driftfleet | Action - First Arena

Entry tags:

Action - First Arena

Who: Aang and YOU
Broadcast: None
Action: Red Fish and Planet
When: Right as Aang arrives

Red Fish

[Well, this is definitely not the arena Aang just left. Did they keep him dead and bring him back for another arena?

He's not sure, but he's going to wait until he actually can ask someone he recognizes. In the meantime, this arena seems to have powers, so he's going to take advantage of it.

He grabs a bag--possibly stealing it from someone's room, though it doesn't occur to him that people are really living in individual, undefended rooms--and stuffs it full of any food he recognizes in the kitchen, then any medical supplies that he recognizes in the medical bay, which... is way more than he remembers being able to recognize before.

It takes him a bit before he feels the space behind his ear, discovering a brand new implant in his head.]

Oh come on!

[That's the third time they stuck something in his body without asking!]

Planetside

[Aang doesn't spend much time in the town. He loads up on food and proper desert clothing before heading out into the desert.

He wants to make his own shelter and not depend on what the Capitol has provided. Chances are, something terrible is going to happen to those houses. Once he feels comfortably far away from the town, he drops his bag on the ground and stretches his legs and arms, warming up.

Then he takes a deep breath, centering himself, and then starts blasting the ground with fire.

The sand begins to glow red. Aang manages the heat carefully, keeping it contained or shooting upwards, careful of hurting himself or any animals that may be lurking nearby. As the fire keeps burning, the sand starts melting, and Aang begins bending it with one hand, making it rise and twist into something resembling a cave.

And then he shuts off the fire, a glowing red rough glass shelter left behind. He wipes sweat from his brow and drops into the right posture to start bending the sand to mostly bury the glass, where it will be protected from the sun and camouflaged from other tributes.]

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[He has to think. It's hard to think of a topic that isn't fraught with pain and distrust. What can he say? 'How do you think the weather is in the Earth Kingdom right about now?']

If Yue is our moon's spirit, do you think the moons of other places have spirits too?

[It just pops into his head. Something safe. Something random and a little silly, just how he likes it.]

Maybe this planet has its own magic koi pond somewhere.

[She'd seen this planet from space. She kind of doubts that there's a koi pond anywhere on it.

But if he wants to talk about spirits, she can do that.]

I don't know about here... but there were spirits in Luceti. They were pretty amazing.

[Glancing around. If he's finished the 'chimney'.] Let's talk inside. I'm too hot out here.

Edited 2018-04-04 04:50 (UTC)

[Aang puts the finishing touches on his 'chimney', improvising a design with a little catch to it so that sand can't blow in and fill up their shelter. Hopefully it won't stop the smoke from escaping, but they'd see, wouldn't they?]

Give me a second to cool it down.

[It's nice to be able to bend without some outside assistance or punishment. It's... liberating. He whips up the wind, using it to wash more sand over the glass cave and rapidly cool the red hot surface as well.]

What were the spirits in Luceti like?

[She watches him airbend with a small smile. It's so natural for him; it never gets old to see it.]

They were invisible, for one thing - or at least, no one I know could see them. And they were tied to different elements, except for Nala - she was a spirit of healing. You could form bonds with them and learn how to use the different elements in a kind of 'magic' -- it wasn't as strong as bending, [not by a long shot] but it was still pretty amazing.

That sounds nice.

[Aang doesn't sound resentful about it. He sounds pleased. He doesn't know if this is really Katara, but if she is, he's happy she had benevolent spirits where she was. He's missed having a connection with spirits and non-human powers.]

So they could kind of make you the Avatar yourself?

[It's a joke, an attempt of using humor and playfulness to try to bridge the weird energy between them. He tries imagining Katara airbending, and the thought makes him smile.]

[She gives a quiet little laugh.] Not really. With Faeren, the earth spirit, you could manipulate the ground a little and make rocks rise, but you couldn't move the earth through the air or anything like that. What I liked best about her, though, is that you could use her to help make plants grow. And Kippin, he was the air spirit, could make like... brief breezes, I think? But mostly people used him to mute sound waves, although I heard some people were skilled enough to create sound even if there had been nothing there to cause it.

[Which had always seemed pretty pointless to her; she'd never bonded with Kippin. And she doesn't mind talking about the spirits with Aang - it's a nice, neutral way, she hopes, to start to bridge the gap of experience between them. She doesn't just want to know what happened to him (although she does, she really, really does), but she wants him to know who she is now too... and to hopefully be able to leave out all the bad stuff.] And there were spirits for elements that we don't have in our world, like Hyt, the light spirit...

Light? What could the light spirit help you do?

[It's soothing to hear Katara talk about this kind of thing. It's not about their world, but it's not about the world Aang has endured for the last year and change, and there's nothing emotionally charged in the topic. It's workable.

As the glass cools, Aang calms the winds, having properly buried the shelter in sand before gesturing Katara towards the entrance.] It should be cooler in there now.

Oh good. [She does not like this heat, she does not like the desert.

She heads inside without a second thought, continuing to answer his question as she goes.] I never bonded with Hyt, but it could make light a little darker or brighter or... I heard people could learn to bend light enough to make illusions? But I've never seen that happen.

[A little gently, wanting him to know:] I think Sokka bonded with all of them, except Nala, the healing spirit, and Sona, the water spirit.

Sokka bonded with the spirits?

[Of all the things Aang expected of Sokka, that's not one of them. Even after accepting that bending is a natural part of life, Sokka always seemed a little ill at ease with things he couldn't understand like spirits.

But then again, maybe Sokka found a way to engage with them on his level. Or maybe Sokka decided it was worth it if he could get the practical benefits.]

What was that like? [Aang giggles a little as he enters the glass enclosure.] Kind of funny that someone from the Water Tribe bonded with everyone but the healing or the water spirits, huh?

Yeah... he didn't want to tell me at first, but it was pretty practical. He apparently got a big kick out of generating fire in front of Azula once. [THE LINEFACING SHE DID when she heard about that.] But Luceti was a good place for learning new things. I learned how to fight with a bo, for instance.

[Because her bending had been cut and half and could randomly be taken away, and most often while someone was trying to kill her, so... let's... not tell Aang any of that! Yes! :D]

The bo? Why'd you learn that?

[Aang doesn't remember Katara ever really taking an interest in weapons before. She'd been obsessed with becoming the best waterbender she could.

The thought of Azula's face does push a small chuckle out of him, but he can't help but think of the Azula in Panem, one of the pre-Quell Victors. Knew nothing about bending, but still managed to seem creepy and on the edge of crazy at the same time.] I bet she hated that.

Umm... [...well, she doesn't want to lie to him, either. And obviously she was fine, right? So... yeah.

She settles in and takes a seat, leaning against the glass wall. She draws her knees up to her chest and loops her arms around them as she looks at Aang.] ...well, the place where we were... everyone who had power, the power was cut in half. I still had my skill, but I could control a lot less water. And they could take our power away completely at any time they wanted to... and... [How to say this without 'I was nearly murdered three times in my first two months' and 'there were also soldiers who were part of an insane cult trying to kill us and they had the ability to take away powers...

She manages a small smile.] And I remembered the way you incorporated your glider into your bending, so I thought that the bo would be a good way of being able to learn to defend myself, no matter what happened.

That sounds like a really good idea.

[Unlike what Katara may have expected, Aang doesn't bat a lash at the news that her powers were restricted. If anything, he's surprised that she got her bending at all. Aang certainly didn't, except in select arenas.

It doesn't even occur to him to pretend to be surprised. It's just reality to him. He learned how to fight with knives from Bucky, but he doesn't want to talk about Bucky right now.]

You don't need bending for the moves to still be good in a fight, especially if you have a weapon.

[Mostly, Katara's relieved he didn't pick up on the 'imminent threat of death', because that's not something she really wants to explain to him. She's always sought to protect him, even if it hadn't always been helpful...

She smiles a little and nods.] A friend of mine said they reminded him of the moves of a martial art in his world, only without the elements. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable using them without water, though, so I'm glad the bo is pretty different. And it works out well because it's a distance weapon, and a lot of people there were a lot stronger than I am, physically. [And also, non-lethal, which was something she tried to be as much as possible... although at times, it had not been possible.]

[It doesn't occur to Aang to wonder about whether or not there were threats of death. That happened so often during their journey together, and then they became a regular part of life in Panem, so he never assumes she was somewhere safe. Nowhere is safe, really.]

Yeah, I get that. It was weird learning how to fight with bending moves without actually bending. [He lets it slip without thinking. He had no bending consistently enough that he just learned how to adapt his existing style without it.

He doesn't like getting so up close with his opponent, but he's good at getting away under normal circumstances. Worse comes to worse, he knows how to break someone's arm regardless of how big they are.] Plus, it's pretty easy to find something about the size of a bo if you don't have one. It's a smart weapon.

Thanks, Aang. [She gives him a smile. His approval has meaning for her, and always will.

She hesitates for a moment.] Do you want to hear more about Luceti? Or would you like to tell me something about where you were. It doesn't have to be a serious something, and we don't have to talk about it right now if you still don't want to.

I'd rather hear about Luceti.

[He's too wary to discuss the Capitol on camera, and he doesn't want to make her look at him in that pitiable way again.]

Did you make friends with anyone from other worlds while you were there?

[ You are not getting away with this forever, FYI, but for now, Aang, for now... Katara won't press. ]

Most of my friends were from other worlds there. [ Heh. She smiles a little. ] One of them is even here, although she doesn't remember anything about Luceti. Her name is Nami and she's a pirate. At one point, her whole crew was there, and I was friends with most of them. Sanji, he was the cook, he had hair that would always cover one eye. [ She covers her eye with her hand for a moment. ] He was a little... weird about girls, but he was really smart and very kind. Chopper was actually a reindeer! But he had eaten a devil's fruit and that - changed him so that he was more like a person [- than like meat]. In fact, he was a doctor, and he taught me a lot. Brook was there too - he was a skeleton, and that was a little scary at first, but he was a musician, and a swordsman. You should have heard him play, Aang, he was amazing! He taught me how to play the koto... [ and she's sad she has to leave that behind ]. And Luffy, and Zoro, and Robin, and Franky were all there too, at one point. Luffy was their captain, he was [ ...how to describe Luffy ] ...made out of rubber.

Edited 2018-04-30 01:47 (UTC)

[Aang appreciates it. He doesn't want to talk about it.

But the descriptions of her friends does make him smile a little bit.]

They sound like a lot of fun. If Luffy was made of rubber, how did he move around without flopping?

Oh. [Um. Hmm.] Okay, maybe that's not the best way to describe it. He still had skin and internal organs and could bleed and everything, so he could just... bend himself and stretch like rubber? One time, he drank gallons and gallons of water and waddled around like a giant balloon and challenged me to a spar with water. He shot the water out of his mouth and I had to stop it from landing on me.

[And she kicked his ass, thank you very much, but it was not an easy spar because Luffy is freakishly fast.] Does that make sense? It's kind of one of the those things you just have to see.

It kind of makes sense. There were a lot of weird people like that in the Capitol, too.

[Although powers were disabled, it didn't change some of the different bodies people had, and strange powers revealed themselves in certain arenas. Aang still remembers the footage of the small man turning into a giant green monster.]

Capitolites would do really weird things to their bodies with surgery. They had a funny idea of fashion.

[ It seems like they had a lot of funny ideas. But she doesn't say that, although she wants to, because she doesn't want to see his response.

There's another opening she can take, anyway. ]

What were some of your friends like?

[ Because of course Aang had friends. He's Aang. ]

[Some wariness comes back to Aang's eyes as he gauges Katara. His first thought is that the Capitol is listening, waiting to hear who they could target to get to him.

But he doesn't want to leave Katara hanging. He'll just talk about the friends who aren't in the Capitol's reach anymore... one way or another.]

There was Clementine. [He smiles, but it's a sad smile, not unlike the one he has when he talks to her about people from the Air Temples.] She was cool. She was always taking care of herself in the arenas, and we met up all the time. In her world, all the dead started walking around to eat the living, so the Capitol wasn't so bad for her. She won the game once, but it was only a mini-round, so they didn't count her as a Victor.

And there was Hiccup. He trained dragons where he came from. His people sounded a little like the Water Tribe because they were mostly sea-faring and lived in the middle of the ice and snow, but they rode dragons too. And there was Korra. She was my next life. I'm supposed to be this big waterbender from the Southern Tribe after I die.

And... there was Bucky. [His expression shifts a little bit, but not so much that it's clear why.] He kind of took care of me for a while. He... had a lot of problems, but he was getting better. I didn't mind anymore when I touched him.

[ She listens and watches him very closely as he speaks. ]

I knew Hiccup in Luceti. He was a Viking and an inventor. He had a prosthetic leg. He was very kind. [ But... speaking about Korra... he sounded so casual about his death and 'next life'. She gives a flicker of a smile. ] And I knew Korra too. That's strange, isn't it?

Yeah, that's him exactly.

[Although his eyebrows go up when she admits to knowing Korra.]

You knew Korra? [He props his head on his fist, his curiosity plain on his face.] What'd you think of her?

[Admittedly, there's some vanity in that question. He hopes Katara liked Korra, because Korra is him, in a way. Just a him that is much more aggressive and also good at metalbending.]

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watermarks - 2018-06-24 02:31 (UTC) - Expand

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