Grif is in the brig.

He's not a happy guy right now, but then again he's in the brig. The cot isn't comfortable but he's lying out on it on principle, boots up on the wall because the space is a tad narrow for him. Grif still has his armor, but he's been disarmed and his omnicomm has been confiscated. His comm ring is on one of the fingers on his right hand (he finds it creepy how it adjusted over his gauntlet) and honestly he feels pretty lucky. Nobody tried to superglue it to his forehead.

So for now, Grif is about as bored as he is physically capable of being and in fairly grumpy spirits as he lies on his back, hands folded on his chest, and tries to decide what the ceiling is made out of.

The Southern Air Temple is beautiful, even when it's empty. The wind whistles through empty hallways, empty treetops sway outside, no bison at all grazing from them, no lemurs leaping from branch to branch. Appa is over in his own Sensorium, and Aang had already spent quite a bit of alone time talking to him. Now he needs alone time with someone else.

His room is different here in the Sensoriums--his bed is near the window now, the canopy swaying in the breeze. It's there for the view of the rest of the temple. But it's just a move of the furniture, nothing else has changed.

It still brings him solace, even in its emptiness, this facsimile of his old home. Though bittersweet, it helps center him, and he needs to find his center again, especially with what he plans to undertake with the crew. Like his past lives told him--to help bring balance back to the universe, the crew needs help finding balance, and it's help he's pretty sure he can provide--even if he can't, at the very least, he has to try. To help them find balance, he must find balance again for himself.

Still looking out the window, he scratches at his side--the bandages are off now and the healed skin is itchy. He's fully healed, and has another set of scars to add to his little scar gallery, but he feels better. Almost himself again, even if he's a bit clumsy from a lack of Bending practice--the sarcophagus kept his body in good physical shape, but it didn't do much for his coordination.

The wooden floors creak and that's how he hears her in the doorway. He'd invited here to talk. They need to talk--he wants to talk to her, to listen to her voice, to hug her. He wants to just be in her presence again. There are thing he needs to say to her that he couldn't really say around Sokka and Toph.

"The breeze feels so nice in here," says Aang to his guest. "Sometimes I forget it's not real."

Mai stared out into the swirling colors of the bleed. It was beautiful, in an abstract kind of way. She knew it was beautiful, at least in the sense of the word. She just didn't care. While others might be amazed or watch it out of appreciation or fascination, Mai simply watched it because it was the only thing to watch. Like almost everything els,e it didn't elicit a reaction from her. It was just a backdrop for her thoughts. She sighed softly and turned away from the window, folding her arms.

They'd found the Avatar. Aang. It felt odd to call him by his name and she honestly felt a bit awkward around all of them now. Katara, Sokka, Toph, Aang - they were part of a group she'd never been in. They shared something. They were a family. Zuko seemed to be included in that or was at least being worked in, slowly but surely. It would take a lot for Mai to admit it, but she'd come to care for them. They were survivors from her world, old opponents turned allies. They just... weren't friends. Mai wasn't sure why. Well, that wasn't true. She knew why. She didn't make friends easily nor did she usually want to. She was perfectly content to let the world go by and watch all of it, often with a wicked sort of pleasure. "Schadenfreude" someone might call it, although Mai had never heard the word in her life.

There was a slight sense of uneasiness - now that the Avatar was here, would Zuko keep obsessing over him? She ought to know better than that. She trusted Zuko for the most part. They'd made up. They'd moved on. They'd been holding each other up ever since she arrived on this ship all those months ago. It was a stupid thing to worry about and she knew that, but it still nagged at her from time to time. She buried it, of course. She was good at burying feelings.

It was strange. Mai actualyl found herself missing her friends. Ty Lee. Even Azula, sometimes. As much as she;d changed, grown more ruthless and cunning, Mai had still considered her a friend for the longest time. Of course, Azula coming out of the pods would probably end up with trouble. Fighting. Mai smirked slightly before she let the expression fade. What a strange turn her life had taken.

She turned away from the window and settled herself into one of the chairs to think, flipping a knife into the air and catching it on the way down. She really should try to get to know all of them better. Especially if Zuko was going to be hanging around with them. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, after all.

Yuri examined the ingredients spread out on the metal table. A big bowl (formerly for mixing chemicals), flour (dried Stacy glop), assorted fruits, eggs, sugar and other miscellaneous things (from the holiday expedition) and a recipe printout from the media library. She put her palms on the table and spoke as authoratively as she could.

"OK! First we have to mix the batter!"

It had taken him a day or two to finally get the spare time, but Kirk had finally managed to get a decent recreation of the Enterprise's recreation room in the Sensoriums. Not that that was hard, considering Stacy could pluck the images from his memory. It was just as he remembered leaving it. Various games set up on different tables. Mats in one corner for sparring. Food replicators. Kirk himself sat at a table holding a 3-Dimensional chess board.. He had it prepared for a new game, white and black pieces facing each other across the board. He could remember the times he'd played spock - and lost. He'd won, too, of course. They were both excellent at the game in their own ways.

He'd invited his first officer to meet and talk  - they needed to, after all. This wasn't the Enterprise and the status quo currently didn't recognize Spock as anything but another crewmember. As loathe as he was to play favorites, Kirk wanted Spock as his XO or science officer. He was dependable. They knew each other. He was good at what he did.

With those thoughts brewing in his head, Kirk waited for his best friend to arrive.

Title: Catharsis
Location: Stacy; city park





He was without the walls.

It was strange and scary and liberating and...a mass of other-things Renne couldn't put an English word to. Still, he couldn't say he was angry with the Human that had turned his walls into dust.
It was just something mountainous he had to get used to. Had to adapt to, somehow.

And yet that, right now, came second in his thoughts.


He couldn't make use of many things others could but Renne had it too deeply entrenched in his mind that this had to be done.

So through the halls, over the ruins of the Nightmare King's devastation, Renne crawls. Under an arm, a pile of little paper scraps slowly dwindles. It's an intentional drop of one slip at a time and when his bundle runs out, the oddity ends up at a quiet place. Grass, trees and quiet. It has its scars of battle but it's not a devastated war zone. Once there, Renne sits on the grass and holds his plushie in his lap.

The slips he'd dropped bear few words but it's hopefully readable between the horrendous penmanship, worse spelling and perhaps queer name mutilations.

Seek Humans. A-Dam-Dam, Bee, Jay-mee.

Now was about the time that Cassie would go to the Sensoriums, call up her old house that she lived in with her father, have Stacy bring up a holographic of her father, and spend all her hours locked away. Except she wasn't. She wasn't even on her way there. Instead she was walking around the statuary, looking from monument to monument for one familiar face.

After being trapped inside an illusion based off of her home, going to the Sensoriums would just be... creepy. That mother who had been her mother but wasn't really. Her friends who weren't really her friends. Blake...

...Well, Blake really hadn't been all that different.

She still didn't know why the Nightmare King showed her images of her former life. She still didn't know why it worked. Maybe she was just weak.

"Ah, I knew you'd be here." After some searching in the City, Cassie stopped in front of her father's statue, hidden amongst the rest. "Not that you're really here but you're- not really anywhere I guess. You probably can't even heart this." She brushed back her hair. "I- I really hope you're in the pods somewhere but- but- I can't keep going like this. I need to- I need to say goodbye. I keep saying I have but I really..." Cassie sighed.

"I love you, Daddy. And I miss you. I wish you could see him. I've done so many stupid things. You'd be so mad at me but I think-" She took a deep breath. "I think you'd also be proud of me. You used to tell me I could get through anything. That I was tough. I'm not- I've really wanted to give up. I really have but I can't. There's always someone who needs me, someone I can't let down. And whenever I think I can't get through it I think..." Her voice cracked and she gasped. "I think about you and how you had so much faith in me, even when you shouldn't have." She wiped the tears from her face. "I just want you to know-" A pause as she held back a strangled sob. "I know you'd love me no matter what but I'm going to- I'm going to work hard. I'm going to make myself something worthy to be proud of. And if you're not in the pods, or if I'm not here when you wake up- we'll still be together. I just need to wait a little longer." She pressed her hand against the statue. "Goodbye."

Cassie had received permission from Billy to reserve some of the Special Weapons lab just for this meeting.

Honestly, Cassie had no idea what they were going to talk about but she did have vague plans in mind. Mostly she wanted everyone to get to know each other and hang out.

Until then she was working on a spare project- an Ant-Man helmet. Sure, she was never going to use it, probably because she would never actually get it in working order, but it was something to pass the time.