Katara's January Catch-All

[oceanblue]

Characters: Katara, Various Peeps, and YOU :D
Date: January on
Location: everywhere
Situation: Anything! Winter fun with a waterbender, angry greetings, and exploration
Warnings/Rating:N/A

((Lets play! She's up for anything))

Comments

Reuinion: Sokka/Wan/That One Jerk Who Didn't Say Goodbye

[oceanblue]

Despite what had felt like hours of practicing her waterbending in the Dreaming, Katara was still trying to work of the fact that her body had been lying motionless for over a year. Startling as it had been to find that they had been 'asleep' that long, she was given constant reminder the first few days by the soreness in her limbs even when attempting the simplest of tasks. Luckily, it had faded through her persistence, but her bending, no matter how well-hersed she was, was a greater challenge, and she took every opportunity she could to stretch her talents.

She couldn't have been more content the day they had found her river intact. The land had changed in their absence, but the landmarks were mostly the same, and the waterbender was sure to visit as often as she could, sometimes as a reward for surviving exploration with her brother.

Today was such a case, and she could be found next to the water, drawing it up and around her before it burst into snow...and, if he was nearby, would douse her brother in icy flakes.

Wow, rude.

[theideaguy]

Sokka is nearby. And come to think of it, he's never been to this river of Katara's either before now, so it's a great place to finally visit now that they've got some downtime, everyone that they know here is still healthy and (mostly) happy(?), and things are calming down. And besides, he could use the time to work out his own stiffness as well. Granted, it was Katara who actually had prompted Sokka to work on his swordplay since he was no doubt going to be rusty, and that had prompted him to retort with the fact that the only rust on his sword would be from her waterbending, but that's sibling love for you.

But Sokka is skulking about, certainly keeping an eye on his sister (since she seemed to be moody ever since coming back to the plane of Life) but also just practising his own movements. Of course, that's bound to be interrupted by the first of what would naturally erupt into a mountain of snowballs aimed at his head, and after jumping into the air at the coldness, he shoots a look back at her.

"Hey, watch where you're aiming those things?" he complains to her. "I'm trying to practise!" And he totally thought he was far enough away. Not so much it seems.

[raavashing]

Meeting up with Katara and Sokka had not been the plan that morning. However, exploring the shell outside the city for a few hours each day was. Getting themselves familiar with the changes was important. Doing it together gave them time to get used to each other. Something Wan was sure he needed more than Zuko did. In the eight years that passed, Wan had gotten over his aversion to casually touching others, but he'd also started to feel much more distant from humans than he had been even before he was banished. Alone even when surrounded. The opposite of what he'd felt when he first left the Oasis.

So as much as he enjoyed being near to Zuko and holding his hand and even sleeping close to him, Wan needed time to adjust to just being around the man. To feeling normal around him and not like he was having to watch or worry about whatever he said so he didn't scare him off. Too many humans of his time raged at him when they found out who he was, or worse, cowered in fear of him. He wasn't a regular human anymore and the humans of the world treated him as such. Wan's normal had stopped being comfortable when he wasn't alone. And he didn't want to be alone in Keeliai.

The sound of Sokka's voice on the wind as they walked down the rivers edge caught him by surprise. He stopped and stared ahead, unable to see the two for the moment because of the bend and the high crest of a small hill. But the voice was familiar enough for him to stand still and listen, attempting to place it.

With a puzzled frown, he looked over at Zuko, "I know that voice..."

[lordhotman]

While Wan needed time to get used to him, Zuko indeed didn't need that so much. He wasn't as frail as he had been after the poisoning incident. It almost seemed like a distant memory now. He was confident and more sure of himself. He didn't need Wan to take care of him like he had before, so he was more than capable of dealing with Wan's... skittishness. Providing a pillar of strength for the other man as they both adjusted to being back in this place. Even being downright protective at some points. Any Kedan that looked at them wrong would get a dirty look from Zuko. While he understood the importance of getting along with the natives, and rebuilding relations with them, he wasn't about to take their crap either. And they'd already been harassed by them.

As they walked through the forest though, there was a definite flicker of recognition. He knew this place. And as some some trees with blackened bark came into view, he frowned at them.

Though the voice in the distance and Wan's comment quickly drew his attention away from the flora.

"That's Sokka," Zuko said immediately. He would know that voice anywhere.

With that, he started walking in Sokka's direction. If he remembered right, they were close to Katara's favorite spot. Maybe she was here too.

[oceanblue]

"Sokka, it's snow. It's not like you didn't grow up in the stuff," she sighed, turning to raise an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. "Then again, it is debatable that you haven't grown up yet."

But they had grown. Sokka had grown at least a few inches taller, and she had forgone another year of childhood herself. She certainly hadn't been pleased with the way her tunic had fit when she had woken up, but after quick tailoring session, had been satisfied...pleased, even--...secretly.

Quip given, she lifted more water into the air--including the snow from her brother's shoulders-- and spun it overhead, casting streams of glittering water in no particular pattern, so long as it curled and flowed smoothly. It was calming, almost like dancing, and she had quickly found that she needed it. Coming to terms with saying goodbye to her friends--and in one particular case, not getting the opportunity to-- wasn't easy.

She attempted, of course, to be civil to those around her and continue on as normal. She had taken up her healer role again, when there were those who had needed it, and had volunteered to cook for the patrons at the hotel in exchange for the room she and her brother had shared. It still wasn't enough, and she had begun to wish she had gone home as well. Maybe that's why she was so keen on making snow today, and taunting her brother with it.

[theideaguy]

"Oh, is that what that white stuff was? And here I thought you had mastered the art of messenger hawk droppingbending over the last year," says Sokka with a rather annoyed grimace. And then on second thought, it probably wasn't super wise to give her that idea lest she actually try it, but still, the point was the point. "But c'mon, have you seen how tall I am now? I'm probably taller than Dad now!" That might be a slight exaggeration, but he had grown.

Just as he knew she had. But mentally? Sokka was still coming to grips with the fact that an entire year had passed when, in his mind, it couldn't have been more than a month (at the absolute absolute worst case) in the Dreaming. It's not like they had candle clocks in there to keep time. Still, he was still taller—and older—than Katara, and that was important enough.

But as Katara moved back to her waterbending practice rather than simply toying with him, Sokka was naturally going to provide himself with a little more distance from his sister if only to make pelting him with a snowball just a little more challenging. In part, it was a secretive dare, to see if she even could nail him from this distance, as if being her secretive training dummy. But also in part (and perhaps the more forefront reason on his mind) is that he just wanted to practise in relative peace. It just so happens to be ever so slightly closer to Wan and Zuko, though he's not aware of it just yet.

So back he goes to swinging his sword, doing the familiar katas learned from his Master Piandao. He jabs and slashes at and faux-parries against an imaginary enemy in front of him, completely oblivious that his sword is going to be pointing at the two of them when they finally crest that hill.

[raavashing]

Wan hurried after Zuko, brightening at that. If Sokka was there, then Katara might be there. That was two people they knew. Though since they hadn't seen any signs of their presence, the two probably just arrived or something. They might not even know how much time had passed.

While Zuko might have been taking the more direct over the hill route, Wan went around it on the river bank, hopping from rock to rock before coming face to face with a furiously wielded sword pointed right at him.

"Easy! I'm friendly!" he called out, putting his hands up before his eyes followed the sword back to it's owner. "Sokka!"

[lordhotman]

What? Where did Wan go? Zuko paused as he was going over the hill, but soon caught sight of him hopping rocks and relaxed. Only to stare as Sokka pointed a sword at him. Zuko might have bristled, but this was Sokka, and he wasn't all that worried.

"Sokka!" Zuko called out as well, then lifted his eyes to see the other half of the water tribe siblings not too far away.

"Katara!"

So she was here. A relieved smile on his face as he was glad to see that some of his friends were here too.

[oceanblue]

Katara only shook her head at her brother's comment and continued to bend the water...though she did allow it to follow him as he moved further up the hillside, before raising it and turning it to a cloud of heavy snow.

The appearance of someone else near Sokka drew her attention, and she hesitated, eyes widening when she recognized who it was at the end of his sword. "Wan!" A surprised smile lit her face, and she sent the snow off to the side carelessly as she ran to meet the avatar. Their parting had done them good, and while she was surprised to see him back again, she couldn't deny it was nice to have someone else familiar around.

The call of their names from the hill, however, made her tense visibly when she was nearly at her brother's side, and her head jerked to look in the direction from which it came. Her smile immediately faded into an expression of shock.

The flowing water in the river seemed to slow.

[theideaguy]

Yes, Katara, you're very talented to let it always rain snow on Sokka's parade. Sokka is secretly muttering his thanks for that, even if he is, admittedly, goading his sister on ever so little.

Seeing Wan was not something he had encountered today. In fact, he had actually planned on it just being the two of them getting used to Tu Shanshu again and just having a siblings' day out... even if that was proving to be a little more snarky than Katara might have liked. But upon seeing Wan, Sokka's stern face melts away almost instantly into a happy one. "Wan! You're back!"

A less trained Sokka might have just dropped the sword right then and there, but he first takes the time to sheathe Space Sword before closing the game to Wan and throwing an arm around him. Granted, he doesn't really remember (nor care) about Wan's physical touch issues, but this is one of those special occasions anyway. It won't be long.

And then, what's more...

"You brought back Zuko too!?" Letting go of Wan he turns towards Zuko and gives him a very brief two-armed hug. "Oh man, this is so great! We're almost back to having Team Avatar built up again! Isn't that great!?"

Sokka swings his head to look at Katara as he says these things to see what is surely going to be an equally happy expression on her f—ffffffffff—

[raavashing]

Wan actually accepted the hug and returned it in the brief time he was allowed before Sokka went to greet Zuko. And then Wan turned to start walking towards Katara to greet her. Her shock at seeing Zuko was completely missed and he stepped in front of her, inadvertently breaking her line of sight as he held his arms open, "It's good to see you again, too, Katara."

[lordhotman]

Zuko easily accepted Sokka's hug. From the point that he'd come back from, he and Sokka had been through a lot together, and he owed the guy quite a bit. But something caught his eye that made him pause.

Sokka's sword. He had lost that in battle. Katara's reaction going unnoticed for the moment as he focused on that.

"When did you guys get here?" This question having more than one meaning.

[oceanblue]

Shocked and emotion riddled as it was, Katara could only watch as her brother greeted them both, and only reacted as Wan stepped in front of her with his arms open. For a moment, she only stared at his chest as if she could see through it in the path her gaze had previously travelled, then gave in and wrapped her arms tightly around the man's torso. "It's good to see you, too," she returned, looking up at him, though her tone was, admittedly, distracted. "You...you're back. I didn't think I would ever see you again..."

Gathering Intelligence

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

Many things in Tu Shanshu were strange and (probably) impossible in her own world, but Sonja was nothing if not adaptable. She's already been around animated skeleton detectives, extra-dimensional buildings and telepathic dogs. Why not girls who can control water?

Sonja sat at a distance from the river, surveying Katara with her camera phone. She had picked a shady but hopefully inconspicuous spot. She had put out a notepad and a sandwich to displace suspicion should a critical eye be cast her way. The camera would be hard to explain, but then, the girl didn't seem to be paying too much attention to her surroundings this far away from the river.

"Subject is Katara, a foreigner. Sister to foreigner Sokka." Sonja said, speaking into the voice recorder on her phone. This wasn't the first time she'd spotted the girl practicing her "bending" by the river, and had done some investigation since then. "Subject utilizes a technique wherein elements (by the classical Aristotle definition - earth/wind/fire/water) can be manipulated alongside martial arts.

"Based on observations of the brother, not every person from their world can utilize this ability, either because of lack of inborn ability or lack of talent. It is unknown if foreigners native to other worlds, or even Kedan could manifest this ability, given the proper training. If no, what allows individuals from this world to manipulate matter in this way? Does every world have the capability for "bending" and merely lack a catalyst that these people bring? Does Tu Shanshu adapt itself to accommodate foreigners that are brought into it? Something else?"

Sonja stopped recording and took a few moments to properly tag and file the video away. She took a bite of her sandwich, continuing to watch Katara and her amazing feats.

Who watches the watchers? Apparently Sokka.

[theideaguy]

[Let me know if this is too much for him to hear!]

Sokka in this one moment wasn't right alongside Katara. He was nearby, sure, but he hadn't actually made his way over to the river just yet. He had other things that needed finishing up at Anton's first, and that took a slightly higher priority than his sister whether Sokka liked acknowledging it or not. (Granted, he wouldn't have acknowledged to his sister than he'd prefer watching her.) However, nonetheless, Katara had told Sokka where she was going to be, and at the very least, he wanted to make sure she was going to be alright given her rather moody swings of late, and so he coming over to the river himself.

It just so happens that, along the way, though still a fair ways away from Katara, is another girl holding one of those various boxes of technology that were still a little bit mystical to Sokka. Granted, he knew handsets and consoles at this time, and a video camera would certainly be in the same vein of them, but given that he'd seen these little plastic boxes do a variety of things, his imagination ran wild with the possibilities.

And as he approaches, he can't help but hear the girl talking. There's no one around, as far as he knows. Was it something like the handsets? A communication device? A recording device? He listens in as he creeps forward little bit little. It's fairly faint, but she's at the very least talking about Katara, especially when it comes to all the questions.

"You know, it could also be because my sister is weird," he says whilst folding his arms across his chest.

Who What Where

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

Sonja didn't startle well, so when Sokka spoke up she half-jumped and the sandwich in her hand was flung, which she then had to juggle/flail to keep from falling on the floor. It was appropriately comical and embarrassing.

"Ah, I didn't see you there," Sonja said, stating the obvious to buy her brain time to process. You're getting rusty, Sonja.

[theideaguy]

Sokka almost flinches back when when the sandwich goes in the air, even if he's still a little bit away. Granted, it's not like he expected her to not jump when he suddenly piped in out of nowhere, but it's not like he thought the reaction would be that amazing. Really, Sokka just didn't know what to expect.

"No kidding, huh?" Sokka says with a rather facetious tone. It's clear he already knew that much about this. But what he didn't know was other important question. "At least one of us finds my sister completely fascinating, albeit in a slightly creepy way." The first part is also pretty sarcastic too; he does love his sister quite a bit, even if they do spat quite frequently.

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

"I don't think we've gotten to know each other well enough for confessions of strange incestual fascinations," Sonja said, adjusting her glasses. "Maybe names first. I'm Sonja."

She bowed forward a few inches and then straightened back up.

[theideaguy]

There's a moment where Sokka just stares blankly at Sonja, completely missing the joke. And then it finally hits him, and he can't help but try to stifle a loud laugh. "Oh man, trying to insinuate... my sister... me... ha haha." Sokka wipes a tear from his eye. "I'd say I'd use that one myself, but I think that's a little too self-disparaging for my tastes."

Sokka gives her a friendly bow as well. "I'm Sokka."

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

"That's your sister? I was taking a picture of her. Her movements are very impressive." Lies were better with a little truth, and now that Sokka was laughing, maybe he was more likely to forget the details of whatever it was he heard.

"It seems like there's a lot of wasted motion with those complicated forms, but maybe that's a necessity for however the water control works." Sonja's close combat training had been highly focused on a number of likely scenarios to defend against attack. There were martial arts practitioners in her world, but those were usually frivolous hobbies, not truly useful skills.

[theideaguy]

Sokka may be laughing, but that doesn't mean he's forgotten at all. She might be able to sweet talk her way out of trouble with some people, and it may yet work here, but Sokka's face returns to the cautious one that he had before.

"Taking pictures, huh?" Sokka sort of nods to the device that she's holding, eyeing it a little suspicious. To be honest, Sokka's not quite up to snuff on this, though he's heard of it, and there were early attempts years ago at recreating images. But that's really not what Sokka's interested in here. "So you frequently talk to yourself when taking pictures?" The question doesn't really sound like an accusation though; more than anything, it's genuine curiosity.

However, she starts going off about bending, and Sokka just shrugs it off. "Hey, I don't know how it all works," he says just shrugging his shoulders. "But say what you will about my sister, but she's good at it. You wouldn't want to make her angry while she's swooshing all that water around."

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

"Swooshing, huh? Are you sure you don't know how it works, cuz you're coming off as a verifiable expert here."

She glanced back Katara's way. "Don't worry about me, just figuring out how stuff works around here. Most of it is a bit of a shock, you know?"

[theideaguy]

"Hey, if I knew how her waterbending actually worked," Sokka begins, pointing rather matter-of-factly, "I'd be waterbending my way through all my problems. I'm just saying, everything she can do defies so many natural laws that apply to simple people like me. I mean, far as I can tell, all she does is this—"

Sokka begins augmenting his words with karate-like gestures.

"—whaaaaaaaa, ay ay ay, chop chop chop chop chop, ooooooohhhh... and then the water moves. If there's more to it than that, beats me!"

[sonjaofyellowcomet]

"Alright, so enough about her. Tell me about you, about what a world where people exist than can control arbitrarily specific states of matter looks like."

[theideaguy]

That's a deep question, and Sokka places his hand on his chin to consider it briefly.

"Okay, well I'm pretty simple when it comes down to it. I've done a little bit of everything, really. You might say that I'm half-warrior, half-swordsman, half-scientist, half-tactician, half-detective, and half-comedian. I travelled with my sister and the Avatar to help defeat the Fire Nation since they were trying to take over the world." He pauses for a moment before thinking to add a little more context. "Basically, our world was separated into four countries, one for each of the elements: air, wind, water, and fire. And certain people of each nation could bend the element of their tribe. My sister and I? The best one: Water Tribe." He says the last bit with as much smoothness as he can muster.