driftfleet | [ open ] .002 though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way

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[ open ] .002 though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way

Who: Katara
Broadcast: Written, Video
Action: Yes! Blue Fish and Planet
When: Message sent Monday, midmorning. Some backdated shuffle action.

[After giving it some thought, Katara decided to make an open network post. She wanted to write it out, but as part of her habit from living with Toph, she decided to both transcribe and say it aloud:]

I want to thank the person who put the memorial into place. If you get in touch with me, I can help you get the number to fill in.

I know that a lot of us have been pretty impacted by what we found here. I don’t know how long we’re usually on a planet, but I was thinking… it might be good to have some kind of remembering ceremony by the memorial? It feels important to find a way to show honor to the lives that were lost here. I don’t know what kind of funeral rites they would have preferred, and there’s no way to respectfully move them, so… maybe some fire and some music? Does anyone have any ideas?

I know that this might not be for them as much as it is for us, but… I think that’s important too.

(OOC: Please feel free to threadjack all up in this conversation; Katara would like to make this a community effort, because it feels like it’s something that’s needed to her.)

[The confetti is still as annoying as the last time it happened, but Katara is happy to be on her brother’s ship. She’ll want to wander around and meet everyone, though no doubt Sokka will soon join her to give her an Official Tour. (Did she really need to know every single detail about the ship and all its history? Probably not, but now she does, unless someone saves her.) She’ll spend some time in the kitchen and try to figure out what she needs to bring up from the planet, and then do the same thing in her new room.

Before she heads back down to the planet, she’s going to try to linger long enough to meet everyone.]

[Since the Blue Fish will likely be her permanent home as long as she’s on the fleet, that means that Katara will be doing what she can to take advantage of the free… everything. Her first stop is a hardware store where she picks up a wheelbarrow and several cans of water-based paint. The color - some shade of blue, though she wants something a little lighter too. She’ll be there pondering over choices for a bit.

She also has no qualms about stealing a good idea from the Vanquish when she sees it, and will pick up a chalkboard for the kitchen there as well. She spends a long time staring at a small electrically powered fountain for noise, trying to decide whether or not to get it. For now, she walks away.]

Hmm… maybe I should get different chair too?

[So feel free to find her, either at the hardware store or wheelbarrowing her way back to the shuttles! After dropping the paint off in the cargo hold, she’ll return once more to the planet for a bunch of canned fruits and vegetables and rice… and maybe go back for that fountain.]

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Who on earth would make a memorial?

[Carefully said.]

[Sokka's never, ever going to pass up the chance to go shopping. Besides, it's something of a Blue Fish tradition to make your mark on the ship, Katara aught to, too. So he'll be following her, probably encouraging her to make impulse purchases, because that's how the Blue Fish has so much tat already. ]

You should absolutely hey a different chair. Chair it up!

[Okay, so this could mean that it was her, although she wasn't entirely sure, because it could also mean that she was curious.] Someone who wanted the dead to be remembered. I think that sort of thing is very important.

[Aang doesn't like the idea of broadcasting his location on the network, so he chooses instead to use the voice function.

Despite all the death he's seen, he hasn't actually attended a single funeral in his time in the Capitol.]

The Air Nomads used to do this thing we called a Sky Burial. We'd do a ceremonial blessing over the bodies and then leave them out for the birds. Then once there were only bones, we'd grind them up with grain and give it to wild sky bison to eat.

Maybe we could do something like that, if we don't know how they would've liked to be buried.

[Aang always saw it as a very touching process to allow the Air Nomad to be brought back into the sky. It broke his heart a little bit that there weren't any wild bison to consume the bones of the dead from a hundred years ago.]

Is it? I would never make such a thing.

[But her voice is very soft.]

[It's a good a good thing one of the watersibs enjoys shopping. Katara is here Strictly for Necessities. Normally, she doesn't need much, but... she doesn't like the cramped space of the ship and wants to avoid it cramping further.

For once, though, she's not going to be fighting his enabling... especially since, if he's here, he can carry it.]

It's almost like the one there is designed to be uncomfortable. [She starts heading toward the chair section.]

[Katara's expression softens and she smiles slightly at Katie for a moment.] Oh, I see. If you say so, then it has to be true.

[Then she glances down.] I... went in there. I counted the first room, but I didn't get to the back. Ben took pictures, though, so I probably could count from there.

[She doesn't really want to, but it feels Important to get a number. And it's not like there is anything urgent happening.]

[...Katara is slightly horrified at this description of the Air Nomad's Sky Burial. Leaving the body for the scavengers seemed... so disrespectful. And she's shocked, because weren't all the Air Nomads vegetarians? It probably had some deep spiritual significance that she wasn't getting, but as it was, the thought just made her queasy. And then they'd grind up the bones with the grain and feed them to the sky bison so they could become... sky bison scat?

That was... why would anyone...

Fortunately, since this was a voice message left here, she has time to walk away and think it through. The best thing that she can come up with is that it reminds her of the swamp... it was probably some way to demonstrate... connectedness? But she can't respond with a: that's wonderful, Aang, because... wow, does that ever go against Water Tribe priorities in burial.

As for these bodies... she definitely does not want to disturb the bones. Some of them would likely turn to dust just by touching them.]

...I don't know, Aang. I don't think it would be possible to move and preserve the bodies at this point. And they're all together there. I wonder if there's a way to seal up the bunker like a tomb instead. [...] But I do think a ceremonial blessing sounds nice. What kind of blessing was it?

Edited 2018-04-11 03:14 (UTC)

[She appreciates the effort, but lord she'd rather Katara didn't have to stare at those bodies any more than necessary. Or Sam, for that matter, but Sam is a lot more of a hardened hunter type, and she figured he'd be better off.]

There's a man on the fleet that specialises in taking head counts. I can at least spare you that particular heartache. You must have seen the carving a while ago, yes?

[She tries to hide her relief and doesn't particularly succeed. She didn't really want to count through those pictures. It was enough for her to witness them, to remember while she would remember, the people of this planet.]

Oh, you found how many? That's good. I'm glad to hear that.

[She did. Far, far too many people forgotten by the universe.]

Are you all right?

Oh, that's a wonderful idea.

I did a memorial service once before, a few months ago; a meteor crashed into a planet we were at, and... Well, occasion called for it. [It was a pretty somber thing.] If you'd like some help, I'd be happy to lend a hand.

[Aang grimaces at the thought of sealing up the bunker. Just leaving those bodies underground? In the site of all that misery and fear?

Although he supposes they've already decomposed to the point where there's not much more that can be done with them. They were claimed by scavengers of the earth, if not the sky.]

I could fill the bunkers up with earth, maybe. [Or sand, as the case may be. Just destroy the bunker and let the bodies and their belongings be taken by the ground.] It's a blessing to help release the spirit from its earthly ties. You chant while you airbend incense around the body. Juniper incense, if we have it. I think I remember the chant.

[ Softly. ]

It can be arranged. A boat to take them to the sky.

[If there's one thing Thor picked up in his time on Earth, it's that coffee is a fine beverage. It's worked its way into his daily routine at this point. He considers it a stroke of good fortune that there's plenty of actual coffee he can take from the planet, and he's already stashed a bunch of it into the kitchen.

He's on his way in there to make himself a cup when he comes across Katara poking through the cupboards.]

-- good morning! Here for a visit?

It's a lovely idea.

[ not her sort of idea, really, but a lovely one all the same. peggy has always done her best to dodge funerals and memorials and -- and the whole thing grows worse and worse when you've managed to witness your own funeral through someone else's eyes, memories, heartache. ]

We come and go from these planets. The whole Fleet bears witness to so much destruction and ruin -- it might be a good opportunity for some among us to process those experiences.

[ just not her. ]

[There's a pause before she answers. 'All right' has come to mean something different to Katara than it used to, thanks to a draft, a death, and a conversation with a friend. So her voice is hesitant when she speaks, a lifetime of habit is difficult to change, and a little soft.] I'm... a little sad, I think. What happened here was horrible and foreign, and I can't help but be sad for them, and I can't help but remember things that are horrible and familiar. But I didn't know any of these people, and so while I'll be sad for them for a little while, and be sad for them when I think of them after we leave, I think I'll be okay.

[She's not sure why the idea of filling up the bunker makes her so uncomfortable; it should be just like filling in a grave. Maybe it was because she felt that those skeletons should rest undisturbed? Maybe she just didn't like the idea of what would happen to them, once they were filled in? Maybe because it... seemed like such a big, final step.]

...we'll have to think if filling in the bunker is appropriate. Maybe there's someone who came across records of their burial rites while they were researching, or maybe we can go to the library and look... I don't know why, I just hate the thought of being behind disintegrating their bones further.

[Though he can't see it, since this is voice, she does glance back up again.] But I do like the idea of bending incense down there - or even at the entrance of the bunker. We can see if we can find some?

[Please hold.

"A meteor crashed into a planet we were at."

A meteor.

Crashed.

Into a planet.

And the fleet had to witness it. And... if a memorial service was called for then...]

Oh, I'm... really sorry to hear that happened. That sounds terrible. I hope not too many people were hurt.

[She can just imagine the type of devastation something like that could cause to a planet...] And I hope that the damage to the planet was something that could be healed.

[She... hasn't forgotten that this is not what they are talking about 'now', but... she is momentarily caught on this.]

[Honestly, the First Mate of the Blue Fish has a primary job of making sure he doesn't overspend the ship's coffers on random stuff he doesn't need. He has so many bags. Some things never change.

He is absolutely a-ok with carrying stuff. ]

Tell me about it. You should have been in the Fleet in the first month. We didn't even have our own rooms. All the beds were just communal bunks, with like, the worst mattresses. Like calling them mattresses at all is being really generous.

[Oh. This was not someone she expected to hear from, except perhaps to dissuade her from the idea.

And yet, now that she hears him, she's finds she's not really at all surprised.

Her returning inquiry is also soft.] A boat to take them to the sky? What do you mean by that?

[Everyone deals with loss and death in their own way; however, Katara has learned one thing the hard way: It is important to deal with it. This is easier, because the wound isn't personal, it makes it easier to acknowledge the cut.]

Oh. I was under the impression that this sort of thing wasn't -- normal -- for the people here to see. [Do they really see so much destruction and ruin? That's...] I'm... really sorry to hear that's not the case.

Edited 2018-04-12 01:21 (UTC)

Ugh. [The ship is small enough to be trapped in now as it is -- not even having a private bunk ---] That sounds horrible. Why would they do something like that?

[Since clearly the ship had changed so it had been unnecessary to start them out like that...]

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[ open ] .002 though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way

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