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Post by aden on Jul 28, 2008 22:02:52 GMT -5
Aden stayed back as Desna suddenly dove for cover. He was expecting a furious exchange of throws, but she seemed to be digging in for a war. A slight smile crossed his features, and he took a a few steps out to the side to try and get a good throwing angle.
As he moved he bent down and scooped up a handful of snow, packing it solidly into a perfectly round projectile. Aden could see Desna poking her head out over the snow every few seconds, and he suddenly had a thought of how to draw her out of hiding. The young warrior tucked his arm behind his body, hiding the snowball curled in his glove.
"Try and and hit a moving target!" he called to her, suddenly taking a few jogging steps away from her position before glancing over his shoulder to she if she took the bait. With any luck, she would either take a shot before he went to far, or at the very least pursue him into more open ground.
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Post by desna on Jul 28, 2008 22:14:57 GMT -5
The girls eyes narrowed a bit, so he wanted to play did he? A sly smirk formed on her face and she continued to mold her snow balls quickly, she carelessly blew some hair out of her line of vision attempting to keep her snow ball making skills at top efficiency.
In the process of carving snow out of the bank she was making a decent nook for her to hide herself in should a full blown war break out. Of course she would be merciless and devastate all her enemies with the furry of an arctic sloth on a minnow crab.
Desna finally managed to make a decent horde of snowballs. Shifting onto her knees she finally peeked her head up over the natural snow barrier. She smirked a bit spotting him fairly easily on the white snow. With a quick motion of her arm she let loose the snowball. Perhaps she could be able to nail him into submission.
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Post by aden on Jul 28, 2008 22:42:51 GMT -5
Aden's backward glance couldn't have been timed better, as Desna had just popped up from her hiding place and whipped a snowball his way. With a slight hop, he came down with his lead foot skidding into the snow and it stopped him almost immediately. He turned his body around, caught sight of the incoming snowball, and pulled back his left hand to slap it aside. As it came in, he also raised his right hand to throw his snowball so he could defend and attack in one swift motion.
However, as he swiped his left hand across his body to backhand the incoming snowball, a strange thing happened. Rather than swatting the missile aside with his glove, the snow suddenly liquified and changed direction without ever even touching his hand. Aden almost missed what he'd done until halfway through his throw when he completely lost his focus. He let the snowball go too early and it flew up far over Desna's head.
His head turned toward the spot of melted snow in the ground where the deflected snowball had made a depression. Aden furrowed his brow, somewhat in confusion. So enthralled was he, that he forgot he was in the middle of a snowball fight...
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Post by desna on Jul 28, 2008 22:59:05 GMT -5
Desna smirked, the snowball was flying straight and true as she intended it to, at the last moment the snowball seemingly dissapeared. In confusion she blinked a few times. Sticking up above the line of the snow she watched the boy for a few moments letting her mind catch up with her eyes and what she thought she saw. Her eyes went to his empty hand before noting that Aden still had a new projectile in the remaining hand. She ducked back down but her mind stayed focused on the missing snowball, he didn't seem to be a bender before, perhaps he just didn't want to flaunt it?
She would have liked that better, most benders couldn't function without their bending, if they ever lost their bending it was like they lost their minds.Chuckling at that idea she scooped up a snowball sitting back up to lob it at Aden, this is now war, there would be no prisoners. Maybe the missing snowball was a trick of her eyes, the snow acting in weird ways with the sun, it would make some sense she imagined.
Finally choosing to let it go she reloaded her hand with a new snowball launching three in near secession. A shrill roll of laughter gave away her position but the fun she was having seemed to make up for the lack of stealth.
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Post by aden on Jul 29, 2008 18:57:34 GMT -5
Aden's crstal blue eyes peered intently at the wet spot in the snow for a few moments before shifting onto his hand. What had changed in the hour since his last attempt at bending? With all his willpower, he couldn't lift more than a cup full of water off the ground, and there he had just picked off Desna's snowball as naturally as if he were back in the Earth Kingdom, doing battle against the Fire Nation. The young warrior's mind grappled with the curious turn of events.
That is, until a snowball breaking atop his head brought him back to the present. "Hey!" he blurted out, suddenly backstepping as a second projectile flew in and skimmed the bottom of his parka. As a third snowballed arced his way, he lifted up a hand to try and guide it aside, but this time his bending failed to aid him. Instead the snowball hit his arm and splattered, causing him to furrow his brow even further in thought.
"Hold on, hold on!" Aden shouted to Desna, putting up his hands to signal her to stop. "Stop... I... I just realized." For a moment he rubbed his forehead and brushed aside the lingering snow from Desna's assault.
"I need to go," he said. For a moment he turned as if to start towards the Wall, but then he changed his mind and stepped back toward Desna. "I need to go home... I'm sorry," he said as he passed by Desna on the way back up to the city proper. His mind was racing wuickly, trying to contemplate multiple different trains of thought as to why he had suddenly regained his bending. And as he started to walk by Desna, he offered her as much of an apologetic expression as he could afford. Part of him felt bad about leaving her so suddenly, but it simply wasn't his top priority to entertain new acquaintences at the moment.
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Post by desna on Jul 29, 2008 20:30:29 GMT -5
She was oddly proud of herself, pretty much all three of the snow balls succeeded in hitting him. She debated making it four in a row to her credit, the task it's self was not so hard, she threw like a boy, an insult she rather liked. It was much better than being told one threw like a girl. Another was in her hand as she finally caught wind of the boys protests. " What? This is war, or are you too scared to fight a girl?" It was the oldest insult there was, yet seemingly proper given the circumstances.
Realizing he was some what serious Desna stopped her attempts to coat him in white and instead propped herself above her snowy hide away watching the boy intently, she was a little confused admittedly, As he said ' I need to go' She suddenly had a rare bought of jitters, perhaps he truly found her annoying, it wouldn't be the first time. Still it stung a little, deep down,
" But- wait.. hey!" Desna managed to sputter at him as he progressively began to move back towards the city saying he was heading home. He stopped, and expressed his condolences, Desna nodded, her fears of being shunned put to rest, he seemed truely sorry to cut the game short. She could do little more than watch him though, not like she'd tie and gag him, forcing the boy to stay with her for the rest of the- Desna looked at the sky curiously wondering what time it was after all, the sun was getting lower in the sky, her lips pursed lightly as she finally admitted to herself that she should be getting on her way back to her home.
It was a long walk and she didn't want to walk it in the dark. With a bit of a pout she lifted her hand in a pathetic excuse for a wave. " See ya..." Looking down at the snow ball in her hand she shook her head. Sometimes boys were, just stupid. Yet when her aqua eyes glanced up at him she smirked. The last snow ball flew at him and Desna Whistled for Pikatti heading for the wall. " Bye!" This time she waves a little more enthusiastically. " Next time." She glanced over her shoulder at the boy expecting him to turn around at the last bust of white chilled snow. " -I want a rematch"
With that she was off on her merry way to the shelf, back home for some dinner, a bit of writing and a night of avoiding her own dark thoughts..
[Desna out]
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Post by aden on Jul 31, 2008 22:09:20 GMT -5
Despite being hit in the rear by yet abother snowball, Aden somehow managed to shrug this one off and even allow a small smirk to cross his features. He looked over his shoulder briefly at Desna, but it looked like she was done with the fight. Turning back ahead he replied, perhaps too quietly for her to hear, "You're on..."
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The sun had set for some time now, and Aden found himself sitting alone in his room. It had been hours since his momentary breakthrough on his bending problem, but since then he had been unable to re-produce it. Despite a solid hour of attempts, his bending was as weak as ever, and he had finally taken a break to share a meal with his parents.
The humble dinner of stew and smoked tuna was quiet and uncomfortable for the young warrior, whose distracted mind made it obvious that all was not well in his life. His mother attempted to start up a dialogue, but Aden kept his answers terse and ambivalent. The young warrior wouldn't dare disrespect his parents, but it was obvious that he was not in the mood for conversation... Something that, unfortunately, worried his sometimes doting mother.
Aden heaved out a long breath, emptying every last ounce of air from his long before taking in a fresh supply of oxygen. It was a simple exercise, but one that was settling none the less. The troubled young manhad decided that he needed to start from the beginning; re-trace every thought and action of that day up to his brief moment of waterbending and determine what had changed.
Several minutes later, after tracing his day's events in painful detail, Aden's eyes suddenly fluttered open from his meditative position. For a moment he just stared into space, synapses firing in his mind as he experienced a sudden moment of clarity.
"....Desna?" he muttered quietly, almost thinking himself crazy for isolating that girl as the x-factor of this puzzling equation. His sensibilities quickly kicked in and he let out a slight self-depricating chuckle for putting so much importance on the girl. And yet, before he could beat the idea entirely out of his mind, the young warrior connected a previous line of thought.
A few days ago, Master Pakku had told him that he needed to rediscover what had unlocked his bending in the first place. Now, despite the tone of sarcasm in which the advice was delivered, Aden was beginning to see the true wisdom behind those words. True, making a slide like he had as a child wouldn't bring back his bending... but the feelings that were linking with that first magical moment, that was what he needed to recapture.
Aden's heart beat faster, and suddenly he felt a slight twinge of excitement. After so many failures, he felt like he was making progress.
He strained his memory to its fullest and tried to recall the circumstances of that important day. There were several key features that came to mind, but above all, Aden kept circulating back to one emotion. Fun.
Once more his mind came back to the present, and he recalled the instant where he had deflected Desna's snowball, In that moment, he wasn't thinking of combat or the best way to destroy an opponent... He was just having a snowball fight for the shear amusement. Desna's incessant attempts at getting him to play along had apparently led him to the solution to his problem.
Aden smiled slightly, pleased with himself for thinking his way through his problem, and simultaneously amused at the irony of his situation. He'd been so keen to avoid Desna lately, and here she was responsible for him rediscovering his bending.
And yet...
If fun was the solution, what had been the problem? The momentum of Aden's good mood faltered like a ship running into an ice drift. It seemed like a strange thing to be thinking of with the answers to his problems laid bare, but part of him couldn't put this issue behind him without knowing what had caused it in the first place.
It certainly wasn't just the abscence of joy... Aden had become a bit reclusive in the last few years and he usually only ever laughed around his parents, but his bending had been stronger than ever. It wasn't until he was back home, and after the battle had ended. The young warrior reflected on that thought for several more minutes until slowly, he started to understand the larger picture.
His excursion to the Earth kingdom had not ultimately been to his liking. Seeing battle and facing the Fire Nation head on in combat had been his dream ever since the death of his friend Mani. But despite all his ferocity, all his hatred, and all his apparent enjoyment at the destruction of his enemies... Aden did not like what he was becoming.
Perhaps the constant threat of attack and the recent danger to his home had been enough to keep his mind in survival mode, where his feelings were truly buried in order to allow him to fight for his people's very existence. But now that the threat had passed, he had finally been free to consider the direction of his life, even if it was purely at a subconscious level. And that inner turmoil and confusion had manifested itself in the form of his inability to bend.
Aden breathed out a sigh as he stared blankly at his feet crossed beneath him. The words of his commander rang in his ears that night after one of the first major battles he fought in the Earh Kingdom. He remembered all too clearly what Hissun had tried to say, and only now was he truly taking the War Chief's warning to heart. He could not spend his life like this any more. Becoming a tool of vengeance was not truly life. If he was nothing more than a soulless shell that lived for the death of others, than the only thing that seperated him from the Fre nation was the color of his clothing.
Aden blinked his eyes rapidly, suddenly feeling a bit of moisture swelling up behind his crystal blue orbs. The warrior figured he must have forgotten to blink for a while there...
But what of the unspoken vow he made to himself and the memory of his deceased friend? He had had taken an oath upon himself to fight the Fire nation until his dying breath for the pain they caused him, his friend, and all of the Tribe. He had sworn on his life to see that vow through til the end.
But that was the vow of a fourteen year old boy, wraught with sadness an anger. In the grand scheme of things, was he truly thinking when he made that promise? Could Aden honestly continue spending his life according to a promise he made without truly understanding the consequences?
His heart beat faster as his breaths suddenly came in shorter. Though his thoughts hadn't finished working through the specifics, deep down, Aden could see the inevitable conclusion. For several more minutes he mentally grappled with himself over this most important issue, but eventually he was forced to say it...
"I can't do this anymore," he muttered quietly to himself. The Water Tribe teen brought his hand up to his face and rubbed between his eyes, smudging the moisture that lined their edges. Aden reamined like that for several long moments as he tried to compose himself. Eventually he managed to steel himself long enough to change into a set of sleeping clothes, and he decided to head to bed early.
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That night, Aden found himself reliving the past in his dream. He revisited that fateful day in his past when his ice-dodging ritual was interrupted by the fiery blast of a Fire Navy catapult. However, this time things were different. This time, he was the unfortunate member of the crew who was struck by the fire while Mani survived with the scar.
Aden spent the remainder of that dream as a spirit, observing his friend descend of grief-fueled madness. He watched in powerless silence as Mani engrossed himself in his training and went on to slaughter many Fire nation soldiers in pitched combat. He also watched as Mani grew older, and older, losing touch with his family and friends. By the end of the dream, Mani was old, alone, and unhappy, still fighting an endless war until he eventually died by the hand of a young firebender whose father had been killed by Mani's spear, so many years before....
[Aden has left the RP]
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