driftfleet | [muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

[Oh, he sees that, Adawolfe, he sure does. Still, Sokka will leave it be, he's not the kind to pry. Still, lucky Wolfe. Good lord, Sokka misses having someone to get THAT kind of expression over.]

Right The crystals thing. We should get on that.

Uhh...

[He has no idea what would be the best direction to go crystal hunting...]

That way.

[So he picks one at random and starts walking. There's companionable if a bit awkward silence for a long moment, and then Hawke's inability to let a silence sit for too long rears its head.]

Soooo... what's this water tribe of yours like?

[He'll got for it. Random direction is better than no direction, after all. ]

Well, I like them. We're...pretty out of the way. We've got little villages scattered about, take care of ourselves, you know? Most of the world never comes anywhere near us and we don't mind.

[He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. ]

It's a simple life, just living off the ice and sea. But it's a good life. I...really miss it.

I'm more of a city person myself, but I can see the appeal.

[He doesn't hate small villages, which is good considering he'd settled in one for more than a year between running around freeing Circles and when Varric sent his letter about Corypheus and the Inquisition, not to mention the childhood years spent in remote town after remote town, but he'd grown very fond of Kirkwall and its bustle. A place where the city itself never goes to bed and you can find anything you need at any time of the day or night. It was exciting and invigorating if you could ignore the petty criminals, Carta, Coterie, slavers, drunks, asshole Templars, Tal Vashoth, rogue blood mages...

Okay well it's not perfect.]

I don't think I'll ever get the hang of normal fishing though, sitting there with a net or a pole.

[Way easier to just shoot a quick and easy sliver of ice at the fish and wait for it to float up. Neat and tidy.]

Our sister tribe in the North has a city. It's made of ice. It's...pretty intimidating.

[He is currently blissfully unaware that his own home is turning that way, as the influence of the North bleeds into the South. For now, he keeps the idea of his tiny village in the middle of nowhere close to his heart. ]

Hah, it takes a certain type of person, that's for sure. You could spend all day there and not get all that much for your trouble.

A city made of ice? That sounds fascinating. Wouldn't it melt? Is it held together with mag- er, bending?

[Inquiring minds want to know.]

Nah, it's really, really cold there. Everything is always freezing. I guess the waterbenders do a lot to keep it fixed and healthy, though. They have a lot more benders in the North than we do in the South.

[Because CULLING! ]

Always cold? Well that doesn't sound very nice. I prefer it to be hot at least half the year. Ferelden was like that, though. The summers were always more of a suggestion rather than a rule. Sometimes it would snow right through Bloomingtide. Snow on Summerday was the worst.

Always cold.

[He smiles fondly, he loved it, really. ]

I'm gonna guess those are summertime holidays, huh? We didn't really...have those. Summers, I mean.

Summerday is, yeah. I've never not had a summer, though in the north there isn't really winter so it's like that in reverse. No snow in the winter is as much a drag as too much of it, but at least I can sort of make that with magic.

[He kicks at some of the detritus on the forest floor.]

Were you surprised when you first experienced seasons?

Huh, that's pretty neat. So the more North you go, the warmer it gets?

[He chuckles. ]

It was an experience. We were too busy trying to figure out how to save the world to really enjoy them, though.

...Also? Deserts are weird.

Deserts are weird.

[He agrees amiably, leaning down to pick up another interesting rock, this one glowing neon green or pink when held at different angles.]

You say you were saving your world? Sounds like a lot of worlds people here are from need saving.

So weird. There was a library in one in my world. And then it like...buried itself because the spirit who guards it is a jerk and we all nearly died.

[That fucking owl, man.]

We were. I mean, we saved it from the guy who wanted to literally burn it to ashes so yay us? Now we're just trying to rebuild it after a hundred years of war. It's not easy.

[He exhales softly. ]

I've noticed that. Atroma probably planned it that way. Entertaining, you know?

A spirit library in the middle of the desert. Are you sure this wasn't a dream in the Fade? That sounds like something that would go on there.

[The sort of place a demon who promised untold knowledge would take you when you said yes to a deal. He has to wonder if Merrill ever visited a spirit library, then. Or... well, the Fade isn't exactly that concrete. He shakes his head.]

Either way, there's always a lot of rebuilding to do after a war, but it's far better to be free and working than just dead by an enemy's hands.

[Could be worse, basically.]

Nope, it was absolutely real. It was a giant owl, and seriously a huge jerk. Spirits in my world are a little uh...complicated, sometimes.

[All the time.]

There is, but we;re prepared to do it. And it is a lot better than being dead, or having the other side win. Who knows how many people would have died if that'd happened. It's just waiting for people to see that for themselves.

Spirits everywhere are complicated.

[As if that explains everything. It doesn't, though, and he knows it, but they're not going o figure out the mysteries to all spirits walking through a forest speculating.]

I don't know about your situation, but I do know that people in general are more interested in themselves and their own safety. It's not their fault, it's just how they are, but it means when the next kingdom over is, say, being overrun with monsters from the deep, they're more likely to draw back and say 'glad its not me!' then help in the good fight. Sometimes the only way to change their minds is through something drastic.

Tell me about it.

[SPIRITS, man. He would never, ever get them. ]

We'll probably never be running low on that kind of thing. Crazy stuff that makes people have a call to arms. The main problem is other people, some are fighting against the new staus quo, others want retribution against largely innocent people. It's just...a mess.

[It will never cease to amaze or upset Wolfe that people so young - children - get embroiled in these things, but he's long since learned that there's no use in trying to save them from it. Instead, the best thing to do it support them, work with them like anyone else. Sokka's clearly already been through more than many in his lifetime and far be it from Wolfe to look down on that just because of his age.]

When it comes to that, I guess it's just being able to make people see what's best for everyone instead of just for them. The hardest thing for us was always getting people to see past their own fear of each other. It's still a struggle.

[And of course, that's the big problem for Sokka. He hasn't been able to be a kid for such a long time, he honestly forgot how. The Fire Nation robbed him and his sister of that opportunity a long time ago. ]

Tell me about it. I mean, Korra is from my future, way way into my future and things are mostly okay there. There's always new problems, but the ones we're dealing with mostly get fixed so that's...something. I know it's not impossible.

That's good news. You're lucky.

[He has no idea how the mage-templar conflict will shake out. Even with the Inquisition's direct involvement in all major politics and the current unifying distraction of Corypheus, Hawke has no doubt that it will fall back to blows in due time unless someone makes some kind of decision, namely who will assume the seat of the Divine. Whoever it is though, unless she's staunchly of the same school of thought as the Libertarian fraternity, it's not going to really matter. The war could rage on into the next age if the Chantry doesn't give any quarter. Either that, or mages really will be literally enslaved in the south.]

I have no idea what's going to come of my home or my people.

[Sokka would feel for him, really. No matter how wars end up, someone ends up suffering for it- usually the people who were suffering the most during the war in the first place. A part of him dreads going home, to see what the war has done to it. To see what's left to rebuild. He's heard nothing good about it.

Korra seems fine, but what happens between the end of the war and her time? Who knows.]

I'm sorry. That's got to suck.

It is what it is, really. I would like to know, but...

[He lets out a heavy breath.]

I'm also sort of dreading it too.

[Because when has anything ever actually gone right?]

I hear you there. I mean, what if something horrible is just there waiting for you? And no matter what you do, you can't change it. Even if you found out about it here beforehand, it's still just gonna...happen.

Like the worst surprise ever.

I... yeah.

[He swallows what he's going to say and just agrees instead. How can he explain that he doesn't want to go back, especially with all the fighting he had a hand in starting. It's the same as a child running from cleaning up his toys or punching another kid on the street. Someday, he knows he's going to have to face all that.

Someday he's going to have to pay for that, and watch Anders pay for it too, no matter how hard he fights for the contrary.]

[Going back is never a question for Sokka. It's where he belongs, where he's needed. He does understand it's not an option for everyone though, he's worked that into his Great Escape Plan.]

But hey? Maybe you might be able to go to a different world, instead. That's what I'm hoping to achieve for some of my crewmates. Get them somewhere safe.

[Where they'll be 100% less dead or in danger. ]

[muffled spooky scary skeletons playing in the distance]

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