Twister!

[lucetimods]

Who: You!
What: WHOOSH
When: The 18th, at 5:23 PM.
Where: Through the village (seen on this map)
Summary: A tornado blows through Luceti! It's loud, windy, and dangerous. React?
Rating: B for Blustery

It had been an unusually warm day for October. Dark clouds loomed in the day and had been accompanied by strong winds. A strange green aura tinted the clouds in the west before it finally happened. It was loud. Deafeningly loud for those near it, like a freight train hurling itself through the sky. Dust and debris whipped up inside it and anything not securely fastened was pulled towards it, sometimes right off the ground. A tornado had formed in Luceti and it was moving fast. Faster than a person could run or follow.

The smart people would be staying inside. The not so smart? Hopefully they could handle it.

((I'd suggest checking this comment out to get an idea for how tornadoes work! A plotting thread exists here as well.)

Comments

[breezing]

[ She's never actively tried this sort of thing before, although throughout the day Ikki's been agitated by the ever-growing wind and the dark clouds.

Katara's voice is calm, and Ikki listens to it, trying to do what is asked of her. Don't try to bend it, but listen. Wind is hard to hear except where it brushes against something. Your ears, the glass, the trees outside. It's so loud right now, though.

Ikki presses her other hand to the glass, lips parting in concentration. She knows the wind is there, so - not just listening, but reaching out and trying to feel the wind on her fingertips instead of the glass. There's a storm just outside the window, and there's wind slamming into the glass and crashing through the trees. ]

[markofthebrave]

Do you feel it?

[She paused and decided to offer some clarification via example. Her voice was low and soothing, almost contemplative.]

I can feel the raindrops. They tingle along my senses like... the first brush of cold when you step outside. I can feel them each, separately, and when they land. I can feel them in a rush, caught up by the wind. I don't need to see it to know that water is out there, that it's moving, filling up the sky and watering the earth. I can feel how fast it's going. I can feel it caught up and strong, together with the wind. It's not angry, but it's powerful.

What do you feel?

[breezing]

[ In the silence after Katara's question, Ikki feels herself breathing in and out. In through your nose, out through your mouth. She'd fallen into meditation-style breath without thinking about it.

When she starts to talk, it's in the same low, quiet tone Katara used, dreamy compared to Ikki's usual fast-talking ways. ]

It's everywhere. [ There's always air all around her, but there isn't always wind, and not like this. ] It's free - in the grass and the trees and on our house and it just wants to be everywhere except it doesn't want anything I guess because it's not alive except it is but it isn't! [ and now she's talking like herself again, fast and whipping like a breeze herself, a grin on her face, even though her eyes are still shut. She's never done this before, and Ikki's excited and nervous and elated to her bones. ]

[markofthebrave]

[Katara smiles at that, slow and warm and brilliant.]

Good - that's very good. Even though you're not bending it, you can feel it because air is a special part of you, just like water is a special part of me. And because you can feel it, because it's a part of you, you're a part of the storm.

[She opened her eyes and smiled at Ikki.]

Because you're a part of it, it's familiar - somewhere deep inside you, you carry the storm. It's powerful, it's wild, and it's free. And it's strong. It's something to be respected. But it's a part of you. And that's something to remember, if it makes you scared - you're a part of it too.

[breezing]

[ And the tension that had been there ever since the storm had started eased. Because Ikki had been scared. Especially since Aang had left the house to go tornado-riding.

Thinking of the storm as part of her rather than this huge, scary thing - that made it easier.

When she opens her eyes, Ikki smiles back at her grandmother, warm and relaxed, for the first time that day. ]

It's a part of us!

[markofthebrave]

[Katara beamed back at Ikki.]

That's right - water and air. Definitely a strong combination.

[Strong, but when it's a part of you - there's comfort in that.]

[breezing]

[ A strong combination, huh? Well, Ikki couldn't think of anything her family combined couldn't do - even though there was much more than water and air in this household, she'd come from both of those things.

Ikki took her hands off the glass, absently wiping at it with the edge of her sleeve. ]

Did you learn to listen like that at home?

[markofthebrave]

[Katara nodded, still smiling a little.]

It started the first time I had to bend something I couldn't see.

[breezing]

[ Is it story time now? Ikki looks curious about that; she's gone through air gates with her eyes shut before, but she was never actively bending then, and this is different. ]

When was that?

[markofthebrave]

[Oh... neither times this happened was a happy story.]

That was before Aang, Sokka and I ever made it up to the North Pole. So it was before I had any real bending training.

[breezing]

[ A time before bending training is hard for Ikki to imagine. She's not sure what it would have felt like, having your element all around you but being unable to do anything - or not knowing how. It's weird to think about, and she shakes her head. ]

What were you doing?

[markofthebrave]

[A glance at the sky and Katara decides not to talk about rescuing Aang from doing something dangerous and risky.]

I was trying to get water to come out from under the ground. There were holes there, but I couldn't see the water.

[breezing]

I guess I can't ever really see the air, 'cept when it's windy.

[markofthebrave]

I'm... not sure you can even see the air then. You can just see what it does, right?

[breezing]

Or what it carries, yep. It's just something that you know is there!

[markofthebrave]

Right! But with water, it's a little different.

[breezing]

All the elements are really different, huh? Firebenders don't even need fire to bend with.

[markofthebrave]

That's true, Ikki! [Back to making that hot cocoa.] Do you know where firebenders get their fire from?

[breezing]

Inside of them, right? I like to think there's air inside me, too!

[markofthebrave]

Very close! Very, very close. Fire [dramatic cause] comes from the breath. The spirit.

[breezing]

So there are firebenders who have trouble making fire?

[markofthebrave]

[Katara's eyebrows quirked.]

What makes you say that?

[breezing]

Well, what if they get a cold? Then sometimes it's hard to breathe!

[ child logic. ]

[markofthebrave]

[Katara laughed.]

It's hard to do just about anything when you have a cold. [She moved to poke Ikki lightly in the side.] I bet even you have a hard time bending then. But it doesn't stop you.

[breezing]

Ahahaha, sometimes it makes it worse! 'Cause of sneezing. [ Ikki just assumes Katara has seen that sort of thing courtesy Aang. ]