tushanshu_logs | As your feet, they touch the ground

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As your feet, they touch the ground

Characters: Korra (

alphatar), Open
Date: June 9th, Late evening
Location: Brazen Turtle (Center of Keeliai)
Situation: Doing her job
Warnings/Rating: N/A

With the recent bombings and need for the kedan to have safe housing in the foreigner’s former suites, business at the Brazen Turtle has taken a dip. Food isn’t easy to come by, though the bar managed to get enough to serve its patrons. As barback, Korra’s tending to the bar since the drinks don’t need too much stocking.

Overhead is the scale model of the Starship Enterprise she had gotten Jim for Christmas and it has her attention when there’s little to no customers. At a simple, sullen command it flies sporadically or circles over the bar where she’s at. Depending on her mood, something that’s she’s distracting herself from by wiping down the bar, even if it doesn't need it.

The ship's lights and occasional sounds are soft, but poignant as always.

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Raine had that effect on people, sometimes even other academics, when she was in full swing. By this point she could recognize the concerned stare, and tried to modulate a little bit, giving Korra a little smile. "It really does seem like your chi acts similarly to mana, but they're definitely not the same thing. Hm. In my own world, mana is the essence of life. All beings have it within them, but, much like your benders, only some people have the ability to actually use it consciously. And it is, roughly, based on family lines."

She pondered her next question for a moment, tapping the stem of her glass. "Can non-benders become conscious of and use their chi in ways besides bending?" she asked finally. One question instead of three this time.

Mana didn't sound like magic, which Korra always associated it with, and she pursed her lips as she thought about the similarities.

"You mean can a non-bender use their chi for something else?" Korra didn't even wait for an answer before she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think they can, but I'm a bender. My bending's the most important use of my chi." Then she gave a brief tilt of her head. "Aside from the obvious 'keeping me going' aspect. I don't know what else they could use it for. I'm not a chi guru. My past life met one though." Which had absolutely nothing to do with anything...

"Perhaps to augment their own skills?" Raine mirrored the head tilt; in her it was an equivocal motion. "A friend of mine, Regal, is a highly skilled martial artist, beyond what levels humans are usually capable of attaining." Even with the exsphere. "He knows a few healing techniques, in fact, but they don't work the way normal healing artes do, nor should they. When I asked him, he mentioned chi, but we were interrupted, and the following weeks didn't provide much time to pick up the conversation."

Korra's last sentence well and truly startled her. She stared, turning the possible meanings over for a moment, then had to ask. "Your-- past life? Reincarnation is something that happens in your world?" There were always beliefs, but if there was quantifiable proof...

Using chi to enhance martial arts had Korra slowly leaning forward and she didn't even know that she was doing so until Raine mentioned her not getting an answer on it. Her head hung slightly as she got back into her sitting position. That would have been something to learn how to do.

"Yup." Said casually before she began to pour a glass of water for herself. "Well, it happens for me." As if that explained it all. After she took a drink, Korra wiped off any extra water off her lips with her thumb. "When the Avatar dies, their spirit moves on to the next incarnation; and it's always the next bender in the cycle of elements. Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. Aang was the airbender before me." She pointed her thumb in a general reference to the direction of the metal sector.

"Aang?" Raine blinked a little at that, and her gaze became briefly distant, as if trying to remember something. "I feel like I've heard that name, perhaps at the hospital. Is he here in Keeliai, as well? And what do you mean by the Avatar?" It wasn't a term she'd encountered before to her recollection, but clearly important.

She had a number of questions about the idea of provable reincarnation as well, but she was still trying not to overwhelm Korra with several questions at once. It could wait, for now, and would hopefully come up in conversation later.

Korra nodded enthusiastically, glad to have a reference that Raine might be familiar with.

"Yeah, he volunteers at the hospital a lot." But she did completely forget that she didn't tell Raine who or what the Avatar was.

Good thing she was sitting down. "The Avatar is the only one who can bend all four elements and keep balance in the world. Well, in my world back home. Not exactly the same here on Konryu, you know? Anyway, Aang's the previous Avatar and I'm his reincarnation; that and all the other Avatars before him." Korra took the time to chug her water so she could fill it up with juice instead, she'd need it for explaining what she could about the Avatar.

"The exception to the rule. Hm." It was a reasonable intuitive leap to assume for now that all four of Korra's elements were necessary for the keeping of balance. A high concentration of one kind of mana could cause extreme climates or other, stranger phenomena, after all, and while they were not quite the same thing, she felt safe coming back to the concept of balance later.

That did leave a number of places to start. Finally, after some moments of thought, Raine settled on, "How did such a thing come to be, and come to be necessary?"

She chuckled and rubbed her thumb on the edge of her glass. That was a story Korra didn't even know until she saw her future and Wan's tale in the Tree of Time.

"Now that is a long story. You got time to hear me yammer?" Of course Korra did, Raine was the only patron in the bar at the moment after all and her shift wasn't even half over yet. but she didn't even wait for an answer. "Yeah, you wouldn't have asked otherwise, huh?"

She brought her fist up to her mouth and cleared her throat. This wasn't the first time she's told Wan's tale and Korra didn't leave out anything since she had time to burn, even pausing halfway through to offer Raine a meal off the menu when her own lunch hour came along. She didn't want to have the knowledge seeker having to watch Korra stuff her face.

For her part, Raine had plenty of time and had come there specifically to hear Korra yammer, so she sat and listened with rapt attention, interrupting only to ask small questions for clarification. She did pause to eat, which was a lamentably necessary part of being mortal, but was otherwise completely fascinated.

"This implies that once, bending could be conferred on non-benders, doesn't it?" she said eventually, once Korra was done and a more involved discussion could be initiated. She leaned forward on her elbows, intent on the idea. "But you said earlier that it was passed down through family lines, correct? Your world must have changed in the interim, as anything will over ten thousand years -- how substantially? Do the lion-turtles you mentioned still exist? Do you remember this, or was it a story passed down to you?"

Korra paused, fork hovering in the air just in front of her open mouth. For the first, and probably last, time Korra wished Tenzin was able to inundate her with that knowledge back home. Instead she was just trying to answer as best she could.

A puzzle to which each piece was one of the past lives within her; which the completion of would take a small eternity.

"It was shown to me by Wan. Well, his spirit anyway. But I don’t think anyone’s seen a lion turtle since back then. They’re just a mythical animal to most people."

Korra couldn’t help but ask with an amused smile. "Are you writing a book?"

Raine blinked at that last. "...Eventually, perhaps. There are aspects of our history that ought to be remembered, if only in the hope that no one repeats them. But as regards to my curiosity, no, I don't have anything of that sort planned. I'm simply curious about other worlds, and hearing about them is likely as close as I will get to exploring them in this case. You're one of the most gregarious people I've met here."

Curious was a bit of an understatement, but doubtless Korra could work that one out for herself.

"Not so bad yourself." She gave a smirk before continuing. "But I think I understand that. A friend of mine came from a really cool world and he answered every question I threw his way." Her fond expression turned into a thoughtful one and she absent mindedly began to wipe down the bar, picking a piece of food to eat with her chopsticks.

"Who else have you met here?"

She wouldn't have described herself as gregarious, but perhaps with all the questions she'd been asking... well. Raine shrugged a little, and tilted her head back, watching the ship overhead as she recollected the people she'd had an actual chance to talk to. "Beyond simply in passing... Skulduggery, Solomon, Hawke, Damian, Septimus, Annabeth, Tazendra, Iroh, Alvin..." She trailed off, leaving the list a little incomplete as she wondered whether to count Gene and Amelia. She'd met and liked both, but hadn't seen either in a while. "Many people," Raine concluded after a moment. "Some more talkative than others, but few who have actively volunteered to speak of their worlds."

She could understand that, at least. Her own world didn't have a particularly proud history. Still, to her insatiable curiosity, it was disappointing.

Korra lifted her head only slightly so her eyes could follow what Raine was looking at, and she kept the tip of her chopsticks in her mouth as she listened.

"I don't think I've met even half of those people." Said some what down cast before she went to pick at the remains of her lunch. "Well, not here anyway." Iroh she had only seen when she witnessed her future, and even then she somehow knew him. It probably would have felt different if she was there instead of just watching it unfold in the palace. "So many people arrive and leave that you kind of lose track of who's here. Over time anyway."

A piece of a rice noodle roll later, Korra added "Some people have pretty rough lives back home. I can see why they wouldn't want to bring it up."

"Do you have any idea roughly how many of us there are here?" Raine asked at that, curious. "I imagine with the constant flux it'd be hard to keep an accurate count, but you've been around a little while, correct?"

Korra's last addendum garnered a nod of agreement from Raine, and a briefly downcast expression. "...yes, that's true. I can understand that, certainly." She did know she could get a little carried away sometimes, in her quest for knowledge. "My own world has its problems. I can't say I'd be happy, going into detail, but there are beautiful things, as well."

Korra looked down at her thumb, lightly tapping the bar. "I used to, not so much anymore." She could actually find out the exact amount, their names, and locations; but that only would have reminded Korra of all who wasn’t there.

"But yeah, no world’s perfect. Trust me. Especially this one, but that’s why we’re here, right?"

"So it is." Raine was quiet for a few moments, contemplative. She looked up again shortly, back to normal. "Well. Thank you, for explaining, and taking the time to talk. I'm happy to return the favor, if there's anything you're curious about." She was pretty sure she remembered Korra saying something that implied she'd like clarification about artes.

Nodding at the thanks, Korra looked up at Raine and took in the woman before speaking.

"Artes and bending are different, I remember that. Is eleth like the chi of your world and in some kind of crystals?" Trying to remember her conversation with Asbel after their sparring session wasn't easy, but Korra tried anyway and was rewarded with remembering what eleth was.

Sort of.

"Eleth," Raine repeated thoughtfully. "Now that's not a term I'm familiar with at all. I'm certain, now, that my world and the one your friend was from aren't the same. They may share some similarities, but mana is the force that gives my world life, and it comes primarily from a tree, not crystals."

She paused there for a moment, realized she'd missed an aspect of what Korra had said. "But yes, artes and bending must be different. Artes can be learned by anyone with enough determination, but require significant practice to learn and are not what I'd call instinctive."

Pausing as she finished the rest of her late lunch, Korra blinked in surprised that Raine didn't recognize the word. "Wow, that's nothing like what Asbel told me. But he did say anyone could do artes if they tried hard enough."

Food for thought now that her stomach was full.

"What other artes do you know aside from healing ones? I've seen some earth and fire ones, but that's about it."

"I would have liked to meet him." Raine exhaled quietly, almost a sigh. "That much he was right about for my world as well, though it's worth noting that only certain people can use magic artes." She knew Korra would probably ask about the criteria, but that could be put off.

She moved on to the subject of her other artes. "Not many-- healing is my focus. I can temporarily increase strength or toughness in a person, though, and I am capable of a few offensive light spells. My brother's artes are much more visually impressive." A fond smile there, not quite a conscious gesture.

Korra definitely had the question about artes being magic and not magic, because to her, it was all just magic.

But what threw her off asking that was "Wait, you can make someone stronger or beefier?" All she could think of was the gift Eshai had given that imbued Korra with a temporary surge of strength, one she hadn't used yet. "How does that work? You can't just make muscles appear, right?" Magic's weird, she'll give it that, but for her; this one took the cake.

This startled a small chuckle out of Raine, though not an unkind one, and she shook her head. "No, nothing quite so dramatic." She definitely knew people who would have been all for that, though. "It's to do with efficiency-- the artes in question increase the subject's functionality temporarily, enabling their muscles to respond more to roughly the same amount of effort. I can show you, if you like."

Interested in this new type of artes, new to her anyway, Korra leaned in as she listened.

"Sure! That sounds like it'd be fun to try out. And the perfect place for practicing that sort of thing would be at the dojo in Wood, which I just so happen to run." Something she was obviously proud of. "I set things up if you give me a heads up beforehand. Seeing just how strong those artes can make someone is my kind of fun."

"That should work well. Perhaps at the same time you could demonstrate some of your bending?" Raine had already seen Korra heal, of course, but curiosity wasn't quite so easily sated. The situation would provide an excuse for both sorts of demonstrations.

As your feet, they touch the ground

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wow I'm so sorry about the delay

that wasn't even a month! no worries<3

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