tushanshu_logs | March catch-all [open]

The admission makes Sep laugh richly. It feels good to laugh like that; it comes so rarely.

There may have been some cookies on the table. Also some meat--more or less kabobs, really, Septimus does not have time to cut a steak or anything--a couple fruits just for good measure, and of course, a cup of coffee. He habitually works the ER graveyard shift, you better believe he's got caffeine handy.

Crouching, he begins to poke curiously at the pile of puzzles and boxes at the floor, trying to make sense of it. (Of course, he's six-foot-four. Crouching probably doesn't leave him too much shorter than Aang.)

"Don't think we've met around here before. I'm Sep."

May have been? Oh sure, at one time, but now? No longer. Sorry, such is the way of lemurs. If there was a kabob, it'll be the last thing Momo steals, and then flies off with, to a place a bit too high for the average person to get him down from.

"I'm Aang. It's nice to meet you. Do you work here? I volunteer sometimes."

Septimus nods. "I've been working nights more often than not, give everyone else a chance to catch up on their sleep. Have you been working more with the technology," he waves vaguely in the direction of the general rooms, "or innate talents?"

Because hey, most Alerans with furycrafting can't heal; Aang might be his world's equivalent.

After shooting Aang a sidelong, quick wink, Sep levels what looks pretty believably like a glare at Momo. Being much larger and rather unknown to the lemur, it's probably somewhat more convincing than any of Sokka's threats to turn him into reserve meat supply. "If you want to stuff yourself right now, go ahead," he says with a distinctly warning note, "but I'm getting a full meal one way or another, understood?"

"Mostly I just come and keep the kids company. I spent a while here when I first arrived, and so I figured it was the least I could do." His voice trails off towards the end because of Sep's wink. Aang looks from the man to the Lemur.

The threat's a good one, and Aang has to bite the insides of his lips to keep from smiling.

Septimus will reply to Aang about how sweet that is of him, ask what happened, if he needs any more help or if he's all healed up.

But right now he is staring evenly at Momo, face calm and unyielding and, after a moment, he pulls out one of Sextus's favorite tricks: the expectant arched eyebrow.

The moment he hears "that tone" from someone, Momo looks to Aang. If the boy doesn't seem concerned, then chances are better than not that he should have no reason for concern either.

Only this time....Aang does look concerned.
Momo looks back towards the man just in time to see the eyebrow go up.

He knows that expression.
It's the one Katara gives him right before she starts scolding.

The lemur goes very very still, save for the fur of his tail which begins to puff out.

Suddenly, in a flash of movement, Momo flies down to the table, throws the kabob back where he stole it from, and then leaps for Aang's shoulder once again.

It's only then that Aang brings his hands up to hide his smile.

Septimus smiles faintly, giving Aang another sidelong glance. "I'm guessing he does that a lot."

He'll let Momo sweat it out for a little before offering a metaphorical olive branch--after all, he does try to be a nice guy. Still, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

He returns his attention to the pile on the floor now, and while he's spreading it out a little at least things are now more visible. "Does he like the other kids, when you visit them?"

Aang reaches up to give Momo a reassuring scritch, which the lemur is having none of...until Aang manages to reach that one spot behind the ear.
The he settles down.

"Yeah, kind of. He likes to eat, so if there's food around he'll find it."
Momo begins to almost purr.

"Oh he loves the other kids. Just, maybe when they're not grabbing at his tail, but only the really little ones do that, and he can usually keep away from them."

That is a truly strange little animal. Purring is not a sound Septimus would have expected out of him.

"Well, we can make sure the kids know the rules. I'm sure some of the little ones will leave off if they know they shouldn't," he assures Aang. "What is he?"

As he says it he's started trying to sort things into piles. It doesn't always work, because these are not games he is familiar with.

Edited (oops, forgot...) 2014-03-24 23:11 (UTC)

"Momo's a flying lemur. He's comes from the same place I do, the Southern Air Temple." Aang gives him one more scritch, before he whispers to the lemur that he should go stay out of trouble. Momo licks Aang's face before taking off and gliding off of the boy's shoulders and returning to his out-of-reach perch...this time sans stolen kabob.

Aang airbends himself into a sitting position and begins helping to sort the boxes.

The airbending is noted with some interest--no windcrafter would pull that particular move, and highlights some of the clear differences in how they think. He'll wait a moment to ask more, though.

"Southern Air Temple?" he opts for asking instead. What's a temple isn't voiced, but he's definitely thinking it.

"Uh huh. And since you're asking, I'm going to guess that you're not an airbender, are you?"

"It's not a term we've got at home," he says with a shrug, "and I'm guessing you do things much differently than I'm used to seeing."

For one thing, in Alera, lightning comes from windcrafting, not firecrafting. That will likely be an interesting conversation one day. It is also the tacit admission he has some skill in windcrafting.

"Is it a common skill where you come from?"

"But you do have something like it where you're from."
It's less a question, and more him solidifying out loud his thoughts on Sep's homeworld.

"It felt similar, when you helped me with the boxes."

The boxes. Aang looks them over, and how at least a half dozen of them fell open, and now their pieces are strewn about the floor.

"Not so much, no," he says finally. "I'm the last airbender, which is why I was so surprised when it seemed like you could do it."

"Very likely. How does airbending work?"

Still, the comment about Aang being the last makes his eyebrow go up a little. Instinct tells him whatever story is behind that is not pleasant, and gracefully decides not to ask. Instead, he glances around and after a moment's contemplation gestures idly. After all, the boy already has some idea what he can do.

A light gust of wind gently swirls the pieces strewn around into less of a spread. They're more mixed up, but easier to reach. "Do any of your people have other bending talents? Earth, water, et cetera?"

"Well," he picks up a few stray puzzle pieces from a more consolidated pile on the floor. Holds them in one hand, palm up. He then places his other hand, palm down, over the pieces.

"It's a matter of focusing my chi."

The pieces appear to levitate between his hands, before turning to spin about between them.

"Uh huh. There are three more traditions: earthbending, firebending, and waterbending. I haven't mastered firebending yet, but Korra can and there are few others here than can bend fire too."

Septimus watches with interest. Clearly, Aang's airbending uses an entirely different set of principles, but that doesn't mean he can't watch some of the mechanisms and figure out how to apply them. It wasn't quite the same--but maybe close enough. Given the lack of powerful wind furies, the more tricks he can pick up, the better.

"What is chi?" Words that make no sense to him, plus equals one.

Still, something about the way it's phrased makes him tilt his head a little. "Yet. Do the others have more than one skill, like you? Or could learn the others?"

Once he's got a better idea... well. Exchanging tips (or maybe kind of teaching Aang, who seems talented but it still less than half Septimus's age) is not infeasible. (He misses having furycrafters around.)

"Chi is the universal life force that flows through all things," he says without missing a beat. "And through which we are all connected."

Aang moves his uppermost hand, causing the air above his palm to go from spinning to more of a tornado like vortex.

"No, it...it's just me. I'm the Avatar, the one destined to master all four elements and bring balance to the world. Though, Korra's the Avatar too. She's my next incarnation."

Chi has officially been deemed odd. Anything remotely philosophical of that nature utterly baffles Septimus; Alerans have no concept of it. Still, that's interesting. If no one else can learn airbending...

"Can people in your world only learn one kind, then? Or is it just that no one besides the Avatar can learn all four?"

Beat.

And also... "Incarnation?" Totally, totally baffled Septimus is baffled.

Aang nods, and allows the puzzle pieces to come to rest on the palm of his hand. Each one is flipped so that the picture side is down revealing hand written numbers on the back of each piece.

"It's both, really. If you're born a bender, then you bend the element of you're most spiritually connected to. People from one of the Earth Kingdoms are earthbenders, firebenders come from the Fire Nation, and then there's the two Water Tribes."

Aang skips over the Air Nomads, for...reasons, opting instead to look for the boxes labelled with the same numbers as the puzzle pieces.

"Avatars reincarnate. When I die I'll be reborn as Korra, just like I'm Avatar Roku reborn."

Well, that's actually quite interesting. Septimus just decides to drop the whole 'reborn' question, because it frankly makes zero sense to him. He'd rather not pry indelicately--like about how much one life remembers from others--or say something along the lines of that just sounding bizarre. He tries to have good manners!

He certainly thinks it, though.

"What if someone is the child of a mother from the Earth Kingdom and a father from the Fire Nation?" He's picked that at random, really.

But it's intriguing, and he wonders how Aang will react to how... differently Alera works.

Aang looks up at him, a strange expression on his face.

"That wouldn't happen. The nations don't mix that way."

At least, not that Aang is aware of, he is 12 afterall.

"Ah. Yes, of course."

Septimus conceals his amusement, and decides not to break the poor boy's brain by posing it as a 'well, what if.' Of course, he would have known that was false at twelve--but then, despite being Princeps, Alera by nature means he wasn't as sheltered as this boy seems.

"But you have to be born to be a bender? It can't be learned, just trained?" Subtle difference, that.

The wary expression remains. A seed has been planted in his mind, one that won't germinate for years to come.

"Well...you learn during your training, but no amount of either will make a non-bender a bender. It has to do with an innate spiritual connection that is either there, or it isn't. In the Earth Kingdom I met a set of twins where one was a bender, and the other wasn't. My best friends are brother and sister. They had non-bender parents, but Katara is a waterbender and Sokka isn't."

It's an interesting thought, certainly, and Septimus mulls over that thought as he begins sorting out pieces with the same marking on the back. He'll let Aang indicate which boxes they go in, but for now...

For now, that 'innate spiritual connection' does make a little more sense ~~(because furies are pokemon)~~, and he can put it in the perspective of relative furycrafting strengths. Still, the idea that not everyone can craft--bend, whatever--

It's interesting, and it just does not compute. There's never been an Aleran who can't craft.

"Does that spiritual connection also determine how strong a bender is, then?"

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