I apologize for my absence. You know how people say "Real life dropped a bombshell" and leave it at that? Last week was apparently strafing week. Fortunately some of the bombs were peanut sauce bombs, but one was thermite. Ouch.
Anyway, to my reviewers! Sparrow, I like the random what-nots too! Luna feline, Latrine duty is mediocre; if it sucked, I would at least have something worth doing. Spry, I laugh every day, almost. Silent Storm, I unfortunately do not have television, all I get is Netflix. And Tallygirl, I AM EATING YOUR STARS!
Now back to our regularly scheduled plot, don't EVER let me miss an update again.
You know, when your route planner is a kid who's been out of it for a century, you can expect a few pointless detours. You can even wonder if maybe the guy has no idea where he's going. And you can adapt, I took to sleeping on the saddle during our many stops. But apparently what you cannot do is avoid. Latrine. Duty.
Which is why I was so very very happy when Sokka ripped his pants.
I had memorized the whole pants dialog just because of the one funny line at the end, you know, before this whole mess. So Sokka ripping his pants seemed like a minor inconvenience to everyone else, but to me it meant we were headed to Kyoshi Island. WHERE I COULD FINALLY BE OFF LATRINE DUTY. And that is always worth celebrating. Always.
Although perhaps the spinning around the trees might have been a bit much. I got some weird stares from the three mains. I'm used to that, though, because I'm insane.
Once everybody stepped up onto the saddle, Appa took off and started flying in a seemingly random direction. Katara, sighing, started sewing her brother's pants together with some muttering about how being a unicorn would make this so much easier.
"(Hey look Katara! A distraction!)" Aang whipped out some marbles and spun them around in midair.
"(Not distracting enough.)"
"(Awwwww...)"
The waterbender looked over. "(See, you need more pony, like about 20 percent more.)"
"(But ponies don't exist in this world!)"
I gasped in shock and horror.
"(Don't worry Reid, your imagination can be channeled through your awesomeness to make a pony.)" Sokka lazed back from his map.
"(Okay, that's not how magic works.)"
"(I'm just saying, Reid is cool enough to warp the fabric of reality if he so chooses. He just chooses not to.)"
"Sokka, we've been over this. I am not a god. Nor do I want to be." I crossed my arms.
"(He's right! Gods have horns and wings! But you would look great with a TAIL!)" Katara tossed her brother his still ripped pants, grinning evilly.
The other Eskimo poked his hand through the hole with shock and dismay. "(Noooooooo! I must have my dignity restored in front of my lord!)"
"(Oh don't worry Sokka,)" the avatar reassured him. "(Where we're going, you won't need... dignity.)"
"..., oh geeze, wooo."
Yep, more stares.
"...to be fair, Sokka never needs dignity." I grinned at them. "Oh come on, you know it's true!"
"(Dude, you know we can't understand a word you're saying.)" Aang raised an eyebrow.
"I am aware of this, yes. Hence the constant mental subtitles."
"(All right then, just checking.)"
We did eventually make it to the lake, whereupon Aang started searching for Elephant Koi and, upon spotting one, decided to show off his AIR NOMAD SPEEDO. I decided, if he was showing that off, to plunk my own FIRE NATION HELMET on. Sideways. I... don't know why, I just decided to. You may notice I act on whims very often. On the downside, this meant I wasn't able to see Aang fishsurfing, but on the upside... there was no upside.
"Okay, seriously, I've got to start thinking these things through. Come off it Reid, you're a skritch below genius. Why do you do these crazy things?"
I contemplated this for a moment.
"...well, psychologically speaking, it could be as a result of my pathological need to have an identity unreliant upon the existence of peers and society..."
And then we were captured by ladies in green. Which is... well, elsewhere it's a good stealth color, but Kyoshi Island isn't really that green, more tanish with green patches. The warriors were super sneaky, I guess. Or we were all morons.
I'm going to go with the second theory, actually, it makes a lot more sense. Well, kinda. More like a little from column A, and a lot from column B.
Now, since it's kind of hard to blindfold a person wearing a sideways helmet, I was allowed to keep wearing the helmet. Future tip: Do not wear horned helmets sideways while tied to a pole supporting a statue of a historical figure, it'll give you an awful crick in the neck. That is why, as soon as we were untied, I rotated it to its proper position. The look of horror on those little village kids was hilarious. The look of anger on the kyoshi warrirors' faces... not so much.
"Anybody want to see me dance?"
Without waiting for a reply, I just started dancing. Horror and wrath became confusion and even more confusion before turning to humor and disregard. Respectively. Sometimes being the harmless lunatic is a good thing.
The next few days were, you know, just days in which things happened. Food was purchased, Aang showed off (he is such a little kid), and I celebrated not being on latrine duty. Also I maaaaaay have stolen some blank sheets of paper from that one artist. And pretended I had no idea why he was angry with me the next day.
Oh, and Sokka started that whole rivalry with Suki. So I started following him and singing random love songs from all the old classic movies. Singing In The Rain and what have you. The best part is that he couldn't understand me at all. He thought I was cheering him on as a warrior, ha ha!
Of course that's what got me thinking about-but that's in the third season, sorry.
Actually, while I'm thinking about the future, here's a spoiler alert: I do eventually speak Avatarese. And get into some really fun arguments. Like this one with an owl I know who keeps looking over my shoulder while I'm writing like a self absorbed perfectionist interloper editing JERKASS who should learn to be freaking PATIENT
I would like to inform you all that I have just been smacked.
Where was I... oh yes, Sokka in his dress. Well, we all know how pretty he looked in his green garb, because we've all seen the show, and if you haven't seen the show then you really shouldn't be reading this. Logic. And, well, there isn't really anything funny to say. I mean I can't bring myself to do sexism, even in minor just for humor ways. Pretty much for the same reason racism is a foriegn concept to me. I mean I get how it works in theory, but in practice I just... it's like telling a flower how pretty it is, the flower doesn't really have eyes. Metaphor.
I'm sorry, let me back up. Sokka in his dress, an excellent sparring session, and then Emo Teenage Voice led his little brigade to burn down the village. Yeeeeeah, I... kinda freaked out then. A little.
"HOLY SKREEPRATS EVERYTHING'S BURNING! Kids, come this way, quickly and WATCH FOR THE RHINO oh good lord that was way too CLOSE WHOA WATCH WHERE YOU'RE SWINGING THAT SWORD that's probably the point isn't NO THAT'S THE POINTY END-!"
You know how I usually complain about being on latrine duty? Well, there's one benefit; you get used to carrying a shovel. Which can let you get away from an unplanned sword fight if you're really cautious. Like, just block and run cautious.
Anyway... I did eventually manage to get out of the actual combat, and onto Appa, where I hid from everything. Look, I'm not suicidal. AT ALL. I am not suicidal at all, okay? And there's something about running head on into an army when I have literally no combat training that screams "Kill me now I hate life!" No matter what video games say. Granted, if you're in a tank, you might actually survive and if you're really lucky you could hurt maybe ten soldiers.
And to be honest, that's about it for this chapter. I mean, I basically stayed on Appa until we left.
But... it got me to thinking. It got me to realizing I was going to spend however long I was with a couple of people who didn't speak my language and had a habit of attracting violent mobs. That was pretty much my best bet at getting home, after all, what with Aang being mister weirdness magnet. But if I was to survive, I'd need training. And unfortunately, the only warrior who would have spare time that we'd meet was...
"(What's on your mind, oh great one?)"
"The ironies of fate, Sokka. The ironies... of fate."
