WHO: Azula + Others WHAT: Various starters. WHEN: July! WHERE: Places! WARNINGS: Not quite yet. There will be doppelgänger bodies, everything else added in time.
[He's still got his backpack, but it's a fair bit lighter these days. He's not unused to starving, but at least in 12, there were sometimes outside sources of food. Here? There's a finite amount of food, and he doesn't know how long they're all going to last.
But that's a problem for later.]
You?
[He joins her, going through cabinet after cabinet-- but it's not long before he reaches the closet. It's stupid he doesn't feel the weight against the door, but it is what it is. At least it isn't a trap.
The corpse of a sixteen year old boy tumbles out, falling in a heap at Haymitch's feet. He leaps back, knife already in his hand-- but though he realizes what the threat is almost immediately, he doesn't move to grab it, not yet.
And he doesn't say anything so stupid as don't look. She's going to look. The only thing he can do is observe right now, glancing over at her with a grimace.]
It's not real. Don't-- it's not real, I promise you.
⟪ She confirms it, dark undertone and all, because it's starting to look a bit bleak, doesn't it? There are some cans hidden in by her sleeping spot and she's got a bag of her own slung across her shoulder, but that's not going to last long. Couple of days, maybe.
Not half as big a problem as what drops out on Haymitch a moment later. He's jumped back and gotten his knife out so fast – honestly, she could come up with a list of soldiers who could take a lesson from that – but there's no real time to point that out, not when she realises whose body it is before it even hits the ground. ⟫
How would you know it's not real? ⟪ Her voice is clipped, almost... raw, maybe, as she slips past him to do just what he's kept from telling her not to do: to look. And it's Zuko, alright, not an inch worth of doubt to it, from the black of his hair to the gold of his good eye. Formerly good. Fixed in a death stare now. He's even wearing the disgusting orange shirt he's worn when she last saw him.
That's what she's fixated on now, not bothering to figure out the zipper and instead pushing the fabric up, all the way to where she recalls her lightning catching – but he's scarless. That makes sense, of course: he told her the Agni Kai never happened.
She drags the shirt back down, as if covering him up helps, and pulls her hands back, rubbing her own arms instead, as if trying to remember what living skin feels like, or trying to rid herself of the sensation of how awfully unnaturally cold he'd been. Evidently, she's reached the very end of her emotional horizon, because she's breathing rapidly, but she's not crying – honestly, she's caught between processing and trying to figure out of this is a good or a bad thing.
And then she freezes, as if suddenly remembering something: ⟫
Do you know him?
⟪ She isn't at all considering the option that a dead body might be considered a disturbing encounter regardless of whether it's a stranger or not, she's just hearing alarm bells ring at the idea that Haymitch might know how they're tied together. ⟫
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[He's still got his backpack, but it's a fair bit lighter these days. He's not unused to starving, but at least in 12, there were sometimes outside sources of food. Here? There's a finite amount of food, and he doesn't know how long they're all going to last.
But that's a problem for later.]
You?
[He joins her, going through cabinet after cabinet-- but it's not long before he reaches the closet. It's stupid he doesn't feel the weight against the door, but it is what it is. At least it isn't a trap.
The corpse of a sixteen year old boy tumbles out, falling in a heap at Haymitch's feet. He leaps back, knife already in his hand-- but though he realizes what the threat is almost immediately, he doesn't move to grab it, not yet.
And he doesn't say anything so stupid as don't look. She's going to look. The only thing he can do is observe right now, glancing over at her with a grimace.]
It's not real. Don't-- it's not real, I promise you.
no subject
⟪ She confirms it, dark undertone and all, because it's starting to look a bit bleak, doesn't it? There are some cans hidden in by her sleeping spot and she's got a bag of her own slung across her shoulder, but that's not going to last long. Couple of days, maybe.
Not half as big a problem as what drops out on Haymitch a moment later. He's jumped back and gotten his knife out so fast – honestly, she could come up with a list of soldiers who could take a lesson from that – but there's no real time to point that out, not when she realises whose body it is before it even hits the ground. ⟫
How would you know it's not real? ⟪ Her voice is clipped, almost... raw, maybe, as she slips past him to do just what he's kept from telling her not to do: to look. And it's Zuko, alright, not an inch worth of doubt to it, from the black of his hair to the gold of his good eye. Formerly good. Fixed in a death stare now. He's even wearing the disgusting orange shirt he's worn when she last saw him.
That's what she's fixated on now, not bothering to figure out the zipper and instead pushing the fabric up, all the way to where she recalls her lightning catching – but he's scarless. That makes sense, of course: he told her the Agni Kai never happened.
She drags the shirt back down, as if covering him up helps, and pulls her hands back, rubbing her own arms instead, as if trying to remember what living skin feels like, or trying to rid herself of the sensation of how awfully unnaturally cold he'd been. Evidently, she's reached the very end of her emotional horizon, because she's breathing rapidly, but she's not crying – honestly, she's caught between processing and trying to figure out of this is a good or a bad thing.
And then she freezes, as if suddenly remembering something: ⟫
Do you know him?
⟪ She isn't at all considering the option that a dead body might be considered a disturbing encounter regardless of whether it's a stranger or not, she's just hearing alarm bells ring at the idea that Haymitch might know how they're tied together. ⟫