shatterverse | (no subject)

Entry tags:

hibym a jona,
iroh

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They scrub her up, dress her all nice in dirty grey, tie her hands behind her back and lead her blind out of her cell with the black hood knotted closed at the front. She can't breathe in the smoky street air, can't hear over the press of boos and cheers and chatter that erupts on her ears.

This is it. She's going to die.

The hangman's hands are surprisingly gentle -- but then they have to be, don't they? The crowd needs to be told who's the hero and the villain of the scene -- it's just like a play, she realises, just the endlessly-retold fable of the Bad Little Thief who was Brought To Justice. She's blithely accepted it hundreds of times as part of the gleeful crowd.

This is it. This is it. She's going to die, and they're going to mince her body so she can't come back, and--

--there's a split second's nothing as the hangman pulls the trapdoor lever, clunk, and--

--SHE SCREAMS as the wood beneath her feet vanishes, crack, and--

--hits grass, crumples, struggles, falls, screams again, is she dead?, screams again.

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What, he can't tell by the blue tongue?

"I'm from Tryst. And my parents." This is important! "...Before that we're from the tundras, though."

All he can tell from the blue tongue is that the hands aren't her only birth defect. Not that it matters since she seems to get along fine.

Other than the hood thing.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Tryst. What is that near?"

Wait till he sees her feet!

"It's... um," says the girl who hasn't seen all of the city, let alone travelled outside it. "It's sort of..."

She waves her hands in a vaguely indicatory way, and gives up.

"...Mister, you should know it, it's huge. It's got canals."

Iroh shakes his head, "Sorry, I'm not familiar with it." And if he doesn't know it, then it can't really be a huge city.

Jona frowns a little. Everyone should have heard of her home! Because... it's her home, that's why, and she's proud of it! Um, even if it does have capital punishment.

"Then where d'you from?"

Bet she hasn't heard of it! ...Actually, with her knowledge, that wouldn't be a mark against it.

"I was born in the Fire Nation," Iroh answers simply.

Huh. Another place she doesn't know.

"Used their imaginations naming your nations, didn't they?" It's not meant meanly. You can tell by the smile.

Iroh's laugh is deep and rich, "Well, it is descriptive. Even if it's not especially elegant."

Bright grin! Jona pretty much goes with whatever anyone else is feeling, really. "You move somewhere else, too?" Well, he did only say he was born there.

"Oh, I wandered for a while. With my nephew," Iroh's smile is fond, if a little pained.

"Not enough food in the Fire Nation?" Her socio-economic learnings, let her show you them.

...Oh, hang on, pained isn't good. Jona's expression becomes more concerned.

He offers a good-natured chuckle, "Oh, no. There was generally enough food. My nephew was on something of a pilgrimage." To find himself.

Jona pretends to know what a pilgrimage is.

"...Oh?"

Um.

"Is he...?" she answers her own question by glancing around at the lack of angry Fire Nation prince.

Iroh didn't even look before shaking his head, "Ah, no. We are no longer traveling together."

Jona's gradually picking up on a sense of awk-waaard. She chews uncertainly at her thumbnail.

...

"We should... find... people," she suggests. "A city. Something. We can't stay out in the open during the night." Not that she knows how long it is until said night, but it will give them something to do and maybe someone can tell them what happened to bring them here? :D?

"We can't?" Iroh ponders this for a moment. "I don't see why not. It looks rather nice out here, after all." Then, "Not that I would object to a city, of course."

"...it gets cold at night. And it rains."

Duh, Iroh.

"... It rains?" Iroh's voice is pretty good at conveying his confusion about how this could be a bad thing.

It's a bad thing because it's your head it's raining on!

"A lot."

No, really. Around the city of Tryst, when it rains, the fish can walk out of the rivers.

(She can't be that far from home, can she?)

"You mean a storm?" Iroh looks up to study the sky. "It doesn't look that way to me."

"They come in like..." she clicks her fingers "...that."

That sound? That's her brain catching up with her mouth.

"...Maybe... not so much here, though?"

"Still," Iroh frowns, thinking. "It might be wise to find someone who can tell us where we are? And find someone with tea." He's not sure how long he can survive without that.

"Want to pick a direction at random?" she invites him, looking around again at the grass and the grass and the grass.

Hopefully they won't have to travel far. Even her hungriness is hungry. Also, Swarabic feet? Not designed for long-distance walking.

"Well, how do you feel about west?" Iroh asks with a grin. "I rather like the direction myself."

Jona is totally up for going west!

"Wildly enthusiastic," she says -- and, with the dramatically courteous gesture familiar to the more overplayed stage melodramas, "After you."

Mainly because she doesn't know which way west is.