Beach Party!?

[markofthewise]

Who: Anyone who wants to come!
What: BEACH PARTY! (For Katara or something)
When: In the evening, about 7PM
Where: On the beach! Somewhere!
Summary: It's Katara's 17th and while all friends of Team Avatar are invited, anyone else can gatecrash too.
Rating: E for everyone (for God's sake there's going to be seven year olds!)

[A few days before the birthday, Katara's housemates began birthday preparations. Not quite entirely secret, but they made invitations, told friends, spread the word, and so on. Birthday on the beach. Be there or be a loser McButtface without friends.

And so there's a party! With tables! And chairs! And umbrellas! And the sun is setting, but the Malnosso had no taste and put the ocean on the east side of Luceti, so it's a sunset over the mountains which isn't as cool as an ocean sunset. But anyway. There's a volleyball net and, you know, an ocean to swim in. Also Sokka ordered a generator with his mission points and abducted the karaoke machine. It was mostly to provide some music, but people can get up and sing with it too.

As for the food? There's a table for that. It's a bring your own dish affair, since Katara is kind of their team cook and they can't exactly make her own birthday meal, right? So anyone coming can bring whatever they like and set it out. The gang brought some meals of their own, so there's bound to be some cool dishes from the air nomads, water tribe, and fire nation. And cake. A big chocolate cake. Someone made it! We don't know who. (Feel free to dibs being the baker or something if you want.)

And a table! A table for presents! Bring a present, set it there. It's very organized.]

((ooc: It's out on the beach and just a general sort of party affair, so feel free to have characters show up even if they're not friends with the birthday girl. It's a free for all. SO YOU BETTER MINGLE OR THERE'S GONNA BE WORDS.

Now have fun.))

Comments

[generalflirt]

Achacha, I'd wondered that! After all, the likelihood of both you and Zuko-kun in the lineage stuck me as low!

[He laughs, obnoxiously. He keeps up the flippant tone. But he's still tense, don't let all that dismiss it]

[metalbends]

Apparently she knows my future kid, anyway. [Now it's her turn to sound nonchalant.] It's pretty weird to hear about.

[generalflirt]

[...His heart beat speeds up. His eyes get even wider. He has his hand reach out to hold Katara's bracelet] A-ah, that would be weird.

[metalbends]

You betcha. [She's only fourteen. She's barely thought about stuff like having kids.] I dunno that it's a bad thing to know, but...[Shrug.] You know.

[generalflirt]

Knowing that much beforehand? I'd be hard pressed to not call this "bad," I think.

[metalbends]

Don't like knowing the future, huh? Not like we'll remember it when we leave.

[It doesn't bother her too much. Even if she hears how her life turns out, she won't know that when she's home again.]

[generalflirt]

All the more reason, really! If this life's a fallacy we won't carry with us in the end, I'd rather enjoy it without know what I "should" be!

[With a cackle]

[metalbends]

[She wrinkles her nose at that. She's all for living it up and being who she was now, but...it still didn't quite feel right to her.]

It's not about who we should be. Because that's a part of who we are. Here, there, or anywhere.

[Maybe it's her earthbender training. She'd learned to wait, and listen. Ikki's arrival could teach her about herself. Maybe even help her learn about strengths she didn't know she had.]

It's all related, you know? All that changes is the stuff that happens. And the people we know, I guess.

[generalflirt]

Saaaah. You're stronger than me, Toph-chan. [He rolls his good shoulder now. He's... his heart rate's picked up now.] Way stronger, or maybe just more resigned. Because the way I see it, the "Masaomi Kida" I am now can't be connected to the "Masaomi Kida" who is to run away from his friends a few months into my future back home.

[metalbends]

[...Wait, did he really just...admit that? Shes's surprised, and it shows on her face.

Huh.

Maybe...he's a little bigger of a person than she thought.]

Well, I guess if being here made you a better person, that's different. Me? I've learned a lotta things being here. But I'm still pretty much still Toph, you know? I'm still me.

[She thinks about Zuko. If he'd been brought from a time before he changed, and then became a good guy here, it would be different.]

Maybe you'd still eventually become like you are now back home, though. Eventually.

[generalflirt]

Like I am here? [He rolls his eyes, and looks down at the sand] Similar, maybe. But if you throw cards on the ground they'll never always land the same way.

[A beat] Seeing it the way you do, maybe I did always have the potential. But if "fate" is less cruel than it seems like it is sometimes, people are born with a limitless potential that they'll never reach every branch of.

[metalbends]

[She wonders what Aang would think about that, but bringing up Aang right now would probably be a bad idea.

Why she's suddenly taken Masaomi's feelings into consideration is beyond her. But he does still feel so tense.]

Then I guess here you just have to decide which potential to live up to. I'm living up to the same one I did back home. For you, sounds like it's different.

I think Katara...[Well, is she? Toph has hindsight that Katara doesn't. She knew about her and Aang as a couple, experienced it. Katara hadn't.] I think she'll turn out a lot the same, too. Eventually.

[generalflirt]

I don't know the one at home. I don't know what she's done, what she will do, what she is. [He's still tense, but he's forcing himself to calm down. Short exhales. His heartrate is still up] All I know, is that the "Katara" which exists here is the single most impressive person I've met in my life, and I know that she's going to feel trapped by the expectations people from her future have, or that she'll perceive.

[And that pisses him off]

[metalbends]

Expectations aren't a bad thing, you know.

[It's good when you see them and live up to them. Even better when you defy them.

She can't believe she's about to say this.]

...Look, do you want to take a walk, or something?

[generalflirt]

...Hooh, with me, Toph-chan?

[metalbends]

Only if you won't make a spectacle of it. I'm trying to do you a favor, here.

[generalflirt]

Heh. [He holds his good hand up to his heart, now moving his casted arm to brush the bracelet Katara gave him] Alright.

[metalbends]

[She tosses her head in the direction of the shoreline, and starts to walk, expecting him to follow.]

[generalflirt]

Just so you know, I don't have on trunks.

[But he follows anyway, his one arm going to his side. He wishes he could put his arms behind his head.]

[metalbends]

I can't swim anyway, you egg brain.

[generalflirt]

Toph-chan, I've long ago given up on assuming your blindness is any handicap at all. I wouldn't be surprised if you could fly.

[metalbends]

Ha! Fair enough. But I hate flying, actually. Kinda glad these wings don't work.

[generalflirt]

Hoooh, fair enough.


[Linda, you following- yes, good, she's following a bit behind them. So where are they going?]

[metalbends]

[Toph will just walk in the sand, with no predictable course set in mind. She just figures it might be better to get away from the group to talk about all...this. Considering she's probably one of the few people who can tell just how stressed out he is, she feels some kind of responsibility to that knowledge.

She's still a little inwardly baffled about apparently starting to care about his feelings, but ah well. She's not gonna think about that too much.]

So...what do think about Aang, anyway? I man, you guys have talked before, right?

[generalflirt]

If you're asking if I hate him, I don't. [A beat. He hums to himself, looking up at the sky. His heart's still racing, he still... afraid? Maybe he's afraid] If I had to say if I liked or disliked him, I'd say I like him. He's kind, funny. A gentle idealist, and probably a "Hero of Justice" to boot.

[...] But he's naive. Maybe even ignorant, perhaps willfully so.