markofthewise | Sokka the 74th

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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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[She doesn't know enough about his homeworld to know if he had anything as bad as the Capitol or the Hunger Games. But she remembers his initial repulsion when she tried describing the Games to him out in the woods. How indignant he had been. No. She doubts there's anything quite like the Hunger Games in his world. But it does make her curious.]

What about where you come from? Is there anything like this there?

Like Luceti? Not even close. I mean, we had war. But it wasn't like this war.

[Really, there was just nothing in his world like the Malnosso. Not even the Fire Nation were quite like them.]

[She remembers what Plutarch had told her once when she had asked him if he was preparing for another war. We’re fickle, stupid beings, he had said, with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. To hear that there had been a war in Sokka's world isn't so surprising. It's how he says it that confuses her.]

Aren't all wars practically the same? People killing each other for whatever it is they're fighting for?

In my world, the war lasted for a hundred years. But in the end, we finally won. Every battle we fought felt like there was a reason for it. But this war... I think it's been going on for longer than we can imagine. We're not fighting to stop a conquering nation. It's not for freedom or a better future. It's just. Surviving. That's it.

[It's a hollow war. Maybe that's what war is really like, but being a soldier in something he can't imagine gives him a sense of hopelessness that the war he won back home never had.]

All wars are about survival in the end.

[The words are said slowly, thoughtfully. Hadn’t their own uprising back in Panem ultimately been about survival? It was easy to spout off idealistic propos, to say that the struggle was for freedom and for a better future. In many ways, it was. Freedom from the Hunger Games and freedom from the dictatorship of the Capitol. A butter future for the children of the districts, children who no longer had to grow up fearing that one day, their name might be selected in the Reaping. There were reasons. So many reasons.

But for her, up until the very last moment of the war – that second she had assassinated Coin, it had been about survival. About making certain that no one could ever use her or anyone she loved as a game piece again.]

It's still different. Wars end. Even if they take a long time to. Even a hundred years.

But I don't think this one ever will.

[A never ending war is hard to imagine. The war raged against the Capitol had only really lasted for a handful of months. But even then, the cost had been staggering.

He had mentioned that his own war had lasted a hundred years. But it still ended.]

Why?

No one dies, right? So it just keeps going. One side wants everyone dead, the other side just wants to live. So it just doesn't stop.

[There were other reasons, really. From what he saw at that play at Rataneran Keep, but he figured it was best not to discuss that particular mission on the network.]

[It's a good reason. Especially here in a place where people cannot die. While she has yet to witness this for herself, to see people die here and come back to life, she's heard it mentioned enough. She believes it.

People just don't die. It is, in so many ways, a war that could go on forever. He's right. But there's one thing she doesn't understand.]

Why do they want us all dead?

Well, the cultists aren't exactly chatty. I mean, I've tried. They usually are more like 'grrrr' is they even make a sound at all. But what we're told? They think they're doing us a favor. That this world is so bad to live in, that just dying - never coming back, is better.

So. You know. They're basically nuts.

[Miserable as life has been lately, Sokka can't begin to comprehend ideas like that making any sort of sense. It's just not in him.]

[What he has to say is serious and yet, something in his tone makes her grin just a little. The idea of the cultists going 'grrr.' She hadn't attempted to talk to any of the cultists on the draft, fought before asking questions. But 'grrr' has a semblance of making her want to laugh.]

I noticed.

[He'd be pleased if he noticed, but he's not much paying attention to her portrait on the journal.]

So yeah. A bunch of crazies who never die. And the current working theory? People born in this world to grow up to be them. So. Not exactly happy times.

[No. Not happy times at all.]

What about people born in the enclosure?

[If people are born here. She doesn't know, hasn't really bothered to investigate that much. But if some of them have been stuck here for four years with no sign of escape, what's to say that they won't be here for years to come? What's to stop them from wanting families of their own? Not everyone is smart. She had seen it well enough in the districts. Adults who had children regardless of the Hunger Games, regardless of the awful fate they knew could befall their child.]

I dunno if it's just enclosures. But apparently what we've found out is that anyone born in this world ends up with the big wings. You know, the kind that the cultists have.

[The conclusions to be drawn from that were fairly obvious, he thought.]

[She nods. She knows what kind he's referring to. She had seen it in the draft. Watched as her arrows flew towards the large target the wigs presented. That had made her grateful for her own smaller wings. If she had to have wings at all, at least they weren't so evident.

But that does lead to a thought that she never really had before.]

The cultists are native?

Something like that.

[Did they come from this world? He's not sure of that. But. Native as native gets, he supposes.]

Though I don't think they're any happier being here than we are.

[Hearing that, she rolls her eyes just a little. That doesn't surprise her. Not at all.]

Is anyone?

I'm sure there's someone out there.

[Okay, he knows for a fact there are people here who don't have lives to go back to. So. They're happy enough.]

[That makes her think for a moment. Of Clove and Cato who have nothing to return to in Panem. Who are otherwise dead.

And of how she feels each time she sees Peeta here, alive and whole.

He's right. Again.]

Not you, though.

Well... I don't want to forget about this place. But I don't exactly enjoy living here, no.

It's - [She pauses because, for a moment, she almost can't believe that she's saying this.] - not all bad.

No, not really. Not always. [There's been too many good things here to really say that. He'd never try to reckon if there was more of one than the other, but on the optimistic days, he'd like to think the good was enough to make up for the bad.]

[She thinks back to his original reason for posting on the network. It makes her smile just a little.]

Like the candy.

Exactly. Like the candy.

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Sokka the 74th - [Action/Voice]

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[voice] (This seems like a good end point!)