Posts by Galestep

(Tracking, will wait to see if my form is needed again.)

(Everyone active here? Let's go! :))

The soft noise of grass and passing feet woke Harumi. She flung her blanket aside and rolled to her feet all in an instant, poised to flee. Then she remembered where she was. She sighed quietly and sank back down on her haunches while she got her bearings.
She was on the edge of the camp, exactly where she'd lain the night before. She was under a lean-to that faced into the camp. Beside her, someone had dumped a mountain of blankets. Harumi assumed that the rest of her comrades were still buried somewhere in the mess, save for one area that had also been mussed, an area marked by too great an indentation to be just a human.
A wet snuffle took her attention away from the blankets. Oh, so that's what had made the big mark in the grass.
"Ah, Mongo! Petra!" Harumi greeted them. "Have you been up long?"

I am still here, but I just have nothing much to say

"Yes, definitely," Harumi enthused. "I saw some benders training last night, before we passed out, y'know? They were doing stuff I would have barely thought of just two days ago." She tilted her head to one side of the clearing, where benders were breakfasting under the trees, where they had trained the evening before.
"I saw some people earthbending too, not sandbending like Lars, but lifting rocks and things."

"I thought you'd never ask!" Harumi's mouth was watering at the smell of porridge and dumplings. Where did the benders get their food, anyway? It didn't matter. After weeks on the road, Harumi was desperate for a warm, freshly-cooked meal.

(I like it! I'm thinking Anti-Harumi might be apathetic, and if not stoic, then unflappable. Like, since Harumi has a pretty mercurial mood and lets even small things heavily affect her, her opposite should be consistent and able to shrug off most everything.)

Hearing a shift behind them, Harumi turned to see Lien. "Hey, wanna join us for breakfast?"

After Harumi had come over and thanked Lily, she proceeded to perform the extraordinary task of cramming her entire ration into her mouth at once, like she was afraid of her meal getting away from her. She sat by as the others talked and chewed quietly, her cheeks full of dumpling dough and puffed out like a rabbit-munk. She nodded to second Petra's question, then surreptitiously grabbed an extra cabbage leaf and shoved it into her mouth along with the dumplings.

(I hope so, but idk.)

"You're an airbender!" Harumi realized aloud when she saw Sheng. He looked emaciated, like the wind he was supposed to control could blow him away in a moment, but any airbender was better than none. "I'm an airbender too!"
As if her bright clothes and stubbly, once-partially-shaven head weren't evidence enough.

"Oh, I don't know. I never had formal training," Harumi said, completely unabashed by this. "I just sort of figured it out alone. I can use it to cushion falls- very useful- and blow some wind around and oh yeah, this!" She rummaged around on the ground for a twig and, once she had located one about as long as her index finger, set about "levitating" it atop a pad of air above her outstretched palm.
"Ta-da!"

(I like Yellow's anti-Harumi idea. Combined with an earlier idea of mine, we'd have an excellent, though rather reticent ninja. I also like what you have going for anti-Petra. Perhaps s/he should be domineering and haughty too, to counteract Petra's personality? Unless we agree on a partial flip, in which case the personalities needn't be exact opposites.)

"Ah, how rude of me. I'm Harumi," the young airbender said. She pointed out the girl Sheng had asked about. "And over there is Petra."

(Oh, I'd love to try my hand at Anti-Jess; I so rarely handle manipulative and eloquent characters, in RPs at least.)

Harumi tried to conceal her surprise at Sheng's words. She'd never thought of airbending as a spiritual/enlightening exercise. Hopefully Sheng, being a monk, wouldn't preach too much. Harumi was so ininterested in philosophy.
"Yeah, sure," she said.

I'll see if I can't make some sort of storyboard

(Yesss I can't wait for the introductions! I'll brainstorm some stuff.)

"I'm already there," said Harumi with a smile. She waved a quick farewell to those remaining by the fire and took off towards the knoll, threading her way between huts and people. She arrived at the top of the slope and got a sense of her surroundings.
Grass, reaching to just below her knees. Just grass for some yards on either side of her, bounded on two sides by the forest and by a rock face on the other. Looking back the way she came, Harumi noticed that the cliffs ran all about the clearing like the wall of a fortress. She knew now why the benders had chosen this place, beyond the fact that it was remote.

(We still need an Anti-Harumi. I can take on an extra character if need be. We also need a way to get out of training monntages and into the patrol...)

Hades333 wrote:

Sheng caught up with her a few moments later and breathed deeply, letting the wind reinvigorate him. " Now the first thing you need to do is sit." Sheng said taking a seat. " The very first step in our training is to meditate. " Sheng said closing his eyes, " Feel the wind on your skin. Wind is the element of freedom, If one is to bend such and element to your will you must become the wind. Deep breaths, empty your mind, allow your spirit to wander."

Harumi sat down and blew through her lips like she was trying to concentrate, rather than repressing a laugh. Become the wind? How was she supposed to become wind? Why would anyone even want to become wind? Wind was so passive and pliable that anyone could trap it or cut right through it without much effort at all.
But she sat still anyway with her eyes closed, giving the appearance of meditating or trying to let her spirit wander or whatever.

(Yes, I think I'm doing anti-Jess. Anti-Harumi has a patient, steady temper and is unaffected by most things that come her/his way, in contrast to Harumi's impatience and easily-changeable mood.)

Hearing Sheng move off, Harumi gave it another ten seconds, then cracked an eye open. Good, he was gone. A sly grin spread across her face, and with a push of air she was on her feet. Taking a final look around, she slipped off into the woods around the village, hoping to find some game or maybe practice alone. Not far off, she heard splashing and shouting that sounded very much like Kasai.

Harumi saw a glimpse of tattered yellow and orange through the leaves, and feared that Sheng was near. She quickly turned and retreated into the trees. As interested as she was to listen and watch more, she knew better than to risk upsetting her new teacher. Even if said teacher was rather too cerebral for her taste.
She saw a meandering but sturdy tree and decided to climb it. The branches and knots made easy foot- and hand-holds, and in the wink of an eye she had reached the top and leaped to a neighboring tree. Another wink, and she was looking over the tree canopy, the wind blowing her hair up and over her bare forehead. Now this, this was how to appreciate air!

(Oh, very exciting! You basically just missed some banter and training. Sheng and Jarn-Shyr are watching Kasai and Kai (can I call them K-squared?) spar while Harumi cuts class to climb some trees. Lars and Petra are still training.)

Harumi realized she could still hear the match going on below, as well as a conversation a little farther away. She hopped along the treetops like a squirrel, using her bending to hold steady. Soon she was sitting shrouded in leaves, watching Petra and Lars.