markofthebrave | [ Action, Voice ] .025

Entry tags:

*brook,
*caesar,
*derek,
*ginko,
*nami,
*raine,
*san,
*selphie,
*sokka,
*usopp,
...this place is so...,
best coping mechanism ever,
homesickness sucks,
last waterbender of her tribe,
messing with a little girl's dream,
might need something stronger than soda,
mother hen,
this isn't her war,
war sucks

[ Action, Voice ] .025

[Today - hadn't been so bad. Twenty of them, maybe? It sure seemed like there were a lot less out here than they'd been led to expect, and that was only a good thing because she was tired. The weight of doing this every day was getting to her. Blood had dried in clumps in her hair, and she'd been too tired to bend it out. Now as she stood in the shower, the water collecting at her feet was pink.

It isn't supposed to be pink.

Her stomach heaves and Katara shuts her eyes and stands under the water until even the Malnosso's hotel runs out of hot water, and long after it turns cold.

The thought of going to sleep leaves her restless, and after staring at herself in the mirror too long, she goes to knock on some doors. She doesn't plan on staying long, but just - seeing - that Toph and Sokka are still all right will do her good. She hesitates, and then heads towards Caesar's door as well. When she returns, she's still awake, and so instead of a quick line that she won't respond to anyway, she makes a voice post tonight.]

Hey everyone! How are things going there?

[Hesitation.]
Nami, is... the house still standing?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Yeah, so many of those things are things that she's only ever heard about, or seen this past year while traveling, she doesn't even know how to compare or what to ask.]

Was it nice?

[He nods.] It wasn't bad. We were nobles, so I didn't have to do very much as a kid. All I had to do was focus on my studies. I never cared for that, but I didn't mind so much because my brother was there.

[Mmm, stewed sea prunes. She takes a healthy bite and tries to think about what life would be like if all she had to do was sit and study.

...she'd probably go insane in a month due to lack of activity. So she latches on to something she can relate to.]

How much older is your brother?

Eight years older... Normally. Ten years now, I guess. [He starts eating his food now, mostly in an attempt to push away that feeling he got when he thought about how long his brother had been here.] I know he doesn't look it, but he took very good care of me when we were kids.

Sokka's four months older than me in Luceti than he would be at home. We're usually just a little more than a year apart. [Yeah, it's weird to think about time in Luceti... soon she'll have been here for almost as long as she's known Aang.]

What did you two do when you were kids? Just study?

Huh. I guess it could be worse. You could have ended up older than him somehow. [...but that was an amusing thought, in his own case. He shakes his head at her question.]

No. We studied a lot, but we were still kids. We did, uh... kid things, I guess. You know, we played and we read together. We used to take walks and just... look at things. Like plants and bugs. [He shrugs.] It was simple, but I enjoyed it.

[Give her a moment to bask in the gloriousness of that thought. Showing up. Older than Sokka. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees. And then she laughs a little and shakes her head.] I don't think it would have made much of a difference if I was older than him, anyway. It's not like 'because I'm older' has been much of a reason since he stopped being able to jump me and stuff my face in the snow. And even that didn't always work.

[She grins at him quickly.] But it sounds like you two had a good time growing up.

Heh. Maybe not. I can't imagine being older than my brother. [The thought of having that responsibility is daunting enough.]

We did, though. [And then things got complicated. But to avoid talking about that, he gestures toward the food. The Earth Kingdom food, not that... whatever it is that she's eating.] Let me try that.

[She slides the Earth Kingdom food over to him and then gives him a teasing grin.] Are you sure you don't want to try the stewed sea prunes?

N-no, I think I'm all right. [He pulls the plate a bit closer and goes ahead to try it. This food was a lot more... you know, normal in comparison to what she was eating.]

[Pffff.] All right. If you're sure.

[And she takes a big bite of a sea prune. Mmmm. There's no taste like home.]

Did you grow up around those duck people you told me about?

[Oh gosh, how does she even- He shakes his head slightly. Focus on the Duck Clan and not that strange food.]

No, I didn't. The Duck Clan is native to the Grasslands - that's pretty far from where I grew up. I had only read about them until the war.

So the war... didn't have anything to do with you, until you got hired to help plan it? Is that how it works?

[Excuse her question, Caesar, your world confuses her so much. She reaches over and pours herself a glass of soda.]

Right. Well... That's normally how it works. I wasn't really hired to help, I volunteered. But the best kind of strategist shouldn't have any ties to the war before they're asked to fight. That way, you can ensure that the decisions they make will be fair.

[...your world makes no sense. Let's latch on to the part she can understand.]

So you volunteered?

[And have we mentioned 'Mmmmm, stewed sea prunes?']

[He nods.] I hadn't intended to. It just so happened that I was in the right place at the right time. [But that was no coincidence.] Once I saw things for myself, I couldn't very well leave those people like that. They needed my help, and bad.

[She nods. That, she can understand. It's hard to turn away from people in need, and if you're Katara, it's pretty much impossible.]

The Grasslanders? Who were they fighting against?

[Oh dear. This is where it gets complicated. He pauses, contemplating how to explain this.]

Not just the Grasslanders. The Zexens, too. [Hmm. He would have to back up a little bit.] The Grasslanders and Zexens had been on the verge of war for a long time, and all they needed was a little push to start conflict. That's where the Harmonians come in - they're out to conquer just about everyone. But there was no way the Grasslanders and the Zexens could face Harmonia when they had enough problems going on between them internally. That's where I came in - I had to convince the Grasslanders and Zexens to work together to fight off the Harmonians.

[This? This is the easy stuff. She pauses for a minute to consider what he's saying and then spears a piece of the yakisoba.]

That makes sense. Did it work?

[And she takes a bite of the yakisoba.] Hey, this is really good!

[It's the complicated stuff that he's leaving out, like the real reason he was in the Grasslands, for example. The personal stuff. He nods.]

Not too bad, right? I wish I could make it like this... [He shrugs. It's not like he was really invested in his cooking skills anyway.] It did work, however. It took quite a bit of convincing, but I got through to them eventually. We were still far from a real army, but it was kind of nice to see all of those different people working together, I guess.

[She's a bit tentative to ask this question, but since they're talking about it anyway...]

Is that where Hugo came in?

Something like that. The Flame Champion was the hero that the Grasslanders were hoping for. The Zexens more or less put their faith in him because he had a True Rune.

Harmonia wasn't too keen on fighting the Grasslanders knowing that the Flame Champion had returned. During the First Fire Bringer War, the original Flame Champion used the True Fire Rune to quickly put an end to the fighting, but there were many casualties as a result. Harmonia certainly didn't want anything like that happening again. They didn't know anything about the new Flame Champion, so there was no way for them to tell whether we'd make a move like that. They were walking on eggshells.

[There's a bit there that she doesn't understand, but she's getting caught up in the story now and has even stopped eating to give him all her attention.]

So then what happened?

Edited 2010-08-07 04:01 (UTC)

[Caesar's not really eating, either. He takes a drink of soda before he continues.]

After the Grasslanders and Zexens put their differences aside, we made Budehuc Castle our headquarters. Things really livened up after we got there. It wasn't just a castle, but a castle town, and after a bit of recruitment work, we had everything you could think of. We even had a theater which we used to put on plays to entertain the troops and earn money. [Not that he'd been enthusiastic about the plays, but Albert's reaction to finding out what they did during downtime was amazing.] It was still a little... uh, out of the ordinary, but it didn't take long to get used to.

Harmonia wasn't ready to give up just because we had the Flame Champion, however - they were out to take over all of the Grasslands. We fought a few battles against them... We even ran into the Harmonian Bishop Sasarai, who was leading the Harmonian army. [He pauses.] I'm not too sure what happens after that, though. That's when I found myself here. But I heard that things end well, so I'm not worried about it.

Oh. [That's kind of a disappointing end to the story - not really having an ending.] Well, that's good. I was taken here before I knew how things ended for sure too.

[She starts in on her stewed sea prunes again.] So what does 'Flame Champion' mean? Is it like a prophecy?

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