wipesfaith | 02 [action/voice]

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02 [action/voice]

[For all his trouble, Jean got a horse. Which is great, because he's curious to explore what lies far beyond the village and he ain't walking all that way. (What can he say? Some losers from back home have gotten into him a little bit.) First, though, he needs to find a saddle and bridle - apparently, he should have made out with a few more people if he wanted riding gear too. But his pride is worth more to him than that anyway, so he doesn't mind searching through the Item Shop for what he needs.

By the afternoon, he can be found at the stables on the east side of the village. He has spent the past few days visiting Benoit, letting the horse grow accustomed to him as he cares for him. Now that he has something more sophisticated than a rope lead, he's willing to take the horse out farther than the immediate vicinity of the stables. It was already obvious to him that Benoit lacked training. Before he can think about riding him anywhere, he'll have to muster up some serious patience and start from scratch. After fitting him with the sadle and bridle, so he can start getting used to the way it feels, Jean will lead him out to a decent-sized clearing in the forest to get down to business.

Toward the evening, after returning Benoit to the stables, he makes his way back to Flame Building. Residents may have noticed a recent addition outside the building, in the form of a small pen that now houses a little lamb. He'll stop by to check on it for Marco - make sure it's not dead, not that he'd be terribly broken up if it were, because he's never indulged in lambchops before - before finally heading in.

Later, he'll flip open his journal to voice a message.]

[Voice]

Hey. I guess I'm still pretty new here, so I'm just wondering...what's worth seeing beyond this village? I've seen a map, but a map can only tell you so much. There's an...ocean out there, right? [He gets the feeling that some might find his next question a little stupid, and he swears he's sane; he just comes from an insane world.] Is there seriously salt in it?

It's weird... This whole place could probably fit inside Wall Rose - that's what's left of human territory back home - but it still seems like so much...more.

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Of course that's not all!! You're supposed to get up and jump on it and then it'll change your ENTIRE LIFE because you've been without it until now so it'll bring joy and happiness and magic to your world and everything will be super super super great and wonderful!

[ On the first super she spins in place, arms flung wide. On the third she takes off from the ground, propelled up by the spin, before floating gently back down. ]

Just wait and see!! It's the best thing ever! Go on, get on!

[ Ikki you could try to sell it a little less hard... ]

[...And there's that wind magic - "airbending", she had called it, right? He hasn't quite gotten used to that sort of thing in the few months he's been here. ~~It probably doesn't help that he skips out on magic class because it's "not his thing".~~

He holds his hands up in a placating gesture.]

Okay, okay, settle down...I'm going, alright?

[He'll hoist himself up onto the trampoline and carefully rise to his feet - the flexible give of the trampoline's surface is unfamiliar, but he quickly adjusts as he moves to the center.]

Here goes nothing. Without putting too much force behind his legs, he jumps up...and is surprised by how high he's launched into the air.]

--Woah!

See???? Isn't it the BEST?

[ This is her favorite birthday present ever and she is spreading the joy to anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of jumping on a trampoline.

Surely this will change Jean's life irrevocably, here. ]

[Yes, of all the life-changing events he's gone through, this surely has the greatest impact. He'll go for more height this time, tucking his legs up to his chest when he jumps, arms out a little for balance.]

Yeah, this is great!

[He keeps bouncing...and then, like every teenage boy to ever encounter a trampoline since the dawn of trampolines, he decides it would be rad if he did a flip. Except unlike most teenage boys whose minds this thought zips across, Jean actually has training in this sort of thing.]

Check this out...! [He forces his weight down as hard as he can to ensure maximum altitude; then, tucking his legs up and curving his arms, he twists his body sideways and lets his momentum take over. He lands on both feet, rebounding off the surface of trampoline.]

[ Ikki knew this would definitely be the most life-changing thing ever.

...

Someday she is going to figure out more about the AoT group's world, but today is not that day and for now she's just being typically eight and enjoying herself by bringing the joy of bouncing on trampolines to the trampolineless.

And like every little kid from the dawn of trampolines, Ikki watches with avid interest, bouncing in place and applauding with he flips. She's fairly acrobatic herself, in the sense that she's an airbender and they're ridiculous; her training is a lot different from that of someone trained to battle. ]

Oh, that was a good one!! Can you do two in a row?

[Forget about that depressing shithole of a place - this is trampoline time!]

Let's see...

[He'll bounce in place a few times to build up good momentum, and then he'll pull the same stunt as before. When he lands, he uses the momentum of the rebound to launch into a backflip. This time, he lands at a bit of an angle and stumbles, but he catches his balance and throws her a grin.]

You're almost as good as an airbender!!

[ ...She can do multiple jumps by going waaaaay higher than is safe for anyone who can't bend the wind to help them land. It is her sole claim to fame. ]

We didn't have these back at home for me, either. Masaomi says they have them in his world, though!

[He doesn't recognize the name, but he'll hazard a guess.] Is he the one who got you this?

[Still bouncing over here - it's keeping him warm. He gestures to her.]

Show me what you can do, with your airbending stuff.

Yep! He's been here longer than me and even Grandpa. I don't remember if he's been here longer than Katara, though.

[ Ikki bend-bounces up onto the trampoline without pause; her weight barely adds anything to it. It pays to be a small child. ]

Okay!! I can do some pretty cool flips. Grandpa can, too.

[ "Grandpa" is a teenager. It helps him to be spry.

For the moment, Ikki concentrates, beginning to bounce. She has to add air to her jumps in order to do more than two flips in a row, which she does, when she manages to go up nearly three times the height of the trampoline like a true daredevil (...though considering she'll drop from the sky with a glider, this is actual child's play). The more clearance you have, the more flips you can fit in.

It's science or something.

When she lands, she spreads her arms wide, a grin in place. ]

Ta-da!

[When she jumps onto the trampoline, he stops bouncing and steps to the side a little to give her room. He's surprised to hear that her grandpa can do flips like this too, but then he figures that if you keep in shape with training...it's not totally farfetched.

The manipulation of the air is subtle and graceful, fitting in naturally with her movements. He cranes his neck as she launches herself off the trampoline. ...Woah. There's an approving smile ready for her when she lands.]

Not bad...not bad at all.

[ Someday Ikki will lead with Aang's actual Luceti age. Someday.

Always happy to get approval, Ikki beams at the praise. In some ways, that's one of the nice things about Luceti. Or she pretends it is. At home, she never really got a lot of one-on-one attention. She split it with her siblings, usually.

Here, she doesn't.

...

She mostly tries not to think about it. ]

Thanks! I practice every day. 'Cept when it's waaaaaaaay too cold, then we take the day off for outdoor stuff and meditate inside.

Only way you're gonna keep getting stronger is by practicing. [Look at him dispensing feel-good advice.]

So does everyone in your family do this airbending stuff too? [...He's gonna start bouncing again - lightly, so as not to send her flying off balance with his greater weight.]

No, not really.

[ Ikki compensates for the bouncing easily, her balances shifting without pause. She doesn't appear to be thinking about it overmuch. ]

I mean, grandpa does, and my daddy and sister and younger brother back home do - and probably my youngest brother will when he's old enough - but back home we're the only ones left, my daddy and my siblings and me. Grandpa's not around back then. My Aunt Kya and my GranGran are waterbenders, and Uncle Bumi isn't a bender at all.

[So her grandpa had passed away back in her world, but he's alive and well here... He can understand how valuable second chances like that are.]

You're the only airbenders left? At least you've got a huge family... [So the ability can be passed down in the future, because it sounds like it's something you're born with.]

Yeah, 'cause of the Fire Nation. But we do! It's really big! Although it's just grandpa and me here. I mean, Katara's here too and she's family, but if we're talking about airbenders she's a waterbender and not an airbender.

[ She counts as family but not as an airbender. Their house has a lot of benders in it. ]

[He's not going to make some obvious comment about how she must miss the rest of her family. That's stupid. They're on a freakin' trampoline and there's no room for that.]

So there's airbenders, waterbenders...firebenders? [He's not especially well-versed in magic, but...] Let me guess, some people are plantbenders too? Or groundbenders?

Nope! I mean, I guess there are people who can bend plants, 'cause of the water in them - Grangran says they're called swampbenders. But the other one of the four is earthbending! Bolin's an earthbender, he lives here. Grandpa's actually the Avatar, so he counts, too.

[ Unlike some people, Ikki is pretty casual about sharing out homeworld basic information. Then again, so are the rest of the representatives of her world. They're pretty friendly on the whole. ]

[It's hit and miss with him. He doesn't mind sharing the basics of his world, mood depending; it's the details he doesn't like to dive too deeply into.]

Hey, I was close...

The avatar? What's that?

It's a person who can use all four bending types! Because they have the Avatar spirit...it's a spirit who's reborn again and again and again into the world! Grandpa was the Avatar before Korra, who's the Avatar back when I'm from.

[ Bounce-flip. ]

She's not here anymore, though.

[.......O...kay. Bounce...bounce bounce.]

Didn't know stuff like that was actually real...

So this Korra girl pretty much has your grandpa's soul in her?

Yep! But she's a different person all her own, too. And we can have more than one Avatar here at a time! Once we had THREE.

[ Their house is generally well off in terms of being attacked by the elements or whatever.

...When people aren't burning it down because experiments change them uh. ]

Sounds like it would get confusing really fast.

Not really. I mean...I guess 'cause I grew up with it, it doesn't seem that weird...? I mean, they're all different people, too.

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