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1 yr ago
Current At the end of the day, God is everyone's bull.
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1 yr ago
me the poopy you the pants.
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2 yrs ago
i relate.
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If the situation was like a storm, brewing with dark clouds and ominous winds on the horizon, then it was not so much after Tianshi's plea that the parties involved cease that conflict that the first crack of thunder sounded. The earth itself seemed to tremble under his feet for a split second, close enough for him to feel yet far enough for him to know it meant him no harm. A glance in the direction of the disturbance informed him easily enough what it was: a large, artificial construct of earth seemed to ring the skirmishing ground, entrapping himself and the soldiers and young lady alike within. Or, perhaps, keeping those outside the area out, given the barking voice that seemed to follow its appearance. Perhaps one of the soldiers amidst the humiliated captain's party was more prudent than their commanding officer, ensuring that civilians would not be injured in the fray to follow.

Or separate them from the true threat making itself known.

An agonized shriek cut through the air outside the makeshift barrier, and a bellow that the fugitives—whom Tianshi had tried valiantly to buy time for—had been discovered. Worse yet, the path of non-violence seemed beyond them, based on the pain in the soldier's voice just beyond the barricade. A path that, itself, seemed to be evading even the nomad in the seconds that followed. The slabs of earth and stone hefted by the soldiers on his side of the barricade seemed to begin to fly, soaring in the direction of both himself and the young woman with her blade. Were he a more avoidant nomad, like the old monks in the temples, he might have chosen such a time to take flight. Evade and escape, before becoming entangled further in a conflict that was not his to fight either way. To simply fly around the storm and seek calmer shores.

Like a stubborn bison, he instead chose to fly right into its path. With an uncanny quickness, the staff in his hand seemed to flick forward once, twice, and then three times. A heavy stone that had hurdled towards himself seemed to change course at the last moment, instead colliding with the barricade with a heavy 'crack'. Another stone, directed towards the young lady, cut a sudden left, soaring well past her and into the barricade behind, and the third stone, smaller than the other two, flew off into the bay beyond, completely thrown off course by the swift burst of air that followed each of the monk's thrusts. Another volley seemed to find its way into the space between them, and with practiced precision, each projectile was thwarted by the timely intervention of the wind itself, often just enough to correct its course and see it safely disposed of.

Two of the men were not so foolish as to continue lobbing rocks ineffectually when the source of their disrupted aim remained, however, and so from the corner of his eye, Tianshi observed the textbook motions of earthbenders working in tandem, the men both assuming a sturdy stance and shifting their arms to hurl a much larger piece of earth toward him, such that his careful redirections could not see it so easily displaced. But as they made to stomp their feet in tandem, the root of their strength, the implacable earth below, left them. In the span of a breath, Tianshi's staff ducked low and then shot up, launching an updraft that caused the duo to hurdle into the skies. As gravity took hold of them and they seemed to drop back to earth, the end of his staff opposite to his thrust cut a sharp line through the air, bringing with it a powerful gust that carried them away from the hard ground below, and off into the nearby sea.

"I admire your courage, young lady, but I implore you to stand down. If you insist on harming these men, I will have no choice but to treat you much the same."

A sterner warning than perhaps most of his kin would be willing to give, but a necessary one all the same. He could not consider himself a neutral party in the matter, endeavoring for the safety of all, if he stood idly by and allowed the young woman to go about bludgeoning the troops she had provoked unchecked. The yelp of another soldier, apparently felled by the arrival of what looked to be a waterbender, cemented this in his mind.

With the speed of a viper-bat lashing out at its prey, the tip of his staff whipped forward suddenly toward the newest arrival, and with the snapping motion launched a burst of wind liable to send the man sprawling back into the sea from whence he came.

@Hero@webboysurf
The appearance of an interloper was not something Tianshi had expected. It was often the way of the common people to keep their heads down and carry on with their business in such situations. Some might have considered such cowardice, and yet the nomad would not tarnish their sacrifices with such misguided words: their difficulties were beyond the reckoning of those who would rattle sabers and puff their chests with bravado. Difficulties which would only be made worse if they drew the ire of the soldiers who oppressed them.

Perhaps that was what made the young man who approached him stand out so well. Despite being a small, slight fellow, he had the courage not only to make his presence known to the soldiers, but to directly contradict Tianshi's own words in encouraging *him* to stand down. Whether it was from some sort of misguided sense of patriotism, or a like-minded desire to avoid conflict, he could not say. But he could not allow the brave young man to interfere in his work. The longer he occupied the troops outside the establishment, the more time to escape those who might be within their sights. With a sternness in his brow, Tianshi's parted to retort toward the young man's words, and yet they seemed to die upon his lips as his eyes followed another encroacher making her way through the crowd.

"Amitabha..."

It was often said that the Air Nomads knew nothing of conflict, owing to the sanctity afforded to oaths of pacifism and their dedication to peace. An erroneous thing to believe. For one to strive to avoid conflict—and indeed, to de-escalate it—one needed to have a solid understanding of the flow that led those to clash against one another. The young woman carried herself in such a way that even a pacifist could see the trouble to come, like a storm brewing far over the horizon. When that storm crashed against the rocky shores by the fishery... it was almost inevitable that a fight would be had. Turning with grace, the towering monk bowed his head towards the young man who had interrupted him earlier.

"A thousand pardons for this, young man, but may I ask a favor of you? Please, hold this."

The heavy sack of grain that hung so easily from his shoulder swung about to hang, instead, before the pale youth. It was Tianshi's hope, of course, that the safety of such precious food be preserved. Whether the young man accepted it from him or not, however, it mattered little. The sound of earth breaking beneath foot and shouting indicated that he had little enough time to argue about tender morsels of rice. If the boy did not accept the sack, it would drop to the ground all the same.

And without its weight in his hands, Tianshi was free to contain the collision unfolding before him. His eyes snapped back to the young woman, brandishing her sword as if the scabbard did not still hang from its blade. He watched carefully as tensions reached their boiling point, and fate turned against them, a boulder hurdling through the air. He was already in motion as it soared forward, even as the girl danced around it and charged the man. It was neither of them he concerned himself with, however. In the span of a heartbeat, he was gone from where he once stood. The wind at his heels carried him into the path of the earthen projectile.

A resonant 'clap' followed as he caught the boulder with his unoccupied hand, the muscles of his arm tensing as he dissipated what energy remained behind it. His fingers were as iron as they gripped along its craggy exterior, lowering it to the ground from which it came. There may have been a battle unfolding, but the location of such a reckless battle was not lost on him: there were still people all around the marketplace, and rarely did stones care to slow for civilians. Much as the wind had carried him to intercept the stone, it carried him into the fray, the imposing monk positioning himself opposite the soldiers and the young woman. Unlike his initial approach, however, his staff came to rest in both his palms, fingers wrapped around it as he brought it to bear.

"I urge you to reconsider your actions! All of you! There is no need for this situation to spiral out of control and devolve into unchecked violence. No one else needs to be injured over this matter."
"Your kindness is much appreciated, Mr. Kang. I shall see this bounty put to good use."

It was in the spirit of a small triumph that Tianshi found his head bowing low, although for a man of his stature, even low was still quite a bit higher than most of the other patrons milling about the marketplace. Humility was an important virtue to internalize, however, and the nomad was not shy in showing his gratitude to the humble merchant to whom he had traded a relatively small number of copper pieces in return for his provisions. Regardless of how mortified the gentleman seemed to be at his overt display of thankfulness.

"It's nothing, ah, really, just, remember what we discussed, hmm? If you ever find yourself in Gaoling..."

"Miss Li shall hear your words. Of this I assure you."

Such an exchange of services was not one foreign to the monk. In his years of roaming across the world, he very rarely carried much in the way of currency with him. What little he did carry, he used only for nourishment and—increasingly, in an era of senseless warfare—charity to those less fortunate. It was by his word and deed that Tianshi managed to live and provide the necessities for himself and his bison. In a nation where distances staggered the mind and most souls never set foot outside their home villages, there was true value in bringing news from afar to them in an expedient matter. Even for those with fortunes allowing for the purchase of a courier service, the roads were never a sure thing. Banditry and corrupt officials were liable to intercept most correspondence before it arrived at a locale as far-flung as Gaoling.

And some words were better left spoken than written. Something the merchant named Kang had surely made his peace with when he uttered them to the sympathetic ear of a wandering monk with more need for rice than time. The hefty sack of grain found its way across Tianshi's thick shoulder, and he offered another, shorter bow of his head as his fingers coiled around the haft of his staff. Triumph could only sustain a man for so long, and he had more business to attend to before moving on to the next leg of his journey.

"Blessings upon you and yours in these trying times, Mr. Kang."

And so he was off, back into the bustling streets of an otherwise fairly calm fishing town. The smell was never something he had acclimated well to: even during his brief forays to the poles, where there was little and less to subsist on but the bounty one could pull from the sea. Complicated though his relationship with aquatic life and its subsequent harvesting was, there was still some small satisfaction to be had in seeing a settlement that had little struggle in providing for itself. There were places further inland that could not say the same, and he could not help but consider them as he felt the weight of the rice on his back. Perhaps there were some stop-overs to be had along the way to Miss Li's manse. The wind often took unpredictable routes to its destination, after all.

Something made readily apparent by the sudden rush of air that followed in the wake of a commotion yet unfolding. The nomad could only watch as a group of soldiers hurried to surround an otherwise nondescript building near the docks. An unfortunate thing to see. There was a time, he was sure, when the sight of earthbending troops made the people of the Earth Kingdom feel safe. But Tianshi had been robbed of the opportunity of living in such a time. Usually, when King Wei's military made itself known, only suffering followed in their footsteps, the common folk crushed beneath the weight of a mountain made manifest.

It was the way of the wind to dance around such obstacles. To take the path of least resistance, and flow around the mighty mountain. Even in the face of such a monolith, it had little to fear, free and unbound as it was.

“Fugitives? You think even those desperate sods would want to hang around fish of all things?”

A voice found his ear all the same, and the wind in Tianshi's step became a doldrum.

“If you don’t have anything to hide, then you won’t mind if we check.”

Another voice, louder, more demanding. The wind beneath his feet picked up once more. Only, rather than swirl about the sturdy mountain before him with ethereal grace, it led him directly towards the peak.

"Amitabha, proud defender, and a blessed day upon you and your number," The monk's voice came not as a gentle breeze, but as a proud gale, his stature and years of training doing well in helping him project his voice, "Might you honor a humble wanderer with the knowledge of what brings such valiant men here?"

Tianshi did not hold himself with particular malice, nor aggression, a walking stick palmed in one hand and a sack of grain hung over the shoulder opposite. And yet he stood tall and proud all the same. A curious sight, and one all the better to focus to the exclusion of their original target.

Think not lightly of good, saying, "It will not come to me." Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.

The words of his master danced through his mind's eye just as easily as the wind had done a moment earlier.

May these drops nourish those in need.
SEIMEI KEIKO



It had always been Keiko's way to be observant. Despite the reputation she had cultivated in the village as a troublemaker, despite her mother's scolding whenever she shirked her lessons, she was a perceptive young woman. When her interest was piqued by something, little managed to escape her notice.

It went without saying that the terse standoff outside the village's smithy thoroughly piqued her interest. Though dread still roiled about in the pit of her stomach—or perhaps because of it—she hung off every word that left Ashida Katsuro's mouth. If they had not been tended to by a smith for months at a time, there was no doubt to be had as to their origin. They came to the village from someplace outside the valley, and perhaps more importantly, wherever they came from was a significant enough distance away that their equipment had fallen into disrepair in the meanwhile.

She might've allowed her mind to race through the possibilities. How did they locate the village? Had they come through the gate or found another way in? How had they managed to get the gate open? What was the world like beyond those fragile utopias like the one she had called home for so many years? Were there other valleys like Heiseina's own in the world they had discovered? Perhaps most importantly, what had become of those valleys?

The questions came to a halt as the glint of steel caught her eye. The item held so gingerly in Katsuro's hands was an uneasy sight. It resembled the tools some of the village's hunters used while performing their sacred duties. Given its length, she doubted it was used to dispatch humble wildlife. Keiko's unease grew.

Impulsive as she was wont to be, she struggled to maintain her deathly stillness. The conversation had nothing to do with her in particular: they stood in Tetsu's forge, requests being made for his apprentice's work. The man did not seek Seimei Tomo, but the village's headman. She had little reason to stay. The signkeeper's apprentice considered how she might plot her escape in the waning moments between the man's request and his eyes igniting like so many embers.

And with his words, her escape became less a nervous desire and more a sudden need. Every ounce of willpower the young lady had in her body dedicated itself to restraining the expressive orbs that were her eyes into indifference. Liberation from the demons? A prize in the valley? The dread that had filled her sunk into her stomach like a gaping pit as her mind pieced together just what the party of armed men before them wanted.

She had to talk to her mother. She needed to talk to her mother. Everything else was secondary.

"Uhm, well, that all sounds very important," The trickster's nature in her bubbled to the surface as Keiko donned the same innocuous guise she had in the moments before their Blazing Fist's arrival, which had grated at Fumiko so, "Maybe it's for the best if I clear out. I had only come by to keep Tsu-kun company, but it seems he's going to have his hands full..."

With a bashfulness in her cheeks, she placed her hands on her lap, offering a polite bow to the older gentleman in a show of courtesy.

"I wish you luck in the endeavors that bring you here, Ashida-sama."
SEIMEI KEIKO



"Sounds good to me, Tsu-kun!"

The saccharine words on Keiko's tongue felt as foreign as the dazzlingly bright smile she wore to accompany them. It was almost enough for her to want to break her little act and see the taste washed away with her usual irreverence. But the results were far too pleasing for that to come to pass. Though she played at hanging on Tsubasa's every word, the young signkeeper remained acutely attuned to Fumiko's reaction. There was anger at first—a genuine, roiling rage—then surprise, perhaps at the depth of wrath she managed to feel. Surprise quickly became pink-faced embarrassment that flickered for only a few more moments... then the mask returned. The facade that hid away true feelings behind mock serenity and the falsest pleasantries.

Ordinarily, Keiko would disdain that mask. Given what she had glimpsed beneath? There was only smug satisfaction to be had in its wake. She had found a wound and ground all the salt she could gather on such short notice into it. She could relish in that triumph until it soothed her wounded pride.

"Hey, Fumi-chan!"

The triumph was to be short-lived, however. The sound of the village's most blinding beam of sunlight shook her from her reverie moments too late. Had she been more vigilant, she might have managed to decouple from Tsubasa before they were spotted. Her skin all but crawled at the sight of the knowing smile Haruhi shot them and the comment that followed. She wanted nothing more than to end the charade then and there before the sign-adverse farmer got it in her head that they were a proper couple and went trundling around the town declaring it to everyone she could find.

But just as quickly she appeared, she vanished into the ogre's cave beyond, leaving Keiko with little more to do than try to hide how frazzled the potential fallout made her feel.

"Ah, yeah, let's uhm... Let's... get going, Takamori-san?"

The squabbling of youth had occupied Keiko's mind such that she had nearly missed the shift in the environment, swift though it was, until the master's niece invited them to head off. Something had changed very starkly while they feuded over the village's most eligible idiot, and it was not until the hoofbeats of the arriving caravan hit her ears that she found herself recognizing the gravity of the situation. Like most of the village's inhabitants, Keiko watched as the armed convoy of men arrived in their humble home, letting her grip on Tsubasa's arm fall slack as she glanced between every one of them.

The horses they rode. The way they dressed. The... things they held. It was different. All of it was different.

It was foreign.

And that made it feel wrong. The utopia of Heiseina and the valley it claimed had no place for the unusual. Keiko had been made very aware of that all her life. Her eyes instinctively darted toward the direction they had rode in from. There weren't any hamlets she knew of down that way. No homestead could house so many men and their steeds. All that lay in that direction, far off through the forests and mountains beyond was the edge of the world itself—the old gate that she had only glimpsed from afar.

Her heart skipped a beat as she reconciled with that idea. That the rough-looking man who approached the humble forge had an origin from beyond.

Tsubasa was the first to act, dear, sweet fool that he was. Had her grip not slackened, she might have tried to hold fast to him to keep him from so readily approaching the danger before them. But instead, he disentangled himself from her reach and met the older gentleman with all the confidence in the world. Resisting the urge to curse under her breath, she was left with a choice. Remain, and see how things played out, or follow her instinct and hurry back to her tower home to warn her mother of the storm to come.

Perhaps to her detriment, curiosity won the day.
SEIMEI KEIKO



Any devious scheme to get Tsubasa to pay for her meals would have to be put on pause. No sooner did the words leave her mouth did she spot someone approaching the forge, and someone Keiko was not at all happy to see. Truthfully, she wasn't pleased to see most of the village's inhabitants, but to be face-to-face with the Master's niece so early in the morning was a quick way to tarnish her mood worse than it already had been. The girl's family practically were Heiseina, the privileged few who oversaw all and kept their perfect little utopia running nice and smoothly. They embodied the very spirit of the valley itself, and Keiko received a poignant reminder of that as she met the young Takamori's gaze.

It didn't take an especially sharp mind to notice the iciness in Fumiko's eyes the second they drifted from Tsubasa to herself. An immediate rejection, even through the facade of pleasantries that poured out of her mouth in the following moments. A microcosm of the very thing which had so thoroughly spoiled her mood, and a perfect metaphor for how the town had treated her.

She hated it. The look, the village, the Takamori, and Fumiko all. It took every ounce of her composure not to let the animosity that had built all morning boil to the surface. She wanted to do something to wipe that sweet, fake little smile off the girl's face. To do something to make her feel some pain for once in her perfect little life. She wouldn't need to think for long. That cold gaze that had spurred on Keiko's spiteful side was the answer to her plea. She could see the way the girl's eyes lit up when she looked at Tsubasa. The little smiles. The sugary tone. There was an easy way to make her squirm.

"Hmm, I don't know. Tsu-kun and I were just about to head off to see the festival together," Keiko replied, her tone just as manufactured in its cheer. She took advantage of their proximity, reaching over to loop her arm through his own and lean into him a little. An intimate thing, but she was sure he wouldn't care, oblivious lug that he was. She imagined Fumiko, on the other hand, would care quite a lot—especially when she caught sight of the slightest hint of the smug little grin tugging across her feature.

"I suppose we could postpone our little date if it's super important. What do you think?" Her inquiry came with a slight flutter of her lashes, the look she cast toward Tsubasa decidedly more innocent than the one she had offered Fumiko seconds before.
SEIMEI KEIKO
tags - @Hero



A pout found its way onto Keiko's lips, and she had half a mind to begin guilt-tripping him for his declaration that he did not intend to ask her to the festival. She decided to be merciful in the end, seeing as though he quickly pivoted his answer—as much as she wanted to watch him squirm, there would be many more opportunities to do so if she spent more than just a few passing moments with him that day. The short girl dropped back onto her heels after a moment, her pout morphing into a face of contemplation.

Of course, he hadn't just stopped there. The heartfelt words that followed almost made her give up her mischievous little act. There was a strong urge to break the facade of consideration she wore when he mentioned her being part of the village. An urge to meet him with disdain. As if he of all people knew what it felt like to be ostracized. Half the village youths swooned over him, and the other half wanted to be him. But she steeled herself against the worst of her impulses and decided to respond in her usual teasing.

"Well, I suppose I don't mind going with you. Even if you are sweating through your shirt," She decided, positively resplendent in her mercy, "You'll be paying for the food though, right? I treated you to breakfast, you know. It impolite to remain indebted to a lady."
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