wipesfaith | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ 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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