fairynuff | TEST DRIVE MEME

Entry tags:

TEST DRIVE MEME

Considering apping to EACHDRAIDH? Why not give the setting a test run here!

OPTIONAL SCENARIOS

01. ARRIVING IN THE DRABWURLD.
The Seelie and Unseelie courts welcome you with mirthful revelry and hearty food. After you have been briefed on your purpose here, you will find an endless feast and a night filled with entertainment to placate your concerns. Mingle with new arrivals, sneak down the castle halls and make sure your eyes are always on your glass; fairies and imps have no bias when it comes to tricks!

02. THE STATION.
Looking for a little slice of home? The Station gives you all that and more. Take advantage of the wifi, have a cup of fairy-brewed coffee (the one they didn't spit in) or sit back and relax on the patio. You can even move your things into one of the available rooms!

03. WILDCARD.
Your own scenario! Explore the Drabwurld or simply take advantage of your Locket!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

House moved close enough to the window to see that it was still latched shut. Well, that was disappointing. Apparently monk boy wasn't all that bright. Though, taking an unusually forgiving view, maybe monk boy had never seen a window before. That didn't seem likely but then nothing about this situation seemed likely.

"Why do you want to jump out of the window?" House had many, many more questions but he decided to start with the most obvious one. "If you just want to leave, I hear they have these things called doors...."

"Because it's easier to fly when you jump from heights."

The boy took his staff and stamped the butt of it gently on the floor. Automatically, fan-like extensions popped out, turning the staff into a glider.

"I need to stay here to heal, but no one said I couldn't fly around the grounds."

House wasn't sure he'd trust the hang glider to actually fly, but it was nifty. And he was jealous. He wanted a cane that turned into glider, or a light saber, or anything more fun than what it was--an ambulatory support.

"You have a valid point, but I'm not sure this is the best place for a take-off. Wouldn't it be better to have a more open space, and a higher one?" He completely ignored the fact their current height was safer, because if the kid couldn't get the thing to fly, he'd survive a two story drop. House firmly believed if you were going to do something questionably stupid, you might as well go all out.

"Well, sure, but I only just got here. I can't find anywhere better and I keep getting lost when I try to."

The boy perked hopefully and snapped his glider closed before leaning on it. It seemed that he was having trouble standing upright without support.

"Do you know anywhere better I can take off from?"

"Afraid I can't help with that. I'm still finding my way around myself."

House sat on the windowsill and eyed the kid. Even without mentioning that he was healing, it was obvious he wasn't operating at 100%. House didn't know if this kid was real or a fractured part of his psyche but as semi-adult person, and one with a medical degree to boot, he thought maybe he should say something.

"Are you sure that's the best idea, though? I know you said no one told you you couldn't, but jumping from buildings is not generally considered the best therapeutic choice."

The boy cocked his head and blinked owlishly before giving a sheepish smile.

"I guess it's not really for most people, but I'm an Air Nomad. We jump off stuff all the time!" The smile quickly became more earnest. "And the best part is that using a glider means I don't need to move around my arms and legs to bend the air, so I won't hurt myself."

Or, well, he wouldn't hurt himself during the actual flying. Landing might cause trouble.

There was so much wrong with that statement. Worse, there were so many words in that statement whose meaning eluded him. Air Nomad? That made the kid sound like an ICBM, which House felt safe in assuming he probably wasn't. He didn't have the right aerodynamic shape for one thing.

He scratched his chin for a moment, allowing the crazier of his theories to sort themselves out to the bottom of the list, leaving him with...slightly less crazy theories. He needed more data.

"At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot--what do you mean by 'bend' air?"

"You--oh!" His eyebrows went up and he looked genuinely surprised for a moment. "Sorry, I thought every world had bending! I guess not."

He bit his lip, rocking on the balls of his feet. "Bending's like... it's... okay, it's pretty hard to describe if you haven't seen it. Just watch."

He put aside his staff for a moment and raised his arms, taking a breath before twisting and jumping in place. For a brief moment, there's and audible, visible ball of churning air hugged in his arms, and then he thrusts it downward before linking his hands together and sitting on it. He's literally sitting in a meditative position on a ball of air.

If House knew anything about martial arts and the different styles, he might be able to identify Ba Gua Zhang.

The boy floated there for a moment with a smile, then his entire body seized with pain, ruining his posture, and the air ball released itself with a powerful gust of wind in all directions, allowing the boy to land hard on the ground.

"Ow..." He groaned softly before there was another softer gust of wind, catching his clothes and pulling him up just enough so he could put his feet underneath himself and he was standing again. "Sorry... I'm usually better at that."

If House was crazy, that would simply be a new facet to his insanity. But if he wasn't crazy, that was truly the most amazing thing he'd ever seen.

"Come sit," he said, patting the ledge next to him. The kid was obviously not as healthy as he wanted to think he was. While House generally left people to their own stupid choices, kids were a little different. They couldn't be expected to understand the full scopes of potential consequences.

Also, he didn't want to run the risk of having to explain why there was a dead kid in hall with him. That could get awkward.

"So how do you do that?" he asked, moving his hands in an imitation of what the kid had just done. "Is there some kind of technology you use?"

The boy perked up with a smile and slowly settled down next to House, leaning his staff against his knees. "Not technology. Bending."

He moved his wrist gently in circular motions, summoning a tiny version of the churning ball of air he had just been sitting on. It whirred softly just above his palm, building up momentum just by spinning.

"It's... well, my airbending master described it as using the energy inside yourself to manipulate the elements. It's something you're born with, but you have to learn and practice a lot if you want to be good at it."

Air--wind--could be defined scientifically and it obeyed the laws of physics. Theoretically, at least, it could be controlled. Controlling it through...what? The power of the mind? Yeah, that was a little harder to wrap his head around.

"So this kind of thing is normal for your people? What happens if two people try to 'bend' the air at the same time?"

Then, because he was a curious child at heart, House stuck his finger into the whirling ball of air above the kid's hand.

"Yup! It's completely normal for Air Nomads." He kept spinning the ball in his hand with a bright smile. "If we both bend the air, we both just bend it! But, uh, you mean if we're trying to use the same air? Then it usually just turns into a windy mess, or the more powerful bender beats the other. Or, if you're just bending too close to each other, you might hit someone by accident." He giggles at the thought, since beginner airbender students would often underestimate how much space they would need and smack the people bending next to them.

And then House touched the ball, and it burst into a gust of wind blowing in all directions with a FSWIP noise. The boy startled, then started to laugh. He immediately made another ball of air.

House jerked back when the ball of air came undone, so startled his ass slipped off the ledge and he nearly fell. He managed to maintain his balance, fortunately, so he didn't look like a complete klutz but he obviously hadn't been expecting that reaction.

"Nice party trick," he said as he settled himself back on the ledge. "How strong can you make the wind?"

Aang was ready to move and grab House by the arm if he had fallen, but luckily, balance was maintained. He smiled and playfully rolled the little air ball between his fingers. He wasn't showing off, honest.

(He was totally showing off.)

"Uh..." He paused, closing his fist on the air ball and allowing it to dissipate. "Well... I've never really tried doing it as hard as I could. The monks told me it could cause a lot of damage if I did. I could probably wear through rocks if I tried."

"Put that away, kid, before you hurt someone. Someone being me, of course," he said, nodding at the ball of air. He didn't think the kid was going to hurt him either intentionally or accidently but the whirling air was distracting.

"Seriously?" House looked down at the boy with a decidedly skeptical expression. "You do know it takes a gazillion years for normal wind to erode a rock, right?" Okay, possibly a slight exaggeration, not to mention gazillion wasn't a real number. It did lead to another question however. "How would something like that affect you? Don't you have to use your own energy to...bend?"

"Yep. Normal wind doesn't blow as hard, though."

Honestly, Aang had never been asked any of these questions. Back home, everyone just accepted bending as a fact of life. He rested his hands in his lap and kicked his legs absently in the air as he thought.

"Well... it depends on how good of a bender you are. If a beginner airbender tried something like that, they wouldn't be able to do it. And they might strain something."

He reached up and tapped on the arrow on his head. "These tattoos mean that I've mastered air. As you get better at an element, you get better at moving around and focusing your chi. If you know how to do it right and you're used to dealing with that much power, then the worst you get is feeling tired at the end of the day."

Edited (Wrong icon! Also awkward phrasing) 2014-03-30 03:44 (UTC)

"Well, that explains a lot; I left my chi in my other pants," House said dryly. Even if he had chi--something he didn't believe in--he was fairly certain he wouldn't know how to use it. Shame, really. Bending would be a useful tool for dealing with the idiots who got in his way.

He started twirling his cane as he tried to process all the information. "Are you some kind of prodigy? You seem awful young to be a master of anything."

Aang laughed again, but then shut up at House's question.

He could just agree that he was a prodigy, was the first thing that he thought. He could just say he was a prodigy and change the subject. He didn't have to admit to being the Avatar, expected to save the world at the age of twelve. The man probably wouldn't know either way.

No, Aang mentally scolded himself. Didn't he just go over with Guru Pathik that lying about his identity was bad?

"I, uh... yeah, I am." He avoided House's eyes and fingered his glider. "I'm the Avatar. I guess if your world doesn't have bending, it doesn't of an Avatar, right?"

"Not that I know of. And I probably would know if we had one." House didn't believe in any of that mystic new-agey crap but disbelief wasn't the same as ignorance. If there were people who could manipulate the air with their chi, he would've heard about it.

He studied the kid silently for a moment, still idly spinning his cane. As far as he could tell, the kid didn't seem nearly as comfortable talking about his status as he had been about his abilities. House didn't think that was too odd. Being a prodigy, being special, wasn't always all that easy.

"So what's your name? I'm not supposed to call you The Avatar, am I?"

"No, no, you don't need to do that." The boy smiled again when he wasn't asked further about being the Avatar, but it wasn't quite as bright as previous smiles.

He put his staff aside for a moment before standing up, putting on fist in his hand and bowing. The motion is a little stiff around the back, but it's sincere. "I'm Aang. Sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner."

House almost smiled at the way the kid...Aang, his name was Aang...went from childish exuberance to an adult-like formality. He thought Aang should stick to being a child. It suited him. Besides, goodness knew politeness was wasted on House.

"Good to meet you. I'm Greg." He offered his hand because, well, if they were going to make this official, then it had to be sealed with a handshake. "And just so you know, I'm a doctor, and I say Avatar or no Avatar, you really do need to find a safer way to amuse yourself for a few days. A nice game of chess, perhaps."

Aang took a moment to look at the offered hand in mild confusion, then oh! Yeah, he remembered! It was an Earth Kingdom gesture of greeting.

He smiled widely and clasped Greg's hand in his before shaking. "Good to meet you too, Greg. One question..." He released Greg's hand with big, curious eyes. "What's chess?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TEST DRIVE MEME

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject