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Sokka has gotten used to many things in his admittedly short life. He's gotten used to the fact that his sister can play with magic water, and also likely kill him with it should she so desire. He's gotten used to the fact that a bouncy twelve year old has more power than he can imagine and is meant to save the world he was born on. He's gotten used to the idea that nothing is as it seems and scrawny, nothing children should be looked at with as much suspicion as great hulking men with guns. Sokka has gotten used to the idea of space travel and grav thrusters and slipstream, he's gotten used to speaking the same language as everybody else but not being able to write the same one, he's gotten used to writing all of his work notes out in Chinese because pretty much everything in the last year was written in it and you couldn't depend on people to be around to take care of you. Sokka has gotten used to having a Firebender in his family, and a tiny young woman who is freakishly strong and twice as scary when she wants to be. He's gotten used to taking care of and absolutely adoring two tiny half-Fire Nation girls.

Who are, respectively, strapped to his chest and back by a cloth sling as he wanders down the Street of Eden toward his designated workshop-building, where most people assume he is hard at work trying to find a way out but he is, in actuality, carving loads of tiny toy animals for his nieces.

Sokka has also gotten used to the idea that while he isn't useless, there is a point where he has to recognize that he just doesn't know how to fix something, and needs to give it a rest for a while.

So with Hana and Loo babbling in his ears in their Baby Language, with an occasional Mama or Dada or Unca thrown in that he can actually understand, he walks on.

When the flash comes, Sokka ducks and curls his arms over the heads of the girls, because he's gotten used to sudden attacks. And when no explosion or other noise follows, he gets to his feet quickly, with a club in one hand and a boomerang in another, because Sokka's gotten used to being lulled into false security.

But when Sokka looks around and realizes he's left the Street of Eden and is in a place that isn't the Street, isn't Apocalyptica, isn't the Earth Kingdom, isn't anywhere in any of those places, he stares. Because despite doing it twice before, Sokka has not gotten used to this.

"No."

His reaction is, possibly, quite surprising.

"No! No, god damn it, no!" Glaring hatefully up at the sky, Sokka holds tight to the girls in the sling-- and then sits down abruptly, cross-legged, in the middle of a ruined road.

"I am going to sit here until you put us back! You can throw me to any world you want, but you can't make me get up!"

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"What I want is not exactly what you're going to give," Jack observes.

His hand returns to his side.

"We're going to find the ocean."

"I got guilted out of the middle of the road," Sokka informs-- Sokka.

"Good, 'cos that was boring." Sokka brightens at the mention of the ocean. "Great! Will that get us home?"

(He's not sure what that hand thing was all about, he'll have to find out later.)

"Not 'less there's a caster," Jack shoot a glance at Uncle Sokka, "or someone else of the right talents nearby.

"But the ocean's the ocean and I'm to be safer knowing she's there."

The Uncle, and also the least excited of the three of them, shrugs when he's glanced at and nods off in the direction they'd been heading before the bins started crashing. "It's over this way. Can't hurt to look, anyway, and I've already moved so I guess I can keep moving. We need to find somebody who knows more than we do... which could be anyone who's been here more than an hour, really."

"If we can find the ocean we can make a boat!" Sokka says excitedly. "--if we can find stuff to make a boat with. And then we can go --"

Here is where his Excellent Plan runs into a snag.

"--uh."

"Out to sea," Jack puts in. "What is better than this dead town however it's seen."

"Did you float here?" Sokka asks the boy in red with just a very slight smirk. "I think this is going to be more like joyriding than escaping. But... it will be nice to see water again."

Like seeing the sky in Eden for the first time in a year.

"And I meant it about getting out of this town," the younger Sokka says, glancing warily behind them. "I need to get back to my sister and my friends, but I don't think sitting in the road and waiting to get EATEN is going to help."

"Can't say as to your sister..." Jack pauses, only to look between Sokkas. Different sisters.

"...and friends, but I know the sea's this way."

The older one gives Jack a glance, a very short one that can be translated quite simply:

Don't.

Not to him, anyway.

"You didn't answer me about the dead things," Sokka points out to the younger boy, adjusting the sling holding the girls and looking at other-Sokka curiously. "They were eaten? Like by an animal?"

Sokka shakes his head, frowning again, goofiness fading (slightly). "I didn't see any humans," he says, but he points back deeper into the city. "Or human bones. I saw some decayed animals, but they were freaky -- I swear I saw the corpse of some sort of ostrichhorse that had four legs back that way -- and lots of recent tracks. Like wolfbat tracks. I don't think it's safe here."

Jack gives the older Sokka a questioning look, searching for more information. A second later though and he's peering past the younger one into the ruined city.

"I'm not thinking it's all that safe for a good ways around. General, not immediate danger."

At the description of animals, Sokka relaxes slightly - and ignores the look from Jack. "Well, that's something; at least we know we can hunt if we need to."

Loo and Hana are starting to burble and be active again and Sokka tightens the sling as he goes digging in his pockets for more toys. The sling is just that: a sling. It wasn't really meant to carry two fairly-healthy-weight babies in it for more than a few hours at a time. But, for now at least, it'll just have to do.

"Okay," he says, once that's finished and the girls are making makeshift pacifiers out of their toys, "so ocean? Boat? Something?"

"If you're really me, we can make a boat," Young Sokka says, pulling a face for the babies when they start complaining about the sling. "And then Jak, you can find us somewhere to go, right? Right?"

Older Sokka rolls his eyes, but he's grinning a little as he does it. He isn't happy, he's barely content - but there's still something far more enjoyable about his introduction to this world than any of the others. "Don't worry, I'm equally brilliant. I haven't been out on the water in a long time so I don't know how good my navigating is, but I can build a boat with you."

"Find the direction to anywhere we want to go," Jack says helpfully, and turns in the direction he knows leads to the ocean.

"What I'm guessing is someone as can get us homewards? Might take some time."

"Unless that's something you can sense, too," Sokka begins, following in the direction Jack leads, talking about who can get them home, "all I'd know to do is pick a direction and start going. Not like it matters right off, but... yeah, it'd be nice to find some other people, at least."

Jack shakes his head ruefully as he walks.

"Who brought us in isn't around: I looked. Might find nearest caster if'n it's clear. Nearest people I'd say best bet."

"Nearest people is good," Sokka agrees, frowning. "They might know something more than we do."

"Not hard to do at this point," Sokka points out, glancing at the buildings around them curiously.

[OOC: la (http://community.livejournal.com/shatterverse/10485.html)!]