shatterverse | (no subject)

Sokka-- doesn't know.

He hugs Loo tight and kisses her hair. "It's okay, Loo," he murmurs, turning so she can't look where her mother ran off - and he can. "Momma's gonna come right back. But me and Steph are here."

He's been worried about Loo lately, only slightly more than Mel. And he has no idea if the prospect of playing with him and Steph will change her mood about anything.

Loo gives him a skeptical look, before clinging back to him for a hug, talking in baby language because she doesn't know the grown up words for what's going on with her.

"Ska," she manages, because he's still her favourite uncle.

Mel joins them a few minutes later, wiping at her mouth.

"Thanks."

Steph digs around in her voluminous pockets with her free hand for a second and offers Mel one of those little packets of tissues, bouncing Hana a little on her hip.

"I'd ask 'are you okay,'" she says, still chewing her lip, "but I try not to be dumber than I can help. -- shut up, I do try."

None of them are okay. Except maybe Hana. Hana's probably OK.

Hana's a strong little toddler.

Sokka bounces Loo a little on his hip, comforting, and smiles when Mel comes up. "Better when you've got something to wash your mouth out with, probably."

Tissues are good, but Mel doesn't make much of an effort towards getting herself a drink. Having cleaned up a little more, she gives them all a weak smile and holds her hands out for Loo.

"I'm not okay," she answers Steph. "Working on it, but not yet. Hey, sweetie."

Steph wraps her free arm around Mel's shoulders, tentatively, while Sokka passes Loo over.

"Don't have to be OK if you don't feel like it. I'd say we could go hunt the sabretooth moose-lions over the valley, only Suki said they're endangered and we shouldn't. The baby one's really cute though!"

Sokka is still frowning worriedly, but he tries to smile once Loo is out of his arms and in her mother's. Also, to make a face at Hana.

"Endangered?" he echoes, curious. "How can a sabretooth moose-lion be endangered? They're dangerous all by themselves."

"We're getting eco-friendly in a world of inexhaustable monsters?"

Mel thinks this is crazy.

"Go figure." Cheerful Steph is cheerful - because they're not talking about corpses or dead family any more. She grins at them. "I wasn't gonna argue with Suki when the giant sabretooth moose-lion things were obeying her every command."

From the way Sokka looks between them, someone's going to have to explain exactly what an endangered species is and what there is to do about them.

Later.

After he's done staring at Steph with his eyebrows flipping out a bit. "They what? How'd she get a mooselion to listen to her?"

Hana reaches out to catch Unca's eyebrows, and Steph giggles. Hee, eyebrows. "Well," she admits, "they kind of charged us, so we kind of flipped out of the way and let them crash into each other. Then Suki did her whispering at them. By then they were either too dazed or too hurty to argue."

This was totally safe and a respectable way of dealing with dangerous animals, incidentally. In case they wondered.

"Her... whispering?"

Sokka lets Hana grab at his eyebrows, so long as she doesn't stop them from doing another crazy dance.

"She talked to them, they stopped attacking." Steph is still grinning at his crazy eyebrows. She'll have to do something sappy like kiss him soon. "Don't ask me how, though - I'm the city girl. She says she's just good with animals."

Sokka stares at her for a bit.

Then looks over at Mel.

"Is that normal? It doesn't seem normal."

Mel is staring over Loo's head. Now she just looks relieved.

"It's not a crazy thing from your world?"

Oh good.

Steph wrinkles her nose. "Does that mean it's a special superpower or something? Aw, man, everyone else has superpowers." She leans over to pet Loo's hair. "Honestly, I have no clue if that's normal or not. I'm better with crazy people than with animals."

"No, that's crazy," Sokka points out, looking between the two of them and still frowning. Since he's the only one between the three of them that's ever been considered normal in the first place, he's possibly more freaked out at the possibility of people speaking to animals coming from his world.

"All we have is bending."

"Maybe it's something she picked up on this world," Mel says. "Useful skill, anyway."

"What, like 'whoops, I tripped and fell on the ability to talk to animals'?" Sokka asks, giving Mel a skeptical look.

And then frowning sharply and looking between her and Steph. "Wait, does that happen?"

Steph is about to shake her head no, but hesitates. "... on my world it probably could," she admits, grinning. "Dunno about here, but hell, everything else happens here, why not?"

Hana thinks Sokka's worried face is funny, and smacks it, because smacking always gets a reaction.

Oh if only pre-Crisis Dinah were around to tell them.

"Don't hit family, Han."

Mel's ignored.

"Wouldn't skitz about it. It helps us. Probably get her skitzing if we mentioned it."

Sokka is not a fan of being smacked. However, since it's an adorable niece and not an enemy, he captures her hand and gives it a kiss. And holds on. No more smacking, please.

He nods to Mel's words, but it's fairly obvious he's still thinking about it, and not too fond of the idea.

"We've dealt with weirder," Steph assures Sokka cheerfully, leaning against his side. "Quit making that face, it makes you look like a drunken chimpanzee."

"How's that different from his usual face?"

"A drunk chimpanzee is less annoyed with the women around him," Sokka replies, sticking his tongue out at Mel - and tucking it back in to kiss Steph.

(leaving it out would require certain sisters to go away first)

(no subject)

alwaysroomforhope - 2009-02-09 08:04 (UTC) - Expand