tushanshu_logs | [CLOSED] It's All Blue Here

Current Location: WO-3A

Entry tags:

[CLOSED] It's All Blue Here

Characters:

anything_it_takes,

alphatar &

wintershepherd
Date: Some hours after this and this
Location: WO-3A
Situation: Something happened to Korra? That's all Leo needs to know.
Warnings/Rating: ~~don't think so~~ Plenty of depression to go 'round!

Leonardo darts over the Keeliai rooftops even though it isn't full dark yet. He hadn't wanted to spare the time to figure out what happened at the clinic; it was over now, anyway, and Kyle hadn't exactly been forthcoming with extra details. Better to find Korra in person as soon as possible, and get the story straight from her when she wakes up.

When he reaches the building, Leo surveys the windows until he sees a shock of white hair indicating the suite's owner. Then he ninjas himself to the appropriate pane and taps on the glass.

Look, doors are weird, okay? They make him feel exposed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack uses windows more often than doors himself and having met Leo in person before, isn't surprised by the way he announces himself. He pushes the portal open and then steps back, clearing the sill so the turtle has room to slip inside.

"Hey. Korra's just in the other room," he said.

If there's anybody Leo knows outside the immediate family who wouldn't be surprised or put off by a window entrance, it would of course be Jack (possibly tied with Spidey). Frost creeps in through the window panes, doesn't it?

"Thanks," Leo says as he slips into the apartment. He shoots Jack a subtly grateful expression; Korra means a lot to the turtles (and particularly to Leo, who thankfully has few illusions about his little crush being requited); if somebody had to get to her before them, Leo would much rather that person be the winter spirit than a foreigner he doesn't know - which after all are most of the rest of them. Or even somebody like Amon.

He also appreciates the directions and follows them right away, padding to the entry and knocking softly on its frame before nudging the door tentatively inwards.

"Hey. Anybody home?"

The familiar voice causes Korra to look up from the book she had been reading, or deciphering as the case would be. It was proving a good, and challenging distraction from a few hours ago.

“Leo? Hey!” Closing the cover and setting it on the bed, Korra stood up. A welcome sight to be sure. “How did you know I was here?”

Normally Korra wouldn’t have asked since Leonardo almost always answered question like that with a simple word. Ninja. But Korra had been avoiding using the network at all, rather going with the company of Jack and things that wouldn’t let her dwell on what happened earlier.

"I told him," Jack answered, trailing after Leo. "You didn't say you didn't want people to know you were here and he contacted me, asking if you were all right and where you were."

The spirit hadn't actually intended to bring Korra to his suite with the intention of not having others know where she was, it was simply closer than the Stark Building and infinitely more comfortable than the freezer, even the Avatar's inclination to cold aside. WO-3A was still his suite, now that it had been repaired and though he hadn't stayed back here since it had been rebuilt (regrown?) it was comforting to him too.

He gestures toward the stairs that go to the lower level of the treehouse. "Should I leave you two...?" It was said genuinely, not as a tease. He didn't know if they wanted to talk without an audience.

Leo's expression of hesitant worry brightens to see Korra not only awake and no worse the wear for the mysterious incident, but also welcoming his visit. The look on her face as she recognized him would be one he thought of later to warm his shy little reptilian heart.

Which means, of course, that Jack doesn't have to tease; the suggestion inherent in his words alone, that Leo and Korra might share something private enough to warrant discretion, is enough to fluster. Additionally, Leo isn't used to social situations where people ask nice polite things like that. None of his brothers would hand out such a favor without least taking their payment in the form of amusement at Leo's expense.

"Wh- no! No, that's - really not necessary. I mean, we don't have anything private to er, discuss... Do we?"

Leo glances anxiously at Korra for input; he doesn't want to put words in her mouth either way, feeling that taking the presumption might be asking for trouble – and that expressing any preference would be too much of a red flag (as if the stammering wasn't).

Were he to take the monumental leap of being honest, Leo would admit that he doesn't know whether he hopes more for Korra's undivided attention and some private time, or dreads the scrutiny of his feelings such an action might result in – from either Jack or from Korra. He's barely admitted this crush to himself, and being the sort of turtle who keeps his emotions close to his plastron, doesn't want his sentiment recognized or on display.

Leo especially doesn't want to clue Korra in; he hasn't gotten any hints that he was any more to her than a really good friend. Knowing that the mutant turtle has a bona fide crush might change what she thinks of him, and that's the absolute last thing he wants: hence the transparent scrambling to pretend he doesn't mind either way.

Korra was pretty sure no one would come to talk to her after that so she didn’t bother to go over that with Jack. After all it was his suite and she wasn’t about to impose any rules about having visitors. Thankfully though it was a friendly face that showed up. Last thing Korra wanted was to have someone come over and grill Jack over any details.

“Not that I know of?” Korra said with raised eyebrows. She assumed that since Jack seemed to know Leonardo and vice-versa, there wasn’t anything that should be kept a secret. The turtle was very careful about who he revealed himself to after all.

“Jack already knows everything, so it’s fine.” And she looked at Jack giving him a thankful smile for getting her out of there earlier. “Actually, you could fill in any blanks if you don’t mind?” she didn’t want to ask more of her host, but she was sure Leonardo didn’t just so happen to be visiting Jack right after the clinic debacle.

Jack returned Korra's smile with one of his own, silently letting her know it was no big deal-- and to him, it really wasn't. It was just what people did for friends.

"Yeah, I can do that," he agreed, taking a perch on a nearby chair.

Leo smiles us Jack settles in, marking the way the spirit moves. He knows Jack is strong, uncannily so for his frame, which makes it all the much more incongruous for him to move as if he weighs little more than a feather. The turtle isn't disappointed that Jack is staying; having two of his favorite foreigners in one place is a novel experience (particularly without any of his brothers present to generate background noise).

But he's not here on a social call; pleasure at companionship takes a backseat to concern, both for Korra and for the situation surrounding her, whatever it might be. Leo has a few pieces of the puzzle, fragments of knowledge that were just enough to send him here without doing any further investigation. There was large-scale destruction at a medical clinic; the event left Korra unconscious; Kyle had asked for her to be removed from the scene, with little sympathy for whatever had occurred; and Leo knows enough to suspect that Korra is capable of some heavy-duty landscape rearrangement.

If he didn't know Korra so well by now, if she hadn't done so very much for Leonardo's family, he would be far more suspicious and perhaps even prepared to be judgmental. But Korra is extended family now, almost like April. He hasn't known her as long as they'd known their human friend back in New York, but Leo knows she's a good person. If she was responsible for that destruction, whatever had made her do it can't have been good.

He wants to hear her side of things. She's a good person and a solid ally; Leo is prepared to trust her word on whatever went down.

"Korra… what happened?"

Now that she had recovered from her experience, thanks to the comfort of Jack, re-telling it was a lot easier. Leaning against the bed post, Korra placed her hands behind her head and started off, trying not to leave out any details.

“Well, I went to visit Dr. Natu at the clinic.” There was a pause, and Korra gave Jack a very quick glance, but continued on and skipped the reason behind dong so. “One of the kedan volunteers thought I meant any Green Lantern, so I was pointed to Kyle instead. He wasn’t that helpful and I wasn’t either actually…” She had been too frustrated about Natu not being there that she vented that on Kyle.

“After we disagreed on nicknames-“ Remembering that cold sweetheart comment made her eye twitch. “I found out that the Lanterns allowed Amon to teach chi-blocking lessons there when-“ Again her eyes flicked to Jack and then darted around the room in less than half an instant to find a word “-there had been sick patients there. It was all on a poster they had there. When I asked what is what doing there, he didn’t seem to care about it.”

Her tone drops an octave. “It upset me; a lot. So I just reacted and set it on fire. I asked him why they let him do that. He didn’t answer, just told me to stop. I tried to hurt him for letting something like that happen. He put me in a green bubble. I tried, but I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t breathe, there wasn’t enough oxygen. I was trapped. Just like when Tarrlok kidnapped me back home…”Her voice wavers and she closes her eyes and puts her hand over face, a deep exhale escaping through her fingers.

She knew now that her temper could have hurt innocent people and even though they weren’t hurt by the fire, they still had to be moved. Including ones who were fragile.

“Next thing I knew I was here. I was…safe.” She lowers hands at that last word and looks to Jack before looking at Leo. “That’s all I know.” Korra hadn’t asked about anything on the network, she wasn’t even thinking about it earlier. But part of her was hoping that Leo had just used his smarts to find out, but she was sure that wasn’t the case. After all, Jack had to find out about her somehow in order to bring her here.

Jack picks up the narrative then, filling in the tail end of events from what he knew of them, this part directed at Korra since she may not have known it.

"Kyle made an announcement that the clinic had been damaged and that everyone was being transferred to a backup clinic in the Water Sector. He also said that you were unconscious and someone needed to come and get you -- that's why I went. I couldn't get any more answers out of him while I was there, and I brought you back here."

Then his gaze shifts back to encompass both Korra and Leo, obviously weighing his words before speaking again, being exceedingly careful that there was no trace of accusation in his voice.

"Korra, you said you burned the poster but... at least half that building is wrecked or gone. It might... have been a bigger fight than you're recalling."

Because as angry as he was at Kyle at the moment, pushed down and simmering in his gut, he knew the Lantern absolutely wouldn't cause damage to the clinic. He looked at Leo then, not sure if the turtle had gone past the clinic himself or had come straight here after speaking with Kyle.

At first Leonardo is simply attentive and concerned, standing with one hand on his belt (turtles don't really have a waist) and head slightly cocked. But when she mentions Amon and those chi-blocking lessons, the young turtle's Leader Business face slips into play and his posture straightens, re-balancing his weight.

The issue of Korra's temper getting out of control, initiating conflict and then panicking when the Lantern attempted to restrain her is serious and needs to be addressed. The philosophy of restraint and the appropriate use of power has been a cornerstone in Leo's training, and he can see the need for that principle now, although he wishes Sensei was here to drive the point home with wise words or a story.

But Leo has always focused on the big picture first; if she's that worried about Amon, Leo needs to know why. Then they can discuss self-restraint and the consequences of being the first one to reach for a weapon.

"It sounded like no one had been hurt; we were lucky this time." Yes, We; Leo considers Korra's problems to be the team's concern, and if she had accidentally hurt somebody – well, it's not as if he isn't used to handling his brother's outbursts of temper and their effects on civilians, although Raph had never seriously hurt a non-combatant. Leo's hot-headed sibling didn't have the ability to shoot fire, though, or it might have been a different picture.

"But what do you mean, Let him do that? Are the lessons dangerous to the patients?" He knows the classes are problem; as a matter of fact he's asked Mike, who expressed interest in the lessons, to report what goes on there. What he didn't understand was why holding them at the clinic was specifically a problem.

Speaking of which, the wrecked building had been in the other direction, a far detour from Jack's Wood Sector suite. Leo responds to Jack's silent inquiry with a minute shake of the head and what could generously be interpreted as a shrug: Haven't seen it yet. But he will be swinging by later tonight to see the scale for himself.

There is the slightest groan from Korra at Jack’s mention of announcement, she knew the discourse that was going to come from that. Going back to her suite to face what followed wasn’t what Korra was ready for.

Remembering just how much fire she let loose on the poster, and how it billowed around her, Korra was sure the ceiling and walls got engulfed too. “More than just the poster, you’re right.” And it had time to spread while they fought, no one to stop it from growing.

It had just occurred to her that Leo knew nothing about her world, Korra had never given him any direct specifics. All his knowledge came from his network monitoring and hearsay. “Chi-blocking’s illegal on my world and the training can take up a lot of space. I know, I was part of a task force made specifically to raid their hideouts. When someone you know is sick, the last thing they need is to have that going on. Not to mention if anything like that satellite crash happened again, where are they going to put emergency patients?”

To her they just disregarded everything a clinic was supposed to stand for so Amon could have what he wanted, which was something dangerous to those who had powers. Even worse for those relied on them, like Toph. “But…that’s everything that happened.”

Jack stayed quiet at Korra's explanation because space concerns didn't really seem any kind of justification for a fight.

"When Amon made that post, I actually went to ask Kyle about it. I don't know anything about chi-blocking so I was taking it only at face value of what was said, but it still worried me a little. Kyle said he was letting it take place at the clinic in order to keep an eye on Amon."

There had been other things said that day, but those were things Jack did not want to get into.

Indeed, this isn't about space. Although Leonardo understands what Korra is saying – it would offend his sensibilities to have forbidden or lethal techniques taught in a hospital room – he wouldn't draw his weapons over it, and if someone else did he would try to stop them.

Leonardo nods at Jack's input; it's good information, and helps him reconstruct this scenario. "That seems like a pretty good reason. The more people keep an eye Amon the better, and at least they're taking him seriously."

The young turtle pauses to consider his words, remembering his father. When Leo speaks again, it's with careful consideration and clear respect. He's also very serious.

"Korra… I get why the classes are a problem. But - well, sensei once said that you can't predict the consequences of battle. Every conflict can provoke a hornets' nest. And he was right."

When his eyes return to hers from his journey through memory lane on his own experiences with this very problem, there's no judgment. He's not raking her over the coals for her mistake, but giving her the best advice he can based on his own. And the consequences can be a heck of a lot worse than a half-destroyed building. Heck, there weren't even missiles involved, although Korra's capabilities could probably out-do a missile.

Besides, he has a brother who loses his temper, starts fights and even has to be held back from using his strength against civvies if he's angry enough. Leo understands when people have a temper, even if he grills them for it. (This is a novel experience, actually, trying to talk to somebody about the consequences of their temper without yelling at them. With Raphael, it's always yelling, and the one in red is typically not the one who starts elevating the volume.) But he's serious about these ethics of restraint, and needs her to hear every word.

"That's why you can't be the first to start a conflict, especially with lethal weapons. It creates a dangerous situation; people can get hurt." Obvious, true, but it needs to be laid out. At least he doesn't elaborate that fire is an especially unpredictable and dangerous element to use where it's not needed. Korra handles the stuff; she knows the inherent dangers as well as Leonardo realizes how sharp his blades are.

"If you don't have a choice, that's one thing, but…" But wanting to hurt somebody because they did something that upsets you doesn't fit the bill.

"It has to be worth the risk."

As far Korra gathered, the Lanterns weren't taking Amon nearly seriously enough if they let him have even a little free reign to start here what had helped undo the order in Republic City. Allowing it to happen and not have any immediate consequences occur meant that they would be inclined to give Amon more wiggle room. Then longer lasting consequences would emerge by the time he was in full swing of his goals. Korra knew Amon was a long term planner and the fact that anyone would take the Lantern's self-appointed policing of Amon over Korra's own personal experience with him caused her lower eyelid to twitch briefly.

While Leo and her were friends and she had a good rapport with the turtles, this made her think back to when he had fiercely warned her about Shredder and how dangerous he was. She took his warning to heart and would tread lightly should he ever appear on Tu Vishan, and even agreed to stand with him and his brothers in that instance. And now she was dwelling on how it felt that Amon needed to confronted, not put on a leash and given leeway if he was performing as others wanted. Even though Leo spoke earlier of her problems as theirs, this felt nothing like it to her.

Words, warnings, advice. All came in one form or another from past lectures she had received from different masters and instructors. Nothing she could apply in the heat of the moment when all she could do was react, not think things through to a logical conclusion. Things of this nature needed to be acted upon, not discussed. That's exactly what her nemesis would have wanted. Another way for him to talk his way out of it, as he always managed to do in the past.

When there's finally silence, Korra noticed she had folded her arms long ago and was now clutching her arm. As she released it, the blood flowed back into the whitened areas of her skin, bringing back it's color. The only sentence that Korra didn't let pass her was the last one Leo stated. She looked down at her arms and past them her bare feet on the cold floor.

"Sorry." At first it sounded like she was talking to Leo, but when Korra looked up she continued talking at Jack. Her voice tempered. Was it anyone other than one of the turtles she would have been more agitated. "I guess visitors wasn't a good idea after all."

Korra stood back up from leaning against the bedpost and sat down on the bed with her arms on her knees. Her hair was loose and hanging down, covering her face as she leaned forward to look at the floor. A visit she was expecting to be comforting ended up to be the opposite. The memory and feelings she had from the clinic hours earlier were too easy to go back to, something she was trying to avoid despite Leo's words.

Edited 2013-07-28 19:20 (UTC)

Jack exchanged a glance at Leo when she said that, before moving to the bed to place a hand on her shoulder. "Korra... we're not blaming you here. A mistake is just that, a mistake and everybody makes them. Trust me, I've made plenty and worse ones than this. What we're saying, it's to do with the action... not a reflection on you as person and our friend. Okay?"

Leo's return glance at Jack is somewhere between appalled and worried. He didn't expect that reaction at all; in his family, mistakes were followed by lessons were followed by Do It Better Next Time. The lessons weren't intended to provoke a guilt trip; the words, warnings and advice were tools for empowerment and change. And if they didn't get it the first time, it was delivered a different way, again and again, until they applied it properly.

He's acutely aware that he falls short of emulating his father in this situation. Well, it was worth a shot.

"Korra, I didn't… That wasn't what I meant, I –" Leo awkwardly lays one hand on the back of his neck, then kneels on one leg at the side of Korra's bed so that he can see her face. Well, as much of it as is peeking out from behind her hair and arm.

"Look. I don't blame you for getting angry, and Kyle shouldn't have trapped you like that. The clinic will be all right. And you can practice controlling your temper – I know you can do it. If you want my help, I'll do anything I can.

"But Amon… the more dangerous he is, the more important it is to know what he's doing. If he didn't have the clinic, he might be out in Keeliai somewhere, training a - a bunch of guys in some abandoned Metal Sector warehouse." Forming his own little army. The last thing this city needs is for that guy to have some personal chi-blocking foot soldiers. Even without knowing Amon's specific history Leo's mind naturally goes in that direction, having dealt with entirely too much of that nonsense at home.

"It's a lot tougher to keep tabs on an enemy when they have a secret hideout, believe me. You can't stop them unless you know what they're doing." Locating and spying upon both the Purple Dragons and the Foot had saved their shells more than once; knowing the public face of Shredder's top henchmen had been a crucial advantage just as many times. Information is a weapon, and far from not taking Amon seriously enough, Leo believes him far too dangerous to abandon that particular facet of their arsenal.

Maybe Korra thinks he's not listening to her. It's true Leo doesn't listen as well as he ought sometimes and he lectures, but Korra's opinion matters quite a bit to the young ninja. Leo very much wants to know what she has to say, for her to know that she's being taken seriously and she doesn't stand alone.

"So… What is it you think he's going to do?"

Something else Sensei did? Ask the dreaded "what do you think" question. Always worked for daddy.

A nod was given at Jack’s reassurance and hesitantly at Leo’s. She was listening even though she was still very put off by what followed her recount of the clinic’s events. As Leo gave his input on he viewed the situation, Korra rubbed her eyes, and she came to the conclusion that she wasn’t ready to talk about it. She knew that if she tried to explain further it would turn into a debate and possibly an argument. Not something she felt up to at all.

“I don’t know.” She answered to Leo’s question. Amon had always been a step ahead of her, everyone. If she could predict that, Korra would have managed to stop him before he even had a chance to blow up the pro-bending arena back home. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this right now. I need some time here.” Korra looked over at Jack with an apologetic expression, she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable with her presence and the problems that always followed her.

Taking a deep breath she straightened her posture back and inclined her head at Leo. “But I do want to ask you one thing: If Shredder was training other foreigners in the open with someone else watching him; would you believe that you can trust them, believe they could outsmart him, and believe that he wasn’t planning something else?” Her lower lip trembled at the question, all she did was replace Amon’s name with Oroku Saki’s and nothing else. “It’s not something to answer right away…in fact it’s better to just think about it instead of trying to answer it.” It’s what she had done.

Korra rubbed her face with her hands, eyes again with her palms and stood up. “I need some water.” She said as she made her way swiftly out the door.

Jack nodded at Korra's unspoken request for some more time; no matter what the outcome of this conversation, he wouldn't have asked her to leave after she'd professed feeling safe here. "You can stay as long as you want," he answered.

When she'd left the room, Jack turned to Leo seriously. "It's too soon. Kyle really frightened her with what he did."

Okay, Leo's speeches usually don't go over quite this badly. And he didn't even try to sound like a big hero this time.

The young turtle's face registers a fundamental confusion at her question, a disconnect rooted in the core difference between their world experiences. It's never occurred to Leo that he might have the opportunity to convince other people to stop the Shredder from building a power base.

Why would it be a bad thing, he wonders, that somebody else thinks they can handle Amon? Whether they were wrong or not, at least they cared enough to want to try. Why isn't it a plus that they even had their eyes open? It didn't stop her from fighting him just the same, did it?

Yeah, he would be reasonably pissed off and offended if somebody thought it was a good idea to open a Foot dojo in a hospital. But if Korra was upset because the people who own the building wouldn't listen to her about her enemy… Well, Leo didn't even fully know what the alternative was like. Not on any scale greater than the people in this suite or the fellow turtles who share his heritage.

But he really doesn't think she wants to hear him say it would be an improvement upon business as usual to have a self-styled galactic police force even doing so little as "keeping an eye" on his enemy. Especially not right now.

Unlike his short-tempered brother, Leo doesn't keep fighting when the battle is lost. All he's done here is to make Korra upset, and he's really not sure what he even said wrong. Korra's words and actions felt like a dismissal, her back was turned, and every ninja instinct in Leo's shell tells him to vanish.

"Yeah. I guess so." Rueful apology is written all over Leo's mask. "Sorry, guess I made a mess of things."

And that, quite clearly, rationalizes hightailing it out of here. He feels terribly guilty for doing his friend a disservice, whatever it was he said wrong. But Leo doesn't like to wallow; he likes to clean up his mess. The sorrowful, almost heartbroken expression on his face quietly shifts into resolve. If Korra was worried about Amon planning something, Leo would just have to do the surveillance to find out what his plans really were.

One foot starts to pivot and Leo seems on the edge of movement; he pauses.

"I'll have something for her in a few days." When she's ready to hear it, please let her know.

Then in the moment between a blink and the thought, he withdraws with no more sound than a flutter of mask tails, leaving Jack's window slightly ajar to the cooling air.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[CLOSED] It's All Blue Here

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

sorry this is so short, just wanted to keep the thread rolling!

rollin rollin rollin

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

sorry bout that guys my comp ate my tag ;A;

No worries~

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject