[Open] Drowning in words

[Rahn Moon-Tieng]

A distant tolling of clock bells from Avatar Aang’s Memorial Island marked the switch from noon to afternoon. It didn’t really feel like anything remarkable had changed; the sun was still shining and people were strolling the park undisturbed. The only exception to this was in the park staff, who were gearing up for a shift change. Soon the day workers would be relieved of their duties until the next day and the evening shift would arrive to continue where they’d left off.

Rahn sat on a bench near the large pond in the heart of Republic City Park. He was reading a book his uncle had given him. The old man had said that in order for him to learn some self-control and discipline he needed to train his mind to work through distractions. And what better way to do that than to read an extremely boring war epic in the park during the busiest visiting hours. Rahn wasn’t feeling the effects of this training. He doubted any sort of “training” would be helpful when people failed to understand the essence of his problem.

His eyes scanned through the words and more times than he cared to count, he lost track of where he was in the book and had to start over from the start of the page. The book seemed to be about a general of some sort or an admiral; he wasn’t quite sure, and detailed the failure of Fire Nation during the Siege of the North Pole, over six decades past. The words waded through Rahn’s mind, not quite sticking and the young man was starting to feel his patience wearing thin.

He closed the book with an audible thud and leaned his back against the bench, watching as children ran to their parents and young couples paid for a ride around the park. A bored look on his face, he fiddled with his braid, golden bracelets making a chinking noise as they moved around his thin wrists. Try as he might, his thoughts continued to be a jumbled mess, tendrils reaching towards all manner of interesting things but not focusing on any of them. All of it was enough to give him a splitting headache and with a low groaning sound escaping his lips, Rahn slid sideways on the bench until he was lying down.

“Why is it so hard to be normal?” he mumbled to himself and trashed around on the bench, much like a child would in a fit of the worst sort of temper tantrums.

His bracelets and earrings continued to emit a chinking noise as he moved around and finally when the edge of his earring hit him on the corner of his eye, Rahn stopped. He lay completely still and rubbed his eye with his hand, uttering a short acknowledgement for his pain: “Ow…”

[Kiyei Zhayuk]

Kiyei pulled a small watch from the folds of her obi seconds before the peal of the city clock's bells became audible. It had just turned one, and the number of chimes reaffirmed that.
She tucked the small silver timepiece back into her violet belt and instead reached for the shoulder bag that hung down her hip, pulling out her weekly schedule and striking one more thing off her to-do list.

She had spent the morning looking at buildings to let. Ideally she would have straight up bought a place but until she got a business going she didn't have that kind of income, and in the case of finding a better location to set up a healer's practise, then she could move at any time. Having just received her medical license and first set of qualifications from the University of Ba Sing Se, she'd decided opening a healer's place was the best thing to do until she saved up enough to study surgery her in Republic City. That would be in several years time, though, so she may as well start saving up now.

She checked the next thing on her list, and closed the schedule book with a snap, returning it and the pencil to her bag. She had some time to kill, it seemed. Excellent. And she hadn't eaten lunch yet. She grasped the bottom corner of her bag where she knew her money pouch to be, and crunched the coins against each other, estimating how much she had on her and what she could buy with that amount of yuans.

She turned to face the saddled Polar Leopard waiting for her on the street corner, took his saddle reins in one hand, and crossed the street. She chose not to ride on Xiao's back because riding animals, just like driving motorcycles and Satomobiles through the city park was prohibited, and she chose to cut through the park on the way to a noodle place she knew of nearby. Kiyei took her time to pick up a newspaper from a stand by the path and carried on through the park, reading the cover story as she went.
Numbers of attacks in the city were rising, and Kiyei knew that this was just the reported number. The incidents that went unreported were likely to inflate the total count even more.
Her train of thought was interrupted by a low Ow... of pain, and Kiyei, almost psychically attuned to sounds of discomfort in others from her years of working as a healer, stopped in her tracks and looked up from the newspaper to peer over at a young man laying on a park bench.

"Are you okay, sir?" she called.

((Sorry for the wait.))

[Rahn Moon-Tieng]

The sound of a female voice inquiring after his well-being startled Rahn slightly and for a moment he wasn’t completely sure the question was directed at him. He scrambled up to a sitting position and peered around the park, wanting to make sure he was not going to make a fool out of himself if he chose to answer the girl. He hated awkward situations, but had pretty much perfected the art of getting into them.

With no injured or otherwise discomforted person in sight, Rahn decided it was safe and turned to face the female, rubbing the corner of his eye still, only this time more out of embarrassment than actual hurt.

“Erm…Yes ma’am,” he answered, flustered by her use of ‘sir’ to address him.

‘Sir’ was something he had called his father and grandfather or any man of prestigious background. No one had ever addressed him like that. At home in the Fire Nation and even at his uncle’s house the servants had called him ‘young master’ and that they did begrudgingly with not even the slightest hint of sincerity. He was not very popular with his uncle’s staff due to having set the living room coffee table on fire the second day after he’d arrived in Republic City and the staff at home was probably more skilled in avoiding him than they were at doing their jobs.

“Just a little scratch, nothing serious,” he added quickly and untangled a few loose strands of hair from the golden bulbs that hung from his ear lobes.

Rahn’s love for jewelry went back to his childhood when he had often played with his sister, taking turns in trying on their mother’s necklaces and bracelets. At home he had not been allowed to wear any for his father thought they made him look like a woman. Back then Rahn had quietly obeyed, but his uncle wasn’t at all strict with him when it came to what he chose to wear and so he had come to the habit of wearing so much jewelry he would have most likely sunk like a rock if thrown in water.


//OOC: Sorry for taking so long to reply. I should be able to reply quicker from now on. //

[Kiyei Zhayuk]

Kiyei gazed at him steadily, flipping the newspaper shut on her thumb and holding it by her side. She glanced away for a second, then back to the male, torn between walking on and pressing the matter. Then, she caught sight of his gaze, and for a few brief moments she thought he was cross-eyed, giving him the fleeting impression of being confused or drugged. Then she realised that it was his eyes, the pupils mismatched. One pupil was blown, and the other seemed to be a reasonable size considering the intensity of the early afternoon sunlight. She took a step towards him, her brow furrowing slightly. She paused, hesitant on the path beneath her feet, before moving towards him, drawing the giant Polar Leopard along at her side.

Instantly her mind flashed to her healing, whether she'd be able to fix a blown pupil for him. But it was no injury, not physical wound. It wasn't blocked chi or mental distress, it was simply... there. Kiyei wasn't so sure she'd be able to fix something like that, even with all the healing sessions in the world, even with all the money thrown at her for her services. Healing didn't work like that.

"What's wrong with your eye?" she asked softly, squinting into his face. The effect caused by his mismatched eyes was oddly unnerving.

[Rahn Moon-Tieng]

Rahn took note of the young woman as she approached him, but his attention was quickly drawn to the animal by her side. He could vaguely remember reading up on different animals of the world but now that he tried to pinpoint the exact name of the species nothing came to him. He furrowed his eyebrows in concentration (their sharp arches instantly made him look like a furious horned owl) and stared at the animal, but nothing came to mind.

He wasn’t really all that surprised at his inability to recall even the simplest footnotes of anything he’d ever read, but he would have lied if he claimed to not feel slightly disappointed at himself. Not willing to start distressing over his weaknesses, Rahn turned his attention to the female instead his eyes going over her face, stopping to appreciate the details of her attire.

“I really like your clothes. Did you make them yourself?” he blurted out, realizing fast that he had spoken over her. He put his hand over his mouth for a short moment looking a little embarrassed but recovered in no time at all.

“What? Do I have a scratch or something?” he asked, rubbing his eye again and trying to feel if there was any sort of damage left there by his earring.

He didn’t feel anything, not a bump or a wound. His skin started to feel a tad irritated though, but that could have just as easily been due to his constant rubbing of it. His eyes wandered towards the animal again and he could feel the levels of his annoyance rising. What was that thing?

Was anything more annoying than not remembering something you ought to have easily remembered? Probably yes, but Rahn could not think of anything at that particular moment. Well, except of course for his firebending mishaps, although they weren’t annoying so much as dreadful. Oh yes and there was that business of him having to bear with his aunt’s insistence of trying to pursue a career in singing even though she had no talent in it. And now that he thought about it, there had been that one servant girl at home, who’d had the most sublime singing voice, but he could not recall her name. And like the young woman in front of her that serving girl also had dark hair. Come to think of it Rahn did not know her name either.

“What’s your name?” he asked, tilting his head slightly, the whole business with his eyes a vague point of interest lost somewhere between thought and speech.

[Kiyei Zhayuk]

((Sorry for the wait.))

He glanced at Xiao a lot, something that Kiyei didn't think much of at the time. The Polar Leopard was native to the poles; certainly not a creature you saw around Republic City every day. She's seen quite a few Pygmy Pumas around, a Sky Bison or two, even a few Polar Dogs, but no Leopards. Domesticating them wasn't a very common thing, even back home.

Rahn took note of the young woman as she approached him, but his attention was quickly drawn to the animal by her side. He could vaguely remember reading up on different animals of the world but now that he tried to pinpoint the exact name of the species nothing came to him. He furrowed his eyebrows in concentration (their sharp arches instantly made him look like a furious horned owl) and stared at the animal, but nothing came to mind.

He wasn’t really all that surprised at his inability to recall even the simplest footnotes of anything he’d ever read, but he would have lied if he claimed to not feel slightly disappointed at himself. Not willing to start distressing over his weaknesses, Rahn turned his attention to the female instead his eyes going over her face, stopping to appreciate the details of her attire.

I really like your clothes. Did you make them yourself?

"What," she said flatly. No, she didn't make her own clothes, not the way she'd had to in the north. Within a few days of arriving in the city, she'd gone on a bit of a shopping spree around the various boutiques, buying new clothes to blend in with the city. As always, she clung to the colour blue, a familiar colour. Her clothes were expensive, couture. They were handmade, but not by her. She could afford that kind of stuff these days.
"No, they're, uh..." she trailed off, as he returned the conversation subject back to his eye.
"You haven't got anything, it's your pupil. They're different sizes, one isn't adjusting to the light. Ever had anyone take a look at it?"

[Rahn Moon-Tieng]

He was a little startled by her tone of voice. Maybe it was just him, but she sounded more than a little tense when replying. Rahn could not be completely sure though; he had always had trouble reading facial expressions and picking up nuances in how people spoke and what they said. It was a little frustrating but most of the time he just flat out ignored all potential subtext and chose to interpret things literally. Usually it led to his conversational partners expressing their feelings more straight forwardly, although they seemed to favor the notion of getting mad at him. Nonetheless it still worked out for him; more bombastic feelings were that much easier to figure out.

“Oh,” he said to her, tilting his head and looking at her outfit again. So she had not made it. Truth be told, he didn’t have much of grasp of women’s clothing, or women for that matter. They all looked the same to him, aside from some ethnic differences even he could vaguely notice. He had meant the comment as more of an ice breaker than anything else, since his uncle was always going on about how he should be more social and try to initiate conversations. He didn’t really like doing it though.

“My pupil? Oh, that! My brother struck me with a stick sword when we were little. The doctors said I was lucky to have kept it, much less see through it,” he told her, his lips curling up into a little smile.

Yes, he had managed to get away with that incident with an eyepatch. It had not been so easy for Yura, who had been in critical condition for more than a week, having sustained serious burns all over his body. Playing with stick swords had seemed like so much fun, but afterwards he had never touched one again. Thinking about the event made his smile disappear, but maybe that was for the better. He wasn’t sure if one ought to have been smiling when talking about busted eyes.