pendantry | Twelve

Twelve

[Raven arrives to open Slash'n'Crash at the usual time. It only feels too early, she decides, after a night of briefly interrupted sleep and a morning of dragging her feet around the house. With Kyle's help, she goes through the motions of getting the place ready for the day; she doesn't have any big projects lined up, so unless there are a lot of customers today, she figures she'll just tinker around with things.

She's wiping off her counter when Kyle catches her sleeve with one set of claws, motioning toward the door. Nothing is there for a moment. Then, with increasingly loud cries, Soren lands in front of the open door. Raven is an expert in bird distress, and even if she wasn't, his appearance on her other doorstep like this means there's a problem. Soren has problems in a pretty narrow field.]

Stay here. [To Soren, motioning him toward the ground so he doesn't take off somewhere again, and:] Keep an eye on the place for me. [To Kyle and whatever other employee might show up in the morning on a Friday.

She doesn't think twice about changing form and taking off for house 56. It isn't too far away. Much like the bird that just surprised her, Raven lands and raps hard on Avatar House's front door.]

[When she opens the door, it's a teen monk who answers. One who looks very emotionally fragile at the moment, cheeks streaked by dried tears. His prayer beads, which have emblems representing three out of four elements, are slung over one arm; and in his other hand he is tightly gripping a letter.

He and Ikki had always risen bright and early for airbending practice. So this morning had started with panic and a sinking feeling in his heart when he found no sign of his granddaughter. He searched and searched, but he couldn't find any sign of her. Or any of her belongings that were specifically from home. Just her letters, her treasures from Luceti, and the prayer beads that she never took off. That was when he realized it; he didn't need to try a journal filter, he just knew. She was gone again, and he might never see her again. He knows all too well in her time, he's just a statue and a ghost in Korra's head. But then he gets himself to read her letter, through tears and a severe mix of emotions, and he comes to accept that it is so much more than he ever thought.

So there he stands, facing Raven, looking lost and brave at the same time.]

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[After talking with Raven, Aang uses her journal to make the announcement. And he looks into the video feed with a sad smile; Raven is visible behind him, not looking at the camera. Aang does his best to keep himself composed throughout the message, with occasional cracks in his voice and welling up in his eyes.]

Hi everyone. It's me, Aang. I'm sorry to come here with sad news... but it's not really sad at the same time. It's Ikki. She's gone back home. If you don't know who she was.... she was about this tall, almost 10 and she ran the art club, and she's an airbender and she had a bird Pokemon named Soren with her all the time. I also called her the Avatar princess. She left some items and treasures for people she knew, s-so I'll come around to hand those out later.

I'm sad for all the friends she made here and all the people whose hearts she won't be able to touch. But... I think I'm happy, too. She gets to be with her family again. She has a mom and dad back home, plus her grangran and aunt and uncle, and an older sister and two little brothers. One of them's a baby that was just born. That family... That's where she belongs. I think I'm lucky that I got to have two years to get to know someone like her. And with all that time, she's still been smiling. She never had to go the war or get hurt badly. So I'm grateful for that.

This place bends time a lot, a-and it makes lots of us know about out futures before we're ready to. A lot of the times, the future can be scary... o-or overwhelming. But it also has people like Ikki. So I know it will be worth it. [He stops for a moment, wiping at his eyes while finding the words to wrap this up with.] Let's all wish her a happy return.

[Raven motions for her journal back; anyone who's grown used to her more-expressive-lately self will see the stone mask back on, today.]

Aang's going to do the art club with me instead. We'll have a meeting...soon. [There is some audible commotion beyond the visible frame and she sighs.] Soren's staying with me.

[[ooc: If you get something from here, Aang will be stopping by at some point to drop it off! JOINT POST so- so Aang is more likely to reply with a lot of words but either or both will answer.]

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[When he sees this, the first thing he feels is surprise. Sure, he'd seen people go home before... like Chili. But this was a lot... closer to home. Quite literally. While he didn't know Ikki extremely well, they had been sharing the same house for months now.

Not only that, but he could tell how hard this was for Aang. It was painfully obvious. He doesn't know what to say to his friend, but he feels like he can't just not give him at least a word of comfort/support.]

I'm sorry, Aang.

[Sophie watches the video with a set look on her face. Then she slams the journal shut.

Hard.]

[Sokka hears the news with quite a bit of surprise... and uncertainty. Yes, he'd read about many of the disappearances—or returns, rather—in here since coming here, but nothing ever struck home. Literally everyone who had disappeared since he'd come to Luceti was someone that he hadn't known whatsoever. That teenager invincibility complex could never have seen this coming, that it would one day hit their own house.]

Little Ikki's gone? Already?

[Sokka's dismayed, and the wind is taken out of his sails. He had just gotten used to being an uncle and spending time with Ikki. ~~And spoiling her as good great uncles ought.~~ Nevertheless, Sokka may not be the motherly Katara, but he knows Aang's got to be taking it worse than him, so he looks through the house to see if he's still home.]

Aang?

I am so sorry for your loss. ( Padmé knows their pain to some degree. ) It's best to keep yourself busy and surround yourself with friends; I would be honored to be considered in that number and I will support you to the best of my abilities.

[Aang stands transfixed in the doorway, but he soon finds the will to utter names.]

Raven...?

[Loki is unsurprisingly unhappy about this latest development. Luceti is no place for children. It's not really any sort of place for any of them. But he'd liked having a little sister like Ikki. She'd been fun. She'd been someone that he could stir himself to want to protect. And she'd caused him to have these rare but not entirely unpleasant moments where he wanted to be a good older brother.

So much for that.

He doesn't really expect to receive anything; Ikki never really struck him as much of a letter writer. And now that Rapunzel and Ikki are both gone, he's not at all certain he would want to go to the Art Club either. It seems pointless right now anyway, considering he's blind...

At any rate, he's in the coffee shop, at his normal table, for letter delivery.]

[Unfortunately, Katara does have a habit of sleeping 'in.' She certainly sleeps in later than Aang and Ikki. But the atmosphere when she wakes today is very different.

Somewhat sleepily, she makes her way outside to find Aang.]

Aang...?

[ For a moment, he considers correcting Aang about his use of past tense... because it's just too sad to think about Ikki being gone. She still is existing, likely alive and happy in their own world. But then he knows that not only would it be petty. Not to mention, the "Ikki" that he knew was gone unless she came back here by some odd chance. The "Ikki" that both of them knew. Hah. ]

That's a regular loss for us all, isn't it...?

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