lucetilogs | Zompania Draft: Coming Home

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Zompania Draft: Coming Home

Who: Anyone drafted to Zompania, or recruited as reinforcements, or left behind in the village. SO. Everybody!
What: The draftees and reinforcements return to the village.
When: May 26, early early in the morning
Where: Back in Luceti
Summary: Most draftees and reinforcements return to Luceti in the very early hours; now, instead of a medevac site for the draft, the village is a welcome (?) refuge from the nightmare of Zompania for its own. There's a high likelihood it still looks a lot like it has in the past few days; those in the fight didn't even get a chance to shower before returning.

(This is the place for all your post-draft trauma and reunions and every other thing. Have fun! And don't forget to entry-tag your character.)

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I really just want a bath.

[And to finally use some of her healing on herself, to wash away all the aches and pains and horrors she's seen... at least for a little while.

She turns with him easily.]

I feel like I could sleep for a week. [Except, no, because Sokka's here. Sokka's here. And...] You really don't remember anything about this place?

[He walks alongside Katara as they head back home... whatever "home" means here. However, Sokka sighs a bit when that question comes. It's definitely one of the ones he's been wrestling with, and it's one he certainly wishes he could answer differently.]

Unfortunately, I don't. I already know that, a while ago, I was here... for a long while, too, but an older version of me. [He looks almost confused as he says this, almost as if merely saying those words sounded like lunacy.] I definitely get the feeling that a lot of people know me from before, but I don't know them at all. The last few days, when I haven't been watching Ikki, I've been reading up on everything and looking around. Nothing seems familiar.

Or I should say that I don't remember anything... because future me decorated my room in a way that is very familiar. I like his sense of style.

[Wait... this was starting to get confusing.]

'Future' you? What's the last thing you remember from back home?

[Let the semantic wrangling begin!]

Finding Zuko's mom. You, Aang, Zuko, Azula, and I finally found her after a little bit of searching.

[Naturally Katara would remember that, right? Right?]

Wait -- we find Zuko's mom?

[She'd thought... that was something they had in common.]

Edited 2014-06-12 03:10 (UTC)

[But there's something worser.]

With Azula?

Heh, yeah. I told him it was a bad idea. And well, it was. She nearly burned a couple of houses down and went completely psycho. Not that she wasn't psycho already though. [He spins his finger to the side of his head knowingly, at first giving Katara a knowing look.] But Team Avatar put her in her place though!

[He makes something of a victory pose there, but in that very moment, he pauses as the gravity of her words hit him.]

You sound a little surprised. That... must not have happened yet for you?

[This time travel stuff is weird.]

[That was just so much to assimilate, she didn't even want to talk about it, not after all she'd just seen.]

Sokka, the last thing I remember was - going on Appa's back after leaving Hama to the villagers. And the last time you were here, the last thing you remembered was going home after the war.

[It was bad enough in the future she was apparently as good as married, now they were doing things like going out and finding Zuko's mother -- with Azula?]

Wait, what?

[Luceti was crazy. Every though Sokka kept reciting this in his mind when he had to face something weird like this, it didn't help him cope with those discontinuities of logic.]

Okay, okay, let me see if I get this straight. I came here to Luceti just after the war ended... lived here for several years and became older than I am right now. And then I went back home, two more years or so had passed, and now I'm younger than I was then? And you came here from before any of that happened?

[Perhaps he has an empathetic connection with her since Ikki was reluctant to tell him about his own future. Well, perhaps subconsciously, at least.]

Look, it doesn't matter when we all come from or what we remember, right? The only thing that matters now is finding a way to get everyone home. And that I'm here for you no matter what.

You got here a month before I did, so... yes. All of those things are true.

[Did Katara believe anymore that they could find some way to stop it, find some way to send everyone home? Or did she think they were just at the mercy of whatever shifts came and took them? She had lost so many people here, over and over... She couldn't answer those questions, even to herself.

Instead she gives Sokka a small, slightly pained, if entirely genuine smile.]

It's really good to see you again. I missed you.

[Will she be okay RELYING on him? Maybe not for a little while. She has a feeling that this will be like the first few times Aang showed up - here long enough to let her get used to it, and then gone.]

Glad to have you back too, Katara.

[He knew his sister well enough to know that there was other emotions than happiness secretly behind the smile. He could see the pain. He didn't entirely understand the extent of it, but he could at least grasp at some of the reasons for it.

And ultimately, when Katara got in such a mood, there wasn't much he could do to easily get her out of it other than just waiting it out, even though he'd still be his generally goofy self in the meantime in his many attempts to put a smile on her face. But in this world? Well, that might be easier said than done.

He puts an arm around her and walks on.]

Let's get you home, showered, and in bed.

[Katara laughed a little, wrapping her own arm around Sokka's waist and letting him lead her on. It felt so amazingly good to have him back that for a little while, if she didn't look at him, she'd forget that he wasn't the same -- didn't share those same memories.

And she hoped that he never would. The things that had happened to Sokka in Luceti were terrible. She didn't want him to ever have to go through them again.]

So... did anyone introduce you to soda yet?

[Unfortunately for Katara perhaps, Sokka was Sokka, and his earlier self almost certainly shared a great deal of the same stubborn determination as he did. It was only a matter of time before Sokka started to meddle in the affairs of Luceti and the Malnosso, but only time would tell if it'd be the same.]

Can't say I've tried it yet. Ikki has introduced me to quite a few things we didn't have back home, but not that yet. Is it any good? [It had to be. Katara would probably scold Sokka if he sought out something horrible for him, like the cactus juice at the bar.]

Oh yeah. [A small smile.] You're gonna love it. It's a drink with bubbles. One of the best things about this place.

[For once in his life, Sokka doesn't let his rambling get ahead of him. However, Sokka does hope that this bubbly drink isn't like the horrible bubble tea that Iroh had Zuko and Aang drink.

Sokka grins a bit at that.] It's good to know there are some good things here to look forward to. Everyone more or less seemed mostly happy here when I first arrived.

And I guess you saw the slide? And the pool? [She was trying to think of other good things, and that's what came to mind.]

[Sokka grins.] Kind of hard not to miss them. I got to try them out while I was looking after Ikki.

Also, most everyone in the village does seem to be really nice, even if I did freak out a little bit when I discovered all the animals could talk here. The stores don't charge for anything! [He knows a few nice things here too!]

Yeah, it took me a while to get used to you hunting them. But it's really just whatever translates everyone so we can all understand each other.

[She passes a weary hand over her face then.]

Oh. Just. Tell me if it bothers you to hear about - when you were here before - as 'you.'

Oh is that what's going on with the animals? [Well, that clears whatever little bit of consciousness he had about hunting them already.] I am never going to get used to just how weird this place is, am I? [He says that in his typical sarcastic tone.]

Nah, it's alright. I've already gotten used to so many people already mentioning that they knew me from before. I think I'm more okay with people not being shy about what happened back then than those who are tiptoeing through their words about what happened back then.

[After all, he's totally fine if having it that way makes it easier for Katara. He cares that much, even if he doesn't come out and say it in so many words.]

...you were here for a really long time. You helped run the blacksmith shop. Have you checked that out yet?

I know I was here for a while. [Or at least, given the mark he's left, it seemed reasonable enough to assume that.] But I didn't know about me helping run the blacksmith shop. I suppose it would make sense though, considering how I did make my own sword once at Master Piandao's.

I was there recently to pick up Boomerang, but... not enough to engage in any real conversation there.

This makes me wonder if this is what it's like to be the Avatar, hearing about all of the things you've done over all your past lives.

[Tired smile, go!]

Five years isn't exactly the same thing as thousands of lifetimes... though I guess I can see what you mean. [Suddenly, she is just so tired. But she can listen!] So what have you been up to since you got here? Did you read the guide yet?

[Well he knew that. Still, it was the closest he would probably get to being the Avatar. Well, except for that one time when Aang helped him pretend he was...

Nevertheless, Sokka could talk and answer questions probably all day long.]

Yeah, after I finally got to the Avatar House, I've been reading the Guide and what I could glean from the book here. I've talked to a few others here and there, but the village has felt fairly empty after they came to get reinforcements to be honest, and a lot of the time I've been watching over Aang's granddaughter while he was gone. [That still sounds ever so weird!] I've been exploring the village and letting Ikki show me around. I went to the library at one point to find out more about this place, but of course there weren't any books about this place. [He frowns as he says that. The universe was out to get him.] What's the use of having a library if it doesn't have anything about the one thing actually worth looking up?

To be wholly truthful, other than the Malnosso guys waking up everyone in the middle of the night and then coming for more people the next day, it's actually been... kind of uneventful for a change?

Edited 2014-06-26 03:11 (UTC)

['She's my granddaughter too,' she almost says. Almost, but doesn't, not because she doesn't want the claim of the relationship with Ikki, but because the whole thing with Aang is still... up in the air. And weird. And she never thought she'd hate knowing her future until now.]

Well, I've been in Luceti about as long as anybody, except for Raine, Albert, and Sheena. If you have any questions about it, you can ask me. But the Malnosso really try to do their best to keep everyone in ignorance here. That's why we have a secret system for talking about important things that we don't discuss on the journals and why sometimes it's better to speak in person than it is over the journals.

[She doesn't say anything about it being uneventful because... that's Luceti. It's terrifying or heartbreaking or boring as anything, and there isn't really any in between.]

Edited 2014-06-28 02:52 (UTC)

[The perspective is at least thankfully different for Sokka since, well, his future it still mostly undecided. Well, other than knowing that one day he'll have a beard, but that's probably not as momentous as, say, finding out who you'd one day marry.]

So it seems. Despite how bad this last thing seems to have gone, it does seem mighty suspicious that the Malnosso still keep us in the dark as much as they do. I mean, we are helping them from the sounds of it.

[He sighs but then smiles at Katara for her offer of support, though there's an odd look of determination that's within him as well, some amount of resolve that's beginning to solidify. It's a look that she maybe just might recognize from their time in the Northern Water Tribe as the Fire Nation started to draw closer to the city there.]

But I know I can always count on you, Sis.

Though what's this... secret communication system?

Zompania Draft: Coming Home

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