History in the Making <Shai City, North Pole>

[taartoq]

What was an antisocial archivist to do?

The siege was over, and field work was to be done. Dread and annoyance were his favored feelings that day, as if that were some great stretch. Taartoq, like other archivists of the tribe, was to gather information from the warriors who saw the battle firsthand. Sort of an interview, where seperate notes from differing archivists would later be compared.

Taartoq merely had to view it as business, despite his overwhelming need to return home and hide. Really, it was one of few times he had ventured away from home since the battle's end. But despite seeing no need to stop being something of a hermit, he knew duty had to be done. Then he could turn in without a workload on his hands.

There was still little that motivated him to fulfill the task. With a leather sack full of small scrolls and jar of ink hanging at his side, he sat upon an icy bench and stared at the blank parchment before him. Taartoq's parka kept his slender body warm, but the parchment was likely to turn brittle of left in the cold for long. It wasn't long before he returned it to the bag strapped across his chest, rolled and tied neatly with a ribbon.

Taartoq only had to wait until a warrior came along. He sure wasn't going to start looking.

[ryota]

Seal jerky reminded Ryota so much of home, even though it wasn't as good as his mother's recipe. Something about all the food she made - perhaps the ever-so-trite use of 'love' as an ingredient - always made it taste better. He wasn't about to complain, though. He clearly enjoyed it as he bumbled down the street, gnawing and chewing with each step. A casual observer may have compared him to a baby tiger-seal gnawing on its sibling, without any sort of discrepency on his part.

With the messy waves and curls of his hair as well as the scruff on his chin, he had assumed the fuzzy appearance without a problem. Other than that, he still carried his principal weapon along. Oddly enough, the club he claimed at Chameleon Bay still lay in its sling across his back, despite having not been used. Perhaps in a show of pride, as he was a warrior. No one would be allowed to forget that.

There was a lot he had learned since he arrived in the Northern Water Tribe, whether it was before, during, or after the actual siege. So many new faces still seemed so familiar in his head. One person stood out above them all. Misui. That night at the restaurant hadn't been the last. They had met a couple times between then and the present, each time resulting in an awkward mishap that inevitably led to tender and memorable moments. It wouldn't take a fool to think either were smitten.

But it was so heartbreaking to think he would leave in mere days. That was why he tried his best to ignore the fact, no matter how prominent a feature it proved to be. Sighing, the thought happened to streak across his mind like a shooting star. Sighing, he wrapped up the remainder of jerky in a buckskin cloth and tucked it away in his parka's pocket. It wasn't that he was depressed, but that his hunger ceased to exist. Perhaps knowing he had to leave Misui affected him on a deeper level than he knew.

When he chose to take notice, Ryota spotted the first person in his midst. A thin man with very long hair seated upon a bench, who seemed to have with him a sort of messenger's bag and a jar of ink hanging on a cord. He hadn't a clue what his career may have been, but the man's standoffish expression carefully persuaded Ryota not to ask. Still, pleasantries weren't to be avoided. With a slight wave and friendly smile, he walked past the man. "Good day!"

[taartoq]

Ah, the opportunity arose sooner than he expected. Both a blessing and disturbance for its own reasons. He found solace from the warrior's passing by, for it meant he no longer had to sit in wait, ruing the obligation he felt for his job. That and he could finally get it out of the way. Other than that, there was nothing he looked forward to with this task. Repeatedly did he convince himself it was simply business.

It was obvious the stocky man was a warrior, solely because he still carried his weapon on his back. It didn't make a shred of sense to Taartoq why the fellow would still carry his club around, but he supposed it wasn't the stupidest thing someone could do. That didn't stop him from doubting the warrior's powers of judgement, however.

Before the stranger even moved an inch away, Taartoq tried to catch his attention. For etiquette's sake, he stood and brushed a few stray hairs to the side, before his hands found their way behind his back as he stood with impeccable posture. Almost hissing through his teeth - clear evidence of his disdain - the waterbender spoke up. He tried his hardest to seem professional at that point. "Excuse me, my good man. You're a warrior, correct? Would you spare a moment or two?"

[ryota]

Ryota turned to the seated man as soon as he heard his voice, which was nowhere near as effeminate as his appearance. He soon nodded, smiling politely and hastily edging toward the northerner upon the bench. Sidling up to him, he ran his fingers through his wavy russet locks for a moment. "Yeah, I'm a warrior, and I've got time."

Leaning back only a bit, he settled his hands on his lap, fingers falling between his thighs. He wasn't nervous to meet a new fellow at all, since he wasn't likely to see a familiar person floating around soon, so an air of casualness never left his company. As a smirk tugged at his mouth's edge, he let out a quiet chuckle. "I have nothing but time. I'm from the Southern Tribe, you see."

Bowing his head a bit, his eyes stayed focused on the slender man. He didn't know what his reaction would be, favorable or snide, nor did he know if the man already knew his southern heritage. The city seemed large enough that there may be folks the stranger had never even met, despite living there probably his entire life. Aside from that, he didn't even know why the fellow wanted to speak to him. A friendly greeting, perhaps? The safest thing he could do was ask. "So what's going on?"

[taartoq]

Taartoq silently observed every movement the chubby fellow made, from his awkward mannerisms to the carefree and friendly nature that he showed. His movements were quite cumbersome, leading Taartoq to expect the heavier man to stumble one or twice, but that could easily have been attributed to the heavy parka he wore. It wasn't the best attire for quickness or agility, no matter who you were. Taartoq understood that as well as any northerner - or southerner, he supposed.

"The siege was no minor detail in our tribe's history. I am to do my part to record the events as they happened. That way, generations from now, our descendants will know the tale of our victory." Almost the entire time, Taartoq kept his eyes on the parchment before him, which he had retrieved from his bag and unfurled before him. His hand drifted over to the lid of his ink jar, not yet drawing out ink to write a thing.

As his cyan eyes drifted to the warrior, he brushed a stray lock from his line of sight. Rather than friendly and warm, his words seemed stiff and overly formal. He wasn't entirely thrilled at that time anyway. "As a warrior, you were surely involved in the battle. Please, tell me every detail you can recall."

[chamir]

Chamir was still engaged in his meticulous primping ritual some after Ryota had left the quarters near the warrior barracks, which had become a makeshift home-away-from-home for the warriors from the Southern Water Tribe. When the stout body warrior had departed the whistling Chamir was finished with cleaning and polishing his pipa, a pair of earrings and necklace and then moving unto his late wife's betrothal choker.

From there he had moved on to washing his mouth and scrubbing his face, a cherub smile of pride at the glow from his clean, reddish brown complexion and pristine looking teeth. Next he went to work on his hair, with water and ingredients was twirling each strand around his finger. Finally, he eventually donned cerulean blue anorak and trousers and then wrapped an elongated, white cotton cloth about his neck as scarf before tugging the betrothal necklace around his neck through the folds and strapping on his seal-hide mukluks. .

"Well beloved," taking a step back from the mirror, arms outstretched. His body spun in a single revolution before looking into the mirror again. "Do you like like likely like what you are look looky looking at?"

Arms still outstretched, patiently he awaited an answer.

Suddenly, his fingers snapped and pointed at the mirror and a half grin appeared on his face.

"I like like likely like too," he replied, pressing a middle and index finger to his lips then pressed them against the mirror opposite his cheek.

Scooping the pipa inside a leather oilskin bag and strapping it around his shoulder upon finally turning away from the mirror, Chamir skipped his way out and away from the warrior barracks. Heading towards market, he skipped and purposely slid his way down the ice and snow streets of Shai City. At his shoulder, the pipa bounced and danced on his back while he whistled on the go, trying to imitate the high pitches of a flute.

[ryota]

"Ohhh, I understand..."

It all made sense to Ryota now. The fellow had some job that didn't exist in his home tribe, some sort of lore keeper or something, though he never quite stated his career's title. Nor did he introduce himself, which Ryota thought was also strange and somewhat unflattering. While not one to perceive much, he could tell the man was on edge. Ryota couldn't imagine why. He always thought he was easy to tolerate. Also, if that sort of job fell into his hands, he thought it would be sort of fun to record historical events of his people as they happened. Then again, there was no pleasing some people.

"So," Ryota said, almost humming to himself in an indistinct tone. Fingers tapped his thighs almost like the beat of a drum, rythmically. "Where to start. Wheeere to start. Maybe...hmm."

He honestly wondered what was first to be said. Starting from the beginning would be best, but he had no idea when things commenced. Perhaps starting off the tale from when he arrived in Shai was the best idea, though he could barely recall anything of import straight away. While not quite a blur, he was beginning to lose himself in his thoughts. Head bowed, Ryota's reply would take its sweet time. To distract him would take a fair effort as he gathered his thoughts.

[taartoq]

"All right, take your time," Taartoq said quietly to the warrior, bending a small bead of ink to the tips of his index and middle fingers, fingers straightened as though they were a quill in themselves. Careful would he be to control the small, midnight-black globe with precise strokes to write on the parchment, scribing the bare essence of everything this particular man said. This skill - 'inkbending' as it were - demanded a lot of focus, but it was almost instinctual for Taartoq.

What he didn't write, his mind would surely recall from the events. Taartoq merely hoped the fellow told him everything he needed to know, or at least enough to fill in the gaps of information that were certain to be present with the other archivist's log. Accuracy was key when recording the past, lest a prized story be exposed as a falsehood later on.

Unfortunately, Taartoq was soon led to wonder if this stranger had anything to say. Sure, time would be allotted to think, but it seemed like minutes passed everytime a syllable escaped his mouth. If that kept up, how frustrating it would be! In fact, the waterbender soon felt the strong desire to bite his knuckle in frustration well up within him. Patience was required, but Taartoq's nerves were taking a beating. How much happier he would be if he were only compiling notes back at the archival building.

[chamir]

Far in front of the occupied ice bench Chamir stood upon the jutting ice platform a few steps below the canal's edge. Turning his body he looked left down the length of the canal. Turning his body to the right he looked down the opposite length of the canal. He turned to the left again. Then he turned to his right. Then he spun around in a circle twice and pointed at a coming gondola.

Spotting his quarry he then began to hail it from afar. Chamir stretched his arms to either side of him and began waving them up and down, flapping his arms then imitating the call of a random bird. As the gondola drifted ever closer he began to discern a total of four figures aboard and began waving his hips side to side with his hands over his head, his entire body waving like a sail in the wind as he hailed the vessel.

The peal of giggling and laughter only encouraged him.

"Hi mister!" The three little girls waved at him as they knelt in the gondola. The gondolier himself, a sable skin man with hair plaited at the scalp and arranged with curvilinear complexity, did not even look at Chamir. In fact he did not even slow his gondola or steer it close to shore.

He simply kept going.

"Bye mister!!" The girls waved to him as the gondola passed, their laughter and smiles encouraging Chamir to take the brush off in stride.

"Not like there was much room right?" Chamir shrugged as he watched the four of them drift off into the distance.

And so, Chamir continued standing upon the platform awaiting another passing gondola. Every few moments he would turn his body to look left or right, but this time doing such to watch Ryota and whoever he was talking to--had to be a man--out of one eye while actually paying little attention to the canal. Afterall, they weren't that far away for him not to try and observe them.

The posture was off and didn't seem like a woman's posture to his... understanding of such matters. Unless it was a married woman, that person would not really sit so closed off--Chamir grinned dreamingly, there were thankful women and then there were thankful women in Shai City since the siege had ended. Besides, to Chamir, Ryota didn't seem like a very repulsive man. But Chamir was certain it had to be a man. A maybe extravagantly dressed man, but a man nonetheless, telling himself. How often do you see women carting and writing upon scroll in public? Conversing with himself. One in twenty? One in thirty? He continued and stopped after one seventy. And from what Chamir did glimpse, this man just didn't seem to have the same... movement a woman would, Chamir deduced.

"Mmhm, I can not doubt," Chamir nodded to himself then turned to one side. "Even a stout grandmother in a parka would still possess a woman's movement better than he," nodding again as before he turned.

"Now if they can just speak up I can be certain," turning again while he tried to spy on them.

[ryota]

"Well, first we got here," Ryota gestured at himself, referring to the combined warriors of north and south that made their way into the city whilst drums of warning sounded their call, "and we all split into different groups."

The account was still pressed into his mind, since he wasn't exempt from the fact that it happened mere days in the past. Even passing out from minor head trauma didn't erase his memory. Still, he somehow found himself straining to recount his words. Bowing his head a bit, he let out a breath. "They made us make tangle mines, then took us to a warehouse full of Fire Nation machines from the last siege."

Pressing his index finger to his temple, he was suddenly reminded that this man didn't know about Hakoda's brilliant wartime invention. "Uh, yeah. 'Tangle mines' are like bombs full of seaweed and skunkfish oil that explode when they hit ships." Then came that ubiquitous exploding motion he always seemed to make when describing such things. "We leave them floating in the water. I guess they're pretty effective."

Ryota tried his best to sound professional, even if that wasn't the best idea. To be himself would make things easier and cause him not to stumble over his tongue, but that man seemed to silently demand a postured presence. "Then the next day, we were on top of the cliffs and I got to sit in a metal tank. I fired a big arrow thing off the top and shot down a balloon or two, but," Ryota studdered a bit, "then something went wrong and I hit my head and passed out."

Smiling a clearly forced grin, he shrugged his shoulders. It was then when he would prove his lack of knowledge spurned by an incomplete experience in the battle. It was bound to happen, but he couldn't predict how the nearby scribe would react. "I woke up in the healer's building, but I guess you don't need to know what happened after that. Sorry I can't tell you much more."

[taartoq]

Taartoq found out he picked the wrong person too late. There were so many times he felt like slapping his forehead that he could easily have lost count. Repeatedly, He convinced himself to endure, but consistently questioned whether or not the experience would be rewarding in the slightest. So little detail was provided that Taartoq wholly expected to walk away knowing less about the siege than before. The anticlimactic ending only strengthened the need for other warriors' tales. There was no doubt he had lost his patience, though he miraculously kept his composure. Numerous times did he stifle himself while the man tripped over his metaphorical tongue. Yet, his anger never reached its boiling point.

Taartoq remained dutiful, miniscule movements of his hand swiping the tiniest beads of ink on the parchment. After everything relayed as best he could, albeit with a few liberties taken for sanity's sake, Taartoq felt a sense of relief when the southerner concluded his clumsy retelling of the battle. He was ready to pack up and leave without a word, but courtesy and etiquette told him to at least end on a friendly note. The man, though frustrating, meant no harm whatsoever. Keeping that in mind, Taartoq then took a deep breath and looked up from his parchment.

"I thank you for your time. It has been...helpful," the lull in his sentence, no matter how insincere, surely wouldn't be perceived as rude as the southerner clearly didn't regard many details. "My name is Taartoq. May I ask yours?"

Only for completeness would that redundant relay have been ended in that manner...

[chamir]

"Mmnnnhmmmph!" Chamir began to count the moments that passed after minutes were already exhausted waiting for another gondola to pass through.

It hasn't been that many days... but I guess not all of them have returned to work, believing something more upon the gondoliers' post siege situation.

But Chamir was feeling rather impatient nonetheless, anxious to go into market before the day grew any older. And squatting at the canals edge, waiting, elbows on his knees with his chin in a hand, turned around looking at the duo on the bridge--he wondered if it was possible to maybe bring Ryota along with him. Maybe show him around, greet him to some women that would treat them like heroes, introduce him to people he had met and known during his last stay here, meet some women that would treat them like heroes, have some fun around the city and meet some women that would introduce them to daughter who would treat them like heroes.

Maybe he could come up with some way to get Ryota away from the whoever that was who just sat there writing while Ryota talk. Maybe some brilliant diversion worthy of being told for years to come or just going over there and offering his kin another option beyond sitting there, talking while some scroll writer hung on his every word. What was he writing about anyway?

[ryota]

"No problem!" Ryota smiled widely, mostly because it was all over. It was kind of a hassle to answer everything he was asked, even though he was certain this 'Taartoq' person wanted to say. Regardless, now that more official things were out of the way, he was now ready to share in a bit of friendly conversation with this northern fellow. He couldn't just walk away without any attempt to be friendly. That would be un-Ryota-like.

"I'm Ryota, and, uh," he paused, scratching his head for a moment. He quickly tried to muster any details that could be considered interesting, other than a few facts he already presented. Was he really that boring? It didn't help that Taartoq seemed hard to please. "And I already told you where I'm from - The Southern Water Tribe."

Lips pursed, he lingered for a second or two more. Really, there was nothing he could think of to say. Maybe talk about the weather? Either of their tribes? Waterbending? Ryota, though he hadn't seen waterbending much in the first place, had never seen waterbender apply their skills as did this fellow.

It was sort of interesting, the more Ryota's ocean-blue eyes could observe the tiny bead of ink move in accord with his fingers. Judging by the fluency of each stroke, Taartoq must have had plenty of practice manipulating ink. That probably didn't equate to much on a battlefield, though that didn't matter at all if he wasn't a warrior to begin with. That in itself was an odd change from the Southern Tribe, where each boy and man trained to be a warrior.

Almost flinching as he snapped back into focus, he noted Taartoq was still writing. Since he knew the waterbender was probably listening, he saw that point to be as good as any to speak up. "So you have questions about my home? I've definitely got answers."

[taartoq]

Carefully yet quickly, Taartoq put the finishing touches on the parchment before him. Observing each stroke in perfect alignment, each character written clearly and legibly, his final task was to sign his name somewhere on the document. While he was signing his entire name, Ryota chimed in nonchalantly. After the instant it took to return the ink to its jar, Taartoq gazed at Ryota, silent.

He took a moment to tighten the lid, parchment lain in his lap. Soon, after the ink dried, it would be rolled up and placed back in his bag. It would be added to a stack of documents collected and written by other archivists, chronicling the heroic events and triumphal outcome of the siege from the warriors' viewpoints.

Taartoq was not offended, perhaps the slightest bit peeved that Ryota basically put words in his mouth, but the matter still met with his interest. Something of a miracle, it was.

"I suppose so," Taartoq said rather agreeably. The southerner could probably relate his homeland better than he did the siege, but that still didn't stop him from taking things with a grain of salt. His hand was practically itching to frustratedly massage his nose bridge.

[chamir]

"Ach," Chamir's ears pricked up at a sound traveling down the canal's length. Turning his head, Chamir observed the approach of the latest waterbending gondiler drifting down Shai City's canal.

Unlike the last, this one was singing as he came by, a jaunty warrior cadence that Chamir eventually recognized after searching his mind for a few moments. He then began humming along until his humming turned into a whistling as he began to stand, raising a hand to call attention to the gondolier as he flagged the waterbender down.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries and names, Chamir secured his ferry ride towards Shai City's market center. For a moment he passed one more look towards Ryota and the would-be scribe still enthralled in conversation, before carefully stepping aboard the gondola. Next to him Chamir hear a small guffaw from the gondolier and upon lining up his sight to where the man was looking assumed that his boatmen thought the scribe to be a woman, at first look.

"I do believe it is a man," Chamir told him half-seriously while he sat down and crossed his legs, making his gondolier cast a disbelieving grin
.

[Chamir has left the thread]