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Characters: Wanijima Akito + OPEN
Date: February 14^th - 28^th
Location: primarily the Water District; anywhere there's ice enough to skate on
Situation: Skating!
Warnings/Rating: n/a

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Akito has long come to terms with the fact that he won't ever have someone special to spend Valentine's Day with him, and it really hadn't bothered him for years. He had friends he loved and could gift with giri-choco. He had friends who he could spend the day with; go shopping, buy snacks, play games at the arcade. Here though...

He can't say that he has nothing, because that isn't true.

He has a job that he enjoys - not his dream job, but enjoyable. A job that doesn't involve harming others and pays enough for him to live comfortably enough in addition to helping him foster new friendships. With every delivery Akito makes, he's carving out another small place for him atop the turtle. It's something he can be proud of himself for, and he knows Agito would be proud of him too. That doesn't lessen the homesickness any. If anything it actually makes it worse, because as he settles himself in the more he notices small differences that seem immeasurably huge to him. The scents, the sounds, the weather, the architecture, the language, the people, the animals, the food...

The one constant he finds joy in - something that transferred from one world to the next without consequence - is his love for skating. Fighting in the war had taken it's toll on him, as Akito is ever the pacifist and letting out his vicious side was... unpleasant, at best. He used his Air Trecks for harm despite promising himself he never would again. But circumstances change, and in the end he can find comfort in the fact that by harming the few he was helping the many.

However, now Akito can use his skills at skating to have fun and, donning a pair of figure skates he puts said skills to good use. It's easy enough to translate his A-T Tricks over into figure skating techniques that could put the best of Olympians to shame, such as upside-down bicycle spins and twirling backflips. It's also easy for him to mimic the simpler, more classic techniques like a triple-lutz or simple spins and finds himself sticking to those the most.

The only thing in Keeliai that could make him feel any more content in this moment would be music, but Akito supposes that only so much comfort and convenience can be allowed at once.

((ooc: basically Akito is pulling some standard figure skating tricks for fun, along with some crazy techniques that don't actually exist IRL because his canon is weird so upside-down bicycle spin tricks are actually a thing. :|

if your character wants to learn how to skate they're free to ask him! from the 14th - 18th or so he won't be inclined to give any lessons since he just wants to skate and skate until he can't even think anymore, but after that he'll have gotten the crazy out of his system enough to take on beginners! so if you want to you can just imply they asked earlier and tag in later on timeline-wise with a lesson starter, or tag in with them asking him.))

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Sonja was making her usual circuit of the city, looking for things to see or do - mostly see, since she had no money. She saw Akito for the first time on the 15th, and stopped for a few minutes to watch. The next day she saw him again, as Sonja kept to a very tightly planned schedule for her walks until a certain increment of time had passed and she changed it up.

The third day she changed her schedule and arrived a bit earlier to watch Akito start skating. She sat down and watched the entire practice, clapping excitedly when Akito made any impressive spins or landings.

When Akito seemed to be departing the ice, Sonja got up the courage to approach him.

"Hi again! You're really good at that. Were you a professional skater back in your world?"

It's easy for him to tune out any distractions - at least it gets to be easy after the first few times that loud noises made him botch a landing. Akito doesn't mind falling, or pain, but he doesn't like being stuck in wet pants. By the end of the second day of skating he can block out the entire world outside of his body. His entire focus is on the sound of his blood in his ears and his bones and muscles working hard under his skin. Muscle-memory assists him with landings and positioning, so it gives him more time to enjoy the other things.

By the third day Akito's chosen rink has been torn up so thoroughly by the blades on his feet that it's impossible to land any more complicated jumps. If he still had his Bending it wouldn't be an issue... But he doesn't, and so he won't dwell on it. He'll just have to find another place to skate tomorrow.

The woman - Sonja, he remembers - approaches, which surprises him momentarily. In comparison, her question doesn't surprise him at all.

"Um... I guess you could say that," he answers, adjusting his scarf so it protects more of his face from the cold again. "But I don't usually skate on ice."

"Roller skates then? I didn't think you could do the same things on roller skates as ice skating."

"You can. It's easier to skate on ice than pavement," he supplies easily. "So it's easy to alter tricks to work with ice skating."

"I would wager there are a lot of people who'd disagree about the 'easy' part of that," Sonja said.

While Akito knows, logically, that skating in any sense isn't as natural as breathing to everyone, it's still difficult for him to comprehend. He was trained on Air Trecks since he was born - was born to be a Storm Rider (because there is no way Minami would have brought him to life if it wasn't to use A-Ts). The fact that some people have never skated before is just. Unthinkable.

And it shows on his face that he finds it difficult to comprehend, though it's also clear that he's intelligent enough to understand that it's true.

"Um, I guess if you know how to rollerblade you'll find it easy to adapt to skating since less control is required."

"That makes sense. Rollerblading is something my father never would have let me do. Or ice skating. Anything involving wheels that isn't enclosed with numerous safety devices, really. He is a bit of a worrywart." Sonja is not entirely sure she'd have wanted to rollerblade, but it was hard to judge how much of that was her own feelings, and how much of that was a result of her specific upbringing. Nature versus nurture was always an interesting debate.

"Oh," he says, absently wondering what having that kind of overprotective father would have been like. Deciding that for all of the abuse he endured he would much rather his own father, he adds: "My father made sure I knew how to rollerblade since before I can remember. My whole life has been skating."

"Have you enjoyed it?" An entire life devoted to a single skill seems horribly boring to Sonja, but she could admire the devotion.

"I wouldn't be skating in this place if I didn't."

Sonja wasn't so certain of that. Force of habit was a strong motivator, she'd found.

"Well, that's good then. Where are you off to now?"

"Um... To find somewhere smoother to skate," he says, not bothering to elaborate on what else he plans to do. While he has run into her a few times that doesn't mean he trusts her, or considers her a friend. "I ripped this area up too much to be able to use it anymore."

"Oh, well, good luck. I like to make a habit of walking through the city everyday, so maybe I'll see you around."

Sokka has managed to get one little skating thing in on the canal earlier in the week. He's by no means an expert at it, and in fact he's fallen down more than once in the process. A number of times, in fact, though he'll do his best not to mention it entirely. He's good at walking across ice on his own two legs, but not so much when it requires him also being on two thin metal blades. But he got the hang of it to some degree.

Though not nearly to the extent that Akito has.

...

Sokka just stops and stares at Akito doing crazy tricks that he can't even begin to describe in human speech.

It takes a while for Akito to pay attention to the stares. By now he's gotten so accustomed to people watching that it's second nature to ignore them, but he spots a familiar face out of the corner of his eye and so abruptly aborts his current spin earlier than he had planned.

"Hi," he offers, once he's skated close enough to hold polite conversation.

When Akito does manage to come closer to Sokka, there's a small bit of slow clapping, and for once it's not sarcastic slow capping just stunned reaction. "How do you even do all that stuff?! I mean, spins and stuff kind of make sense, but..." He gestures wildly with his arms before trying to represent one of Akito's more interesting tricks with his fingers as legs. "That? How is that even possible? Without killing yourself in the process!?"

"Um..." As much as he instinctively wants to shy away from the attention, Akito forces himself not to. He doesn't like the tentative person he's become, and so will try to keep treading outside of his comfort zone whenever he feels able.

"I don't know. I learned how to do this kind of thing before I can even really remember."

Physics, man. Physics and all of science is looking at you, Akito. And judging you. With beady eyes. Beady science eyes.

But seriously, despite being good friends with several people he knows, they've never mentioned anything like this. Then again, they might not have even been here last winter, so how could they have known? "You learned to do it as a kid? Did you grow up somewhere cold where you could skate all the time?" That would make sense at least.

Hey, if you want him to explain the science behind his skills he is more than happy to do so! He has many physics equations and laws memorized, among other related subjects. Let him teach you super-long physics equations that basically look like gibberish.

Akito is never one to speak much of his skills, and even if he does he usually downplays his capabilities. Sure, he's confident in what he can do, but compared to others he doesn't think much of himself. He's working on that though!

"Ah, no.. I usually just rollerblade, so I can skate on pavement."

"Oh right, those rollerblade things," Sokka says, remembering back to when he first came to Tu Vishnu. "I guess that they're pretty similar when you think about it. Still, that's pretty impressive. I guess you must have been practising a while to get like that." And here Sokka thought he was pretty good. Well he was... compared to half of the kedan at least.

"How long does it take to... learn all those sorts of things?"

Akito nods slowly, unsure of how much he can share without anyone wanting to pry further into his past. As he learned the hard way, people in Keeliai seem to be less inclined to overlook his less than ideal past and Akito would rather not deal with anyone else deciding his brother-father is a horrible person.

"It takes years," he says. "I've practiced for hours and hours almost every day of my life that I can remember."

"Years, huh?" Sokka says, thinking about it. "Guess I'm not going to learn that stuff any time soon." Yeah, he can at least skate in a straight line on ice and generally not fall over, but that? Not if it's going to take that long.

"Something like how you were working with Katara on your waterbending, right?"

The smile on his face that lingered from his session of exhilarating fun falls flat almost immediately at Sokka's mention of his Waterbending. Akito had been doing his best to put it out of his mind - forget that connection to water that was sometimes the only reason he could drag himself out of bed some mornings, when even his Air Trecks weren't enough.

"Um... Yeah, it was the same concept, I guess, but much more demanding."

Yeah, even Sokka can tell that something is amiss when someone's mood changes that radically that quickly. And he can tell more or less what is wrong... just not why it's wrong. "What did I say wrong? You and Katara were train—oooooooh."

Well that would explain why Katara was off training by herself these days and why she hadn't mentioned Akito at all. "You know, you should still go hang out with her anyway though. I imagine she could use some good friends still."

"I..." Akito frowns, looking to his feet and wrapping an arm around his torso; a subconscious gesture meant to comfort himself. "It's not fair to Katara... But it just... It still hurts a lot to be around water."

Sokka just gives him a rather discourteous look when he responds that way. Because he can sense that it's an attempt to push away what needs to be done. "What do you mean it's not fair to Katara? What's not fair to her is that you're avoiding her." He taps his foot slightly and just looks around the area. "And as far as water goes, maybe you should try the Fire sector to avoid it better..."

"That's why I said it wasn't fair to Katara," he says, more quietly. Akito already knows he's a bad friend, but he also feels like - now that he can't Bend anymore - that Katara won't even want to stay friends.

"I couldn't afford the fire sector, but I did move to the metal sector."

Sokka shoots Akito a slightly annoyed look for both comments. To be truthful, in this circumstance, he just doesn't understand what's even running through his mind.

In fairness, he was making a joke about the immediate moment rather than making a point about where he was living. "Well, yes," he says. "I'm just saying, you've surrounded yourself by a lot of water... right here."

"It's ice," Akito says rather quickly. Because, shh, Sokka you're ruining his psychological mind trickery. "If I look at ice and think 'ice', not 'water', it's okay. So I am taking advantage of that."

Really.

Really.

"They're the same thing!" Sokka says, almost screaming for just a moment. "It's just really really cold water! Just like the snow!"

Sigh. He'd have said something a little more unkind except he's trying to be nice to Akito. Friends of his friends and all. "Never mind, never mind. Just go have fun with Katara when she's icebending then." Since it's entirely different. Whatever. "But seriously, I'm worried about her, and it's not something even I know how to fix at the moment."

The raised voice causes Akito to flinch, and he pretends it's because he doesn't want the nearby kedan to be disturbed. "I know - it's a psychological trick that's been working for me! You don't have to yell!"

But he falls silent again at Sokka's comment about Katara. "Is she sick? What's wrong?"

Sokka yells all the time, especially when he gets frustrated. But there's no more of that. No, Katara is now in the fore, and Sokka just can't be too angry when he's worried about his sister.

He shakes his head to Akito's question, but there's still doubt written all over his face. "Not sick, no. But..." But what? "She's been quiet. Just been preoccupied with things. And I'll bet you know from experience that Katara... is not some wilted flower of a girl. She's... look, if I can't get her hotheaded enough to throw water in my face with stupid jokes, I can't help but be concerned."

Akito listens closely, and the more Sokka explains the more he's sure he has an idea of what's wrong with Katara. "...Is there anything that happened that would make her depressed?"

"Eeeehhhhhhhh," Sokka starts out, making a rather concerned expression that obviously means yes, even if he's not coming out and saying it. "Well... not really. I mean, well, that is to say, well..."

Sigh.

"She got in a huge fight with Wan and Zuko a while back, and she's just been on edge ever since. I don't bug her like I used to because... she's just not been herself ever since then."

Jackie's walking around, allegedly on Snake business but mostly trying to figure out how in the hell he can do what Yunxu's asked of him, when he sees -- whoa, is that kid flying?

No, not quite, but Akito's tricks are something else. So Jackie leans against a nearby wall, watching him, and grinning. That looks cool.

That is why you draw up careful contracts to be signed regarding your work with Yunxu, Jackie. It comes in handy since you always have a good idea of what to expect and how to accomplish your assigned tasks!

Not that Akito is thinking about work at the moment. He's more concentrated on actually enjoying himself, trying to think up new trick combinations off the top of his head. They aren't always successful, and so Jackie gets a front-row view of Akito accidentally kicking himself in the face and then breaking his fall with his elbow.

And it hurts, but it's also hilarious. Akito ends up snorting out a laugh before giggling to himself and tilting his head so his blood doesn't get all over his new jacket.

Jackie is too uneducated to know the intricacies of contract law, unfortunately.

And whoa holy shit! Jackie jumps and lets out a yelp of alarm when Akito kicks himself in the face, and runs over to see if he can help.

"Holy shit, man, you okay?"

The kid is laughing. This is not a usual pain response.

"Ah- Don't run on the ice without skates!" Akito's voice is a bit nasally, but considering his nose is currently bleeding it's understandable.

Well. That sure is some ice.

Jackie slips a little, and barely manages to retain his balance (okay, well, he doesn't fall flat on his ass). Give him a break, he's from a tropical island. He's still getting used to ice as something aside from what goes in a drink.

"Knees slightly bent and feet shoulder-width apart," he instructs, licking blood from his lips before it can freeze on his skin. "Keep your weight centered."

Jackie tries to do as Akito says, his legs shaking a little bit with the effort required to keep his feet in place while he adjusts the way he's standing. Finally, he manages to accomplish it...!

...and then overcompensates and falls on his ass.

"Oww," he says, sitting up. He's not injured - the only thing wounded is his pride.

"Ah..." Akito watches, carefully keeping his amusement from being too obvious. "It's a bit tricky at first, ne?"

"Yeah, a little," Jackie says, sounding a bit dazed.

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February 18, because why not.

C:

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