avatar_state | IC INBOX \ House Details (Deerington)

[Poor Luz had forgotten already].

Oh, right, the earthquakes and stuff. You didn't have to deal with any of those crazy worms, did you?

[That brought out a nod.]

Oh, yeah, lots of them. Toasted them good, too. I mean, others like Vira-Lorr helped, too, which made it even easier. But yeah, I went through them like nothing.

[She's pretty proud about that part, actually.]

Felt pretty good to, y'know, actually help by thinning out their numbers.

I'm not surprised! I met one by accident though. Pretty freaky stuff.

Oh, Vira helped? I should have known she would.

Yeah. Well. They weren't the only things that needed thinning numbers.

[She is aware, and that's possibly a big hint.]

So people are saying. Wish I'd known at the time.

[Brings her mood down quite a bit, but it also reminds her why she's doing this tonight. And she's quiet for a long while, as they approach the house, and Naga slows her pace.]

Good girl, Naga. Thank you.

[Oh, did she know? Maybe they hadn't gone after them. It was possible they'd only targeted young, seemingly defenseless kids.

Which only revolted Luz even more].

You're great Naga.

[Luz nuzzled Naga a moment, just to show she was grateful for the ride].

[More that she'd heard things, in passing. Once again, happening frustratingly elsewhere.]

[She stretched a little as they approached her house, sighing.]

So have you eaten? Do you need anything else? I've got some of that popping corn, I think? Found it last time I went scrounging.

[She knows there's something on Luz's mind. But it's Korra. She can't not try to care for someone.]

[She could understand that. Some things went unseen, she knew that happened even on her end. Unfortunately, Luz did not happen to skip that part].

I haven't eaten yet, no. I don't think I ought to though. I don't think it would be a good idea.

[Not with what she had to talk about].

[She reaches out a hand to gently lay on Luz's shoulder, sensing at least some of it.]

Ok.

[It's all that needs saying as she opens the door, letting her enter first, followed by herself, with Naga bringing up the rear, immediately moving to a soft pile of blankets, turning two circles, and making herself comfortable.]

Ah. Nice.

[Which normally would have sounded way more enthusiastic, with Luz doing her usual grinning and making up stories, but now she was unfolding a kurigami onesie that Usagi had lent her, looking up at Korra].

I wanted to ask you something, and its a strange thing, but it stuck out before, and its relevant to me now. What happened when you were...tortured?

[She's barely shut the door before that lands like a bomb. She's immediately down on her knees, hands on Luz's shoulders, looking her over for telltale signs.]

Why...did...what happened? Are you ok?

[It's ninety percent concern for someone who she cares about - but also, she needs...just a little bit of time before she can answer that.]

[She's cleaned up, but if you look you can see bruises around her neck and arms, and there are more but those are covered since, obviously, Luz is not about to advertise she'd been in a situation where she got more than her fair share of cuts].

A little while ago, I got all tangled up with this rope. Like, once you touched it it wouldn't let you go, got tighter as you got desperate. I got cut out, but I wondered if it belonged to someone. Turns out it did: a bunch of these mountain guys in caves who come out to hunt.

They hunt Sleepers. They...they eat them.

[She immediately gathered Luz up in a close - but careful - hug. She'd encountered the rope thing twice, and just thought it was magical.]

Oh, Luz, I'm...I'm so sorry.

[And she just keeps her close.]

They didn't, obviously, but I sure felt like I was going to be gone for what seemed like hours. They took their time and. And they liked me being in pain.

[She turned away here, trying to hide her face because she knew she'd give herself away. When Korra approached Luz leaned into the hug, taking a big breath. She was going to hate, HATE this part, but it was something she needed to ask].

How...I mean...how did you deal with your tormentors? The ones that poisoned you?

[She sighed, deeply, standing up and gently resting a hand on Luz's head for a moment. Then she made her way to her couch and flopped heavily onto it, eyes focused on the middle distance. She hated having to even think about Zaheer and his Red Lotus.]

I wanted to kill all of them. [She finally says, reticence clear in her voice.] The one was already dead...she died trying to kill my friends, and I thought they'd killed my father, so...yeah.

They...put this metallic poison into me. It was meant to force out the Avatar State, so they could kill me in it an end the Avatar forever, not just having me reincarnate, as was usual. And the more I fought it, the more it hurt...this liquid metal in my blood.

Honestly, I might have killed the man who did it, but the poison and the fight that followed left me in a wheelchair and...pretty badly traumatized. It took me three years to recover. More, really.

My friends defeated the others. To this day I don't know what I would have done, if I could have done it.

[Okay, it helped to hear Korra FELT like killing them, knowing that this feeling in her stomach was lessening but not gone, still sinking her in, enough that Luz would wonder if anyone would ever look at her the same way. But Luz also knew this was making her crazy: how could it not]?

That sounds awful. They were going to just sit and watch you die? Just so they could destroy the chance that someone could help others with their exposure to the elements? That's...unthinkable.

You were lucky you had your friends. You'd probably be too weak to fight them.

Would you have felt bad about killing them?

[She patted the spot next to her, languidly.]

I don't like people dying. It's not what the Avatar is supposed to be about. My uncle...died when I defeated him. Corrupt though he was, bonded to the god of chaos as he was...I still wish I didn't have to do what I did.

[She leans her head back, closing her eyes.]

He's still alive. The man who tortured me. We even...came to a peace, sort of. But just thinking about it always gets me, even years later.

[Her head lolled to face Luz.]

I wish I could tell you better than that. It hurts, no matter what.

[So she still hadn't killed. Luz stared at Korra a moment, giving the older girl a sad smile].

That's good. I mean, that you never had to do it. You're the avatar, people look up to you. An avatar ideally would be free from doing something to end a life.

[Luz stared at her hands a moment, then it was less staring, but that Luz fixed her eyes to that spot. She needed to say what she was going to say without having a panic attack or swallow a stammer].

When they had me in the cave, I'm not sure how long it was. But there were times where I was just tortured, cut and tasted and mocked and hit. They saw me at my worst, and they laughed, savoring the time until they'd finally use all of my fear and pain and finish the job.

Margot came though. She came for me and attacked them, and I helped her avoid getting hurt. She got me out, but I didn't go home. I knew they were still down there, plotting another abduction and torture and feasting. I couldn't let it happen.

So I didn't.

[Not with her own two hands. She hadn't strangled the life out of her Uncle - but she'd killed him, all the same, when she'd defeated the chaos god Vaatu. And people kept dying around her.]

[But she groaned, knowing what was coming as the story unfolded.]

You killed them.

I mean, I had help, but yeah. We had to combine all of our efforts to take them out. I'll admit I should have gone home as soon as I was freed, but all I could see in my mind was them torturing me in that cave, and seeing them do that to someone else.

But another part of me? I hated them more than I ever hated anyone. So we went after them and I made sure they wouldn't ever try to hunt us again.

I never felt like that about people, not even the Emperor back on the Isles. I'm scared of myself, being that way. I feel like I tricked myself into doing this, and if that's possible, what else would I do?

[It makes her so weary to hear it. There's so much she needs to say, so much to explain - and isn't it awful it's left to bumbling Korra, who had enough trouble keeping her own emotions in balance, let alone helping anyone else sitting at a dangerous crossroads.]

[The silence stretches on, her eyes focused into the long distance.]

I hate Deerington. What it does to people. You should be running around at home, having girl crushes and figuring out who you're going to be. Not in a place that doesn't give you any choice.

I killed so many of those worms, you know? Without...any remorse, because they were mindless and would hurt others. And I've never had to think like that before, but Deerington makes it that way.

[There is a long pause.]

Me, I can take it because I've had the choice before and made the other one - but that was there. And you...you're at a crossroads, Luz.

Your whole life depends on what happens next, right now.

[This is how Kuvira began, wasn't it? Wanting to do the right thing, and choosing what seemed the only choice. A clean sweep, to purify the world and Make. Her people. Safe. And then it ended, as it always did, in war, prison camps, dead civilians, and Korra holding the woman she loved as she cried over the death of the father she'd never find closure with, for all his misdeeds and strange courage.]

I'm sorry you're stuck with me to tell you this.

I don't...hate Deerington. I hate the bad things in it. I hate seeing my friends die, or something evil coming and making it so I have to have small existential crises when I go to sleep. And you're right Korra. I should be at the Isles dealing with my feelings there than being here, without Eda and the friends that I made.

Oh yes, those worms. I fought them too. That was rough. But that's different from those mountain guys. The worms were literally going after prey to eat and that was it. The mountain men reveled in the misery this caused. If it weren't for Margot...they would have me watch them eat bits of my body until I died.

[Saying this, Luz found herself trembling, and she took a moment to close her eyes, swallowing a sob].

I don't like what I did. I'll still hear their yells and smell their burning flesh, even while they were making me hurt. But in that moment all I could think about is what they did to me, what they could do to other people. I couldn't let them go and do it all again.

[Luz looked at the staff, Eda's staff, then hugged it].

But I don't know if I could do that again.

Korra. I asked because I needed to know how you coped. I wouldn't have asked anyone else first.

It is a bad thing. The only good here is what people have made within it.

They were terrible. And they had to be stopped. I don't...I don't think you had any other choice.

[She paused. This was not what she was good at. She wasn't as sure about what she was good at anymore.]

Of course you could do it again. Because it gets easier. It's why I've...why I've tried so hard. Because I killed my Uncle, even if I didn't...I had to do it. He couldn't be stopped otherwise, bound to the god of chaos Vaatu as he was - but I knew what would happen.

And I've seen it happen for others, making that choice once - and then...it all ended in trying to destroy a whole city, just to realize a vision, with the most terrible weapon ever devised. Each step on the way was just a choice, each time getting easier.

[She leaned forward, face looking far more tired than a woman of twenty-one ought to. Or usually did.]

You have to guard against that, now. Whatever comes, and whatever you become. As for coping...it never goes away. Not fully. I was a wreck, Luz. Bits of the poison lingered in my body and I...I had no idea what to do and I just...retreated.

It took me three years to come to terms with my torture. To be able to pull that last poison out of myself? To look my torturer in the eye without...rage and pain? That took longer still.

But...I made mistakes. I didn't...talk about it. In the end, I wrote to Asami. She...Spirits, she got me back to being me and I'll love her forever for that. Just...talking about my feelings, as they happened, day by day.

I don't know what meaning that has to you. I don't know what meaning any of what I say will have. Heh...you're free to run out of here and never talk to me again. But you can't let yourself run from this, and it will be very tempting to do it.

I know.

[Luz said this, quiet, looking at her hands again. She would have never believed she was capable of killing men like her who thought and reasoned, but this was different. It was like fighting less skilled Darth Maul's, only the price of loss would have been her limbs, slowly, savoring her pain and the taste of her flesh. Thinking about it made Luz feel sick, but moving past that there was no doubt she had to make sure they didn't do that to other people.

But what else could she excuse death for]?

I don't want to give people my visions, Korra, or impose my stuff on them because I think its the best way. I want to help people. If people are injured, or need to be lifted up, I try to give them a smile and cheer them on. Somebody here told me its one of my greatest powers, and I believe that.

I asked because you'd be able to give my advice about this. I don't feel right, with what I did and what they did to me, but I know I didn't have a choice. I wanted to talk to you so you could help me, and you have.

I know. But the road isn't easy to see with the first steps. Take it from someone who's seen too many people walk that path.

[She stood up with a sigh, moving towards a closet. Kuvira had started out wanting to help people, too. It always started there.]

It's...hold onto that. Because you're always a joy to have around.

[She got down some blankets, and pillows.]

It will take a long while before it feels...better. Right...I don't know about that. If you can convince your inner self that so much of this place is a dream, then...maybe. But it's never become fully right for me again. I've made my peace with it, but every now and again, I wake up and feel that ache in my limbs, like it's still there.

[She pauses, heading towards the spare room, looking over her shoulder.]

But it can, and will, get better.

[Though she doesn't feel anything she has done will help.]

It's dangerous to go back, I've got a spare bed you can use. Naga can keep you company. I'll make you some tea.

If I tell you anything of use tonight, it's that tea is the foundation of things getting better.

You don't understand.

I've seen this kind of thing in media, but also with some of the people here. They make bad choices, and then it becomes a hole they just dig themselves in deeper and deeper. I don't think I'm better than them, but because they were able to tell me their stories, I can understand how the choices they made wound up making things more complicated for them later.

I try. It feels a little harder these days. Way harder than I've ever been used to.

Yeah. I get that. Like now, I even talk about what happened, or think about it and I get this panicked feeling like I'm back there, at their mercy, a mess and them laughing about it. Then I think of how I was after, when I went back to make sure they didn't come out to hunt people again.

It's scary. They're both scary.

[She sighed, then smiled]. Thank you. I don't know if it would be a good idea to go back in my PJs at nightm even if I CAN fly.

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How did I wind up doing that again?!

I doubt I would have noticed, so it's going around. :P

Re: I doubt I would have noticed, so it's going around. :P

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