canaryrose — Roleplayer Guild

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1. canaryrose 10 yrs ago
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1 mo ago

Current Or, just maybe, stop posting in every damn IC you can find to ask people to join your “League of Legends Noxus RP.” It’s annoying, and forces GMs to go out of their way to get it deleted. Etiquette.

9 likes

3 yrs ago

tbh a death threat was not on my 2023 bingo

1 like

3 yrs ago

man if you’re just gonna fucking admit it what’s the point. go touch grass. don’t kill your roommate.

3 yrs ago

ANOTHER ONE?!?!

1 like

3 yrs ago

holy shit roommate murder guy went off

1 like

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Most Recent Posts

In The Star-Breakers → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

👀 I’m thinking about it…

In Young Justice → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Location: Kobra Facility, New Mexico Interacting with: The Team

“Team, I'm pursuing one of the large ones. Mirage, on me! Everyone else, continue taking out the others.”

“On it!” Alisa said into her comms, watching Kass and Viktor out of the corner of her eye as they left the main room, following… whatever it was they were following. She had seen a few of the “large ones”, and they freaked her out. What was Kobra doing here to make those things? She continued working on her group of mercenaries and hulked-out teenagers, punching and kicking. They were starting to get nervous. They had stopped shooting at her and had instead resulted to hand to hand. Every so often, they got her down, but she just got up again and again. 

Alisa was the aware of Zach’s smoke as it spread across the large space and heard his call over the comms. 

“Hey guys… I know the rest of you are really good with this fighting stuff… but… uh… I’m not… Could someone get these losers off my back so I can focus on actually damaging these idiots?”

… Poor Zach. He really wasn’t good at this at all, was he? Alisa looked over to him, worried, seeing him surrounded. “Don’t worry! I’m coming!” With one last punch, she left the skirmish she was part of, making her way to Zach. She ripped one of the guys off of him, throwing him to the ground. “Hurry up, do something! I can cover your back, and Aleena is… wherever she is, I guess.” She glanced up. She really didn’t know where the other girl was, huh?

In ᵗʰᵉ Last Avatar. → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

_______________________________........Si Wong Desert   ·   In collaboration with [.@Abstract Proxy][.@KillamriX88]Si Wong Desert   ·   In collaboration with @Abstract Proxy@KillamriX88
____________________________________________________________________________.
canaryrose   

Chu Hua buried Kanna in the sand. When the truck stopped, the sandstorm gone and the skies clear and quiet, she had wordlessly stepped out of that gods-forsaken trunk, taken the first shovel she could find, and had started digging. 

She hadn’t uttered a single word since. Chu, normally talkative and brazen and effusive, simply had a blank, ravaged look in her eyes as she dug that pit. Kanna’s body lay beside it, covered in drying blood. Her eyes had mercifully been closed (Chu was not sure who had done that, the minutes after her death were blurry only hours after, filled only with wailing and maybe with a vomiting episode), but she couldn’t get the vision of her last moments out of her mind. Her terrified eyes, meeting Chu’s with awful intensity. The vice-grip of Kanna’s hand on hers, her last delirious smile. Chu had a feeling it would haunt her forever. What had she thought, in those last moments? Had she been cursing herself for saving Chu’s life, for dying senselessly for a person she hated? She wanted to ask, but the dead body beside her feet would never respond again.

Despite the awful pain in her blistered and bloody fingers, Chu Hua kept digging. She wasn’t sure when or even how she had done it, but at some point she had taken off her jacket and laid it over Kanna’s face, revealing a white tank top underneath. Of course, it was no longer white. Although their trek through the forest last night had been freezing, the desert was unbearably hot. She felt the sun beating down on her bare arms and knew she’d have sunburns to go with the burns mottling her skin. She couldn’t bring herself to care. She just kept digging with a mindless intensity, almost as if to distract herself from the dead girl beside her and the tears stubbornly stuck in her eyes. When she brushed her black hair from her eyes, she just spread the blood staining her broken hands and the blood splattered across her face.

It wasn’t fair. It was the only comprehensible thought Chu could think beyond her swirling despair and rage. None of this was fair. Kanna wasn’t the bender. Kanna hadn’t even done anything wrong. But she was still dead, and Chu Hua couldn’t even give her a proper grave. Thanks to the sandstorms plaguing this stretch of desert, any marker of her final resting place would be gone within weeks. Her body would be lost to the elements. Chu could’ve cremated her, collecting her ashes, but she couldn’t bring herself to light her body on fire. The thought made her physically ill. Her bending had brought them into this, after all, had killed Kanna- why would she want to do that?

After the long grave had reached three feet in depth, Chu Hua dropped the shovel, taking a greedy breath and staggering over to her backpack, resting against the truck. She took a sip out of her water bottle, angling her eyes to the massive rock on the horizon. She wanted to collapse and sleep for a thousand years. Digging a grave in loose sand was harder than it looked, and she hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. Her eyes drooped, although it was unclear if it was out of sadness or exhaustion. 

KillamriX88   

Weiyuan had effectively completely shut down once it was clear what Kanna’s fate was. This was beyond what he was ready to handle. He’d crammed himself into the far corner of the Kyoshi’s trunk space and curled into a ball, eyes wide but vacant. 

He wasn’t really sure how long it had been, when they’d made it out of the storm, or even when or how long the vehicle had stopped moving. He just felt himself slowly coming back to awareness. Kanna’s… body… was gone. Perhaps that was why he’d finally “woken up” again. It was still him so he figured he must not have truly passed out. 

Even so, there was still blood coating the floor. Just looking at it made his head begin to spin. He edged around it as best he could  before climbing back over the rear seat and effectively collapsing out the side door. For a moment, he just lay on the sand, trying to catch his breath and wait for a sense of steadiness to return to his legs. As he picked himself back up, he saw Chu Hua nearby, just leaning against the side of the truck, looking distant, if not on the verge of passing out herself.

She looked filthy and exhausted. Scanning the area, he saw a shallow grave had been dug. He must have been nigh catatonic for some time if she’d been able to do all that in sand like this with only a shovel. He slowly walked over to it, trying to avert his eyes from Kanna’s body lying nearby.

The sandstorm was gone, but even so, the constant breeze of the open desert was slowly causing rivulets of sand to pour back into the open grave. He glanced back at Chu Hua, but she wasn’t paying attention at all. No doubt she’d completely worn herself out digging. If she’d already been anywhere near as tired as he was, it was a wonder she’d done as much as she had.

For some reason, he felt like he should help. Not that he wanted to, but that he was obligated somehow. Was it that he felt he hadn’t done enough? That he could have done more? That because he could it would be wrong not to?

He stepped over to the bottom edge of the grave and pushed into it with his bending. The sand began to flow out of it. Again and again, in a careful rhythm, it began to deepen. He had no way to  measure it, he just knew as it was it wasn’t deep enough. 

He also knew that it was just going to fill in again if he didn’t do something. Once he’d about doubled the depth, he focused on compacting the sand. He knew he was capable. He’d done it to plug the hole in the Kyoshi. He somehow had to do that again, but he’d been so distracted at the time he wasn’t really sure how he’d done it. It was different from what he’d done to start up the sand screen with Chae-

He felt like his body flipped upside-down and inside-out. Without really realizing it, his breathing became labored and everything started becoming blurry. 

Stop. Focus. Just do. He bit his lip hard and just focused on compacting the sand as much as he could until it seemed like it wouldn’t just collapse in on itself.

He wasn’t sure what more he could do, but he could still feel that horrid sensation clawing at the back of his mind. He needed to do something before it overtook him again. As it was, the grave was unmarked. That would work.

Just keep moving and everything would be fine.

He moved to the head of the grave and knelt down, digging his hand down into the sand and reaching downward. The sand was deep here. He could feel himself being stretched thin as he tried to find something more solid down below the sands. Without the lingering effects of the explosion, he’d have never had a ghost of a chance to do this. Just barely, he found more solid ground down below the sand and began to pull. Again and again he’d reach down, pull, reach down, pull, until a small lump of stone finally rose above the sands.

He honestly felt faint by then, but he had to keep going. It would just get buried in the next sand-storm as it was. He stood up. Bending solid stone was different from bending sand. If he just slowed down and did it right, perhaps it would be less taxing, or at least be faster. He’d been relying too much on that unnatural boost to just bypass proper form.

He squared himself off and lifted it, the pillar of stone jutting up a solid furth more, and then again and again until it was as tall as him and hopefully safe from ever being buried. Still he felt the strain. Form or not, he was well past the point of exhaustion. Soon he’d have to stop whether he liked it or not. He was starting to dread that moment. There was only one more thing he could do.

He pressed his finger against the pillar. It wasn’t terribly wide, so he had to go vertically, from the top downward. The stone gave way beneath his touch until he was able to carve Kanna’s name into it. He couldn’t remember her surname, or if he’d ever even known it, nor was his writing terribly neat, but it was legible.

His arm dropped back to his side, and he bit his lip again, trying to just keep his mind as close to blank as he could. He didn’t know what to do now. He didn’t want to stand near the grave any longer, it was just one more unpleasant reminder of all that had happened, so he just shuffled back over to the truck and huddled up against it. He just stared down at the sand, absentmindedly swirling the sand around with his bending, watching it twist around under his influence and trying not to think about anything else… 

canaryrose   

Chu Hua raised her head at the sight of the boy moving towards Kanna’s half–dug grave. She watched him do… something. She wasn’t sure. Earthbending? Would it help? She almost felt like stepping forward and getting closer, seeing what he was doing, but her feet screamed in protest and she stayed in place, gritting her teeth. So instead, she watched. The hole got deeper, and… Chu Hua opened her mouth in surprise when she saw what was rising out of the ground. A pillar. And he was carving into it. 

Once Weiyuan came back to stand against the truck, Chu approached the grave again, barely containing a gasp as she saw what he had raised out of the ground. She touched the etching almost reverently. It was a gravestone. Kanna. The sand in and around the grave was compacted. Tears came to her eyes. Maybe Kanna wouldn’t go unmarked. 

She walked back to the truck, limping towards Weiyuan. She stood in front of him for a moment, the wind in her hair. And then, almost falling into it, she wrapped him in a warm hug. “Thank you,” she whispered, voice trying and failing to conceal tears. They were flowing down her face. “Thank you. You… oh, god. They deserved so much better. But thank you.” 

KillamriX88   

Weiyuan did not seem to react to Chu Hua’s sudden embrace except to stop his absentminded fidget bending of the sand at his feet. He went still, blank expression never changing. In a way he hated it, her breaking the fragile barrier he’d been upholding between himself and the grief and pain that had been incessantly marching after him.

At the same time, he could not bring himself to pull away. As it slowly wrapped its twisted fingers around his heart, he did not want to imagine a world in which he was alone with it.

Though he never even twitched or made any attempt to express himself, the truth leaked free all the same in a slow stream down his face. 

canaryrose   

Slowly, Chu released Weiyuan from the hug. She wiped tears out of her eyes, staring at him. It struck her then that this boy looked to be the same age as her little sister. God, he was so young.  “We can bury her later. I don’t think I’m ready yet.” She let that hang in the air for a second. His silence made her want to fill the space, so she rummaged through her bag. “Are you hungry? I think we might need to ration, but I have protein bars and jerky…” She offered him a cookie dough protein bar, taking one herself and splitting the wrapper open. She sat on the sand, cross-legged, putting her head in her hands as she chewed.

“You know,” she remarked. “She hated me. She was my ex-girlfriend and I was her biggest competition, she took every chance she could to say that. But she still saved my life when most everybody else that loved me would’ve been fine with my death. It’s not really fair that she’s the dead one, is it? Not when this is my fault.” 

Abstract Proxy   

“I’m sorry about Kanna. It’s never fair,” Vasra said, approaching Chu and Weiyuan.
She’d needed to clean up. Old habits and training had taken over. She could hear Professor Vanoq’s soft voice in her head as if she was still in medical school,“The attending physician should, if at all possible, discuss the passing of the patient with the patient’s loved ones. In general, it is my experience that the patient's loved ones are given a brief amount of time to process what has occurred, before you attempt to talk to them.

Failure...and death were inevitable parts of medicine. Knowing that didn't make Vasra feel any better. She had tried. She had done the best she could, but it hadn't been enough. Maybe she'd bought the girl some more seconds, hopefully she had at least diminished the pain.

The winds had carried the end of Chu’s sentence and Vasra felt a painful reminder tugging at her heart,“She must have cared about you a lot. Nelu…my brother, he always said that in times of trouble you have a chance to discover the best in those around you. People rise to the occasion and they do great things for those they love.”

canaryrose   

“Kanna didn’t love me,” Chu said as she turned to the doctor woman. It occurred to her that she didn’t know her name. Huh.  “She hated me. Or I thought she did. I don’t know. I don’t know why she did it. I think if our positions were swapped, I would’ve let her die.” Chu closed her eyes tight, trying to hold back another onslaught of tears. It was true. Chu would’ve turned her head and looked away, but Kanna had done something different. “Maybe… maybe she was a better person than me. It should’ve been me.” Chu kept coming back to that same thought: it should’ve been me. Kanna’s gruesome death, whatever had become of her fiancee… the root cause of it all was her.

 “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She opened her eyes again, staring at Vasra and wiping her eyes with her bloody hands. “I should at least thank you for trying to help her. You’re… some sort of doctor, right? I’m Chu Hua Yuan.”

KillamriX88   

Weiyuan became more responsive as he was offered food and the topic shifted specifically to Kanna. As traumatic as the incident had been, he couldn’t claim to personally miss her, at least not in the way Chu Hua did. It was ever so slightly easier to deal with.

He fidgeted with the bar, though not yet opening it.

It wasn’t exactly easy for him to be part of a conversation, so all he could really do for the moment was listen. Chu Hua blamed herself. Vasra joined them, saying that Kanna had been there, risen to the occasion, because she must have cared.

Didn’t that just mean that what had happened to Chae-Won was his fault? It was a twisted kind of logic, but in his state it was the first place his mind had gone. The bar’s wrapper crinkled as his hands tightened around it.

No. Stop thinking about it. Stop it.

It wouldn’t, though. He knew well enough this would never go away. He desperately wanted the day to end, for the reins to be handed back over, but he couldn’t do that either. He’d never be able to handle all this. It was already too hard as it was. 

Abstract Proxy   

“Vasra, Vasra Dermok,” Vasra said, holding out a clean strip of cloth for Chu. “I have…had a clinic in the Lower Ring. Not that it matters, I don’t suppose they’re going to let me keep my medical license after, well, after all of this..”

Vasra sat down, grasping sand in her hand and letting it slip slowly through her fingers as she stared at the hazy horizon,]“It shouldn’t have been her, but it shouldn’t have been you or me or anyone else.. We didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t ask for any of this to happen. But it did..and we’re here..and there’s no going back.” 

“But it’s not your fault,” Vasra said, voice shifting with a sudden pang of weary anger that turned to sorrow. Breaking for an instant, as she looked at Chu and then at  Weiyuan. They had suffered. They had all suffered. It was too much. But what choice did they have? There was only one way to survive. There was only one way to fight off the disease that threatened them. They had to keep going. They had to make it mean something. Anything.

They had to remember.

“I promise you, it’s not your fault…it never was.” 

canaryrose   

“I…” Chu shrugged, a bone-weary look in her eyes. She appreciated the speech, she really did, but even in her life before all this she had never been one for glittery, hopeful speeches. The doctor sounded bitter, too, though, and Chu couldn’t help but relate. “It is, though,” she whispered. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve known for a long time that I was… you know. But I was selfish. I had a family. I was successful. I fell in love. I was supposed to get married next week, for fucks’ sake.” Fury built in her voice- at herself or someone else, she wasn’t sure. “My fiancee and Kanna are the only reason I’m alive. They helped me escape from a very public space. But An and I got separated while we were trying to get out of the city. I don’t know and might never know what happened to her, and Kanna…” She gestured to the dead body, tears coming to her eyes again. This time, she fully started sobbing. She wasn’t sure if it was for Kanna or An or just her life. “I was selfish,” she repeated. “I wanted things that I didn’t deserve, and look where it got the people around me. Maybe everyone would’ve been better off if I…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. If she had what? Ended it herself? She had considered it before but had never had the courage. Maybe it would’ve saved a lot of people a lot of pain. 

But maybe Vasra was right. But if it wasn’t her fault, whose was it? She had never been so stupid to believe that bending was as bad they always said, but had never thought they might be completely wrong. Was it Ba Sing Se’s fault? Anger commingled with her despair and blossomed into rage. None of this was right. The blame didn’t entirely fall on her shoulders, she knew, but it fell somewhere in between.

Chu looked up at the blue sky. Maybe she’d go to sleep, wake up, and today would be a nightmare. But it wouldn’t go away, would it? 

KillamriX88   

Weiyuan shut his eyes tightly as Chu Hua spoke. It all sounded so familiar. All he’d ever done any time he’d managed to wrest control from his other self was try to practice his bending. When had it ever even served him? If Chae-Won had never found him practicing that day, she wouldn’t have had to stay behind trying to protect him.

But, if that hadn’t happened, then what? Where would he be now?

Vasra said it wasn’t Chu Hua’s fault. Weiyuan wanted to believe her, because then maybe that absolved him too. He found himself clutching his own head. This was all just… too much. He was supposed to protect his other half when he was having a particularly bad day, but… who was supposed to protect him now?

No. No, Chu Hua had to be wrong!

He jumped to his feet, still clutching his head, his breathing became labored. She had to be wrong, because if she was right then…

His hands fell to his sides and he turned around, walking over to stand in front of Chu Hua, looking down at her. He looked about as stern as a scrawny, emotionally battered teenager could. 

’When someone hurts you it’s no one’s fault but theirs.’ Low on sleep and in the dry, desert air, his whisper was even weaker than ever, though their surroundings were at least quieter than the last time he’d spoken to her. ’I… if you…’ He quickly threw his arm over his mouth as his dry throat gave out and he broke into a coughing fit, causing him to stumble away weakly.

She had to be wrong. If she was right… then everything he’d thought was good had been a mistake.

canaryrose   

Chu Hua’s watery eyes flicked to Weiyuan, watching with slight concern as he stood, starting to hyperventilate, and then stood over her. Was he going to punch her? Morbidly, she thought she might deserve it. But she didn’t know these people, and she shifted defensively, sniffling. His response… surprised her. She sat there stunned for a moment, her tears coming to a standstill, and then she became concerned yet again as he started to cough. She offered him her water bottle. “It’s alright. Breathe, okay?”

“... I wish it was that simple, kid.” She meant it. Maybe he was right, but Chu had always believed they didn’t live in a world where it was so black and white. None of this would’ve happened if she couldn’t bend, so she had to share some of the blame. But she appreciated the sentiment all the time. With a gasp of pain, she rose to her feet, legs swaying for a moment as if she was drunk. She patted Weiyuan on the shoulder, staring off into the distance. At Kanna’s corpse, lying on the ground. 

She had to get it over with at some point.

“I think I’m gonna go… well.” Saying it choked her up. “Thanks. Both of you.” She picked up the shovel and went to bury her friend.


________________________________........	_{Si Wong Desert · In collaboration with [.@Abstract Proxy][.@KillamriX88]Si Wong Desert · In collaboration with @Abstract Proxy@KillamriX88} ____________________________________________________________________________. _{_canaryrose} Chu Hua buried Kanna in the sand. When the truck stopped, the sandstorm gone and the skies clear and quiet, she had wordlessly stepped out of that gods-forsaken trunk, taken the first shovel she could find, and had started digging. She hadn’t uttered a single word since. Chu, normally talkative and brazen and effusive, simply had a blank, ravaged look in her eyes as she dug that pit. Kanna’s body lay beside it, covered in drying blood. Her eyes had mercifully been closed (Chu was not sure who had done that, the minutes after her death were blurry only hours after, filled only with wailing and maybe with a vomiting episode), but she couldn’t get the vision of her last moments out of her mind. Her terrified eyes, meeting Chu’s with awful intensity. The vice-grip of Kanna’s hand on hers, her last delirious smile. Chu had a feeling it would haunt her forever. What had she thought, in those last moments? Had she been cursing herself for saving Chu’s life, for dying senselessly for a person she hated? She wanted to ask, but the dead body beside her feet would never respond again. Despite the awful pain in her blistered and bloody fingers, Chu Hua kept digging. She wasn’t sure when or even how she had done it, but at some point she had taken off her jacket and laid it over Kanna’s face, revealing a white tank top underneath. Of course, it was no longer white. Although their trek through the forest last night had been freezing, the desert was unbearably hot. She felt the sun beating down on her bare arms and knew she’d have sunburns to go with the burns mottling her skin. She couldn’t bring herself to care. She just kept digging with a mindless intensity, almost as if to distract herself from the dead girl beside her and the tears stubbornly stuck in her eyes. When she brushed her black hair from her eyes, she just spread the blood staining her broken hands and the blood splattered across her face. It wasn’t fair. It was the only comprehensible thought Chu could think beyond her swirling despair and rage. None of this was fair. Kanna wasn’t the bender. Kanna hadn’t even done anything wrong. But she was still dead, and Chu Hua couldn’t even give her a proper grave. Thanks to the sandstorms plaguing this stretch of desert, any marker of her final resting place would be gone within weeks. Her body would be lost to the elements. Chu could’ve cremated her, collecting her ashes, but she couldn’t bring herself to light her body on fire. The thought made her physically ill. Her bending had brought them into this, after all, had killed Kanna- why would she want to do that? After the long grave had reached three feet in depth, Chu Hua dropped the shovel, taking a greedy breath and staggering over to her backpack, resting against the truck. She took a sip out of her water bottle, angling her eyes to the massive rock on the horizon. She wanted to collapse and sleep for a thousand years. Digging a grave in loose sand was harder than it looked, and she hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. Her eyes drooped, although it was unclear if it was out of sadness or exhaustion. _{_KillamriX88} Weiyuan had effectively completely shut down once it was clear what Kanna’s fate was. This was beyond what he was ready to handle. He’d crammed himself into the far corner of the Kyoshi’s trunk space and curled into a ball, eyes wide but vacant. He wasn’t really sure how long it had been, when they’d made it out of the storm, or even when or how long the vehicle had stopped moving. He just felt himself slowly coming back to awareness. Kanna’s… body… was gone. Perhaps that was why he’d finally “woken up” again. It was still him so he figured he must not have truly passed out. Even so, there was still blood coating the floor. Just looking at it made his head begin to spin. He edged around it as best he could before climbing back over the rear seat and effectively collapsing out the side door. For a moment, he just lay on the sand, trying to catch his breath and wait for a sense of steadiness to return to his legs. As he picked himself back up, he saw Chu Hua nearby, just leaning against the side of the truck, looking distant, if not on the verge of passing out herself. She looked filthy and exhausted. Scanning the area, he saw a shallow grave had been dug. He must have been nigh catatonic for some time if she’d been able to do all that in sand like this with only a shovel. He slowly walked over to it, trying to avert his eyes from Kanna’s body lying nearby. The sandstorm was gone, but even so, the constant breeze of the open desert was slowly causing rivulets of sand to pour back into the open grave. He glanced back at Chu Hua, but she wasn’t paying attention at all. No doubt she’d completely worn herself out digging. If she’d already been anywhere near as tired as he was, it was a wonder she’d done as much as she had. For some reason, he felt like he should help. Not that he wanted to, but that he was obligated somehow. Was it that he felt he hadn’t done enough? That he could have done more? That because he could it would be wrong not to? He stepped over to the bottom edge of the grave and pushed into it with his bending. The sand began to flow out of it. Again and again, in a careful rhythm, it began to deepen. He had no way to measure it, he just knew as it was it wasn’t deep enough. He also knew that it was just going to fill in again if he didn’t do something. Once he’d about doubled the depth, he focused on compacting the sand. He knew he was capable. He’d done it to plug the hole in the Kyoshi. He somehow had to do that again, but he’d been so distracted at the time he wasn’t really sure how he’d done it. It was different from what he’d done to start up the sand screen with Chae- He felt like his body flipped upside-down and inside-out. Without really realizing it, his breathing became labored and everything started becoming blurry. Stop. Focus. Just do. He bit his lip hard and just focused on compacting the sand as much as he could until it seemed like it wouldn’t just collapse in on itself. He wasn’t sure what more he could do, but he could still feel that horrid sensation clawing at the back of his mind. He needed to do something before it overtook him again. As it was, the grave was unmarked. That would work. Just keep moving and everything would be fine. He moved to the head of the grave and knelt down, digging his hand down into the sand and reaching downward. The sand was deep here. He could feel himself being stretched thin as he tried to find something more solid down below the sands. Without the lingering effects of the explosion, he’d have never had a ghost of a chance to do this. Just barely, he found more solid ground down below the sand and began to pull. Again and again he’d reach down, pull, reach down, pull, until a small lump of stone finally rose above the sands. He honestly felt faint by then, but he had to keep going. It would just get buried in the next sand-storm as it was. He stood up. Bending solid stone was different from bending sand. If he just slowed down and did it right, perhaps it would be less taxing, or at least be faster. He’d been relying too much on that unnatural boost to just bypass proper form. He squared himself off and lifted it, the pillar of stone jutting up a solid furth more, and then again and again until it was as tall as him and hopefully safe from ever being buried. Still he felt the strain. Form or not, he was well past the point of exhaustion. Soon he’d have to stop whether he liked it or not. He was starting to dread that moment. There was only one more thing he could do. He pressed his finger against the pillar. It wasn’t terribly wide, so he had to go vertically, from the top downward. The stone gave way beneath his touch until he was able to carve Kanna’s name into it. He couldn’t remember her surname, or if he’d ever even known it, nor was his writing terribly neat, but it was legible. His arm dropped back to his side, and he bit his lip again, trying to just keep his mind as close to blank as he could. He didn’t know what to do now. He didn’t want to stand near the grave any longer, it was just one more unpleasant reminder of all that had happened, so he just shuffled back over to the truck and huddled up against it. He just stared down at the sand, absentmindedly swirling the sand around with his bending, watching it twist around under his influence and trying not to think about anything else… _{_canaryrose} Chu Hua raised her head at the sight of the boy moving towards Kanna’s half–dug grave. She watched him do… something. She wasn’t sure. Earthbending? Would it help? She almost felt like stepping forward and getting closer, seeing what he was doing, but her feet screamed in protest and she stayed in place, gritting her teeth. So instead, she watched. The hole got deeper, and… Chu Hua opened her mouth in surprise when she saw what was rising out of the ground. A pillar. And he was carving into it. Once Weiyuan came back to stand against the truck, Chu approached the grave again, barely containing a gasp as she saw what he had raised out of the ground. She touched the etching almost reverently. It was a gravestone. Kanna. The sand in and around the grave was compacted. Tears came to her eyes. Maybe Kanna wouldn’t go unmarked. She walked back to the truck, limping towards Weiyuan. She stood in front of him for a moment, the wind in her hair. And then, almost falling into it, she wrapped him in a warm hug. “Thank you,” she whispered, voice trying and failing to conceal tears. They were flowing down her face. “Thank you. You… oh, god. They deserved so much better. But thank you.” _{_KillamriX88} Weiyuan did not seem to react to Chu Hua’s sudden embrace except to stop his absentminded fidget bending of the sand at his feet. He went still, blank expression never changing. In a way he hated it, her breaking the fragile barrier he’d been upholding between himself and the grief and pain that had been incessantly marching after him. At the same time, he could not bring himself to pull away. As it slowly wrapped its twisted fingers around his heart, he did not want to imagine a world in which he was alone with it. Though he never even twitched or made any attempt to express himself, the truth leaked free all the same in a slow stream down his face. _{_canaryrose} Slowly, Chu released Weiyuan from the hug. She wiped tears out of her eyes, staring at him. It struck her then that this boy looked to be the same age as her little sister. God, he was so young. “We can bury her later. I don’t think I’m ready yet.” She let that hang in the air for a second. His silence made her want to fill the space, so she rummaged through her bag. “Are you hungry? I think we might need to ration, but I have protein bars and jerky…” She offered him a cookie dough protein bar, taking one herself and splitting the wrapper open. She sat on the sand, cross-legged, putting her head in her hands as she chewed. “You know,” she remarked. “She hated me. She was my ex-girlfriend and I was her biggest competition, she took every chance she could to say that. But she still saved my life when most everybody else that loved me would’ve been fine with my death. It’s not really fair that she’s the dead one, is it? Not when this is my fault.” _{_{Abstract Proxy}} “I’m sorry about Kanna. It’s never fair,” Vasra said, approaching Chu and Weiyuan. She’d needed to clean up. Old habits and training had taken over. She could hear Professor Vanoq’s soft voice in her head as if she was still in medical school,“The attending physician should, if at all possible, discuss the passing of the patient with the patient’s loved ones. In general, it is my experience that the patient's loved ones are given a brief amount of time to process what has occurred, before you attempt to talk to them. Failure...and death were inevitable parts of medicine. Knowing that didn't make Vasra feel any better. She had tried. She had done the best she could, but it hadn't been enough. Maybe she'd bought the girl some more seconds, hopefully she had at least diminished the pain. The winds had carried the end of Chu’s sentence and Vasra felt a painful reminder tugging at her heart,“She must have cared about you a lot. Nelu…my brother, he always said that in times of trouble you have a chance to discover the best in those around you. People rise to the occasion and they do great things for those they love.” _{_canaryrose} “Kanna didn’t love me,” Chu said as she turned to the doctor woman. It occurred to her that she didn’t know her name. Huh. “She hated me. Or I thought she did. I don’t know. I don’t know why she did it. I think if our positions were swapped, I would’ve let her die.” Chu closed her eyes tight, trying to hold back another onslaught of tears. It was true. Chu would’ve turned her head and looked away, but Kanna had done something different. “Maybe… maybe she was a better person than me. It should’ve been me.” Chu kept coming back to that same thought: it should’ve been me. Kanna’s gruesome death, whatever had become of her fiancee… the root cause of it all was her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She opened her eyes again, staring at Vasra and wiping her eyes with her bloody hands. “I should at least thank you for trying to help her. You’re… some sort of doctor, right? I’m Chu Hua Yuan.” _{_KillamriX88} Weiyuan became more responsive as he was offered food and the topic shifted specifically to Kanna. As traumatic as the incident had been, he couldn’t claim to personally miss her, at least not in the way Chu Hua did. It was ever so slightly easier to deal with. He fidgeted with the bar, though not yet opening it. It wasn’t exactly easy for him to be part of a conversation, so all he could really do for the moment was listen. Chu Hua blamed herself. Vasra joined them, saying that Kanna had been there, risen to the occasion, because she must have cared. Didn’t that just mean that what had happened to Chae-Won was his fault? It was a twisted kind of logic, but in his state it was the first place his mind had gone. The bar’s wrapper crinkled as his hands tightened around it. No. Stop thinking about it. Stop it. It wouldn’t, though. He knew well enough this would never go away. He desperately wanted the day to end, for the reins to be handed back over, but he couldn’t do that either. He’d never be able to handle all this. It was already too hard as it was. _{_{Abstract Proxy}} “Vasra, Vasra Dermok,” Vasra said, holding out a clean strip of cloth for Chu. “I have…had a clinic in the Lower Ring. Not that it matters, I don’t suppose they’re going to let me keep my medical license after, well, after all of this..” Vasra sat down, grasping sand in her hand and letting it slip slowly through her fingers as she stared at the hazy horizon,]“It shouldn’t have been her, but it shouldn’t have been you or me or anyone else.. We didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t ask for any of this to happen. But it did..and we’re here..and there’s no going back.” “But it’s not your fault,” Vasra said, voice shifting with a sudden pang of weary anger that turned to sorrow. Breaking for an instant, as she looked at Chu and then at Weiyuan. They had suffered. They had all suffered. It was too much. But what choice did they have? There was only one way to survive. There was only one way to fight off the disease that threatened them. They had to keep going. They had to make it mean something. Anything. They had to remember. “I promise you, it’s not your fault…it never was.” _{_canaryrose} “I…” Chu shrugged, a bone-weary look in her eyes. She appreciated the speech, she really did, but even in her life before all this she had never been one for glittery, hopeful speeches. The doctor sounded bitter, too, though, and Chu couldn’t help but relate. “It is, though,” she whispered. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve known for a long time that I was… you know. But I was selfish. I had a family. I was successful. I fell in love. I was supposed to get married next week, for fucks’ sake.” Fury built in her voice- at herself or someone else, she wasn’t sure. “My fiancee and Kanna are the only reason I’m alive. They helped me escape from a very public space. But An and I got separated while we were trying to get out of the city. I don’t know and might never know what happened to her, and Kanna…” She gestured to the dead body, tears coming to her eyes again. This time, she fully started sobbing. She wasn’t sure if it was for Kanna or An or just her life. “I was selfish,” she repeated. “I wanted things that I didn’t deserve, and look where it got the people around me. Maybe everyone would’ve been better off if I…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. If she had what? Ended it herself? She had considered it before but had never had the courage. Maybe it would’ve saved a lot of people a lot of pain. But maybe Vasra was right. But if it wasn’t her fault, whose was it? She had never been so stupid to believe that bending was as bad they always said, but had never thought they might be completely wrong. Was it Ba Sing Se’s fault? Anger commingled with her despair and blossomed into rage. None of this was right. The blame didn’t entirely fall on her shoulders, she knew, but it fell somewhere in between. Chu looked up at the blue sky. Maybe she’d go to sleep, wake up, and today would be a nightmare. But it wouldn’t go away, would it? _{_KillamriX88} Weiyuan shut his eyes tightly as Chu Hua spoke. It all sounded so familiar. All he’d ever done any time he’d managed to wrest control from his other self was try to practice his bending. When had it ever even served him? If Chae-Won had never found him practicing that day, she wouldn’t have had to stay behind trying to protect him. But, if that hadn’t happened, then what? Where would he be now? Vasra said it wasn’t Chu Hua’s fault. Weiyuan wanted to believe her, because then maybe that absolved him too. He found himself clutching his own head. This was all just… too much. He was supposed to protect his other half when he was having a particularly bad day, but… who was supposed to protect him now? No. No, Chu Hua had to be wrong! He jumped to his feet, still clutching his head, his breathing became labored. She had to be wrong, because if she was right then… His hands fell to his sides and he turned around, walking over to stand in front of Chu Hua, looking down at her. He looked about as stern as a scrawny, emotionally battered teenager could. ’When someone hurts you it’s no one’s fault but theirs.’ Low on sleep and in the dry, desert air, his whisper was even weaker than ever, though their surroundings were at least quieter than the last time he’d spoken to her. ’I… if you…’ He quickly threw his arm over his mouth as his dry throat gave out and he broke into a coughing fit, causing him to stumble away weakly. She had to be wrong. If she was right… then everything he’d thought was good had been a mistake. _{_canaryrose} Chu Hua’s watery eyes flicked to Weiyuan, watching with slight concern as he stood, starting to hyperventilate, and then stood over her. Was he going to punch her? Morbidly, she thought she might deserve it. But she didn’t know these people, and she shifted defensively, sniffling. His response… surprised her. She sat there stunned for a moment, her tears coming to a standstill, and then she became concerned yet again as he started to cough. She offered him her water bottle. “It’s alright. Breathe, okay?” “... I wish it was that simple, kid.” She meant it. Maybe he was right, but Chu had always believed they didn’t live in a world where it was so black and white. None of this would’ve happened if she couldn’t bend, so she had to share some of the blame. But she appreciated the sentiment all the time. With a gasp of pain, she rose to her feet, legs swaying for a moment as if she was drunk. She patted Weiyuan on the shoulder, staring off into the distance. At Kanna’s corpse, lying on the ground. She had to get it over with at some point. “I think I’m gonna go… well.” Saying it choked her up. “Thanks. Both of you.” She picked up the shovel and went to bury her friend.

In Young Justice → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Location: Kobra Facility, New Mexico Interacting with: The Team

Alisa stepped through the rubble after Mirage and Zach. For a moment, it was eerily silent in the facility. Then she heard footsteps. She noticed them a split second before everybody else, whipping her head around to see where they might be coming from, but they were coming from everywhere. She didn’t have any time to shout a warning before they were on them, coming at them from all sides. A tremor of panic ran through her before she started swinging. 

Six of them managed to corner her, pushing her away from the group. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the same thing going on with every single other member of her team still stuck in the fight. This was planned, wasn’t it? The soldiers seemed to be relying on her confusion, on their advantage with the goggles, but they knew nothing. She could see. Alisa punched and kicked wildly, simply trying to do as much damage as possible. It… kind of worked. She managed to clock one opponent in the temple, sending him sprawling onto the ground. There were several shouts, and then they started shooting at her.

Bullets pinged off her torso, shredding through her suit… but not her skin. She gave a shout of pain and shock as a few embedded themselves in her shoulders and torso. She felt one shred through the coating on her face, embedding itself in her scalp. That fucking hurt. She had never been shot before! The soldiers seemed… very surprised at the noise of bullets pinging off of steel and at the fact that Alisa wasn’t dead and stopped shooting. 

“Well, now I’m mad,” she shouted, sounding genuinely peeved, and ran forward. Just then, a strong light emerged from nearby, blinding both the soldiers and Alisa. She blinked (something she normally didn’t do) as her vision spotted and came into focus again. That had been Kassy, right? She met the other girl's eyes across the room and gave her a thumbs up before grabbing one of the soldiers by the forearms and flinging him bodily into a shelf.

In ᵗʰᵉ Last Avatar. → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

_______________________________........Desert Outpost   ·   @vietmyke@Theyra@KillamriX88@Abstract Proxy@Exit[@Desert Outpost   ·   @vietmyke@Theyra@KillamriX88@Abstract Proxy@Exit
____________________________________________________________________________.
“Huh?” Chu Hua followed Kanna’s gaze, squinting into the sun while shielding her eyes. Was that a… helicopter? A figure was rapidly falling from the sky onto the guard tower below. A chill flooded Chu Hua’s veins a split second before the explosion. She knew what this was.

The tower exploded and the screaming started. She was stunned for a moment, stepping back until her back was against the truck, letting her have full vision of the chaos unfolding before her. Shots were raining down into the crowd, exploding tires, and people were scrambling to get on vehicles as quickly as possible. Even if they weren’t their vehicles. Chu Hua watched, horrified, as people were eaten by flames and as the crowd devolved into chaos. A few people came running for their truck.

"Chu! Get in the fucking car!" Kanna’s voice broke Chu Hua out of her stupor. Come on, come on… strategy. You’re good at this! Her brainwas moving so much slower than normal, a combination of sleep deprivation and panic and despair, but she was good at strategizing. She moved towards Kanna.

“Chae! Kid! We have to go right fucking now!” she screamed.  “Where’s the fucking dri-” 

In the blink of an eye, Chu Hua was thrown against the hood of the car by another massive explosion. She felt the crunch of her bag as it smashed against the car, and felt the sand on her arms as she slid off. A moan escaped her lips. Her eyes were scrunched tight against the sudden flash of blinding light, and her ears were ringing painfully in her ears. Everything hurt. She picked herself up off the ground gingerly. Her sense were fuzzy, and she had felt that explosion in her bones. Distantly, she hoped nothing in her bag had been broken. Especially not those tapes. But, more importantly, they still needed to get out of here. 

Where the fuck had that explosion come from? Chu Hua pushed herself off the hood of the car, staggering to peer towards the source of that noise. Two people were walking out of what looked like a large crater, surrounding by dead bodies, shooting into the crowd. Her face went white. They needed to find the driver now! Chu Hua rounded the side of the truck, searching for where the driver and his friend had fallen.

 “You!” she screamed at Jin Wei, panting and still slightly wobbling.  “you’re the driver, right?! Get in the car and fucking DRIVE!” She didn’t care how mean she sounded- they needed to go, and now. These soldiers had no inclination to capture them alive. This wasn’t a hunt, this was an extermination. 

Breathless, Chu Hua raised her head, staring at the horizon. There was something else out there. She heard the screams, saw it jumping from car to car. What… what was that? Something she could only describe as a monster came into view. Taller than her, its features warped, ripping people apart with its teeth and claws. She shivered. “What the fuck are you waiting for?! GO!”


________________________________........	_{Desert Outpost · @vietmyke@Theyra@KillamriX88@Abstract Proxy@Exit[@Desert Outpost · @vietmyke@Theyra@KillamriX88@Abstract Proxy@Exit} ____________________________________________________________________________. “Huh?” Chu Hua followed Kanna’s gaze, squinting into the sun while shielding her eyes. Was that a… helicopter? A figure was rapidly falling from the sky onto the guard tower below. A chill flooded Chu Hua’s veins a split second before the explosion. She knew what this was. The tower exploded and the screaming started. She was stunned for a moment, stepping back until her back was against the truck, letting her have full vision of the chaos unfolding before her. Shots were raining down into the crowd, exploding tires, and people were scrambling to get on vehicles as quickly as possible. Even if they weren’t their vehicles. Chu Hua watched, horrified, as people were eaten by flames and as the crowd devolved into chaos. A few people came running for their truck. "Chu! Get in the fucking car!" Kanna’s voice broke Chu Hua out of her stupor. Come on, come on… strategy. You’re good at this! Her brainwas moving so much slower than normal, a combination of sleep deprivation and panic and despair, but she was good at strategizing. She moved towards Kanna. “Chae! Kid! We have to go right fucking now!” she screamed. “Where’s the fucking dri-” In the blink of an eye, Chu Hua was thrown against the hood of the car by another massive explosion. She felt the crunch of her bag as it smashed against the car, and felt the sand on her arms as she slid off. A moan escaped her lips. Her eyes were scrunched tight against the sudden flash of blinding light, and her ears were ringing painfully in her ears. Everything hurt. She picked herself up off the ground gingerly. Her sense were fuzzy, and she had felt that explosion in her bones. Distantly, she hoped nothing in her bag had been broken. Especially not those tapes. But, more importantly, they still needed to get out of here. Where the fuck had that explosion come from? Chu Hua pushed herself off the hood of the car, staggering to peer towards the source of that noise. Two people were walking out of what looked like a large crater, surrounding by dead bodies, shooting into the crowd. Her face went white. They needed to find the driver now! Chu Hua rounded the side of the truck, searching for where the driver and his friend had fallen. “You!” she screamed at Jin Wei, panting and still slightly wobbling. “you’re the driver, right?! Get in the car and fucking DRIVE!” She didn’t care how mean she sounded- they needed to go, and now. These soldiers had no inclination to capture them alive. This wasn’t a hunt, this was an extermination. Breathless, Chu Hua raised her head, staring at the horizon. There was something else out there. She heard the screams, saw it jumping from car to car. What… what was that? Something she could only describe as a monster came into view. Taller than her, its features warped, ripping people apart with its teeth and claws. She shivered. “What the fuck are you waiting for?! GO!”

In Young Justice → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Location: Kobra Facility, New Mexico Interacting with:Kassy (@Mistress Dizzy), Zach (@Crimson Flame)

Alisa spent the drive out to the desert in an amiable almost-silence with Viktor while she reliably read off directions to the location of the secret warehouse. She had been temporarily banned from driving, which was fine, but she could sit in the passenger seat! Alisa joked now and then in the gaps between turns and lane changes, trying to soothe her own anxieties. Her short conversation- if you could even call it that- with that girl had freaked her out. She had the hunch there was something the girl knew that the team didn’t, but Alisa couldn’t put her finger on it. 

She did know, at least, that they were going into this mission nearly blind. They hadn’t gotten as much information rom the stake-out as they had hoped and tracking Riley had only led to the Kobra facility that was slowly coming into view from her spot in the passenger’s seat. The only advantage they had was surprise, and even that seemed flimsy to her- who was to say they didn’t know the team was coming? 

Kassy, Zach, and her waited in the van, waiting for Aleen’a, Viktor, and Ja to clear out the guards. They were quiet; even Zach wasn’t joking over the intercom as he was wont to do.She couldn’t see either of them, but she peered out of the van, trying to see what was happening. She didn’t see much before she got the signal.

Silently, the three of them ran across the field to the building. Alisa watched Mirage use her magic on the wall before she approached and flicked a switch on the wrist of her right hand. She waited with baited breath as it charged up. “Stand back,” she told her, firmly, before she raised her hand, the skin bits folded away, and a circular blaster appeared. Alisa hadn’t actually used the blaster in the field before, so it was a bit of a shock to feel the energy being drained from her and then to feel the strong discharge from her hand. The recoil threw her back a few feet, sending her body skimming across the ground as the red brick crumbled with a loud boom. 

“Ow,” she grumbled, standing up and brushing the dust off of her black bodysuit. “I really need to get around to decreasing the recoil on that. Jesus.” Alisa, however, could tell it would’ve been quite a bit worse if Mirage hadn’t weakened the wall beforehand. And there would’ve been less damage. There was now a large hole in the wall, exposing the innards of the warehouse. Thanks to Mirage’s work, it was large enough for the three of them to get in. “Let’s do this!”

In ᵗʰᵉ Last Avatar. → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

___________________________________.......Tunnels under the Middle Ring   ·   Afternoon   ·   In collaboration with [&.Exit]Tunnels under the Middle Ring/Desert Outpost  ·   Afternoon/Morning Next Day   ·   In collaboration with @Exit
_
”Chu… we have to go. If we wait any longer, we may not be able to make it out of the city before they seal everything.” Kanna was already standing a few feet away in the encroaching darkness of the tunnel. ”I’m sure she’s fine and will catch up.” She said, not really believing her own words.

Chu Hua shook her head emphatically. “No. No, she’s coming. Just thirty more minutes, please.” Her gaze was fixed on the abyss of the tunnel expanding behind them, hope and dread mixing in her eyes. An would come. She had to. Only hours ago, Chu Hua had begged An to stay behind for her own safety. But now…  I can’t do this alone. They couldn’t leave her behind, not with the city the way it was, and not with the evidence of her helping them on tape. Even underground they heard pained and terrified screams, the rending sound of gunshots, the explosions of bombs. She couldn’t leave her fiancee here.

”You said ‘thirty more minutes’ thirty minutes ago…”

“So? We’ll wait. We can’t just leave her here, Kanna.”

”Yeah. Actually we can.” Kanna grimaced as the words came out of her mouth. They sounded much harsher than she meant for it to. ”I’m sorry. I just… I hate this as much as you but if she hasn’t come down yet, either whoever was sent to check on her never left, or… or we really need to leave. Regardless, as annoying as I think she is, I know she can handle herself. That much is obvious. She’s going to be fine but we definitely are not going to be okay if we stay.”

“You don’t understand,” Chu Hua insisted, growing agitated as she curled her hands into fists. “I know she can handle herself. But I can’t leave her here. I can’t. Maybe you don’t understand that kind of commitment, but she’s important to me.”

”No I do! I understand you’re committed to her but she’s also committed to you! Tha- Ugh! This! Right here. She’s committed to getting you out of here and ignoring that... that is what got my mother killed.” Kanna shook her head. ”She put her neck on the line for you literally a few minutes after finding out you’re a Firebender because you’re important to her too. We can’t let it be for nothing.”

Also I’m a fucking idiot and I put myself in this hole and I don’t want to die either, okay? I really dislike the idea of dying.”  

“But… Chu Hua leaned against the tunnel walls, wearing a look of devastation on her face as she realized she had no ground to stand on here. What Kanna said was true. They had very little time, and if they stayed in the city, the two of them- especially Chu Hua- were certainly doomed to die of a bullet to the head. She couldn’t leave her fiancee behind, the very thought of doing so rended her limb from limb, but she also couldn’t wait here and let herself and Kanna die. Although she certainly loved An much more than Kanna, her ex had also risked her life for Chu Hua. She couldn’t let her die, either. 

She was quiet for a long moment, staring into the distance, eyes empty. It was the thought of that obligation that finally forced her to speak. “I fucking hate you for making me do this,” she murmured, and stepped off the wall.  “Fine. Let’s go.”

Kanna stole a last glance back down the tunnel toward where An had let them in. Like Chu, she wasn’t sure when or if she’d ever be back and figured that this was it. She hadn’t even been given the chance to properly gather anything from her house. Her clothing. Belongings. Photos. Her mother’s memory. All of it had been left behind, much in the same way that Chu was doing now with her entire world.

But then again, when Kanna really thought about it, there was little else left for her in Ba Sing Se. As much as she liked to give Chu shit about it, it was painfully obvious that Chu was going to over take her that year. Her time had been up a long time ago, she knew, and every victory at finals was just Kanna desperately postponing the inevitable. In some ways, the abrupt end of the game was a bit of a stroke of luck as there would be no official verdict as to who was best, but Kanna knew. She also knew that with no family left, the high-point of her career already at its end and no one to lament her absence in the same way An was Chu, her story was over.

”Yeah. I hate me too.”

After the two of them had left the tunnels and emerged from the city, they had set out to the desert outpost on foot. Kanna and Chu Hua sniped at each other on occasion, but for the most part they were silent. Chu Hua looked questioningly back at the slowly receding outline of the Ba Sing Se skyline every once in a while, looking for something, but Kanna didn’t comment. She couldn’t tell if she was grateful for that or not. Mostly, the trek blurred together. At certain points, her entire body just hurt so bad from the combination of burned and tired feet, burned skin, and general exhaustion and despair that she could only focus on putting one foot in front of the other. After all, they couldn’t stop. Someone would figure out where they had escaped to at some point and come looking- it was better to get as far from the city as possible as fast as possible. 

They finally reached the outpost when the first hint of light was touching the desert sky. Chu Hua almost immediately fell asleep for two glorious hours while Kanna made sure no one took their things. Chu Hua took second watch, waking up to let Kanna sleep for a while. She watched the last trickle of fugitives- benders, she guessed- filter in. It immediately put her on edge. It was hard to think of herself as one of these people. Bloodied, devastated, some raving. All was quiet, for the most part, with the occasion argument breaking out. As the sun finally rose, bringing with it an unbearable heat, she watched people prepare to leave and nudged Kanna awake. Their names had been announced as some of the people leaving in the first wave. 

Now, Chu Hua had one eye on the horizon and one eye on the car they were supposed to be leaving in. One foolish little part of her kept hoping that she would see An dashing across the sand, having fallen just a bit behind. But that isn’t going to happen. She stuffed her burn-mottled hands in her red plaid jacket, wincing at the pain that caused. She drew them out. 

She eyed the storm critically, standing next to Kanna. It was strange- the one person she had wanted nothing to do with less tha twenty four hours ago was maybe now one of the only people in her vicinity she could trust. “Well. We weren’t murdered, so I don’t think the universe will sandstorm us to death,” she joked half-heartedly, provoking a glare. 

She nudged Kanna, gesturing to the Kyoshi. A few people were milling around it, trying to look like they totally weren’t considering stealing it. “I think that’s our ride. Wanna go… I don’t know, stand next to it or something? So we don’t get trampled?” They trekked over to the Kyoshi, taking up a spot a good few feet away from the car. She up-nodded one of the tough-looking guys and then diverted her eyes, shifting from foot to foot. Chu Hua stood in silence, trying her best to keep her eyes angled out of the glaring sun. Maybe the worst was over.


____________________________________.......	_{Tunnels under the Middle Ring · Afternoon · In collaboration with [&.Exit]Tunnels under the Middle Ring/Desert Outpost · Afternoon/Morning Next Day · In collaboration with @Exit} _ ”Chu… we have to go. If we wait any longer, we may not be able to make it out of the city before they seal everything.” Kanna was already standing a few feet away in the encroaching darkness of the tunnel. ”I’m sure she’s fine and will catch up.” She said, not really believing her own words. Chu Hua shook her head emphatically. “No. No, she’s coming. Just thirty more minutes, please.” Her gaze was fixed on the abyss of the tunnel expanding behind them, hope and dread mixing in her eyes. An would come. She had to. Only hours ago, Chu Hua had begged An to stay behind for her own safety. But now… I can’t do this alone. They couldn’t leave her behind, not with the city the way it was, and not with the evidence of her helping them on tape. Even underground they heard pained and terrified screams, the rending sound of gunshots, the explosions of bombs. She couldn’t leave her fiancee here. ”You said ‘thirty more minutes’ thirty minutes ago…” “So? We’ll wait. We can’t just leave her here, Kanna.” ”Yeah. Actually we can.” Kanna grimaced as the words came out of her mouth. They sounded much harsher than she meant for it to. ”I’m sorry. I just… I hate this as much as you but if she hasn’t come down yet, either whoever was sent to check on her never left, or… or we really need to leave. Regardless, as annoying as I think she is, I know she can handle herself. That much is obvious. She’s going to be fine but we definitely are not going to be okay if we stay.” “You don’t understand,” Chu Hua insisted, growing agitated as she curled her hands into fists. “I know she can handle herself. But I can’t leave her here. I can’t. Maybe you don’t understand that kind of commitment, but she’s important to me.” ”No I do! I understand you’re committed to her but she’s also committed to you! Tha- Ugh! This! Right here. She’s committed to getting you out of here and ignoring that... that is what got my mother killed.” Kanna shook her head. ”She put her neck on the line for you literally a few minutes after finding out you’re a Firebender because you’re important to her too. We can’t let it be for nothing.” Also I’m a fucking idiot and I put myself in this hole and I don’t want to die either, okay? I really dislike the idea of dying.” “But… Chu Hua leaned against the tunnel walls, wearing a look of devastation on her face as she realized she had no ground to stand on here. What Kanna said was true. They had very little time, and if they stayed in the city, the two of them- especially Chu Hua- were certainly doomed to die of a bullet to the head. She couldn’t leave her fiancee behind, the very thought of doing so rended her limb from limb, but she also couldn’t wait here and let herself and Kanna die. Although she certainly loved An much more than Kanna, her ex had also risked her life for Chu Hua. She couldn’t let her die, either. She was quiet for a long moment, staring into the distance, eyes empty. It was the thought of that obligation that finally forced her to speak. “I fucking hate you for making me do this,” she murmured, and stepped off the wall. “Fine. Let’s go.” Kanna stole a last glance back down the tunnel toward where An had let them in. Like Chu, she wasn’t sure when or if she’d ever be back and figured that this was it. She hadn’t even been given the chance to properly gather anything from her house. Her clothing. Belongings. Photos. Her mother’s memory. All of it had been left behind, much in the same way that Chu was doing now with her entire world. But then again, when Kanna really thought about it, there was little else left for her in Ba Sing Se. As much as she liked to give Chu shit about it, it was painfully obvious that Chu was going to over take her that year. Her time had been up a long time ago, she knew, and every victory at finals was just Kanna desperately postponing the inevitable. In some ways, the abrupt end of the game was a bit of a stroke of luck as there would be no official verdict as to who was best, but Kanna knew. She also knew that with no family left, the high-point of her career already at its end and no one to lament her absence in the same way An was Chu, her story was over. ”Yeah. I hate me too.” After the two of them had left the tunnels and emerged from the city, they had set out to the desert outpost on foot. Kanna and Chu Hua sniped at each other on occasion, but for the most part they were silent. Chu Hua looked questioningly back at the slowly receding outline of the Ba Sing Se skyline every once in a while, looking for something, but Kanna didn’t comment. She couldn’t tell if she was grateful for that or not. Mostly, the trek blurred together. At certain points, her entire body just hurt so bad from the combination of burned and tired feet, burned skin, and general exhaustion and despair that she could only focus on putting one foot in front of the other. After all, they couldn’t stop. Someone would figure out where they had escaped to at some point and come looking- it was better to get as far from the city as possible as fast as possible. They finally reached the outpost when the first hint of light was touching the desert sky. Chu Hua almost immediately fell asleep for two glorious hours while Kanna made sure no one took their things. Chu Hua took second watch, waking up to let Kanna sleep for a while. She watched the last trickle of fugitives- benders, she guessed- filter in. It immediately put her on edge. It was hard to think of herself as one of these people. Bloodied, devastated, some raving. All was quiet, for the most part, with the occasion argument breaking out. As the sun finally rose, bringing with it an unbearable heat, she watched people prepare to leave and nudged Kanna awake. Their names had been announced as some of the people leaving in the first wave. Now, Chu Hua had one eye on the horizon and one eye on the car they were supposed to be leaving in. One foolish little part of her kept hoping that she would see An dashing across the sand, having fallen just a bit behind. But that isn’t going to happen. She stuffed her burn-mottled hands in her red plaid jacket, wincing at the pain that caused. She drew them out. She eyed the storm critically, standing next to Kanna. It was strange- the one person she had wanted nothing to do with less tha twenty four hours ago was maybe now one of the only people in her vicinity she could trust. “Well. We weren’t murdered, so I don’t think the universe will sandstorm us to death,” she joked half-heartedly, provoking a glare. She nudged Kanna, gesturing to the Kyoshi. A few people were milling around it, trying to look like they totally weren’t considering stealing it. “I think that’s our ride. Wanna go… I don’t know, stand next to it or something? So we don’t get trampled?” They trekked over to the Kyoshi, taking up a spot a good few feet away from the car. She up-nodded one of the tough-looking guys and then diverted her eyes, shifting from foot to foot. Chu Hua stood in silence, trying her best to keep her eyes angled out of the glaring sun. Maybe the worst was over.

In ᵗʰᵉ Last Avatar. → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

___________________________________.......Chu & An's Apartment   ·   Afternoon   ·   In collaboration with [&.Exit]Chu & An's Apartment   ·   Afternoon   ·   In collaboration with @Exit
_
Kanna was pacing. Counting items in her head and on her fingers and tallying what they had and what they had to leave behind. ”Water. Couple clothes. Yuan. Do you have a gun?”

Chu Hua was rooting frantically through her drawers and cabinets, stuffing whatever she could find into a quickly expanding black backpack.  “No, I don’t have a fucking gun, Kanna. I never thought I’d need one." As she spoke, she stuffed a picture frame into her bag and then, deciding against it, took the photo out of the frame and tucked it into a pocket. 

Chu Hua and An’s apartment was an intensely modern, open affair. It was monochrome, with the occasional pop of color in the way of flowers or a picture frame. Chu Hua remembered several intense arguments with her fiancee about decor, of all things- An was a snob, while Chu Hua was more the type of person who just put stuff in a room and called it a day. Aside from the living room, there was only one other room- the bedroom, which was directly off the living space. The kitchen was open-concept and bled into the living room, only separated by a step. They were currently making a massive mess of the place, which Chu Hua didn’t care about because she knew she’d likely never see it again.

“I have one,” An spoke up, pouring water from a filtration jug into bottles. 

”What?” Kanna asked.

“Since when?!”

An shrugged. “A bit ago. I’ll go find it. Kanna, kindly stop being useless and fill up these bottles.” She walked off to the bedroom, leaving the waters behind. 

”Useless?! In case we forgot, this is my plan we’re following! Kanna yelled after her, angrily complying to the order anyways and grabbing up one of the water bottles.

 “Well, there you go, Kanna. You’ve turned my fiancée into a vigilante. Congrats.

”I’d be more worried about the fact that she’s looking for a gun… she owns in her fiancee’s house!” The second half was yelled so An could hear her.

Chu Hua continued methodically putting things into her bag, until… “Fuck, I’m out of room. How am I out of room?!” She threw things on the floor- clothes, books, silverware.

’Chu…” Kanna stopped pouring. ”...What the fuck are those doing in your bag? Why are you packing books? And silverware?!”

“I don’t know! I’ve never been a fugitive before, Kanna!” She threw her hands up. “What if I need cutlery?!”

”You’re not going to need cutlery because you’re never going to make it out of the city before they kill you carrying all that extra shit! Light! How in the world did you ever become second best stickball player in the world?”

“First of all, first best. Second of all, if you haven’t noticed, I’m built as hell. And I need at least one fork.” Chu Hua stuffed one fork back into her bag, opting to leave.

 “Found it!” A voice crowed from the bedroom. An emerged with a sleek weapon in her hand, held comfortably. It was a Synergy pistol. Chu Hua’s eyes widened as An held it out to her.

“Since when do we own a Synergy weapon, babe?” Her voice was deceptively calm. Holy shit, her fiancée was a secret badass. Chu Hua was starstruck.

Kanna on the other hand was not calm at all. ”How the fuck did you get that?!”

An shrugged, nonchalant. “It was a gift from my boss. Gonna keep ogling it or are you gonna take it?”

Chu Hua shifted on her feet.  “You keep it for now, until you can show me how to use it. I think I’d just blow my foot off.” 

An tucked it into her waistband, going about packing herself. She was far more practical than Chu Hua… despite stuffing some very distinctly fancy clothing into her bag. Chu Hua remembered, belatedly, that her fiancée probably didn’t own anything practical for the desert. That’d be something to settle later.

Kanna capped the last bottle of water and walked over to place a couple in one of the side pockets of Chu’s backpack. ”I’m sorry. What do you do again?” She asked An, removing the fork from Chu’s pack. 

“I work for SynEn, and I also happen to be extremely charismatic,” said An, taking two bottles and shoving them in her own bag. “My boss and favorite coworker also happens to be Vyska Moon. Great drinking partner. Terrible giver of birthday gifts.”

“Oh, shit, I forgot that one thing I really needed,” exclaimed Chu Hua, who dropped her bag on the kitchen counter and dashed into the bedroom. ”Gotta find it, gotta find it…” She dropped onto the floor, tapping the floorboards.

Their bedroom was, like their living room, modern and austere. It had many more photos and a large closet, however.  A large floor-to-ceiling window faced the cityscape, covering one wall. 

A long time ago, Chu Hua had hid her tapes in this room. She only opened it when she was sure An wasn’t present, which hadn’t been for a while. So she only had a very vague idea of where they were. Finally, she came upon a loose floorboard.  “Aha!” She popped the false floor off, reaching into the hole she had made in the ground. She pulled out four ancient-looking video tapes, each deceptively labelled with a fairly explicit porno name. They were, of course, not porn- something much, much worse. She held them reverently for a moment before heading back out into the living room.

“Don’t want anyone to find these here,” she explained, wrapping the tapes in her clothing and placing them at the bottom of her bag.

Kanna wasn’t quite quick enough to catch the labels on the tapes, but she did notice the tapes themselves. Again, hardly something she thought worth enough to bring along. ”Tapes? Seriously? I haven’t even seen one of those in years. Why would anyone be looking for them? And don’t- Ugh!” She watched in mild frustration as Chu stuffed them in her bag.

Chu Hua shrugged, a blush coming across her cheeks. To think now, that she had risked her life over something so fucking stupid? She was such an idiot. But she couldn’t just leave them behind.  “Um. Let’s just say… I had to go to the Underground and spend 100k yuan for these. Each. And I hide them in my floorboards. So… well. You can make the connection.”

An looked at her strange from across the room. “Sorry, what? What the fuck have you been keeping in our house?”

”Yeah. Besides the super gun that’s probably just as expensive.” Kanna asked, giving An a glance. ”Although more uself than a… 100k yuan cassette tape. King Wu better be naked on it.”

 “Oh, fuck you for putting that image in my head. No, no. It’s more important than that. This is old shit. Pre-cleanse shit. I’ll show you, sometime. You’d like it, it’s… film of an old sport. Nothing like stickball, but it’s entertaining. Also super illegal, so that’s fun too. Not like I’m not already a criminal.”

”Well, we all are now.” Kanna threw the last two bottles of water into the bag she’d been given and tied it off. Although smaller than the others, she didn’t have much to carry, mostly because nothing in the apartment was hers. There wasn’t enough time to travel all the way to her house in the Upper Ring. Not with things as they were now. Sure the streets were chaotic but they wouldn’t always be and there was no way to know when people would start paying attention. Both Kanna and Chu had their faces plastered on televisions screens and monitors across the Ba Sing Se and even before this they were already well known. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to spot them and recognize arguably the world’s most popular Firebender and one of the city’s greatest Stickball players helping her escape. Not to mention who knew who was keeping tabs on An, connected as she was.

In her musings, Kanna’s eyes fell on a picture attached to the fridge and a thought suddenly occurred to her. ”Chu…” She started, turning to the other woman. ”...Are you going to leave something for your parents?”

Before she could answer, however, An’s phone started ringing.

There was pain in her voice as Chu Hua began talking.  “I… yeah, I mean, I don’t have much time but I’ll write-” 

She was interrupted by a loud shushing sound and a ringtone. “Both of you, shut the fuck up right now,” An practically yelled from the kitchen island. Her face looked drawn and pale as she showed them both her phone screen. Vyska Moon.  “I have to take this. Keep packing, just be quiet.”

Chu Hua stared, slightly concerned, as An pressed the accept button and raised the phone to her ear. “Vyska,” she said, sounding a bit concerned,  “is everything alright? This is an inconvenient time for me to talk about work stuff, so unless it’s an emergency....”

...

“I made it back to my apartment, thank God. Where are you? Are you alright?” An’s voice took an a more concerned tone as she turned in her chair, away from Kanna and Chu Hua.

...

“She’s… fine.” She hesitated for a moment, glancing at Chu Hua with a bit of a confused look on her face. “The game got cut off thanks to the chaos. Listen, I can’t come in. I have some more important things occupying my attention right now.”

There was a short pause while An bit her lip. ...

 “I’m fine. I just can’t come in right now, alright? I’m sorry.” Her tone was terse, snippy.

... There was a dial tone as the person on the other end hung up.

An slammed her phone down onto the counter as the call ended. “God, she’s such an ass,” she said, pulling her laptop out onto the counter.  “She wanted me to come in, I said no, and now she’s sending someone to the apartment. Keep packing, babe, write your letter… it’ll be weird if I don’t at least do this.”

Chu Hua glanced at Kanna and shrugged, now scrawling on a piece of paper. That conversation had been weird. “We’ll need to get out of here before they show up, then.”

 “Yeah, yeah. We’ll think of something.” An looked vaguely concerned as she tapped on her keyboard.

Kanna threw her backpack over her shoulder and moved toward the window to peer at the street below. There had already been a few bender sightings nearby earlier in the day when the explosion happened. Although most if not all of them had been taken care of, there were still a number of RSF officers nearby, talking to citizens and closing off crime scenes. All of them were presently preoccupied and were paying little attention to the apartment. ”You want to leave before whoever she sends gets here? Would that be more suspicious?” 

An put her head into her hands, massaging her temples. Chu Hua put a hand onto her shoulder, trying to comfort her, but she shook it off. “Sorry. Still hot?” She was feeling much better, but her skin still burned to the touch.

“Yeah,” An muttered. “I guess I’ll have to stay here and wait for them, then.”

“What?! No!” Chu Hua’s voice rose a few decibels as she rounded the kitchen counter.  “Absolutely not. What if it’s… a trap?!”

An snorted.  “What the hell’s she gonna do, have me arrested? No, you’re the conspicuous one. Kannas right, she’ll call the cops as soon as she sees I’ve left. Out of concern, but still. You’re the most recognizable criminals in the city. You two need to leave. I’ll stay here and join you later. Finish up and I’ll take you down to the tunnels and let you in, alright? I’ll give you directions to where you can leave the city.”

”You don’t have any more weird tapes to grab, do you Chu?” Kanna asked, stepping away from the window.

Chu Hua glanced An’s way, pursing her lips. “No,” she said, gazing at her apartment with a wistful look on her face. She ran her hands over the couch, the walls, the photos on the wall. It was almost certain she’d never see this place again, and less certain that she would never again step foot in the city of her birth. Thinking about her future was awful, setting off a roiling feeling in her. Tears came unbidden to her eyes. Her life, that she had worked so hard to cultivate, had been destroyed in a single moment. Chu Hua didn’t say anything, instead taking her backpack in hand and putting it over her shoulders. 

 “I’m ready to go,” Chu Hua said, walking towards the door. An stood from her seat and walked to the door, putting a hand on the knob. 

“If you guys are ready, then…“

Kanna grabbed her bandanna and tied her hair up with it. As she walked up to the door, she also grabbed her paddle. ”Ready.”

The three of them walked out of the apartment and into the street, heading to the tunnels that ran beneath the Middle Ring. Chu Hua turned one last, uncertain look at her apartment building before she left. She really would miss this place. Who knew what would happen to her next?


____________________________________.......	_{Chu & An's Apartment · Afternoon · In collaboration with [&.Exit]Chu & An's Apartment · Afternoon · In collaboration with @Exit} _ Kanna was pacing. Counting items in her head and on her fingers and tallying what they had and what they had to leave behind. ”Water. Couple clothes. Yuan. Do you have a gun?” Chu Hua was rooting frantically through her drawers and cabinets, stuffing whatever she could find into a quickly expanding black backpack. “No, I don’t have a fucking gun, Kanna. I never thought I’d need one." As she spoke, she stuffed a picture frame into her bag and then, deciding against it, took the photo out of the frame and tucked it into a pocket. Chu Hua and An’s apartment was an intensely modern, open affair. It was monochrome, with the occasional pop of color in the way of flowers or a picture frame. Chu Hua remembered several intense arguments with her fiancee about decor, of all things- An was a snob, while Chu Hua was more the type of person who just put stuff in a room and called it a day. Aside from the living room, there was only one other room- the bedroom, which was directly off the living space. The kitchen was open-concept and bled into the living room, only separated by a step. They were currently making a massive mess of the place, which Chu Hua didn’t care about because she knew she’d likely never see it again. “I have one,” An spoke up, pouring water from a filtration jug into bottles. ”What?” Kanna asked. “Since when?!” An shrugged. “A bit ago. I’ll go find it. Kanna, kindly stop being useless and fill up these bottles.” She walked off to the bedroom, leaving the waters behind. ”Useless?! In case we forgot, this is my plan we’re following! Kanna yelled after her, angrily complying to the order anyways and grabbing up one of the water bottles. “Well, there you go, Kanna. You’ve turned my fiancée into a vigilante. Congrats. ”I’d be more worried about the fact that she’s looking for a gun… she owns in her fiancee’s house!” The second half was yelled so An could hear her. Chu Hua continued methodically putting things into her bag, until… “Fuck, I’m out of room. How am I out of room?!” She threw things on the floor- clothes, books, silverware. ’Chu…” Kanna stopped pouring. ”...What the fuck are those doing in your bag? Why are you packing books? And silverware?!” “I don’t know! I’ve never been a fugitive before, Kanna!” She threw her hands up. “What if I need cutlery?!” ”You’re not going to need cutlery because you’re never going to make it out of the city before they kill you carrying all that extra shit! Light! How in the world did you ever become second best stickball player in the world?” “First of all, first best. Second of all, if you haven’t noticed, I’m built as hell. And I need at least one fork.” Chu Hua stuffed one fork back into her bag, opting to leave. “Found it!” A voice crowed from the bedroom. An emerged with a sleek weapon in her hand, held comfortably. It was a Synergy pistol. Chu Hua’s eyes widened as An held it out to her. “Since when do we own a Synergy weapon, babe?” Her voice was deceptively calm. Holy shit, her fiancée was a secret badass. Chu Hua was starstruck. Kanna on the other hand was not calm at all. ”How the fuck did you get that?!” An shrugged, nonchalant. “It was a gift from my boss. Gonna keep ogling it or are you gonna take it?” Chu Hua shifted on her feet. “You keep it for now, until you can show me how to use it. I think I’d just blow my foot off.” An tucked it into her waistband, going about packing herself. She was far more practical than Chu Hua… despite stuffing some very distinctly fancy clothing into her bag. Chu Hua remembered, belatedly, that her fiancée probably didn’t own anything practical for the desert. That’d be something to settle later. Kanna capped the last bottle of water and walked over to place a couple in one of the side pockets of Chu’s backpack. ”I’m sorry. What do you do again?” She asked An, removing the fork from Chu’s pack. “I work for SynEn, and I also happen to be extremely charismatic,” said An, taking two bottles and shoving them in her own bag. “My boss and favorite coworker also happens to be Vyska Moon. Great drinking partner. Terrible giver of birthday gifts.” “Oh, shit, I forgot that one thing I really needed,” exclaimed Chu Hua, who dropped her bag on the kitchen counter and dashed into the bedroom. ”Gotta find it, gotta find it…” She dropped onto the floor, tapping the floorboards. Their bedroom was, like their living room, modern and austere. It had many more photos and a large closet, however. A large floor-to-ceiling window faced the cityscape, covering one wall. A long time ago, Chu Hua had hid her tapes in this room. She only opened it when she was sure An wasn’t present, which hadn’t been for a while. So she only had a very vague idea of where they were. Finally, she came upon a loose floorboard. “Aha!” She popped the false floor off, reaching into the hole she had made in the ground. She pulled out four ancient-looking video tapes, each deceptively labelled with a fairly explicit porno name. They were, of course, not porn- something much, much worse. She held them reverently for a moment before heading back out into the living room. “Don’t want anyone to find these here,” she explained, wrapping the tapes in her clothing and placing them at the bottom of her bag. Kanna wasn’t quite quick enough to catch the labels on the tapes, but she did notice the tapes themselves. Again, hardly something she thought worth enough to bring along. ”Tapes? Seriously? I haven’t even seen one of those in years. Why would anyone be looking for them? And don’t- Ugh!” She watched in mild frustration as Chu stuffed them in her bag. Chu Hua shrugged, a blush coming across her cheeks. To think now, that she had risked her life over something so fucking stupid? She was such an idiot. But she couldn’t just leave them behind. “Um. Let’s just say… I had to go to the Underground and spend 100k yuan for these. Each. And I hide them in my floorboards. So… well. You can make the connection.” An looked at her strange from across the room. “Sorry, what? What the fuck have you been keeping in our house?” ”Yeah. Besides the super gun that’s probably just as expensive.” Kanna asked, giving An a glance. ”Although more uself than a… 100k yuan cassette tape. King Wu better be naked on it.” “Oh, fuck you for putting that image in my head. No, no. It’s more important than that. This is old shit. Pre-cleanse shit. I’ll show you, sometime. You’d like it, it’s… film of an old sport. Nothing like stickball, but it’s entertaining. Also super illegal, so that’s fun too. Not like I’m not already a criminal.” ”Well, we all are now.” Kanna threw the last two bottles of water into the bag she’d been given and tied it off. Although smaller than the others, she didn’t have much to carry, mostly because nothing in the apartment was hers. There wasn’t enough time to travel all the way to her house in the Upper Ring. Not with things as they were now. Sure the streets were chaotic but they wouldn’t always be and there was no way to know when people would start paying attention. Both Kanna and Chu had their faces plastered on televisions screens and monitors across the Ba Sing Se and even before this they were already well known. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to spot them and recognize arguably the world’s most popular Firebender and one of the city’s greatest Stickball players helping her escape. Not to mention who knew who was keeping tabs on An, connected as she was. In her musings, Kanna’s eyes fell on a picture attached to the fridge and a thought suddenly occurred to her. ”Chu…” She started, turning to the other woman. ”...Are you going to leave something for your parents?” Before she could answer, however, An’s phone started ringing. There was pain in her voice as Chu Hua began talking. “I… yeah, I mean, I don’t have much time but I’ll write-” She was interrupted by a loud shushing sound and a ringtone. “Both of you, shut the fuck up right now,” An practically yelled from the kitchen island. Her face looked drawn and pale as she showed them both her phone screen. Vyska Moon. “I have to take this. Keep packing, just be quiet.” Chu Hua stared, slightly concerned, as An pressed the accept button and raised the phone to her ear. “Vyska,” she said, sounding a bit concerned, “is everything alright? This is an inconvenient time for me to talk about work stuff, so unless it’s an emergency....” ... “I made it back to my apartment, thank God. Where are you? Are you alright?” An’s voice took an a more concerned tone as she turned in her chair, away from Kanna and Chu Hua. ... “She’s… fine.” She hesitated for a moment, glancing at Chu Hua with a bit of a confused look on her face. “The game got cut off thanks to the chaos. Listen, I can’t come in. I have some more important things occupying my attention right now.” There was a short pause while An bit her lip. ... “I’m fine. I just can’t come in right now, alright? I’m sorry.” Her tone was terse, snippy. ... There was a dial tone as the person on the other end hung up. An slammed her phone down onto the counter as the call ended. “God, she’s such an ass,” she said, pulling her laptop out onto the counter. “She wanted me to come in, I said no, and now she’s sending someone to the apartment. Keep packing, babe, write your letter… it’ll be weird if I don’t at least do this.” Chu Hua glanced at Kanna and shrugged, now scrawling on a piece of paper. That conversation had been weird. “We’ll need to get out of here before they show up, then.” “Yeah, yeah. We’ll think of something.” An looked vaguely concerned as she tapped on her keyboard. Kanna threw her backpack over her shoulder and moved toward the window to peer at the street below. There had already been a few bender sightings nearby earlier in the day when the explosion happened. Although most if not all of them had been taken care of, there were still a number of RSF officers nearby, talking to citizens and closing off crime scenes. All of them were presently preoccupied and were paying little attention to the apartment. ”You want to leave before whoever she sends gets here? Would that be more suspicious?” An put her head into her hands, massaging her temples. Chu Hua put a hand onto her shoulder, trying to comfort her, but she shook it off. “Sorry. Still hot?” She was feeling much better, but her skin still burned to the touch. “Yeah,” An muttered. “I guess I’ll have to stay here and wait for them, then.” “What?! No!” Chu Hua’s voice rose a few decibels as she rounded the kitchen counter. “Absolutely not. What if it’s… a trap?!” An snorted. “What the hell’s she gonna do, have me arrested? No, you’re the conspicuous one. Kannas right, she’ll call the cops as soon as she sees I’ve left. Out of concern, but still. You’re the most recognizable criminals in the city. You two need to leave. I’ll stay here and join you later. Finish up and I’ll take you down to the tunnels and let you in, alright? I’ll give you directions to where you can leave the city.” ”You don’t have any more weird tapes to grab, do you Chu?” Kanna asked, stepping away from the window. Chu Hua glanced An’s way, pursing her lips. “No,” she said, gazing at her apartment with a wistful look on her face. She ran her hands over the couch, the walls, the photos on the wall. It was almost certain she’d never see this place again, and less certain that she would never again step foot in the city of her birth. Thinking about her future was awful, setting off a roiling feeling in her. Tears came unbidden to her eyes. Her life, that she had worked so hard to cultivate, had been destroyed in a single moment. Chu Hua didn’t say anything, instead taking her backpack in hand and putting it over her shoulders. “I’m ready to go,” Chu Hua said, walking towards the door. An stood from her seat and walked to the door, putting a hand on the knob. “If you guys are ready, then…“ Kanna grabbed her bandanna and tied her hair up with it. As she walked up to the door, she also grabbed her paddle. ”Ready.” The three of them walked out of the apartment and into the street, heading to the tunnels that ran beneath the Middle Ring. Chu Hua turned one last, uncertain look at her apartment building before she left. She really would miss this place. Who knew what would happen to her next?

In The Witches & Warlocks of Tanner → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Interest Checks

@ActRaiserTheReturned It specifies in the information that the main difference is a difference in ability level.

In The Witches & Warlocks of Tanner → 4 yrs ago Forum: Casual Interest Checks

Super interested. I love witch RPs, actually ran something really similar a year or so ago.

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