markofthewise | Sokka the 74th

Entry tags:

[action],
[voice]

Sokka the 74th - [Action/Voice]

[THE FIRST DAY.]

[Two weeks. It's a long time to be on a mission, but Sokka has no regrets. The mess with Kin'cora had gotten to him and he found a kind of relief in working with other people from other enclosures. There was a lot of talk among him and the others. He spread the word. Maybe it wouldn't do Luceti much good, given he learned very little, but the more the others knew, the better. But boy was he glad to be back in Luceti. When he emerges from the tunnels at around 6PM, he's tired out from a hard day of work, but it's a good kind of tired. He makes going home his first priority. He'll miss dinner, inevitably, but with any luck there's leftovers. Catching up with the others takes a few hours before he ever breaks away to wander the village.

What's on the agenda? Hitting up the smithy to see where things are at. He never got to find out how much was lost after the Kin'corans left, so it's time to see if one of his ~~minions~~ smithy buddies took an inventory. And you know, he wants to check in on them too. That's cool. Also, he heads to Good Spirits because he was informed very sternly by one of his buddies on the mission that the only proper way to end a hard day's work is a good stiff drink. Sokka, the adult that he is, was inclined to agree. THAT IS HIS ENTIRE DAY.

But there is another.]

[DAWN OF THE NEXT DAY]

[Sokka wakes up and does his usual morning routine and goes to NOT the smithy, but the BATTLE DOME. That's right. Record scratch. After talking to the main console for awhile, he heads into one of the rooms and in something that takes some finagling at first, he starts... building a sub. A holographic sub. One that is small enough to fit into his hand, but can expand if he gives the command, so he can work on specific details. It's like working on a blueprint, but in 3D. His nights on his mission had been spent trying to recreate the submarine made by the Mechanist. He's been steadily improving on the design, specifically built to be powered by waterbending, but done in a way to streamline the process and make it faster. And sturdier. He's not sure it will be easy to build with Luceti's technology, but...

Well, Haruhi got him excited. And he spends the better half of the day on this. Because of the Dome time limit, he's constantly seen going in and out to restart the program or grab a snack. For those hoping to fight, this is probably annoying, since there's only six chambers that tend to get used a lot. At one point during the day, he loses the dome to some short and grumpy guy, so Sokka turns to the journal.]

Has anyone really tried the stuff in these vending machines before? I mean, I usually just get a soda or something, but this stuff is amazing. Like... look at these. [He lifts up an oreo to the camera.] It's two cookies, but with some kind of paste between them. But the paste tastes like sugar! And then there's these! [Sokka lifts up an red lump of candy.] Apple gels. They're great, although I don't think they taste like real apples. There's something unusually refreshing about them. I had about ten just now and it made my fingers all tingly. Actually, I'm kind of feeling tingly all over and-- [Sokka looks away and spots something else] Oh! And check this out! [He pulls out a WORM. A multicolored worm.] It's a CANDY worm. I was thinking I could use it for fishing, but it's actually kind of tasty. Oh, and then there's these fished shape crackers...

[He'll go on like this for awhile. People can listen or ignore him, but he'll be casually highlighting the awesome contents of the Battle Dome vending machines.

He'll be coming home later with the stomach ache from hell.]

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[That... doesn't really sound all familiar. It's not something that she's ever seen before, here or in Panem. But it does make her thoughtful, trying to find some comparison.]

Like magic?

It's like... [Kung Fu telekinesis? Nah.]

Magic, yeah. Pretty much just that.

Can you do this water magic, too?

Nope. Not even a little bit. I have as much control over it as you do.

[She can't imagine what that must be like. Having a sibling that can do magic while you can't. But then, he doesn't sound jealous.]

You could look in the shop for another one of these machines. Then you don't have to wait on her for the crushed ice.

[It's only because he's gotten really good at not knowing it. By acting like it's no big deal.]

I'll keep an eye out for it. Otherwise I'm busting ice cubes with a hammer.

[She's never tried that method before. The family's tool box was too precious to use for anything but necessary tasks. Potentially damaging a hammer just for some frozen never seemed all that justified to her. And if there was ice to be had, there was probably snow outside, too.

Still, she's curious.]

Is it effective?

I was joking, Katniss. Sarcasm. I do that a lot. [Amused, though.] I've never been that desperate for tiny bits of ice. Unless something just happens to be covered in ice and it's the only way to hack it free.

[An actual problem one faces living in the South Pole.]

[She's normally better at determining when someone's joking around. But he had sounded sincere enough when he had mentioned the hammer. And who knew what life was like where he had lived.

There's hesitation, then, before she replies again. Is he joking about the ice covering, too?]

Does that happen often?

We usually try to avoid it, but sometimes it's inevitable, especially after a big snowstorm. It's not exactly what you'd call a fun job, though.

[No. She wouldn't think that it is.]

Did it snow a lot where you're from?

There's always snow, even in the summer. It's kind of just part of life where I'm from.

We only get snow in the winter.

[And even then, it's never enough that you have to worry about objects freezing in ice. It gets cold, colder when the electricity in Twelve goes out, but not that cold.]

I hear that a lot. Not many people are from places as cold as me. Which is fine. It just means I have an advantage when it's time for snowball fights.

[She grins a little at the memories the words conjure. Simpler times spent in the meadow with her father or, later on, Gale. Sometimes surprising Prim with a snowball to the stomach. Happier times full of laughter. Winter had been hard in District Twelve, yes, but not always horrible.]

Is your whole planet that cold or just the part you live in?

Nah, just the part I live in. It's kind of a Water Tribe thing. Living in the Poles. Well, except for these guys who live in a swamp. But uhhh... they're like distant relatives.

[We don't talk about them. They're weird.]

[Water Tribe. Poles. Most of that goes right over her head. She does know what a swamp is, though. Remembers how dangerous that year's Hunger Games had been. Not a very safe place. Not with the alligators and snakes and other dangerous creatures that just blended right into their environment.

But there are bits of Sokka's response that she can piece together.]

Is that what you are? Water Tribe?

I am. In my world, there's four-- well, three nations. Which, admittedly sounds pretty simple. But that's how it is.

[He figures people assume a lot, knowing his world has so few countries. Especially people from Earth.]

[It sounds complex, actually. Four or three nations - that's a high number to her. Her Earth isn't nearly as complex as others that she's come across. But if the state of North America is any indication, in the future - her present - there really might not be enough left for all the countries that existed before.]

There's only Panem. I don't know if there are any other countries left on Earth.

There's only one country in your world? ... weird.

[Hey maybe her world is tinier than his! How about that!]

[It's not so weird to her. It's how it is. There were more, once. History lessons said that much. But details were never delved into. Curricula were tightly controlled by the Capitol, full of the propaganda necessary to keep the Districts in line.]

Only one I know of. Maybe there's more, across the oceans.

[In over seventy years, there's never been contact. But would the Capitol even let that kind of information leak to the Districts? Matters, she realizes, that she never gave much thought to prior to the uprisings.]

I guess you don't hear a lot where you're from, huh?

[Something like that just seems like people would just know.]

I-

[She doesn't know how to answer that. Not really. Maybe there had been communications between the Capitol and what remained of other nations on Earth. She's learned about them by now, seen the books in the Luceti library. All the countries and cultures that used to exist on the Earth of the past. More than just the Rome Plutarch mentioned.

But maybe they were all wiped out. Maybe Panem really was alone.]

-don't know. The Capitol didn't keep the Districts well informed.

... ah. Kind of sounds familiar, actually. Replace Capitol with Malnosso and Districts with Enclosures.

[Which he suspected had to be fairly unsettling for her.]

[A little unsettling. But by now, she's used to it. The similarities had been there from day one. The Malnosso are clearly Gamemakers, the enclosure the arena of the Hunger Games. Or it's like how Sokka describes it, with the Capitol and the Districts.

Either way, she's tired of it. Tired that she's been dragged into it once again.]

It works if you replace the Malnosso and Enclosures with Gamemakers and arenas, too.

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