Well spoken.

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