markofthewise | 65th: The Swapping of Sokka Thunderaxe

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65th: The Swapping of Sokka Thunderaxe

[And now Sokka was a girl. Worse than that, he was Haruhi Suzumiya. After an enlightening conversation with that Malnosso girl, he and the real Haruhi had come to the unhappy conclusion it was better not to tell anyone what happened. Which Sokka hated the idea of, but the potential consequences of not doing it could be worse. Besides, if Haruhi could figure out how to fix all of this, he'd be back in his own body by tomorrow! Or a few days, anyway.

This, unfortunately, means having to live like Haruhi. And dress like her too. Girly top, a dress, and that stupid ribbon in his hair. As much as he wanted to just tie it all behind his head in a ponytail, she wouldn't let him do that. Can't blow their cover, after all. And then he has to follow Haruhi's schedule for things.

He leaves the house undetected that morning, eating breakfast on the go. This leaves him to try and do things that Haruhi would do. Which he is not at all thrilled about. Since he doesn't want to run into people, he ends up hitting the library to read about things that would help him be Haruhi. Like things about Japan. He'd never cared about Japan, but it seemed like he ought to know things on it by now.

After lunch (which he spends tucked away privately in the back of one of the restaurants), he swallows his anxiety and goes to visit Winry. But then he decides to look in on Shiki first at All Passions, like instructed. After that he'll warily enter the smithy, feeling oddly out of place there, to visit Winry. When these 'appointments' are finished, he'll arrive at the Brigade building. Early. Twiddling his thumbs until people arrive. Fortunately he wrote down a cheat sheet for who everyone actually is.

After the meeting (which is probably short), he'll be left with nothing to do for a few hours. That's when he opts to just hit the barracks and try to train. He'll be incredibly frustrated at the fact he seems to have lost his skill at just about everything. While he's not horrible, he's nowhere near his "A Game".

In the evening he faces the second worst part of the day - cooking. Being only skilled at cooking meat, he'll try his darndest to make a decent meal. It will be edible Shiki and Beat, don't worry. It will just be incredibly bland and very heavy on the meat. Sort of a boring exercise in chewing, really. Given that Katara has drilled family dinners into him, he'll be at the table expecting a group dinner.

Later in the evening he'll spend some time on the roof, grumbling about his fate, and working secretly on carving a piece of wood into a new boomerang. Day one was a nightmare. He doesn't think he's going to last another one.]

((OOC: Okay! So lots of teal deer up there. Hit him up at any time during the day. You can forward date stuff to later in the week if you want. His routine will be more or less the same the rest of the week. Replies will come from

wisebent!

MORE IMPORTANTLY this is a body swap plot! It involves some of Haruhi's reality bending powers, so it's not an experiment/Mallynapping thing. As explained here, this means that Sokka and Haruhi's friends shouldn't notice things being that odd. If they do, it's something they'd quickly dismiss. I hope you guys will play along!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, this stuff is heavy. I'll go get the ladder now.

[His male pride is taking a serious beating here. At least he can't screw up installing the shelves.]

Yeah sure. I'll start...something. [She just waves a hand, turning around to grab some tools.]

[Yeah, he's totally got the ladder thing down. Bringing that out and setting it up is a peace of cake. Now, he knows how to do this kind of thing, so he holds out a waiting hand.]

Pen and hammer, Shiki. We need to find the studs first.

Pen and hammer! [She's handing up the pen first.] ...why the studs?

[Takes the pen, still waiting for the hammer.]

If we want the shelves to stay up, we need to make sure we hit wood. Otherwise they'll just fall once you put something heavy on them.

[Sokka is a little caught up in proving to himself that he can still be useful to think about whether or not Haruhi would know anything about construction.]

[Oh. Right. Okay handing that up, never mind she's not sure how it all works.] Uh...huh. I guess that makes enough sense. [Though she's giving the girl a skeptical look.] When was the last time you built something anyway?

[Sokka is about to start tapping the wall to listen for studs when Shiki makes him realize what he's doing. He stops for a moment and hastily comes up with an excuse.] I... read it in a book, obviously.

...oh. [She laughs a little, leaning against the wall and looking up.] For a second there I thought you were keeping some big secret from me. Lucky for me though, I totally wouldn't have known that. My dad used to do the construction around our house.

[Sokka learned it the hard way when he put up shelves in his room. Having never lived in a wooden house for that long before, he hadn't known about this either. He grew up in tents and igloos after all.]

I just happen to be good at a lot of things. [Tap tap thump. Here we go. A nice stud here. He marks it with the pen. Time to move the ladder and go find the other one.]

I wouldn't say a lot. [Except for she is kind of good at a lot of stuff. Just another thing Shiki secretly envies about her friend. On the other hand...] But I can name stuff you're not good at.

[And opportunity? She knocks. This could come in handy later. So trying to sound smug, he prompts Shiki to provide the details.] Such as?

Being modest, for one. [Unfortunately for Sokka, it's kind of a bluff.]

[... well he knew that one already. Great.]

Anything else?

No offense? But every time you draw animals they kind of look like they've been run over by trucks...and sometimes your baking tastes that way, too.

My art is just fine! [OH WAIT. This is Haruhi's art, not his. So she sucks at it too, huh?] Well maybe I should just give up baking, then.

As long as you don't give up cooking, I don't care. Nobody else in the house is really good at it anyway.

And no, when you can't tell if it's a cat or a sewer drain, it's bad.

[He cringes a bit. He is not looking forward to cooking dinner tonight. At all. He just, is not good at it.]

Everyone's a critic. [He shakes his hand, then holds a hand out.] Okay, hand me a bracket.

Just saying. [And she's looking...and going to hand over what she thinks is a bracket.] How's that?

[It's exactly what he needs! He lines it up with his mark on the wall, then starts to nail it in.]

So that's it? Nothing else I'm bad at?

You also kind of suck at card games. Strategy games, too. Probably just because you're impatient. [And she's watching, nodding in approval. Good shelf. Stay up.]

[... but Sokka is good at strategy games. Finally something useful.]

Maybe you just spend too much time thinking. [That sounds like a good defense!]

Oh don't give me that. You know I'm not good with logic. I hate those games. You only win because I'm worse than you are.

[You know between this and that time at the slides, he's starting to put together a picture about Shiki. This isn't really much of a put down, but still, confidence is key. It's what he told her before. He moves the ladder to set up the next bracket. As he does, he decides to try and.... poke about. Innocently.]

You just don't give yourself enough credit.

[And because she's had these conversations with the girl before, she doesn't think much of it. Instead she's moving out of the ladder's way.]

I give myself enough credit in the things I'm good at. Doesn't that count for something?

[Bracket up! It's a success. Now she just needs the actual shelf.]

Sure, sure. I guess it does. As long as you're confident.

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