02 ≋ Network Vlog 01

[waterwhip]

[ When the feed starts, there's obviously some fiddling going on--mostly it's just different shades of blue on the screen. The person handling the tablet doesn't seem to really know how to make heads or tails of it. A soft 'snowballs' is uttered, as if it were a curse.

Katara's face eventually enters the frame--upside down, until she realizes her mistake and flips it so she's correctly centered and displayed. The fountain is behind her, and the running water burbles gently in the background. ]

Hello! I'm Katara. I've met a lot of new people since I came here, but I know there are others that I haven't met yet, and the Vision explained that I could talk to people with this piece of glass, so I thought I'd do that and introduce myself.

[ She glances away for a second, considering what to say. ]

I'm from the Southern Water Tribe, which is at the South Pole. I left home about a year ago, and have been traveling the world since then with my brother and our friends. This is us together. [Here she holds up a crayon drawing of herself and her friends on a six-legged creature. She's obviously very proud. ]



That's Aang and my brother Sokka, then me and Toph and Suki and Zuko. Appa is the sky bison, and the flying lemur is Momo.

I'm a master waterbender, which means I can use my chi to control water. Like this! [ With a quick set of hand gestures, Katara pulls a little jet of water from the fountain and streams it around for a bit before putting it back. ] I can also use my bending to heal injuries! So if you get hurt, let me help you.

That's all I can think of for now. Bye!

[ It's another few moments of fumbling, but Katara finally manages to turn the feed off. ]

Comments

Voice;

[kallig]

Nice drawing.

[Listen, it was the first thing he thought to comment on. It's cute. He likes art.]

I imagine your ability to heal will become sought after quickly. A strange world like this, sooner or later, I imagine someone will manage to get themselves hurt.

[waterwhip]

Thanks! I don't have any other pictures of them, so I thought it'd be nice to have something to remind me of home.

My healing ability was always useful back home, too, and for some pretty serious wounds. It can take more than one session for really bad injuries, though.

[kallig]

I can certainly see the use for that, here. Perhaps in the future if I can find the right supplies, I'll make something similar of my own family and friends.

[He probably will. For now, he's trying to avoid making himself more homesick than he already is. Conversation isn't helping that, of course, but what can you do.]

Good to know. It doesn't take too much out of you, then?

[His own connection to the Force is... Wrong. Would be good to know if that's affecting more people than just him.]

[waterwhip]

You can ask the Agrii for art supplies, but you have to be specific when you ask. Extremely specific.

[ As proved by literally everyone who asked for anything from them. ]

It's not too draining. I can overdo it if I'm not careful, but I'm a bending master--it takes a lot to wear me out.

[kallig]

So I've noticed.

[There's a soft sigh in there, somewhere.]

I take it, then, that you have not noticed much difference in your abilities here?

[waterwhip]

I haven't noticed a difference at all, but I haven't had to use my bending for anything serious yet. None of the usual life-or-death circumstances.

Do you have an ability too? Is it not working?

[kallig]

It is technically working, it's just... Weaker. Parts of it is, anyway.

[At least his offensive capabilities. He's still working on testing its limits, though it's obvious from his voice that this bothers him.]

A thing to ask everyone else about, eventually, I suppose. If it's only me, that would be much too strange.

[waterwhip]

Maybe it has something to do with this world? What kind of ability do you have?

[kallig]

Could very well be.

[It wouldn't surprise him. This world has already kicked him while he was down once, so why not a second time.]

The full scope would be difficult to explain, but I have the ability to manipulate what people in my world call the Force. The Force is what binds all living things together, flows through planets and galaxies and people alike.

[Perhaps it really does have something to do with the world. It's... Definitely something that has him concerned. Because the planet is dying, perhaps? He can't be sure...]

[waterwhip]

[ There's a moment of silence while Katara takes all of that in. If he could see her, he'd see she's tilting her head a bit. ]

So, you're a... a Forcebender?

[ It's a sincere question. That's just her way of understanding the world. ]

[kallig]

[There's a moment where he thinks about that, and... Supposes that's one way to see it.]

Thinking about it like that isn't exactly inaccurate, so that might be one way of seeing it, yes.

[waterwhip]

If it's anything like bending, then you use your body's chi to reach out to the world around you and manipulate your element. Is that how it works?

[kallig]

If those are the terms that make it easier for you to understand. For me, the Force just is. It's sort of like breathing- you don't really think about it, you just do it.

[He's sure that a Jedi would sit down and meditate on such things, but he is most certainly not a Jedi.]

Some in my world have the ability to use the Force, but most do not. And there are those, like myself, who are strong in it, and others who are weak in it. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to that, either.

[After all, he's Chiss, and the Force is not exactly supposed to be strong in his species...]

[waterwhip]

It's kind of like that where I'm from. Waterbending is a part of who I am, though I did have to practice and train in order to be called a master. [ It's an accomplishment she's obviously proud of, especially considering some people didn't even want to let her train in the first place because of her gender. ]

Some can't bend, either, like my brother Sokka. He's got a lot of other skills, though! He's great at coming up with plans and reading maps.

[kallig]

We too had to train, where I am from. It took-- [She seems very young. He should probably be moderating his words, a little,] It took a special person, to come to have mastery of the Force. Not everyone was cut out for it.

[That works.]

The ones who could not bend, were they more common than the ones that could?

[waterwhip]

In my tribe, I was the only waterbender, but that was because the Fire Nation raided us over decades and captured or... killed the others. They wanted to wipe out every kind of bending that wasn't fire. They wiped out all the airbenders.

[ Okay, moving on! ]

Most places have about half and half, I guess. I met a pair of twins where one was an earthbender and the other wasn't.

[kallig]

[Maybe he didn't need to moderate his words after all. Still, she's probably had enough of death and destruction and doesn't need to know the particulars of his world. Children are resilient, but still.

So he'll keep his mouth shut when it comes to the Sith and the Jedi, the Empire and the Republic.]

I see. That makes them more common than Force-sensitives. There are less of those of us who can use it, than those who cannot. Species does play a part in that as well, though.

[waterwhip]

Species? What do you mean?

[kallig]

Humans are not the only sentient species, where I am from. I assume they are, in your world?

[No matter, really. Humans are the more common species where he's from, too.]

In mine, there are humans, and there are those like myself, aliens. And there are certainly plenty of different species out there, to the point where I could not name them all.

[waterwhip]

Well, no, not exactly. My world also has spirits that live there, and they're definitely not human... except the Moon Spirit, I guess.

[ Katara takes a second to think about what Altair just said. He sounds human through the audio feed, but so did all the spirits she met back home. ]

So... you aren't human. [ Yes, Katara, the man did just say that. ] I mean--if you aren't human, then... what kind of... alien are you?