tushanshu_logs

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Characters: Dinah Lance and OPEN
Date: July, all after Clueventure
Location: Wood Sector, and wherever you need her.
Situation: There are ideas and commitments that Dinah started before being distracted by detective work. Now she intends to follow up on them.
Warnings/Rating: Blood, wounds in the Arthur thread.
I started with prose, but will switch to action if you'd like.

General Starter: She found it in the wood sector, a courtyard formed by four trees growing from each corner, growing and intertwining together above, walled by hedges that have been growing out since the last master left. As soon as she had a spare morning and the presence of mind to do so, it is here Dinah returns.

She keeps the name and cleans first the sign painted so neatly in Chinese: “The Jade School of Kung Fu, overseen by Grand Master Shifu.” She doesn't know what happened to the Grand Master, but a dojo cannot be left unused, and she plans to honor this Master she never met by returning his space to the use it was intended.

She sent messages to the people she knew were interested in training with her, to let them know where they could be found, then she set about trimming the hedges, sweeping the building and the courtyard, and transforming it into a usable dojo again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dinah scowls, but she says nothing. She just stands and waits as patiently as possible for the steam to finish blowing off. It's not an easy thing: she's never been the most patient, but she's put up with rants from Roy before.

"Okay," she says, accepting that apology, and follows Korra in, where there is indeed a pot of green tea sitting next to a couple of mismatched cups and the as yet unopened box of crackers. As Dinah didn't actually make these, they're almost certainly edible.

"I guess you've been taking a lot of heat since then, huh?" That doesn't really require Batman levels of deduction to work out.

“Let’s just say at this point, I wish it wasn’t metaphorical. I can handle actual fire being thrown at me.” Putting her jacket on the back of a chair, Korra nabbed the box and ripped it open, helping herself to two crackers at once.

“So I go to the clinic because I want to see Dr. Natu.” Being audible through food in her mouth, crackers no less, Korra just plowed into her story while pouring the tea into both cups. Almost filling them over the edge. “And I asked to see the green ring that had been looking after Jack. Apparently there was a mix up and the kedan I asked pointed me to Kyle.” Cheeks still full, Korra holds the cup up near her mouth. “So already I’m ticked that they directed me to the wrong person. But I figure if he’s important at the clinic, then he probably knows if Jack was fully recovered or if he’s out, just not as sick. I asked, he didn’t know.”

This was somehow a grave offense.

“Like how can you seriously not know about patients in your own clinic, right?” She finally swallows and sips lightly from the steaming tea. “obviously he didn’t care that much about Jack’s condition, considering how bad it was, he would have known otherwise. So I tell him how much of a big surprise it was Jack even managed to walk out of the clinic with that kind of care. He gives me some sarcasm, but I shoot some back, we let it slide and I’m just about to find someone else who may know something. Anything really.”

Korra stuffed three crackers in her mouth.

“And then I see a poster with Amon on it. In a clinic. Where my friend had been seriously ill in.” Korra sneers while chewing. “So I ask him what the hell that thing is doing here and he’s just casually remarks ’Poster for self-defense classes’.” Her imitation of Kyle’s voice is the way any teenage girl would imitate a deep sounding male voice and even added in the eyeroll as she did it.

“So I finish reading the poster and it turns out not only did they let Amon put the poster up there, but they let him teach it there. Chi-blocking! In a clinic! I mean, it was illegal on my world for a reason, nothing good can come from that. Ever!” She shoved another cracker into her mouth and angrily chewed. “So I just reacted and just firebended the whole wall the post was, ceiling too I think.” Taking another sip of tea to wash down the crackers, Korra breathed through her nose causing the tea to ripple as she drank. “Next thing he does is just be calm.”

Around me.

“I ask him what the hell they were thinking and why they would ever do something that stupid and all I get is ’We’re keeping an eye on him.’” Again she does her imitation of Kyle, which may or may not be as accurate to Dinah. “So the whole time I’m bending Water, Fire and Earth at him just because he’s being so damn calm. Like he doesn’t feel anything at all, just doesn’t care how important this is to anyone.”

To me.

“So I asked him what the hell they were doing while Amon was here and I didn’t even get an answer to that!” Korra drank her tea too quickly and recoiled from burning her tongue. With the cup in her hands, it was easy to just waterbend to get it to a drinkable temperature. “I tried one more time to get some sense into him. I let him know it was illegal, that Jack was sick along with others, and all-together it was just a HORRIBLE idea.” Because it was. “Same stuff, nothing but orders to stop. Psh, like it’s easy to stop.”

Banner knew it wasn’t easy to stop, that it was almost impossible to.

“And he uses his ring to put in a green bubble. So I tried to just burst with firebending and that didn’t work, so I tried to airbend to force it to expand so it would pop. Nothing.” For once, Korra’s tone actually lowers. A lot.

“There wasn’t enough air to breath. Last thing I remember was just trying to punch my way out.” She brought the cup to her lips when she spoke. “I woke up at Jack’s suite. He made everything okay.” Korra took a small sip, and then another.

Now she could ask that question.

“Now that you heard my side of the story, were any of those second guesses right?” As she asked, Korra braced herself for Dinah’s likely input of how she overreacted, wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings, should have listened to Kyle, and/or needed to be in control of herself then and in the future.

All the things that just about everyone said to her every time she screwed up.

The thing is that Korra already knows what she should be doing, and Dinah knows she knows that. She's still trying to get to the bottom of why it happened, and that's not really being cleared up here.

"Okay, I understand you were worried about Jack," she allows after a moment. "I'm worried about Jack myself. But I don't understand about Amon. There's a history there?"

She sips her tea and rubs her head thoughtfully. "Ugh, Damian was right, I do need to check the network, don't I?"

The last reaction Korra was expecting was that one. Her head lowered ever so slightly and her eyebrows raise up so Korra’s looking at Dinah from the very tops of her eyes, mouth slacking open.

“You’re kidding…”

Everything Korra just explained wouldn’t make sense to anyone who had no idea about Amon and what happened on her world. At shi point, Korra was kicking herself for forgetting to inform Dinah about this. She assumed Dinah would have looked at the network where that information was plastered everywhere, thanks to her, Tarrlok, and a few others.

Korra nodded slowly. “Yeeeah, he is.”

After giving a speech that almost left her breathless Korra set the tea down and massaged her face with both her hands, stretching her eyes out so they were nothing but thin, fine lines.

“This isn’t how I was expecting this to go. At all.” She was internally debating whether she preferred Dinah’s reaction as it was or the usual adult reaction she had prepared herself for.

"Sorry."

She means that, as well. She's not sure exactly what reaction would make this easier on Korra, but she's certainly not going to lose her temper with her. That's probably already been tried and failed.

"Look, I could go back and check it all out without you if you don't want to talk about it. We could just talk about how you want to proceed with learning methods of self control."

“No, no. That’s okay. I just assumed.” After getting herself back together, Korra wasn’t about to blame Dinah for not checking the network. There were some things on the network that even Korra didn’t bother checking either. Not enough time in the day for all that was there, aside from that, all that information was from before Dinah even arrived.

“All right. So you know I’m the Avatar, I have to protect and help people, keep balance in the world and the Spirit World, master the four elements, and do it all perfect?” Those last three words were strained and then she rolled on. “When I passed the final test for firebending and became a master, the only element left was Air.” She motioned a cracker around as she explained. “The previous Avatar, Aang, was the only airbender left after the Fire Nation killed off the Air Nomads in an attempt to stop the Avatar cycle. Only one of his three kids could airbend, and that’s Tenzin. So he was supposed to come down to the South Pole and train me, right?”

She laughs before stuffing the cracker in her mouth.

“Nope.”

Grabbing the tea she held it up to her mouth.

“Amon was causing ‘civil unrest’ in Republic City and Tenzin’s on their council since he’s the only adult airbender to represent the Air Nomads. So he comes to tell us that, and like hell if I was going to let that stop me from learning how to airbend.” Taking a moment to reheat her tea, Korra took a sip.

“So I sneak on a boat and after being arrested for stopping some gang members for mugging a shopkeeper, Tenzin let me stay to learn there. While I was there I joined the Fire Ferrets, new team on the pro-bending scene, which was Bolin, Mako, and me. Pro-bending is a big sport back home by the way. Anyway, so Amon is keeping underground and trying to rally non-benders to his ‘Equalist’ platform. But I think Tenzin said it right when he said it wasn’t about Equality, he was just waging his own personal war against benders. So this liar claims that the spirits have told him that the Avatar, ME, failed humanity and that they have given him the power to take someone’s bending away.”

Her upper lip curls. “I failed humanity because I was training at the South Pole.”

She tensely, slowly, turns her neck sideways until a loud pop is made.

“Anyway, this ‘power’ was actually his bloodbending. Amon learned the basics of bloodbending from his father, but he’s able to use it on a whole other level of bending. He doesn’t even need to do any motions to use it. That way the Avatar can bend the elements while in the Avatar State. Somehow he figured out how to use bloodbending to completely sever someone’s bending. So he’s using this to convince all these people that he’s some sort of savior or hero. He almost used it on Bolin, but Mako and I managed to get him out of there.”

Grabbing another two crackers, her fingers scraping the bottom of the box, Korra popped one into her mouth.

“So I get fed up with his highjacking the radio programs to give speeches and threats and I challenge him. One on one at Aang’s memorial, right? So he doesn’t show up and I’m about to leave and out of nowhere his chi-blockers ambush me and Amon shows up to threaten me when I can’t do anything. Tells me how he can’t do anything to me right now because that would just make me a martyr and benders would rally behind it. Later on when it’ll look better for him, that’s when he’d take my bending and then destroy me.” Pausing for a brief moment to look at her imperfect reflection in her tea.

“After that he blows up the pro-bending arena after the finals match for the annual tournament. Benders and non-benders, didn’t matter to him. After that he almost got me while I was trapped in a metal box after being kidnapped by Tarrlok. You can ask Tarrlok about that later if you want.” Korra wasn’t even going to go into how Tarrlok had arrested her friends and wasn’t doing benders any favors by arresting innocent people. “I just barely managed to escape and after I got a chance to get myself back together, Amon starts his final plan, his end-game, and tries to take Republic City over by trying to take out the police force, taking out the members of the council, and kidnapping Tenzin and his family. Mako and I managed to get away with a few others and got to contact the United Forces to help. While they’re fighting his army, Mako and I go after Amon. He took my bending away, all of it and he almost took away Mako’s. But that’s when I unlocked my airbending and I defeated him and he got exposed as being a bender to everyone before he escaped. So we went to pretty much every powerful healer we could think of, even my waterbending master, and they couldn’t undo what Amon did to me. Then I finally got in contact with the spirits of the past Avatars, and Aang restored my bending and passed on his knowledge to me through energybending.”

Korra looked at the last cracker and held it out to Dinah.

“So yeah. A poster of Amon teaching anything is not something I want to see. At all.”

Well, that's... a lot to take in. Dinah listens intently, nursing her tea throughout it, watching Korra over the rim of the cup held in both hands. At first she's smiling, sharing Korra's frustration at 'do it all perfect;' understanding completely the impulse to just break out and do it anyway (Isn't that what she did herself at Korra's age?) and almost laughing at the idea of stopping gang members, because that's very familiar.

Her smile fades at the idea of 'Equalists' and she tries to make sense of it. It sounds like a social movement, but as she realizes it's a movement against benders, the frown eases slightly. No matter what Dinah thinks of it as a meta human herself, animosity against metas isn't exactly a new thing. The impression she got from Korra though was that bending was more than just meta powers, but something rooted in their culture. It makes sense, but it's not parallel to her own world.

At the mention of 'bloodbending,' Dinah opens her mouth, almost interrupts. 'Bloodbending' is a bad enough sounding world, but she can't really imagine what it is? Bending... blood? As Korra continues she makes the connection to waterbending the water in a human body, but she snaps back to the story at 'chi-blocking.' And there she presses her lips together, thinking of her own connection with the chi-blocking.

But it's the mention of kidnapping that forces her to lower her cup to the table, her hands shaking slightly with the effort of not clenching too hard on the hot cup.

She blinks a couple of times and takes the cracker.

"It must be pretty hard for you to be stuck here with him."

“I think it’s going to make pull out all my hair.” Korra said flatly before taking a long drink from her tea, polishing off the cup. “Especially when no one understand just how much of an insult it feels like to have my opinion not matter because A.) Amon hasn’t done anything wrong. Yet..” and she hastily added “No matter how powerful or experienced these Lanterns are, Amon will find a way around them.” Every time she brought her concern about Amon doing something, anything, she had always been hit with the reply of the Lanterns will stop him before that, they’ll catch on and prevent it, or that they’re just infallible and Amon was nothing to worry about because of them. All of which were things Korra could Amon using to his advantage.

“And B.) I’m just a seventeen year old who can’t control herself or her powers.”

That last part Korra said with utter disdain. If she heard anything like that one more time she was very ready to just do what Tarrlok did and lock herself up in her suite for a good month or two and just ignore everyone.

"I don't remember signing an amnesty contract when I arrived here," Dinah says after a moment. "What he has or hasn't done here doesn't really affect what he may have done elsewhere."

She's thinking of Max, and how everyone got to together to agree to keep a very sharp eye on him, just in case. And how with Korra's history with Amon, they appear to have just turned on her and told her to shut the hell up. Or at least, that's how it seems to Korra, and Dinah remembers everything seeming like that when she was a teenager.

She eats that last cracker, thoughtfully.

"But when it comes down to your word against his, the only thing we can do about the fact he's done nothing is to hope he continues to do nothing while keeping an eye on him."

Dinah hesitates now, struggling with whether to tell Korra about her own ties with Amon. Then she makes a decision.

"Cards on the table, Korra. I've been involved with Amon's chi-blocking lessons. I had no idea he had any of this history."

Kidnapping. Bodily control. She'll have to have words with him.

At Dinah’s mention of the word hope she blew hair through her lips similar to the way a horse might have. Not that she knew what a horse-horse was. Either way she found that to be horrible way to handle the situation.

When Dinah laid everything before her, Korra looked as if Dinah had just splashed tea in her face.

“First Toph, and now YOU!?” She couldn’t stop herself from blurting it out and subsequently slamming her hand into her face, welcoming the fresh, stinging pain it brought.

After a long, long pause of Korra just breathing through her nose and out her mouth, she finally said “At least you didn’t know. That means they’re letting him teach there without even telling anyone that he’s been known to be dangerous.” She scratched her hairline, looking up at the ceiling and she let out a huff of unamused laughter. “This is stupid. How could they be this stupi- You know what, I’ll just shut up. It doesn’t matter.”

Korra snagged her jacket from the chair and pulled it over her head, obviously frustrated from the way she had trouble putting it on. Something she normally did easily.

“Thanks for listening to me. Thanks for the tea and crackers” She didn’t sound thankful at all, it was practically spat out. No time was wasted as she made quick, broad strides to leave.

“Hope those lessons work out for you.”

Watching Korra hit herself causes Dinah to reel back as if she had been hit herself. Hearing about it was one thing, but she really doesn't have any control, does she?

And now she's fighting to stay still as Korra stands, moving to leave. Chasing after wouldn't have worked on Mia, and it sure wouldn't have worked on teenage Dinah.

"I can teach you to defend against chi-blocking," she says steadily, just as Korra's leaving.

Just as Korra cleared the doorway was a few steps into the training area, she stopped. Her head moved to the side, but she hadn’t turned around yet.

“What do you mean defend against it?” It was asked with suspicion. Korra had developed an intense dislike for chi-blocking and anything related to it. After having it used on her before, that painful feeling of having her bending blocked off from her, made her loathe it.

All the same, she had stopped walking.

"If you understand a style you can predict its attacks," she says, and her chair scrapes out as she gathers up the tea set to clean them. "If you can predict its attacks you can defend against it. If you can defend against it, it can't be used against you."

And, she deliberately doesn't say out loud, you don't have to be afraid of it, or the people who use it.

"And I understand a dozen styles that utilize chi and pressure points."

Finally Korra turned around to look at Dinah, looking at her with apprehension. “That means you’d have to use it on me first, doesn’t it?” The question was almost accusatory, but had an underlying curiosity in it. Convincing herself that nothing good could come from the art, especially that she was learning from him in particular, left Korra with conflict.

It was illegal back home, and for good reason, but being to practice against it and learn how to anticipate, maybe even counter, the style had its allure. The fact that it would be Dinah, whom she had placed trust in, and all the skills she had, Korra deliberation was over.

“…Fine. When and where do we start?” Still coming down from her fuming, Korra folded her arms and looked at Dinah expectantly. This wasn’t easy for her to accept, but she knew now that Dinah was just a student of martial arts. Of course she would have wanted to learn something new, it was simple enough to see with the other styles she had.

"Not until you're ready for that."

There's always going to be an element of pushing out of your comfort zone in this kind of training. But Dinah will never be a teacher like Shiva was a teacher, or like that woman who made her call her Mother. She's not going to use a move against Korra that terrifies her until Korra has at least some idea how to defend against it.

"We'll start with the theory, which you'll probably already know from bending,and if you don't, I think this will be good practice. We'll add it to the rest of the styles we've been practising."

Finishing with cleaning, she approaches Korra and the exit to the courtyard.

"And maybe some calming techniques if you think they'll be helpful?"

Not fully comfortable with the idea of being without her bending due to that kind of training didn’t stop Korra from outright saying “I’m always ready.” Breaking a hard limit for her was definitely going to take her out of her comfort zone, but the benefit would be worth it.

“I don’t think they would.” She said with a sigh. There had been quite a few calming methods she had been forced to approach during her training, and they usually ended up with her getting frustrated and leaving in a huff, or worse, a yelling contest. Currently, she held the title of those for people from her world.

“But I’m working on it.”

"Okay, but we're still going to lay some foundations first."

Because they just are, okay?

She walks out into the courtyard, where the pool of water is still sitting in the middle, and starts on a t'ai chi form, movements strong and deliberate.

"What are you doing, to work on it?"

“If you really think so.” As always, Korra just wanted to dive in head first. Her logic was to do it soon and get it over with as soon as possible.

Leaning on the doorway, Korra watched Dinah go through the forms of Water, or T’ai Chi. Normally she would have joined in, but she was still cooling off from her flare up.

“I’m getting some pointers from someone I met. They really know a lot about it, more than anyone I’ve ever known.” And that was quite a list since Korra had been taught by various masters that were brought to the South Pole by the White Lotus, specifically to train her on control. Which had been a waste of time from her point of view.

“It’s different from everything I’ve been told. But it makes sense to me, and I’ve been doing a better job of keeping myself in check.” Earlier, Korra normally would have just stuck around for a yelling match and thrown herself hoarse just trying to hammer her feelings and point of view into Dinah. Instead, she had simply opted for leaving without discussing the subject. A little bit got out, well it was little for Korra, and she managed to stem the flow.

"Alright."

Well, if Korra's convinced this new technique will work, Dinah's going to let her try it out.

"If you need more ideas, that's what I'm here for. But that doesn't mean the rest of your training gets to take a break."

She jerks her head, beckoning. "Get over here."

Korra blinked a few times at Dinah’s response. A line of questions about who was helping her, how, and why had been what Korra was expecting. With the full intent of avoiding them of course, she knew Bruce was a private person and she didn’t want to bring him to anyone’s attention if she could help it. And yet, she got nothing but acceptance.

Standing there for a moment in stunned silence, Korra was unsure of what to do or say. That kind of thing never happened with her.

Finally she nodded and at Dinah’s request she made her way into the courtyard. Assuming the stance Dinah was in, she fell into step near her.

“…Why are you helping me?”

Korra knew the whole thing with Damian, which was obviously one of the factors, and that led Korra to believe that there was some other reason than the original one Dinah gave when they first started, before the clinic, back at the hydroponics garden. There was the paranoia she had developed after her mission for Evandau, or the conversation she had with an anonymous man over the network in regards to the Green Lanterns, or simply because Amon was at large and she felt she was the only one that cared. But really, the biggest thing that had affected her was last night, on her way home from the pizza party with the turtles. The dark figure wearing the black mask and cape that had chi-blocked her left Korra with a feeling that Keeliai wasn’t nearly as safe as she had assumed it was.

All of this because one of her triggered flare ups over Amon caused more damage than she had intended.

Dinah looks over at her, not losing her rhythm, but honestly questioning. Why on Earth shouldn't she help her? She hangs out with Bats and former Bats and Helena, who has Battish tendencies despite professing not wanting to join that stupid club, but she's not used to people questioning her motives.

"Didn't you ask me to be your teacher?"

That's a powerful word, in Dinah's vocabulary.

“Sort of, yeah.” Korra answered sheepishly. That wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “It’s just that I’ve always had people watching me and making sure that I was doing the best I could at, well, everything. And that was back at home.” She didn’t fall out of her cadence with Dinah.

“I just, I don’t know. It just feels weird when I think about it being the same here even though I’ve never been here before.” A pause before she realized that was an inadvertent lie. “Or rather I don’t remember being her before. All the people that were watching me back home, I knew them since I was a kid. But here, I haven’t met any of them except Lin.”

Dinah isn't really sure what to make about the idea Korra's been here before, but she lets it go: she's heard similar things before.

"Do you want it, here?"

"Is it that bad?" Needing an appropriate location sounded bad. Giving a second to wonder whether she'd like it or not wasn't enough time, Korra needed more than that to come to a logical conclusion.

Which is why just suddenly said "Yeah, I should know this stuff." If there was stuff. There had to be stuff, or else Korra wouldn't have felt so weird about it.

Dinah doesn't think that things need to be bad to want a teacher. She'd never turn down a teacher, even here in Keeliai. Especially here in Keeliai, really, with the range of other world styles available to her. It gives her pause, that Korra needs to think she's bad at something to benefit from a teacher.

But when she says yes, the frown disappears.

"Then I'll be your teacher."

And all that means, from helping her improve her existing bending skills, to taking responsibility for her use of those skills, to helping her face her fears and being able to hold her own against chi-blocking.

And as far as Dinah's concerned, that's that.

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