tushanshu | [Video] 001

[Having been here a few days now, Aqua has mostly acclimated to being around people again, and simply sitting idle doesn't suit her. She's had enough of aimless wandering with no direction to last her a long while.]

Hello, my name is Aqua, and I arrived here a few days ago. Things have been mostly explained to me, and I'd like to help out in any way I can. I'm not sure where to start looking, though, so I'd be grateful for some direction. I know a fair number of spells, but I'm not sure how useful they would be here. [She hasn't seen Unversed or any other sort of monster around, so she doubts being able to summon a bolt of lightning upon a target would be of much help to the general population.]

[A brief pause while she considers whether or not to ask her other question, given that she's just offered to help, but decides to go ahead anyway.]

And... I understand that how we are brought here is not fully known, or how we could leave, but if anyone has an idea, please let me know. I've been away from my home too long.

[She's worried about both Ven and Terra. The former is safe, but what if he has awoken in her absence? And the latter... she doesn't know at all.]

I'd truly appreciate any advice. Thank you.

[End video.]

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Oh, you want the entire history of my world now?

[In part, he is joking just a little bit. It sounds like sarcasm, though there's definitely a small bit of joviality in his voice as he says it.]

Well, there's only one airbender because the rest of them were killed in a hundred-year-long war. Well, to be more exact, all but the last one died at the beginning of that war, and then the rest of that century was them trying to take over the rest of the nations.

And that airbender was the only person in our world that can bend all four of the elements, the Avatar.

But yeah, from what I've seen, it's not exactly magic, though I still call it that every once in a while.

Maybe some other time. I still have quite a bit of history to catch up on about this world.

[She is interested, though.

At the mention of war and the genocide it brought, her face turns somber.]

I take it the ones who started the war were the 'firebenders'? But why kill off all the airbenders save one? What good does such widespread destruction bring?

[Sokka chuckles a bit at her initially, even if it ends up talking about a serious topic.]

Well, they were trying to kill all of them.

You see, the Avatar will get reincarnated after he or she dies, but he'll get reincarnated into a different nation. At that point, the Avatar was an airbender, and so the Fire Lord was trying to kill him while he was just a boy and eventually make it so there would be no more Avatar. And since the Avatar is strong and can bend all of the elements, that was... kind of an obstacle in his plan to conquer the world and have a worldwide empire.

Essentially, big bad evil overlord thinks the rest of the world is horribly inferior, yadda yadda, tries to kill his biggest competition, and then starts waging war everywhere else because he's got a daddy complex or something.

[It's sobering to hear these details. Sokka's world had sounded wonderful and fascinating, but she shouldn't be surprised that it would have problems of its own as well.]

There are those who will stop at nothing to fulfill their goals, no matter how much misery it brings. I'll never understand it.

[Aqua sighs, the sound of one who has dealt with a similar man, who held his goals above all else.]

A century, though; in that time, surely a new Fire Lord would have come to power and changed things? That's a terribly long time to wage war for one man's interests.

[Sokka holds up three fingers, and then as he counts down, he'll count them off on his fingers.]

Three. Three Fire Lords. First Sozin, who started the war when he was already pretty old, I hear. Then his son Fire Lord Azulon. And then his son Fire Lord Ozai picked up where he left off five years ago. All of them sharing their ideals. Thank goodness the entire family isn't completely crazy.

[Sigh. It's a testament that Iroh and Zuko really were good deep down, even if Zuko was a jerk for more than half of it.]

I can't imagine what it must have been like to live during their rule. [And she doesn't want to. A king willing to wipe out an entire people just to stop one person from challenging him is a monster in her book, let alone two descendants who share the ideals.

She's picked up on his last sentence, though.]

I take it the good in the family is now in power?

[She noticed Sokka has been speaking of the war in the past tense.]

Well it wasn't any better in the Fire Nation than it was anywhere else, if that's what you're asking. The things that some of the villages called food? Yuuuuck.

[Sokka will stick his tongue out at that.

[However, the next question... is complicated.]

Well... yes... and no? One of the weird things about this place is that people come... from different times. [Oh geez that sounds completely weird; please believe him, Aqua; he's not making this up.] And from when I come from, the last fight is still going on...

But apparently once we do win the fight, everything turns out A-OK, and one of my friends becomes the new Fire Lord!

Hm....

[That. That is complicated.

But the spell that had worked the comings and goings of Foreigners, according to Raine, was powerful enough to send people back to their own times.

So, wouldn't it also stand to reason that the same magic could call Foreigners from different times?]

Well, being able to know that you will win must lift a great weight off your shoulders.

[Being pulled from the middle of a final battle! That would eat at her to no end.]

Well, there's that.

Also knowing that I somehow won't actually die despite the last thing I remember is falling from the top of a blimp and breaking my leg on one of the catwalks below it is even more reassuring.

That sounds awful! And you were brought here at that point?

[Not knowing if his life had been saved by the random whims of a spell cast on another world, or if he'd been torn away from seeing the dawn of what sounded like an era of peace?]

You mentioned your friends are here as well; one of them must have come from later on, for you to know all this, yes?

[And now the reasons for sending Foreigners back to their time with no memories of their stay on the turtle are becoming evident to her.]

[Aqua, why are you asking all the hard questions? Oh, it's because you're new. Right. Gotcha.]

Well, yeah. My friend Toph, my girlfriend Suki, and I were in the middle of trying to take down a fleet of Fire Nation blimps before they burned the Earth Kingdom to ash. And we were more or less successful, but we kind of ran out of time and space to properly find an obvious escape plan.

[He frowns a little there, but he shrugs it off. It does end okay, or so he's told.]

Well, I met someone from my world from many years later, and she told me that I'd get to meet her again as she's growing up, so that helped. But now many of my friends are here from a few years down the road, so... now I know more of the details about what happens, yeah.

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