trans_9 | Basics

There was a time to get sick. There was a time to bemoan the things that seemed like empty spots in her head. and there was time to sleep and dream of times that were better (or have nightmares of worse times too). But when these times passed, and eventually that was the case, there was nothing left to do but go back to what you were best at, and refine it to make it your own. Going to the podpop had been a start, and Katara capitalized on it the next day. A visit to the Sensorium and the scenery changed: she was at the desert lands they'd been left to brave after the library sunk and Appa had been captured. There was no gang here though, just miles and miles of sand and heat bearing down on her. To Toph and Aang, she was sure these circumstances were unpleasant, but to her and Sokka specifically, it had been alien and frustrating (it had helped Sokka that he was strung out on Cactus juice and she was fixated on keeping the group together at the time). She had also made sure there would be no water nearby, and so her pouch was also gone.

The morning was spent in quiet meditation on the sands. Her mind was full of questions and brimming with thoughts, but she momentarily displaced them from her mind. She was uncomfortable, sweaty and hot, but stayed in deep meditation, moving from time to time so she wouldn't cramp up. Once she'd seen the sun position itself to indicate noontime, Katara rose, and her attire was that of her firebending disguise: she would need it.

The exercising in the Weirding way, however, required targets, so the desert was now strewn with several dummies. Here Katara incorporated her Bene Gesserit martial art with that of the training she'd practiced in Will's gym: she catapulted herself upward, struck with deadly precision and then rolled into a new defensive stance, ready for the next attack. It had been awhile since Katara incorporated her waterbending flexibility with the Weirding way, and truthfully it was seldom Katara practiced the art, fully aware (thanks to deadly robots) how damaging it could be. She bent her legs a bit and brought her arms up again, using her force against the dummy and knocking it backward with what looked like minimal effort. She knew it would be awhile before she was an expert in the Weirding Way, but that was more than reason to practice, with all they had encountered.

When she had worked up a definite sweat, she went back to the flexibility part: she flipped, jumped, turned several times in the air and, on her back, curled her legs upward and leapt back to position. She was stinky and definitely perspiring, but that was easily taken care of if she decided to turn the Sensorium into a spa, not that she was in a big hurry to do so.

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"Of course! I need to get Zuko to spar with me still, though. He has those double broadswords after all." He flopped back into the sand. He was already sweating like crazy and he'd only been here a few minutes. Darn deserts. He wiped a hand across his forehead.

"It's way too hot here. And why would you even want to come back to this place, anyway?" His voice was a little incredulous. After their ordeal, the desert was the last place he would have picked in the Sensoriums.

"It'll be awhile before you're better than Zuko. He's pretty exceptional with the swords, from what I've been told. He was pretty good using fire as blades in a way too. He did the when I had to fight him and Azula in Ba Sing Se. But that will definitely be good practice. You'll get better in no time."

Here, she'd have to explain. "A few reasons. First off, these deserts were the common thing in Arrakis, where Arha was born. They were completely shut off from most water: it's the most precious thing in that world. So I recreated the desert as a way to discipline myself into regulating body temperature and moisture while training: that way, if I ever find myself back in that situation, I won't be suffering as much. I'm also doing it as a way of focus too: with nothing but sand for miles, my concentration is solely on meditation and training. The only company are the dummies you see."

"Yeah. I mean, I'm no where near as good as Zuko yet. But I need the practice." Sokka cracked his knuckles, then tilted his head slightly as he listened to Katara.

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. I just...eh. I'm from the Water Tribe. I'm not built to go running around blazing hot locales like some sort of sand-bender, you know?" He shrugged and started tracing designs in the sand.

"But I guess it could be good for your body, to get used to different environments."

"Well he had years of practice Sokka," Katara reminded him, "While you couldn't because all the men went off to war. You're bound to get better, but it'll take some time. Anyway, Zuko is a good teacher, you know that. I'm sure you'll be near as good as him soon. Besides, the media library is around too, I'm sure it'll teach you plenty of other techniques, just like when I found the waterbending scroll."

Katara laughed. "Well it isn't for fun, Sokka! The reason I'm not training there is because its our home: I'd get lost looking at everything and how it used to be. That's why I'm here, where there's nothing to look at and there's no water. I don't get the luxury of my element and its really, really hot."

Despite that though, Katara wasn't sweating as much as Sokka, even after all of that training. "I figure if we ever go on a planet where there's no water, I'll still have a way of being useful, you know?"

"True, true. Though what Zuko can teach me would probably be more general. Stance, that kind of thing, since my technique and the one he uses for his swords are probably pretty different." Sokka poked at the sand, took a handful and watched it run between his fingers. To be honest, the stuff fascinated him a little. There was nothing but ice and snow at his home, so experiencing this kind of thing still held some novelty. That and green. He could never get over how green the Earth Kingdom was, with its plants and trees and so forth.

"Yeah, I get you. But you can always Sweatbend. We'll have plenty of that on a desert planet." Sokka smirked.

"Good point," Katara said. "That's probably something I should start doing anyway-I have to start learning how to use a weapon. Just as long as it isn't guns...I don't really like them even though I can use them. They're too violent and cause too much damage. It was bad enough having to fish out bullets from people and then having to shoot them soon after."

She wrinkled her nose. "I think I'd like a more reliable, and less stinky, method to fight, Sokka. But I'd use it, of course, if I didn't have a choice."

That reminded her. "You ARE still going to help me with basic sword fighting, right?"

"I understand, I guess. I don't really have a problem with them. They're useful, though. And intimidating, which I like..." He went silent for a moment, then summoned up an oasis around the siblings, along with overhanging trees to provide some much-desired shade. He grinned, pushing his glasses down his nose slightly.

"Hey, I am all abut adapting and overcoming, remember? Sweat is a resource! At least for you. And of course I'm gonna teach you, still."

Katara gave Sokka a dirty look. "And you tell ME I'm losing our ways. We're from the Watertribe, we don't need weapons like that to be intimidating! Our skill and strength is all we need. Intimidation is for Earth and Fire nation thugs. The only good thing about you using a gun is protecting yourself. If you use it for that, well, I guess I can't speak too badly about them."

Or much at all, if she wanted to be perfectly honest. But again, Sokka was at least trying to adapt by learning to use a gun, even if it wasn't exactly something she was comfortable with. She knew she'd be a hypocrite if she started lecturing him about that.

"A resource that is pretty limited, Sokka. You can't take down an army with sweat. I'd have to be bathing in it to be anywhere near effective. But...thanks. I'll be glad to learn from you."

She paused. "So I guess you might be wondering about my 'ship mother' Carol that I mentioned to you. I've been hoping to explain to you how things became how they are with her and I."

"Oh, like we've never scared off or intimidated Fire Nation soldiers before." Sokka rolled his eyes. "The gun is a tool, that's all. It's not good or bad, inherently. It just is. It's like a sword. You can do good things with it--protect and defend. And you can do bad things with it. It's not like the sword is any better or worse when it comes to purpose. Sure you can, you know, cut wood with a sword, but that's not what it's meant for." Sokka shrugged, a small smile playing across his face.

"Well, no. I'm just saying that you can use it if you have to. And we'll start lessons soon." He paused, trailing off into silence at the mention of her 'ship mother.'

"Yeah. I think you'd better." He was serious again, concerned.

"Only to prevent them inflicting pain on others," Katara said, "But I know that I'm not one to talk, so even I can't begin to start lecturing you about it. You're right anyway: a weapon is a weapon, no matter how you look at it. I guess its still weird for me to come to terms with all of that technology and what it can do. But I'm not one for a gun, even if I'm halfway decent at it. I prefer the sword."

Katara took a deep breath. "A little while ago, I met Carol. She's had a really hard life, with a lot of things happening to her, and its to a point where she can't have children. But...she started to get worried about things that happened with me, and was worried if I get hurt. So one day, when we talked about it, she told me that if she had a daughter, she'd want her to be like me. So I told her if she wanted to be that for me, she could. Sokka, I love mom, and no one could ever replace her. But I think she'd understand why I did this. She'd know that Carol cares enough to want to do that for me, a stranger on a ship. It's rare."

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