[EVENT] Bonfire Night

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: February 21st
Location: Various.
Situation: It’s cold. Time to cuddle up and make bonfires for the warmth.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

As night falls the city’s lights take something of a unique turn. Instead of being lit by millions of paper lanterns, Keeliai is tonight lit by the flames and warmth of dozens if not hundreds of fires. Some of them are small, not much more than warming hearths in a barrel on a street, but others encompass squares and boulevards.

The fire lighting procession winds through the city’s streets, beginning at the first bonfire in Fire Sector. By the time full night has arrived, that procession is a snake illuminated by dozens of torches, parting from the main parade to light smaller fires in smaller streets. It ends, finally, in Central, in the Courtyard of Public Opinion, whose bonfire is second only to the initiating one in Fire Sector.

In some areas an exchange of goods arises, mostly in terms of woollens and other warm clothes and blankets. Though food is considered a public resource on this occasion, bartering small knickknacks, songs, stories and even other woollen items is not uncommon an exchange.

Meals are shared among kedan and Foreigners, commoners and emissaries--primarily stews, soups and other foods easily baked in the coals of the fires. Everyone brings food, and what isn’t contributed to the pot is nevertheless shared around after preparation. Although some bonfires are markedly wealthier than others, food and shelter is spread around to make sure everyone is safe and warm. No one goes cold and alone on this night.

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LINKS
Fire Sector (main bonfire) | Water Sector | Metal Sector | Earth Sector | Wood Sector | Central Keeliai

OOC Notes
The five Bresilykian emissary NPC can be found moving from Sector to Sector and partaking in the various traditions of each, and so can be engaged anywhere, while the Keeliai NPCs generally are staying in their respective areas as detailed below. Please put the name of the NPC you're requesting in the subject line of your tag if you want to interact with them. Thank you!

Comments

[theideaguy]

For a moment, he's expecting that wily retort that never comes. He knows Toph... probably better than a lot of his friends, or at least he'd like to think so. In some respects, he probably knows Toph better than Suki. And so he's fully expecting her to tell him that "she's fine" and that he shouldn't have followed her off by herself.

But a moment passes, and that reflexive defensive posture that he's already unconsciously built up finds no bristles to defend against. The tension that he expected fades, and slowly Sokka manages to relax just a little bit, to no longer feel like he's walking on eggshells. She doesn't bare her soul often, but that prolonged pause breaks the ice just enough to know that he might, that he might get the honest Toph deep down instead of the tough Toph she's constructed around it.

And that makes him smile inwardly. Not a cocky smile. Not a sly smile. A smile of relief. A smile of fulfilment.

"Okay?" Sokka says in reply. He arches an eyebrow, unsure if that's the answer to his question or something else. "You must have had some good days since waking up in the fountain for it to average out to 'okay.'" Alright, so he'll crack a small joke.

"Can I sit down with you?" he asks.

[seismometrics]

She gives a quirk of her eyebrows at that crack that says, really, he wants to go there? But she scoots over a margin for him anyway that's an acceptance of him sitting down.

She's quiet for a few moments more, chin resting back in her knees . . . trying to catch the words that slide away under her grasp.

"I was here a long time before you guys," she said quietly at last. "Months. A lot of that time, it was only me -- and only later Iroh. And Aang. That was before the M-guy. Before we even knew what the M-guy was. I made a life here. I had friends."

I waited.

But she can't say that. Doesn't even know how. The words are like daggers in her throat.

"I used to live here." Nodding forward she indicates the Earth Sector. "With my own place. It had three floors. I made one of them a whole training room . . . and then the last one was for Aang. I threw all the furniture out. I decorated it the way I wanted."

I kept thinking you'd come. I waited.

You didn't.

"They kept telling us that time back home . . . it was frozen or something. We'd come back to the moment we left. It'd be like nothing ever happened. I'd wake up and you guys would all be there and we'd have the war, and we'd win, and . . ."

She's not making sense, and she knows it. And suddenly she's angry, angry with all of it, surging up from her gut.

"Yeah, well, it didn't work that way for me. I closed my eyes and I went away, and I didn't wake up. I never had the war, and instead I wake up, all that time waiting, and the war's over here and you're all here and everything's different and people are gone, and I wasn't here. I wasn't there. I wasn't anywhere. I didn't do anything."

I let you down in two places. I got cheated in both.

[theideaguy]

Sokka just listens at first. And as he listens, he absorbs Toph's narrative, and that ekes out the last of his humorous nature. He just can't be funny when that's what he has to work with. Which means he has to be caring and compassionate, which are not Sokka's main skills, though it seems like that's what he's been exercising the most these past few months on the turtle, forcing himself to take care of people in the group when his friends are hurt, when his friends are fighting, and when his friends are pushing everyone else away.

Add one more ward circumstance to Sokka's group of Wolf Scouts.

There is a moment where Sokka gets confused over Toph's "M-guy," but it doesn't take long for him to figure out who she's talking about. "The Creep Lord," is all he chimes in, giving her his unique name for He Who Must Not Be Named, even if they're allowed to name him now.

But in the end, he can feel Toph's pain. He can feel her pain from him not being there for her when she was here, and he can feel her pain from her just simply not existing for that period in between waking up. Where she went was simply beyond him, but that didn't matter.

None of that mattered. It mattered precisely as little as the failed invasion of the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun. Yes, he was still kicking himself over it even to this day, but he knew it didn't matter.

"The only thing that matters now is that we are here," Sokka states matter-of-factly. "The Creep Lord is gone? Fine, great, good riddance. As much as I wish I had been here for you back then, and you have no idea how much I wished it... I don't think I'm exactly willing to go back in time to resurrect that guy from the grave to make that happen."

He sighs. He doesn't feel like he's making sense. He feels just like he did trying to explain the invasion to all those people. He just can't get the frustration out. Too much weird magic making everything weird.

"I've been wishing you were here since I've gotten here."

[seismometrics]

That admission from him softens her -- nearly draws out one of those small, tentative smiles she gives when her guard is down. It begins, just at the edges . . .

But her upset isn't quite gone. Ultimately she burrows back into her legs, twisting her face away -- a sign that in the end, she's not quite done.

"I know you guys can do all this without me." The words are a mumble, likely only barely audible over the noise of the celebrating kedan. "I know. I just . . . don't want you to."

[theideaguy]

Sokka glances briefly at Toph after that, trying to gauge where she is and what she's feeling. She was always one of the tougher ones of the group to read, only perhaps slightly more difficult was Zuko, but at least he had a default of being upset or morose about everything.

But he sees the corner of that smile. It puts him slightly at peace. Even if she turns away, even if she's not quite done with... what, sulking, pontificating, gesturing, whatever, it gives him at least some indication, even if the work isn't done.

"You think we want to do this without you? Is that what you're worried about? Where else are we going to find..."—oh spirits why is he even saying this?—"the Greatest Earthbender of All Time?" Okay, even Sokka can't say that without a little bit of sarcasm, but he is still being very serious about that. "Weird as this Turtle World is, people like you just don't just grow on trees, you know. Replacements for my sister, maybe, but... you?"

[seismometrics]

"It's not about that," she cuts in, though her position doesn't shift. "All of this -- it's not about what any of us want, or we wouldn't even be here in the first place. We'd be home. We wouldn't even know about this place."

Her shoulders tighten a little. "It's not about me, either, or how you guys . . . feel about me. It's . . ."

She trails off, grasping for words that don't come easily, trying to describe a feeling that has no particular name. "I don't . . . feel like I belong here. I can't . . . stop feeling like I let everybody down. And now that everyone's moved forward, after everyone's lived here for a year and been home and everything . . . I don't . . ." Her teeth nip into her lower lip. "I don't feel like I fit. Like . . . I'm not the person I'm supposed to be."

[theideaguy]

So he had been wrong about what exactly she was talking about, or at least not quite addressing the crux of the point. But that's a much tougher thing to resolve.

But it's also something that he knew so intimately well.

"You know, that happened to me too," Sokka says. He looks away from Toph and sort of slouches forward, not really relishing going back to those memories. "Twice. Not just here but back home too. It wasn't until I found Master Piandao that I finally felt like I wasn't a drag on you, Aang, and Katara. And then here..."

That's such a deep subject. He's not let anyone down specifically, but the first few months were brutal. And even after the Dreaming, it's just never been easy. Granted, home was never easy, but he'd always found that travelling with the people he loved made it easier.

"It took me so long just to understand what was even going on here," Sokka says wistfully. "Katara was injured, Zuko was injured and freaking out all the time, and everyone from our world was fighting with each other. And everyone here has all these amazing things they can do. I felt like I didn't fit either. Sometimes I still don't. Like we're in waaaaay over our heads here."

Sokka looks up at the lights from the distant fires, though his face is still somewhat sad and out of sorts.

"None of us really fits here. The kedan don't like us, and some of the foreigners here are downright strange at best or just off-putting at worst." He shrugs a bit, not really knowing where he's going. "The only way I've found my path here is by reaching out to others and trying. Back home, you, Zuko, Aang, Katara... you guys were my family. I had to find that all over again here, even thought the others were already here. Maybe you just need to find people to care about and people who care about you?"

[seismometrics]

Sometimes she doubts his brain. Sometimes he's so crazy and so out there and so lacking in any indication of common sense that she -- anyone -- can't help but poke at him, wonder at what's actually there.

And then sometimes . . . he comes through.

She feels the corners of her mouth turn up, hidden in the curve of her arms -- just slightly, just faintly.

But there.

It doesn't fix everything. It can't. There's more here than can be fixed with words -- something born of time and weight and responsibility and the fine, knotted tendrils of those feelings she's only just starting to name.

But still, he's hit something. Something that sparks warmth, curling in her core. Something that spreads outward.

Her fist connects solidly with his bicep.

[theideaguy]

It's such a simple and wordless gesture to respond to his long and rather ineloquent monologue. But it says even more than he could have hoped to say, and the effect is more than he could have asked for.

When Toph's fist connects with his arm, he can't help but smile. But only for a fraction of a second. That smile is replaced with a rather put-off expression followed by him rubbing his upper arm with a great annoyance.

"You know, if I weren't as fond of you as I am, that would get really annoying really fast," Sokka says. He looks annoyed, but he's not actually annoyed. He can't help but still like Toph despite it.

[seismometrics]

"Yeah, deal with it," is her response. But the words are content -- more a response to an accepted pattern -- than sharp. This has always been their pattern -- banter back and forth, each one making sure the other doesn't quite get away with anything.

But then, more quietly, "Thanks."

[theideaguy]

"If I couldn't deal with it, you'd have been left with Iroh a looooong time ago," Sokka says, laughing a bit as he takes the joke. Sokka's of course referring to the time when Toph left the other three members of Aang's gang, only to be reunited not long after that. But he's still smiling, and perhaps Sokka can see Toph's only smile on her otherwise blank face.

And then he goes one step further, gently putting his arm across Toph's back and on her shoulder. He jokingly knocks his knuckles against her, though it's not hard at all, just a love tap, before he settles in a kind gesture for a few moments.

"So are you content to sit away from the nice fires for a while, or would you like to go find food and get warm. It's kind of freezing out."