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

[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.

[metalbends]

[Her heart twists around those words, because even if some of it is true, she can't think it's a bad thing. Aang saved the world. He was the Avatar, and was being exactly the kind of Avatar the world needed. One full of hope and optimism.]

That's not true. He doesn't run away anymore. How come you think that?

[generalflirt]

[Anymore, huh? Her screws up his face into a smirk (he objectively knows it's worthless to her, she can probably sense how much his heartrate hasn't gone down or how much his muscles are still tense) and adopts a jovial, flippant tone for this]

Eeeh, if I answer that, aren't you going to kill me, Toph-chan? After all, Aang-kun's the heart of all of you.

[metalbends]

There's a good reason for that, you know. He brought everyone hope when we had none. [Katara most of all, but she doesn't say that.] But I promise I won't kill you--I'll try to not even sock you!

[She reserves that for special purposes, after all.]

[generalflirt]

I know the story, Toph-chan. In another life, I even lived it.

[A version of it. A falsified one. He chuckles at that... this fierce defensiveness... who knows, he does understand it. He gets this way about Katara

That's the whole point]

[metalbends]

[...Wait, what?]

What do you mean? [He's not lying. Was it that...] ...Oh. I heard about that experiment while I was gone.

[generalflirt]

Yep. [He laughs, waving a hand in front of him before he crouches down to be sort of frog-legged to the ground, smiling] Once upon a time, and a land that might not have existed, there was a prince in the city of Omashu. The ward of King Bumi, he was named Masaomi - that man, a better man than me, would go on to become the Earth King after the former one's incompetence saw him dead.

[he laughs some more, but it's mirthless] It's a farfetched story, don't you think?

[metalbends]

You, the Earth King? [She does snort, but she doesn't burst out laughing as he might expect.] Hey, I doubt you could do much worse than the last one. That guy didn't even know what was going on in his kingdom most of his rule.