lucetilogs | Backdated March 13

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Backdated March 13

Who: Ginko and Katara
What: Just a conversation.
When: Continuing this thread; before this thread;
March 13, late afternoon (because EVERYTHING worth happening happened that day, apparently)
Where: The Barracks
Summary: Because talking to a book doesn't cut it sometimes. In which Ginko explains something that isn't mushi.
Rating: PG

[[Logged ~~because mun is a derp~~ to avoid lots of small html]]

If this is going to turn into a fight...? That thought would amuse him, if he could hear it. He doesn't smile-- but there is something soft about his expression, all the same. When Katara turn and greets him, he doesn't say anything at all. He just looks at her, thoughtfully-- before taking the cigarette from his mouth with something between a sigh and an exhale.

"Those are the motions for waterbending, huh? Those moves look a lot stronger than what you showed me before."

Ginko plans on approaching the subject the way you search for something lost on a mountainside. Circling in broad rings, slowly working over the trodden and untrodden places; with patience.

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"He was struck by lightning multiple times and he has a cut on his hip that was infected. I managed to clean it out, but I'm going to have to watch for it to come back. He didn't bind it at all -- and all those burns. None of them hit a vital area. It's like Yuber was just trying to cause pain." She trembled a little when she say that. Just the thought of it made her so mad...

"But there's more internal damage too... he was held by Aku for almost a week. He's not talking about it, but his system is so..." she'd never seen anything so clogged and tangled. Not even when Aang... came back.

Katara shook her head as if to clear it and her grip around her legs tightened. "I think the only reason why he's still around is that he's just so plain stubborn."

So falling in love with her was so bad it meant he'd rather run off and get himself half-killed, only to come back for her to heal him. She couldn't even yell at him for what happened now, or fight it out, or tell him to forget it. Instead she had to stay close by in case his over-stressed system gave out. He would need multiple healing sessions daily... and her healing wasn't as strong as it had been in this place. And he was so hurt... Katara swallowed hard.

So Yuber and Aku. Damn, but these kids managed to get themselves into trouble. And only finding Zuko afterward-- again, something they could not control. Only further reason to go to war-- there, at least, they might feel like they were doing something. Making a difference.

"That must have been frightening." His tone isn't pitying-- just a statement of the fact.

He has the feeling that her relationship with this boy is complicated, and he remembers the Dragobete. But he flips the meaning behind her words, all the same.

"A good thing, too." He smiles a her, pointedly. "Stubbornness can be a gift."

So many things, tumbling down all at once. He takes another long drag of smoke. It's a little frustrating, he's discovering, talking to any of them. Stubborn, indeed. For all their strength and competence-- for all the difference it sounds they've made in their world-- there is a lurking distrust that keeps her carrying too many things. Ginko doesn't really give a damn if they did save a world; everyone gets tired.

Edited 2010-03-17 02:24 (UTC)

Frighting? Had she been frightened? She didn't remember being frightened, she'd been furious. Although maybe now that she thought of it...

"Heh." She gives him a small smile. "I guess so."

He looks at her sidelong.

"Then again-- I get the feeling you're hard to scare." He thinks of the recording, but doesn't say anything. "That's another things you have in common." Tanyuu-san, that's a dangerous game.

Her chin lifts up slightly. It hadn't always been that way. But she'd made herself a promise... ever since her mother's death. I'm not some scared little girl any more.

"With your friend?"

"Mm. That's right." He exhales slowly, watching the smoke curl away. "She's the bravest person I know."

Even if she never leaves that room-- kneeling at that desk. Writing her curse away.

...Katara doesn't know what to say about that. But it's clear that Ginko admires Tanyuu very much. And if he's still making the comparison to her, then...

The muscles in her shoulders relax a little. Her voice is very soft, "What did you want to tell me?"

"Hmmm."

There's a long silence, as he thinks about how much to say-- and how much he feels inclined to say. Then he looks down at her, leaning on one hand.

"Katara, did you know that in a few days-- this will be the longest I've ever stayed in one place....in my whole life?"

She blinks. Really? How could that be possible? He'd only been here a little longer than she had.

"No. I didn't know." It's clear by the steady and concerned way that she's looking at him that she knows there's more to this story and she is waiting to hear it.

He hums again and looks away. "I have a condition, in my world, that is very rare: the tendency to attract mushi.

If I stay for too long in any one place, it would become infested-- and throw off the balance of nature. That's why I travel from place to place." My whole life. For as long as I can remember.

He pauses.

"Most of the people I meet, I never see again. There are few people I stay in contact with." She's a smart girl. He isn't saying anymore that he has to-- surely she can see the connection.

"There are no mushi here. But that doesn't change the way things will be, when I go back."

Edited 2010-03-17 04:53 (UTC)

Katara is silent for a long moment, absorbing this. She can't understand the full consequences of it -- she's only heard a few mushi stories, and they were... well the woman who's eyes had fallen out... and... the one who seemed to attract lightning.

...and if one place became filled with things like that... and if his job was to catch them...

She rises to her knees as if to get up and move towards him, but then stops and leans back on her heels, her head down, hands clasped in front of her. "That must be very hard for you."

Another long moment passes and then Katara looks up at him. "Most people don't seem to think we'll remember anything, when we go back."

He shrugs, and smiles a little. "It's just the way things are. Besides, the wandering life suits me." There is acceptance in his voice and face.

He glances at her, when she says that. "I've heard different stories from different people. Sokka told me he was here without remembering it; Simon told me he went home and remembered everything. And..." a pause. "Well, I can't afford to think that way."

He shakes his head, mouth curving ruefully. "I'm not sure if you've noticed-- but I have a tendency to meddle in other people's business. In my own world, if I feel the danger of becoming to entangled-- of affecting people's lives too much-- I walk away again. I don't have a choice-- and it keeps things in balance."

He lifts the cigarette to his mouth again. "I'm starting to think I wasn't careful enough, in this place."

Katara knows, she absolutely positively knows what she must do. And she doesn't want to do it. He'd been such a source of comfort to her, over and over again - she liked talking with him so much.

And she disagreed with him - she couldn't see how it wasn't better for someone not to be involved. That was the only way that she knew how to live.

But the way he put it, it seemed like it was a matter of survival. So she knew, she knew what she had to do. For his sake, she could be strong one more time. It wouldn't break her. She had to do it.

With movements slowed out of weariness and reluctance, Katara comes gracefully to her feet. Her hands form a respectful salute from a student to a teacher as she bows slightly in front of him. When she speaks, her voice is choked, and tears have managed to work their way out of her eyes again. She'd thought she'd cried out tonight already. "I hope you find a way to deal with being here until we all go home. Thank you for explaining it to me."

A pause and then she straightens and meets his gaze head on. "This isn't the kind of place where you can just walk away - you know that there's no where to go, and it's not safe out there by yourself. If you have to change that, then maybe you'll have to change something else too. And when you get home, maybe you'll have to change again. But that doesn't mean you can't do it, Ginko. We - all of us - our life comes from water. As it changes and remains the same... so can we. So can you.

"So walk away as many times as you need to while you figure out what needs to change. Just come back safely."

And she hadn't meant to say all that. She'd meant to bow and leave. But Katara wasn't one to back down from a fight, even if it wasn't any of her business.

This act-- those words-- the graceful motion-- elicits one of the rarest of responses from the man who has seen so many things. Complete astonishment.

For a moment, all he can do is look at her. Then he spreads his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Katara-- I have crossed paths with many, many people. I've seen the kinds of things that people do when they are most afraid, and most angry. When they are exhausted and hopeless. But the one thing which I have seen the least-- is that kind of selflessness."

Ginko stands up and takes a step forwards, looking down at her with undisguised admiration. "How did you get to be so strong?"

He shakes his head, and smiles a little regretfully. "I didn't ask you to talk to me so I could tell you I was going to go away. I'm just apologizing for intruding on your family." I find you all pretty frustrating, to be honest. Don't you know it's when I want to argue that I know I've worked my way in too far?

He looks her straight in the eye. "I know you won't like this: but it's the truth. No matter how powerful you are as a bender, when I look at you-- I see a girl who isn't a quite child, but isn't quite grown up yet, either. Despite all that responsibility you've made yourself carry, and how gracefully you carry it."

He thinks, for just a moment, of his life when he was her age. Of being thrown out of houses, or leaving them out of conscience. Of the mushishi who used his curse to create work for themselves, and then pushed him away, over. And over. And over. Of waking up outside where he'd fallen when he was too tired to walk anymore, and seeing the twisting shapes of the creatures that told him he would have to get up and move on again. Because warm houses in snowy valleys, and the grateful smiles that came with them were dangerous. And he was only human. But he'll just have to adapt, again, won't he?

So he smiles at her. "This is what I came to say: Katara, I'm sorry. But no matter how strong you might be, for as long as you're here-- I won't be able to keep myself from worrying about you."

Edited 2010-03-17 08:19 (UTC)

She's not used to hearing anything like that at all - those words of praise make her uncomfortable, and for a moment she'll look away. But she meets his gaze again when he says what he came to say, when he tells her how he sees her.

...and Katara doesn't know how to respond to that at all. Part of her wants to protest - she hasn't made herself carry all this responsibility - it's just there and someone has to do it. And can't he see that no matter what she does, she's just glad if it's almost good enough? And it has been, so far, and she's holding it together but...

...but he'll worry about her? Who does that?

And she didn't even know if he had listened to what she said. But suddenly, just like before, Katara knows what to do. And this impulse she follows through with much more alacrity. One, two steps forward and her arms wrap around his waist in a hug. She's crying again, but they're not unhappy tears. Her voice is muffled as she speaks from laying her head against his chest. "Everyone needs someone to worry about them sometimes."

And it's so much easier to accept someone worrying about her... if they know she'll be worrying about them too.

If Katara isn't used to being praised, Ginko is equally out of his depth when it comes to even the simplest expressions of physical affection. When she steps towards him he has no idea what she's going to do, and then...

There's a certain memory he can't get out of his head, the scenes replaying over, and over. A house glowing warm in the snow, the blossoms and green furze of springtime blooming in the midst of frozen whiteness. If you linger too long in the warmth, it steals your strength-- and humans are weak in the wintertime. The sister clung to his arm then, as if she knew he wouldn't come back if she let him go.

But Suzu held on to him because she was afraid-- and Katara wasn't like that at all.

It takes him a moment-- what a thing to do-- but then he closes both arms around her, warmly. And for a while he doesn't say anything at all. Until, quietly--

"I guess you're not going to let me get away with doing things one-sidedly, huh?"

From the moment he watched the sunrise for the first time, his life has been a string of strange horizons. This is just a different kind of strange.

So Ginko adapts.

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Backdated March 13

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