trans_9 | What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

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What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

In her sealed, silent, sensory-deprived meditation room, Roxie is sleeping. It's a special sleep: for all dreams are connected, she knows, and by spinning her mind out along the web of thought, she might step into others...

[Roxie is dream-hopping, getting a look at the subconsciousnesses of the other people on the ship. So, how it works - if you're interested, go ahead and post with a dream your character is having, and Roxie will slip into it, subtle at first but more obvious as she tries to satisfy her curiosity. Just her being around will make the dreamer more lucid and more likely to remember the whole thing when they wake up.

Also, feel free to ask any OOC questions in a thread here, or poke me on AIM at 'anagramarye'.]

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Katara's face was hardened, even though she knew full well she didn't feel only contempt at the sight of her former foe.

"Azula. One of the most dangerous people in my world. We used to think it was Zuko, but then we met his sister. She was sadistic, vicious, and more than once she tried to end her own brother's life. She nearly did it to Aang, if I hadn't had that water from the Oasis, he would be dead. There's nothing about that girl that isn't dangerous, and by the end, when I fought her, she was only a breath away from complete insanity."

Katara's face, full of hate, were betrayed by her eyes, watching Azula struggling on the ground like that. They watched with emotion, a trait Katara knew could get her into trouble, but she felt all the same.

"But watching her like that, the day I beat her, didn't bring me the peace I thought it might. She was dangerous, murderous, but someone who was completely like that couldn't cry like this, like she was losing everything that made her herself. She knew, she understood she was beaten in every way, and all that was left was the overwhelming lonliness there. I can tell you Roxie, the worse feeling in the world is having sympathy for your enemy. But she...is still someone I fear...someone who could be me."

Roxie moves forward, reaching to cup Azula's chin between her fingers, twisting the girl's face to look into her eyes. Roxie's expression is dry and unreadable, ready to crack like old parchment at the slightest breeze. But there's something casually controlling about her—between her fingers she's holding Azula's head firmly enough to almost bruise, and something about her suggests that that's only the casual leading edge of what she can manage.

"...she is certainly an outlier," Roxie murmurs.

Katara was startled by the surge of protectiveness that struck her, that made her want to stop Roxie from doing that. Why? Azula had certainly been as rough to others like this before. What would make her feel sympathy for the girl?

But maybe it wasn't about Azula: maybe it was the idea of being her that bothered her. Hadn't the last dream tried to warn her to not become Azula? She had just been too wrapped up in thinking about what what that thing could do to Aang...

"She is what she is," Katara finally said. "A family of cruel dictators, who's triumphs were constantly at the suffering of others. But I can't say I would be who I am if I were raised the same way. Somewhere in there, there was a little girl."

"In everyone—every human—there is always a little of the child left, with the part of us that's scared of the things that wait in the dark," Roxie says, and she releases Azula's chin. As she speaks, flakes of burnt and torn skin fall from her face, leaving fresh pinkness. "If she'd gone a little differently, maybe Shyama would have spoken to her. I don't know if he has any touch in your world, but she has the spark of potential in her."

The touch of madness. Too bad she hadn't been able to temper it, bind it, turn it into a tool instead of letting it consume her.

And what of Roxie, then, if that's a common link?

Katara stared at Azula. "It's possible, I guess. She and I have certain things in common. I don't like to think about it, going so far as to not even mention her in my thoughts. It would have been easier if she had just been beaten, or even died, maybe. I'm not saying it would have been good, I never wanted her dead, but it would have been easier. To learn that there was still a person behind those crazy eyes, someone who needed help she was never going to get because of what her family made her...that just bothers me."

Katara went near a water vent and it sprung onto her hands. Her arms submersed with water even though she was walking away from the vents, she took the healing water and placed her hands onto Azula's head, allowing the water to fall gently on the girl like rain.

"So madness is something Shyama prizes a little," Katara said softly. "Then how do you fit into that?"

"Do you think you know many people who could kill in cold blood every day—the reason doesn't matter—and not be lost in it?"

Roxie slides down to her knees, still watching Azula's face.

Katara looked a little sad at this. "No, I don't," she finally said. "So you get lost in it too sometimes. I guess I can see now why people didn't want me to do it. But..."

Katara watched as the change came to Azula's face: she slackened and fell to the floor. Katara looked sad now, but determined.

"...I can't go down that road again, not willingly."

"No, I don't get lost in it." Roxie looks between Azula and Katara. "It doesn't really stay with me, after. That's the thing."

Maybe that explains a little of why she's so cold to people.

"How can you do that?" Katara said, in awe. "I don't think I could. Maybe its something you need to have to BE what you are."

So much for being motherly.

Roxie shrugs.

"Shyama is good at picking his servants," she says.

Katara was a little struck by that. She had never thought to think of her frienbd as a servant: priestess, maybe, not a servant. Servant sounded so...lacking of free will somehow.

"Maybe...I think of you more as my really interesting friend than anyone's servant. But yeah, I'd say he picked well."

Roxie—smiles, for just a brief moment. "It's part of who I am," she says, fairly gently. "I'd be normal instead of interesting if it weren't for him."

Or not quite normal, for a girl who can kill without feeling any pain for it. One could wonder what might have happened if she hadn't been picked...

Katara nodded. "No, I think I undertand that. If there is something I get by now, its that you can't go against certain tasks you're fated to do. I guess I'm still just get used to how YOU do it. But I don't think, from what I've seen you'd be 'normal' for a second. I don't think I could be either though. We're both pretty weird kids."

And the backdrop changed, and they were at the summer house on Ember Island, right outside on the shore. Katara looked at peace here, and her eyes seemed to look far away a moment.

"Where I first forgave Zuko, and where we all trained. I don't know, it's good being on the ship, but still...I do miss them all, us all."

And strangely enough, Katara's clothing changed: she was dressed in plain blue jeans, her hair combed back in a pony tail, her shirt a simple light blue shirt and a booknag in her hand.

"Is this what being normal is like?"

"... yes, kind of," Roxie says, looking Katara up and down. "But there's a lot more to being normal than just appearances."

Roxie's head twists. The setting changes again. The halls (http://i37.tinypic.com/15yg2a9.jpg) of a small high school, empty.

"But what's 'normal' where I'm from isn't like what's 'normal' where you're from," she adds.

"I know that," Katara said, smiling. "Something like this nothing like where I'm from. The firenation children though, they did get that somewhat. Normal life, normal circumstance, just believe in the military. My tribe could never really have a kind of school like that: we lived by surviving the land, by adapting. It;s why I'm not really that bothered by this as much as I should."

The clothes fell away, and Katara was in her traditional water tribe clothing. (http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/2800000/Katara-mix-avatar-the-last-airbender-2801697-1023-621.jpg)
Looking around the halls, she seemed interested in all of it, then turned to Roxie after a few minutes.

"Normal is relative in most worlds. Truth is, I don't think I could handle being normal. Could you?"

"No," Roxie says bluntly. "That's why I took the deal," she adds.

Curious, she shivers, and suddenly she's wearing similar robes. And even hair loopies.

Katara giggled. "I didn't think so," she said. "What's more, I think we;re both better off that way anyway."

But she did do a double take on the similar hairstyle and hair loopies.

"You get used to the cold," she said. "Lucky we're not in the Southern Water Tribe."

"I don't have much of a problem with cold," Roxie says, reaching up to fiddle a little with the hair loopies she now has. Her expression suggests she can't decide whether they're good or bad. "I'll go kind of numb if it's cold enough, but otherwise..." She shrugs.

"Good to know," Katara said. stretching a little, then the scenery changed again, this time to the aforementioned Southern water Tribe. You could hear the call of birds in the distance, and though it was empty, she could hear the sound of children and older people talking amongst each other. The air was crisp, cold but with a bit of wind there to chill the bones a little more. Katara always felt she remembered her home like this better than she did most other things.

She sat on the ground now, quietly taking in her surroundings, then turned to Roxie. "It's my home," she said simply.

"... it's pretty," Roxie comments, bare face against the chill. Her cheeks are wrinkled a little, but she doesn't seem to be in any real express at the sudden dream-coldness.

"It is," Katara said, "To me, anyway. I'm glad you like it too. It's not what a lot of people are used to."

For the moment all was well. The air had a chilling sweet smell to it, more water than anything with the smell of fish. But this was only temporary, as a moment later, a new sighht greeted them: falling to the ground, all out nowhere like snowflakes. Roxie was sure to recognize what the subtance was, and as for her, she knew they were never far enough away from her thoughts to forget.

"Ashees," she said softly, her face set. "The Fire Nation soldiers are coming."

"This is something that happened to you?" Roxie asks, raising a bare, cold-numbed hand to catch a few flakes of soot out of the air. Ashes... the things she fights don't really burn, usually. But she does, and she's felt the scorch of melting flesh and tasted the tang fresh fire often enough.

Her face shifts a little. Less neutral, more taut-edged.

"Yes," Katara said, her voice practically steel. "This is the first time I ever see the Southern Raiders. I was pretty young at the time, so it was very scary. Before I was born, the water tribe fought them as best as they could, but eventually they captured all of the waterbenders...except for one. This is the day they supposedly finish the job."

The Southern waterbender disembark, but Katara drags Roxie away from the fighting. "It was a diversion," Katara said. "All the men could do here was fight anyway, there were no benders left to fight them. No, they came here with only one more purpose: to make sure there were no more benders in the Southern Water Tribe. Here."

Katara brought Roxie into the tent, and there was the captain of the Southern Raiders, Yan Ra. He turns, and where there was a full grown Katara there is now only a small, scared little girl with hair loopies.

"Mom, I'm scared!"

"Go get your father!"

Katara leaves, and the discussion between her mother and the Yan Ra lasts only a minute or two more. He asks her who the last waterbender is, and swears to leave the village alone if she tells him. She tells him its her, and that she would go with him peacefully as a prisoner.

"Sorry, we're not taking any prisoners today."

And when Katara and her father get back to the tent, Katara's mother is gone.

At that moment, everything seems to blur: the terrain, the raiders, and all that is left is white space all around them. Katara is back to her normal self: she is sitting with her legs pulled up to her face, a look of quiet contemplation on her face, mingled with sadness.

Roxie slides down to sit next to Katara.

"... I never knew my parents," Roxie says, and there's an uncertainty in her voice that, for a moment, makes her sound like a child rather than the adult she tries to be. "I've been a foster child for as long as I remember."

A tune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KhY-NgtTjA), eroded by the static of years, starts to filter through the whiteness. "That's the only thing I really have from before..." She trails off, and her head tilts back. Her eyes drift shut.

In ghostly half-images that dot te whiteness, a cold, genius child is taken into homes and then rejected again when the families can't handle her strangeness - rejection of friendships, absorption into imaginary worlds, abtruse and unnormal intelligence. It doesn't really harden her - she was broken already, in ways more sprung from accidental nature than behavior.

Once, there is violence, from a man who simply can't understand and can't peacefully let; and then a bruised, broken girl stands in front of a burning house and throws a lighter into the blaze.

Roxie's eyes are still closed, losr in the music. One might wonder if these images are an intentional expression or if they might have just... slipped out.

Katara hadn't expected to see any of that at all, and she was completely overwhelmed. But now she was beginning to knot together pieces of the puzzle that was Roxie. Of what Roxie was, Katara was always only grasping, but now she had an idea of at least what she'd seen. Katara could not understand quite what it meant to be ostracized like Roxie was, or beaten down because she was different: the closest to that feeling was the Fire Nation marching all over her people.

But seeing thta glimpse if how cruel people could be to Roxie had spurned a feeling Katara hadn't expected, and her eyes brimmed with tears. She suddenly threw her arms around Roxie, and though closed, Katara glared.

"You're a different person, but that doesn't make you weird. I like you Roxie, you are more unique than anyone I've ever known. If people don't understand that...well, I guess you know I don't really get certain people sometimes."

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