milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Howl is sneezing all over the place, and visiting Miss Angorian in a charmed suit instead of doing anything helpful; Michael is terrified both of the Witch and of the idea that they might move away from Martha-Lettie; Calcifer is hissing angrily at everyone due to the wet; and Sophie is in urgent need of a place to sit and sew triangles of suit back together in peace.

Sometimes Milliways really is a blessing.

"People who run away from everything," Sophie mutters to the triangles as she sews them, "deserve everything they get."

She's feeling rather tempted to charm the suit into being particularly susceptible to colds, or moths, or something; only the fact that the suit by necessity needs to last Howl rathera long time keeps her from doing so.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

". . . some green slime got on it and stained it," Sophie says, firmly.

It was all Howl's fault. Yes.

"So I'm remaking it in a different style, to work around the stain - and you see? It'll be good as new."

She looks down at the fragment of sewn-together triangles in her hands, which does not look quite - or anywhere near - large enough to be a suit.

He liked that attitude. Fixing things and making them good as new.

"I know how to sew! Only a little bit though." The female monks usually made the clothes, but for normal wear and tear he'd been expected to mend his own clothes. "My friend Katara is better at it."

"It's a useful thing to know."

Sophie looks at him with new approval; she's not met many young boys who could. Or young girls, for that matter. There's a reason she ended up fixing all of Lettie and Martha's clothing.

"And if you practice, of course, you'll get better at it - and the thing about knowing how to sew," she adds, with a chuckle, "is that there are always about a hundred opportunities to practice. There's always something that's torn."

Sophie's got a fair amount of experience with clothes, and she can see that Aang's have been through some wear and tear. Nodding at his outfit: "Did you do any of those yourself?"

"Um, I did all the ones on my pants, but Katara fixed my shirt," he said. "I tear my clothes a lot."

"I'd never have guessed," says Sophie, with a straight face.

She doesn't think she's ever seen a pair of pants mended quite so often as that, and curiosity is beginning to get the better of her.

"I don't suppose you got all of those just from playing too hard, young man."

Aang shook his head.

"Fighting. Firebenders try to set me on fire a lot."

". . . Firebenders?"

Sophie's eyes widen, a little.

"You mean, fire demons?" she asks, cautiously.

She can't - well, all right, she can imagine Calcifer setting a little boy's clothes on fire. But only on a very bad day.

"No! No, that'd be awful," he said, wrinkling his nose.

"See, in my world, people can control the elements. We call it 'Bending. And we have four Nations--had Four Nations, one for each element. Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. If you're born a Bender into the Fire Nation, you're a Firebender, or if you're born a Bender into the Water Tribes, you're a Waterbender," he said. "I started off as an Airbender, but I'm the Avatar--I'm supposed to keep balance between the Four--the Three Nations, so I can Bend all four elements. Only the Fire Nation--who's trying to take over the world right now--they want to stop me before I can stop them."

Hence the fighting and burning of the clothes.

"This is Airbending," he said, holding out his hand, and a little circle of air started visibly swirling in his palm. "See?"

". . . well, that makes more sense," Sophie says, slowly, "except of course for the part where you can't be more than thirteen, young man."

Younger than Martha, and that, thinks Sophie, is terribly young.

"That's a great deal of responsibility. Surely you must have - guardians, or advisors? Or someone to protect you."

She leans closer to see the Airbending, dutifully impressed. "And you don't need to cast any spells or anything to do it?"

"Nope! I was raised learning it, and then my friend Katara taught me to do the same with water, and my friend Toph taught me the same with Earth."

As for the other part, his face dropped.

"I used to have Master Gyatso..." A pause. "There's a reason...that it's three nations now instead of four. I was gone for a long time--it wasn't my fault, even though...even though I probably shouldn't have run away. I went to sleep and didn't wake up for a hundred years. The FIre Nation went looking for me and--and all my people are gone now."

He looked up and there was this strange faith in his eyes, even right after saying that. "But now I have my friends. Katara and Sokka look after me. They're a little bit older than me--and there's my friend Toph, too. She's my age."

"I'm sorry to hear about - about your people," Sophie says, looking down; and thinks, dismayed, a group of children!

All of them, children - and while Sophie's idea of how old you have to be to be a child has changed, somewhat, over the past few months, Aang would certainly fit either defenition.

(There's also a part of her wryly noting that their situations are rather reversed - she's only eighteen and looks about a hundred; Aang is, apparently, over a hundred and looks twelve.)

"And your job is to - bring peace. The four of you? And nobody else wants to help."

"No, it's just my job, but Katara, Sokka, and Toph are helping. The Earth Kingdom generals and the Earth King are finally helping, but we had to stop the Earth King's advisor from secretly ruling Ba Sing Se--that's the capital city. He refused to help us and he was using the Earth King as a puppet--most of the people in the upper ring of the city didn't even know that a war's been going on outside the walls for a hundred years."

He thought about it. "But most of the people that want to help me want...they always want me to help their way, and I'm supposed to do things the right way--the way that's best for the whole world."

Sophie thinks about the King of Ingary, for a moment, and his determination upon believing what he wants to believe.

"Kings can be difficult," she agrees, slowly. "And of course you have to do what you think is right - and I'm sure your magic, I mean the bending, comes in very useful -

- but it still seems as if it would be helpful to have at least one or two people with - a little more experience of the world, to balance that out. Not to say all old people are wise - goodness only knows I manage to get plenty of things horribly wrong - but you do learn things, as you get older, that you might not have known before."

"I manage," he said, sounding very cavalier about it. "And there are a few older people I know in the bar, at least."

But no one back there. No Gyatso with a hand on his shoulder, not anymore.

"Plus, technically, since I was in the iceburg for a hundred years, I'm a hundred and twelve, although really I'm a lot older than that. Every time the Avatar dies, they get reborn as someone else, in a different nation, so they always have a different start. That's happened so many times...

And sometimes Avatar Roku, he was who I was before I was who I am--he helps me sometimes, when he can communicate with me."

"Technical age doesn't mean as much as you'd think," says Sophie, a little ruefully, and she sounds like someone who knows.

". . . who you were before you were who you are?"

And now she just sounds confused.

"Isn't that just, er, who you are?"

He fiddled with his hands and sat down, kicking one of his blinky shoes against the floor to make it twinkle.

"It's kind of hard to explain."

In his world, it wasn't something that ever needed explaining.

"Before I was born, me like the me sitting right here...I lived a whole life as someone else. A Firebender named Roku. I was an Earthbender before that, and a Waterbender before that, and then an Airbender before that...

And when I die, around the same time that I die, a baby will be born in the Water Tribes, and that'll be me again. And then maybe my spirit--the spirit of Aang, who I am now, might live inside that baby, and as they grow up and find out they're the Avatar, I'll help them."

Sophie frowns.

"So - you mean your memories will help them. Since you're not separate people - you're the same person, only in a different, er, package."

Sophie's never been terribly religious; Ingary as a whole is not terribly religious, really. She hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about the soul.

Hearts, maybe. Possibly in the 'box of chewed ones under Howl's bed' context. Soul, not as much.

"Yes. Sort of." A pause. "I don't really understand it myself. How so many different people can be the same person--can be me. I'm still learning."

"People can change more than one would think," Sophie agrees, after a pause of her own. "I'm hardly the same person at all that I was when I was a girl - and it doesn't seem like any time's passed at all."

And smiles, a little ruefully. "I'm still learning too, come to that."

Aang listened--and there was something to be said about that, a boy who genuinely listened to his elders, even if he knew that sometimes what they had to say was nonsense ("Gyatso, I know you mean well, but you are letting your affection for the boy cloud your judgment." "All I want is what is best for him." "But what we need is what's best for the world. You and Aang must be separated. The Avatar will be sent away to the Eastern Air Temple to complete his training.")

"What do you know now that you didn't then?" he asked.

Sophie considers the question - really considers it, in some startlement.

What does she know now that she didn't know then?

"Well - what other people think of me seems a good deal less important, for a start," she says, finally. "It's much easier, sometimes, to say what I think, and do what I think is best - though harder, too, in a way. I certainly never knew how much - er - impact a few words could have, back when I was a young."

Of course, they have more impact for Sophie than for most people.

"I wonder what I'll know."

Not when he was old, but perhaps when he was older.

The Avatar never really lived past fifty, if that.

Sophie laughs, suddenly.

"I'll promise you one thing - you'll know a good deal more than me.

Mostly I just know to sew and clean."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only