Audio - Backdated to 7/30

[seismometrics]

[Audio only is rare for Toph. Usually she doesn't even bother to toggle the settings; it doesn't matter to her whether she's seen or not. But today, right now . . . it's audio only, and her words come out hard and flat.]

Last night I had a dream. About a kid with a woman who was teaching him to earthbend. He pretty much sucked at it.

He was wearing a soul gem.

[There's a pause. For a long moment she says nothing else. But the silence is almost tangible in its thickness.]

He was home. My home.

[There's an undercurrent that runs through the words here, dark and weighted.]

[It's rage.]



((ooc: Toph can only "see" through seismic sense, so although she dreams, she still doesn't see images in the traditional sense -- and can't see color. So for ooc puzzlings, I shall pass on that the boy's hair shifted colors in the dream in case it's important and matches up with anything else.))

Comments

[bigdamnhiro]

Like...your turtle home? Or your home home?

[Because, um.]

[seismometrics]

Home home.

[bigdamnhiro]

...How would they get there? Is this some kind of weird conspiracy to replace us all back home with kedan, or...?

[seismometrics]

How'd we get here?

I don't know.

All I know is there's some kedan where I'm supposed to be.

Which means getting home is possible some way besides random. And it's not happening to any of us.

[bigdamnhiro]

You really think they know how to send people out of here?

[The thump of his heart jumping is almost audible, to his own ears. It could easily just be a dream, with weird dream symbolism, but what if—]

—You think they could send anybody back? To wherever or—whenever? Even dead people? What if...

[Heeeeere's Hiro totally missing the point]

[seismometrics]

"They" who?

[The voice is half-listening, irritated (though not directed at Hiro). At this point Toph pretty much figures whatever's sending them out at random isn't a force under Foreigner -- or kedan -- control.]

What.

[Hiro, you're so gibbering. Talk sense or go away.]

[bigdamnhiro]

Well, you said he had a soul gem, so...what if it's the people who gave the kedan soul gems that are actually doing it?

[He rubs the back of his neck, wincing because...he can't exactly explain himself, now can he.]

I just...yeah, okay, replacing us back home is bad. But what if somebody could use that to...I dunno. Change something back home for the better?

[seismometrics]

I don't think anyone gave kedan soul gems any more than anyone gave them to us. It's whatever pulls us here. And whatever sends us back.

[She used to have someone to blame that on. Back when things seemed simpler, more concrete. She could blame Eshai for all of it. Eshai, who brought them all here in the first place to fulfill her own plans, her own mistakes.]

[Now who does she blame? So much anger and nowhere to direct it . . . What does she do with it?]

I don't know what you're talking about, but you sound all hopeful about it. I kind of hate to burst whatever bubble you've got going, but I was here a year before this, and I can tell you it doesn't work how you want it to. It just doesn't.

Whoever's in charge is doing whatever the heck they want, and we just get to sit here and wait.

Sokka's gone. Katara's gone. Zuko's gone. And Wan. And--

[But whatever name she was about to say, she cuts herself off.]

None of us gets to decide anything.

[bigdamnhiro]

[He's...a little startled, by her outburst, but it's not in his nature to take that kind of thing lying down and he butts right back immediately.]

If that's how you wanna see it, fine.

[He huffs.]

All I know is, somebody was stealing soul gems and screwing with them, and then Deoreo and the others got kidnapped and when they came back they had soul gems too. And the Kedan don't normally have them.

If you wanna think that's a coincidence, fine, but I think somebody here knows how to mess with whatever it is that brings us here and does all this to us.

[seismometrics]

[But in the end, it's not even Hiro that she's angry at -- nor even completely him that she's raging towards. It's just hurt and fury and pain . . . and she's never been good at dealing with any of them.]

[Never been good about feeling helpless in the wake of something so much larger than herself.]

[The answer he gets, therefore, is just quiet, sullen. Bruised.]

Yeah, well, when you meet them, let me know.

I've got a boulder I'd like to smash them under.