(no subject)

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

This is all so far out of Katara's control!

It is probably that nobody is venturing this far from the household without a reason. Katara has a reason: her face is starting to rot off, and she hasn't been able to find anyone to drain, and she's so terribly afraid that Sokka will come back any moment and find her, and she can't avoid Toph for much longer without the other girl getting suspicious, and and and it's all so hard being a deadly killer zombie and NOBODY UNDERSTANDS HER and --

Anyone who has wandered these fields over may find a small, foul-smelling, rotting lump of girl sitting on an abandoned horsetrough and wasting precious moisture by crying.

Good luck to them.

Comments

[runaway-bandit.livejournal.com]

Toph hasn't seen Katara for a while, and she's getting worried. And she doesn't like being worried. People as awesome as Tophs don't get worried.

But that's why she's now specifically looking for Katara, and around the earth of the famr, it's hard to hide from the Earthbender.

Though when she finds her, the first thing she notices is that Katara's crying.

"Katara?"

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

Katara yelps and stiffens, staring in horror at Toph.

She isn't breathing.

(It doesn't seem to worry her.)

"Go away!" she snaps.

[runaway-bandit.livejournal.com]

"You're crying," Toph points out, concern still making her voice soft as she approaches anyway.

(She's not breathing, she smells, she's the wrong weight, and she feels wrong.)

"What's wrong?"

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"Nothing's wrong!" Katara growls, her voice hoarse and crisp. A little flake of skin peels away from her cheek and drops, and Katara scrambles to her feet and backs away. "I'm fine, go away!"

[runaway-bandit.livejournal.com]

Toph approaches - not particularly fast but with unstoppable determination now.

"You're not breathing," she says aloud now. "Why aren't you breathing?"

She puts out a hand to touch her friend, concern now mixed with confusion.

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine!" Katara snaps again, backing away faster, flinching from Toph's hand. (Her skin is soft, soggy, peeling off in places; the unmistakable odour of rot hangs around.)

"Please, Toph. Please! Go away!"

[runaway-bandit.livejournal.com]

"Katara!"

Welling up within her, Toph realises that now she's scared. Katara doesn't feel like normal people feel. Too dry, despite the sogginess of her skin.

"...I'm going to get Sokka."

He'll know what to do.

[ducttapesurgeon.livejournal.com]

"Well now", says the young man strolling across the field towards her. "What has someone done to you?"

[For sanity's sake, this thread is before Toph- and Sokka-threads!]

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

Katara backs away, scrambling to her feet and stumbling backwards.

"Go away!"

[ducttapesurgeon.livejournal.com]

"No", he says calmly. "Don't worry, you can't hurt me."

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"Yes I can," Katara tells him angrily, "I just don't want to. And I don't want to talk to you either! Go away!"

[ducttapesurgeon.livejournal.com]

"No, you can't. I'm already dead, and so are you." He sits down on a nearby rock. "Call me Dead Boy."

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"I am not," Katara snarls at him, furious. She doesn't sit down again.

"I'm not calling you anything."

[emoreaper.livejournal.com]

And a certain young man takes a seat beside her. "Not so easy being alive again, huh?"

[For sanity's sake, this thread is before Toph- and Sokka-threads!]

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

Katara jumps away, startled, and stares at him.

"What?"

Re: [For sanity's sake, this thread is before Toph- and Sokka-threads!]

[emoreaper.livejournal.com]

"I said 'Not so easy being alive again, huh?'" Rickie watches her with concern in his eyes. "The whole zombie thing."

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"The whole ... what?"

Katara's never heard that word before.

[emoreaper.livejournal.com]

"The living dead, dear." He sighs, shaking his head sadly. "Using the life force of living souls to keep your dead body active."

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"I'm not a --"

Katara freezes.

"... how did you know that?"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

Eventually, there is a figure around the corner. He is pale and scared and wary, steps slow and careful.

And there are sad, worried dark eyes on the wall of rock and the wriggling figure inside.

He heard what Toph said, he knows logically what it means but-- not Katara. Not his sister. She wouldn't, she-- couldn't. As bad as she had been, she would never ever use her bending to benefit herself to hurt people.

...at least... not to this extent.

"Katara?"

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"Go away!" is the anguished shriek, desperate and miserable. And not sounding like it's coming from an entirely healthy throat -- which is explained if he moves close enough to see the way she looks now.

"Go away, Sokka!"

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

Something's wrong, Toph had said. She'd felt wrong to the Earthbender, and she'd shrieked just like this. She'd felt dry, Toph said, not like a Waterbender shouldn't but like a living person shouldn't and at that point, all Sokka could hear in his head over and over again was Dean's warnings about things never turning out the way you meant them to, no matter how careful you were.

But she was fine, he'd seen that before and now...

Threatened to kill her, Toph said. And all the dead plants, the wasted fields, the missing people he and Steph had heard about when they'd come back.

Bloodbending.

He'd never heard the term before but he will never ever forget the first time (http://community.livejournal.com/apharsites/174418.html?thread=6923602#t6923602) he saw his sister bending blood as easily as water.

"Katara."

His voice is steady but he doesn't know how or why. Just that it sounds calm and he's still approaching her and his brain is telling him in some far off corner It's really not that different, you've seen her like this before.

The rest of his brain is trying to squash the other to silence, insisting firmly that no, no, this is different, someone got it wrong, this is different.

He can see her now, see the rotting flesh as easily as he can smell it and he can't tear his eyes away.

"I'm not leaving you."

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

Katara is firmly imprisoned in the rock; she can't bend, she can't even move, in her own rock-formed little coffin, and she's screaming - if only internally, her throat choking up on decayed vocal chords.

Not dying again! NO NO NO NO NO!

"Go! It'll - it'll be fine!"

It will be fine, all she has to do is find someone nobody will miss, and then she'll go to him and he'll see, she's fine, she's perfectly fine, she deserves to live!

[notanoptimist.livejournal.com]

"Katara."

He keeps saying her name like it will bring her back, though he knows it won't. But he has to get through to her, has to talk to her, make her listen. And he was always able to do that, if only for a little while.

His hands are up where she can see them, unarmed, and he keeps walking toward her.

"Katara, it's me. Toph said you need my help. I want to help you."

[highrisktrader.livejournal.com]

"I don't need help!"

She tries to hide by turning her face away, but can't move even that much, arms pinned and neck held still and even her toes encased in rock that won't let her bend in the slightest.

But from what he can see of her ... she doesn't really look that much like Katara any more, either.

"Get me out of these rocks and I'll be fine, Sokka. I can heal myself! I've been doing it!"