Avatar: Scorching Earth // Not Accepting!

Kohaku flinched away as the airbender locked her gaze on him, even if it was for just a moment. Nothing good ever came from anyone giving him attention--that was how he had lasted so long in his life in the first place--by being nondescript. He cleared his throat quietly and averted his eyes, but the airbender began speaking to him, making him jerk slightly and look up again. She was apologizing--for what reason, he didn't particularly know. It wasn't her fault that he always had a nervous disposition and didn't exactly like being around strangers, even if they meant well. He let out a small sigh as the airbender rambled, but still listened closely, the one thing he was good at, at least. There wasn't a moment for him to get a word in otherwise so he listened, surprised at how much she cared about what the other refugees thought about her. He had to care if he meant to survive in one piece, but she seemed to genuinely want to like and work with the others.

"It's... fine," he began to say, but she jogged off before he could force out more words. She returned quickly afterwards, but joined the group and began speaking to them. He had wanted to assure her that it wasn't her fault and that she wouldn't have to deal with him for much longer if all went well anyways, but alas. Kohaku drew closer to the group as well, making sure to keep a respectable distance, glancing at each of their faces to make sure that no one was going to say anything about his presence.

Zasi felt the gentle sway of the boat and water underneath her. She had been slipping in and out of sleep for the past few hours. The sun had started to rise, gently lighting up the sky. Her head dipped down touching something solid. When she opened her eyes slightly, she noticed she was resting on the boat's wall. Suddenly there was a large dip and a splash of water. Gasping and wiping her face, Zasi was wide awake now. She shook her head and grumbled a bit. After getting the salt water out of her eyes, she looked at the horizon. They were headed towards land. Well that was nice- wait. Land! They were finally getting off this boat. She was getting tired of being smashed against someone else.

(Sorry it's shorter than usual)

Kesuk glanced away from the rise of land on the horizon when he heard Zasi start to wake up. He himself had stayed awake the entire night, keeping watch for both the Fire Nation and any sign of land. Having sailed across the sea before in getting to Pangbu, he knew a little about ocean navigation. It wasn't terribly hard. The Earth Kingdom mainland was to the northeast, follow the stars, ta-da, you're there. Kesuk shook his head. After a few nights with little to no sleep, even his thoughts were starting to get weird...and uncharacteristic. It wasn't like there was some odd creator/author who was rusty in writing his personality, no, of course not, that would be ridiculous. See, there he went again with the weird thoughts. Yes, it was definitely the lack of sleep.

"Looks like we're here," Kesuk said to Zasi, more to get his thoughts in line than anything else. "Only problem is, what do we do now?" And that was the big question. What was the plan? Where were they going? Would they even stay together? Well, they'd figure it out eventually. Probably.

The boat gently rode the waves onto the beach and nudged against the sandy bottom. Kesuk hopped out and started pulling the rope attached to the hull in order to beach the boat completely so it wouldn't be carried back out on the waves.

(Don't worry, mine's shorter too. And isn't that the goal anyway? Haha. Alright, now let's get back to business everyone! WE BETTER HAVE A PLAN ABOUT WHAT TO DO NEXT XD)

Lí (yes, I still remember the shortcut for accented i !!!) stirred from his fitful sleep at the somewhat soft sound of Kesuk talking to Zasi. He was certainly not used to sleeping while in motion, and he woke up several times throughout the night. Kesuk's question wasn't directed at Lí, but he responded anyway, albeit drearily, "Well first off, despite the wonderful time I'm having on this beautiful cruise liner, we should probably get off the boat." The boat wasn't really in horrible shape, but it was in no way meant for 7 people. They were probably close enough to land now that the taller ones among they could probably reach the sea floor, but Lí didn't really feel like getting drenched, so.... he let Kesuk hop out and start pulling the boat toward land! He had been about to paddle them in, but if the waterbender wanted to enter the water so badly, who was Lí to stop him???

Edit: described how Lí said his sentence. Also took out the part about him paddling as I didn't realize Kesuk had already jumped out to pull the boat in.

Seijin 18, Firebender, Tags: EH

Seijin had broken sleep all through the night. It wasn't everyday where your legs had to be crammed into your stomach because you're on a small boat with 6 other refugees, who would probably leave you to rot in a blink of an eye where ever they landed. This was a worry of hers that engrossed her sleep...though she knew she wouldn't mind being on her own, she was worried for her safety, being Fire Nation and all. Her eyes jutted open as some water landed on her feet and saw that Zasi got the full front of it. Seijin sat up as her face scrunched up in discomfort. Ugh, I'd rather have a wet face than wet feet. Wet feet are sad feet, she grumbled in her thoughts. She nodded to Li and then Kesuk. Sighing, she tried to carefully exit the watercraft (I just really felt like using that word LOL) and managed to only rock it a little. "My feet are already wet so I might as well accept my fate," she muttered quietly. She grabbed a different part of the rope and helped Kesuk pull it to the beach.

((its very abrupt but whatcha gonna do))

Li, 19 yo sarcastic fuck, he can throw rocks without touching them.

Seijin awoke with a start when some water landed on her feet, even though Zasi blocked most of the wave, with her face, like a champ. She grumbled something about wet feet, but then, to Lí's surprise, the firebender (not so) gracefully slid into the water and started pulling along with Kesuk. Alright then. When she slid in though, Seijin sent a small splash of water up on Kyori, who opened her bleary eyes and glanced around. When she noticed that they were drawing very close to land, she seemed to finish waking up pretty quickly, and then, for some reason, she looked over to Lí. Ky had a somewhat expectant look on her face- what she was expecting was anybody's guess. When Lí felt the bottom of the boat scrape over some sand, he put on the best shit eating grin that he could muster, gave some jazz hands, and said "Behold, land!!!" Lí was certainly glad to be back on land, but more for the sake of having some solid ground under him than anything else. He wasn't sure exactly where they were, but he was pretty sure they weren't THAT far from his village... which was NOT exactly a good thing, because it was a pile of ash when he'd left it. Thinking of his village now, he had to stop what he was doing and brace himself. He had to hold back a tear as he thought, once again, of his mother who hadn't made it out. He didn't know where he was headed next or what he was doing, but he wanted to stay as far away from the Fire Nation army as possible.

Spoiler- grin example:

grin example:

Kesuk managed to haul the boat up onto the beach with Seijin's help, far enough that high tides wouldn't take it away. Not that they'd need it again. Well, better to be prepared, in any case. Although, if they really thought they were going to use it again, they should probably hide the boat somewhere so it didn't get stolen, unless they planned to camp here on the beach next to it.

With the boat now on dry land, everyone was free to step out without getting their feet wet, though Zasi had already been half-soaked by a wave and the others were a bit damp from sea spray. Kesuk wrapped the rope several times around a convenient rock nearby and tied it off, just to make sure any abnormally large waves didn't pull the boat back into the ocean. Then he held out a hand and waterbent all the seawater out of his clothes. Taking out his hair tie, he did the same for his hair and then put it back up. Now dry, he picked up his staff from where he'd set it on the sand and turned to the others. Kyori was looking around excitedly, probably because this was her homeland, and Lí was being his usual, overly-sarcastic self. Not that Kesuk blamed him, actually; after a night of no sleep, Kesuk was feeling more sarcastic than usual himself.

Looking around, Kesuk tried to place them on the mental map he had of the southern Earth Kingdom. He hadn't studied a lot of geography, but he knew the basics. Given the direction they'd sailed, they were in or near Palea. Going north would take them deeper into the Earth Kingdom, most notably to the city of Gao Ling and then the Si Wong desert. To the west, wilderness and then ocean. To the east, ocean and then, perhaps, Kyoshi Island. Really, where they went would depend on their goal. Or goals, if they decided to split up. If they were going to settle down and live like they had been trying to do in the refugee camp, most of them would probably choose to go to Gao Ling. It was a relatively safe city and the Fire Nation hadn't moved towards it yet. As for Kesuk, who had grown up in a small village, he wasn't comfortable in such large cities (though, really, Gao Ling was probably nothing compared to Ba Sing Se). As such, he'd probably find a smaller village to settle down in, or keep wandering around the Earth Kingdom, avoiding the Fire Nation. If, however, the group wanted to stay together and keep traveling, well, they could go anywhere they wanted. And, given what he had seen of the group so far, especially Lí, they probably wouldn't want to split up. Well, what they decided to do was their choice; as for him, he thought continuing to travel around the Earth Kingdom would be a lot more interesting than settling down and living a boring life in some village, and traveling was easier done alone than with others.

Zasi watched the others as the began to hop out and pull the boat to shore. She also watched as Kyori had woken up with a start, instantly glaring at Zasi. The airbender opened her eyes wide and stuck her hands up. As she did so, she felt a sneeze tickling the tip of her nose. Now in a state of panic to avoid royal screw up, she scrunched up her nose. Sneezing with a loud "Choo" a small gust of air added some force to the boat, thrusting the boat farther onto the shore. Smiling sheepishly Zasi rubbed the back of her neck. "My bad. I-it could have been worse. A lot worse." She quickly hopped off the boat with a small gust of air. She noticed Kesuk drying himself off with his waterbending skills and she quickly bounced over to him. "Ooh Oh! Wow that's neat! Can you do that for me too?" She glanced down at a water spot in her clothes, which was more like the soaked front of her torso. Suddenly, her attention was drawn to the island again. Being cooped up on the boat had made her full of energy. "Oh! Does anyone know where we are and what we are going to do first now that we are here?" She smiled glancing between everyone, hoping at least one of them knew.