thecapitol | The Binding of Isaac

Collecting

Aang is surprisingly good at subtle trickery when he wants to be. He's good at it because he knows how to incorporate the things he needs to do with his usual behavior and no one's the wiser. No one finds it strange that he's getting weird things from all over the city because he always does that. When he picks up medical supplies, he's also getting paper mache and a bag of colorful magnets. When he gets a lot of clothes, he also gets a bedazzler and a pair of pretty scissors. People who see it don't notice because Aang's being Aang and probably just has a weird idea for an art project.

As he walks along the street, smiling and sometimes blowing newly acquired bubbles, he just casually passes by blind spots and 'accidentally' drops some of the things he's gathered in neat, camouflaged packages. No one's the wiser, because no one thinks that Aang is capable of subtlety, and he knows exactly how to not be seen in plain sight.

Preparing for the Fight

Aang is particularly recognizable, so Jolie had to work some magic. Aang is now a pretty little girl. He's not entirely comfortable with this transformation.

Between makeup, clothes, and a wig, all the arrows are hidden now. Aang is wearing a black wig that sweeps out around his ears--short to minimize anything an attacker could grab--and enough makeup to minimize masculine features and maximize the feminine (which isn't hard, since he has yet to really develop anything too masculine in his face). He makes for a very pretty little girl. He wants to be grumpier about this than he is, but frankly? This isn't the first time he's dressed in drag in front of a bunch of people.

He finds a perch in a high place where he sits mostly out of the way, crossing his legs into a lotus position and taking a deep breath. For once, he's not bouncing everywhere or bothering someone with a new game to play. Now, he's calm and breathing and already halfway meditating as he waits for everyone else to get ready, keeping his ears perked in case someone wants to talk to him or he hears any commotion.

"Avatar Kyoshi, grant me your wisdom," he says softly to himself. Somehow, he feels like Kyoshi is the best person to call on this time.

Edited 2015-04-21 05:45 (UTC)

"Avatar whoshi?"

Ruffnut noticed the pretty girl that she'd never seen before sitting up high and decided if she was going to go rushing into battle she might as well seek out someone a little closer to her age group since the adults were all appropriately ignoring her.

Her hair had been dyed into a pastel rainbow of pink, sky blue, seafoam and lavender. While most of it rolled down her back like a wave some of it had been tied around the front of her face like a beard. Given her rough features she could pass off as a boy wearing a stupid fake beard. It went nicely with her knit cap which was in shades of dark blue and crimson. Makeup over her eyes gave them a more serpentine appearance but there was no mistaking that voice for the one belonging to the girl he'd met in the last arena.

Oh. This girl. She looks completely different, but sounds just the same.

"Avatar Kyoshi. I'm guessing you don't have the Avatar where you come from?"

No one except the people from his world does. To this day he finds it utterly baffling how a world can function without an Avatar, because it feels like his world would have died five times over if he hadn't been around to save it.

Well at least she's not trying to kill anything with a rock this time.

"Nope, not unless that's some kind of dragon. We've got plenty of those." She explained off handedly and as usually happened when she mentioned dragons, she felt a pang of longing for her own dragon to ride.

"If we had a few dragons here this mission would be a lot easier and more fun." She chuckled.

"No, the Avatar isn't a dragon." The Avatar can have a dragon as a companion, but it's not a dragon.

He hugs his knees, cocking his head at her. "That's only if the dragons agreed to do it. The ones I've met like to keep to themselves unless they really like you a lot."

Ruffnut snorted "Your dragons sound like wimps. Our dragons love to fight and blow stuff up! Especially mine. The only dragons who don't like blowing stuff up are the ones that spit acid or boiling water." She explained looking nostalgic.

"I wonder what Barf and Belch are doing right now." She sighed. "My brother can't ride our dragon by himself I bet he's been mad for months."

...Wow, this person is from a weird world.

"He probably misses you a lot." That, he can hold onto. Siblings love each other, and she's been away for a long time. Missing someone you love is universal.

"You really think so?"

The comment surprised Ruffnut and she looked like she was struggling to figure it out.

"I mean...we used to fight all the time and hated having to share everything...I just figured he'd be mad not...ya know...missing me." She mused and then added "Except for not being able to fly our dragon alone."

She didn't like the idea of him being all gloomy just because she wasn't there. After a moment she decided she hated it even more then the idea of him being happy she was gone.

"Well, brothers and sisters fight a lot, don't they? But they still love each other. And you miss the people you love, even if you fought with them a lot while they were around."

Aang shrugs a little, looking down at his hands. "But my people don't have brothers and sisters, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about."

Ruffnut was grappling with Aang's words, thankfully he was a simple spoken boy so despite her aversion to embracing her emotions for her brother...the words stuck.

Thankfully before she had too long to ruminate on the subject he brought up something else that confused her.

"Wait what? How do you now have brothers or sisters? Do your people only ever have one kid each?!"

"No, we're just all raised by the monks or nuns. We don't know who our mothers are, so we don't know if they have any more kids."

Aang gives a shrug. "We're the only people I've met who do it like that."

There was a moment of surprise, and then actual sadness on Ruffnut's face. A rare emotion for her to be sure.

"But like...so...if you never knew your mothers...who sings to you at night? Or...teaches you how to shoot a bow or gut a fish? Who teaches you how to braid your uh..." she stopped short seeing that given Aang's choice in hair, braids weren't exactly an option.

"Well, we don't need mothers for that." He sees the sadness in her face. He understands--he's seen how kids act with their mothers, and obviously, the bond is supposed to be very strong. Aang's never felt an absence in his life, but he can see how it could be hard for someone else to imagine how he couldn't. "The older boys would sometimes sing to us when we were going to bed. The monks would teach us everything we knew. We all loved and took care of each other."

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ruffntumblenut - 2015-06-08 21:16 (UTC) - Expand

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actually112 - 2015-06-18 01:54 (UTC) - Expand

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ruffntumblenut - 2015-06-18 21:34 (UTC) - Expand

"Good disguise."

Bucky's transformation is less extreme. His clothing his dark and stylish, a short wig covering his long dark hair. There's minimal makeup, enough that at a glance no one would recognise him for Bucky Barnes when they looked at him. The outfit he has on has a piece of fabric that he can pull and fasten across his mouth and nose for when they actually infiltrate the facility. It'll be loose and not constricting, not like the muzzle he used to wear.

When Aang had volunteered on the post Bucky had chosen not to call him out on it. He knew Aang was capable, as much as he knew he hated the idea of the kid putting himself at unnecessary risk. He feels the urge to tell him now to go back to the Tribute Tower, to be safe but he's fairly sure Aang won't listen.

He lowers himself down to sit beside Aang, his gloved hands resting in his lap. The left arm has a padded sleeve, hopefully enough so that any Peacekeeper he hits with it won't make the connection it's made of metal.

Aang looks up and smiles at Bucky as he approaches, but he's waiting. Waiting for Bucky to tell him to not go, that it's too dangerous, that he's too little, whatever. He was surprised that the most response he got from the adults when he volunteered was one man asking him if he was really sure about it, but he still expects Bucky to be protective, because that's what he does.

But he doesn't say anything. He just sits down with Aang. Maybe it's because he knows Aang can handle it or he knows that Aang won't listen to him, but he finds himself smiling widely nonetheless. "Thank you." For the compliment, but mostly for letting him make his own choices.

He runs a hand through the wig, which is tightly fastened to his head and apparently can't be taken off without some kind of liquid that the stylists have. It feels like real hair, and it's so strange to feel it brush against his ears. Even when he had hair, he kept it short. "Would you believe this isn't the first time I dressed up like a girl to save my life?" Maybe that's not the best story to tell right now, but he has the pre-mission jitters somewhat (after all, he's never done this without his bending) and joking about things calms him down.

He knows he can't tell him not to go. As much as Bucky has taken on a certain roll with Aang he is not in fact the kids guardian, not his parent, he has no authority over him but that Aang allows. So all he intends to say before they set out is to tell Aang to be careful, to mind his back, to let others be the frontline. He's going to tell Aang to make sure he comes back safe and whole.

"At this point I'm starting to think I'll believe anything you say." Bucky says, only half-joking about it. He acknowledges the thank you with a simple nod. "You come from a strange place, kid." just the name's of the animals Aang told him about were enough to communicate that, let alone the more irritating fact that his world was happy to sit on its backside and let the responsibility of saving it sit on a child's shoulders.

No, he's not still bitter about that.

"You going to tell me about it?"

To be frank, Aang gives Bucky far more authority than he gives most people because he respects him so much, but he does so knowing that Bucky will always want to protect him first and foremost. Aang has different priorities, and he'll put the good of the world before himself every time.

"So do you." Aang grins at Bucky, because it's true. All their worlds are really weird.

As for the story, he crosses his arms in his lap and takes a deep breath. "This one time, I passed through a town that was pretty mad about one of my past lives killing a leader of theirs centuries ago, so they arrested me and tried me for the crime. I'd never kill someone in cold blood, so my friends tried to prove that I didn't do it, but then it turned out that the town wouldn't let me call up any witnesses or evidence or lawyers in court, so I dressed up in Avatar Kyoshi's old clothes and face paint because maybe I’d be able to remember the things she remembered, but she was over seven feet tall so I couldn't really fit in any of her clothes and I kept tripping up in it, but then she did show up and I turned into a giant woman and she said that she actually killed the leader because he was trying to take over the continent and he was marching on a peninsula, so she decided to break the peninsula off the continent and blow it away so it could be an island instead and he was too proud to step back from the big cliff she just made so he fell down from the earthquakes splitting the land caused into the lava and ocean water she left." That was all said in one breath. Now he breathes. "I don't count that as actually killing him, but the town did, so they sentenced me to death by being fried in oil. But then they were attacked by a bunch of Fire Nation mercenaries and they commuted my sentence so I'd agree to help them, so it turned out okay."

What were you saying about him coming from a weird world, Bucky?

"I thiiiiiink Kyoshi might have said she was sorry about incriminating me later." He doesn't exactly remember her doing it, but he has the sense that she did at some point.

Well Bucky's opinion of Aang's world just dropped a couple more notches.

"They blamed you for something you didn't even do?" they arrested and tried a twelve-year old kid for a crime a woman did hundreds of years before. They sentenced him to death. Yep, it says something regarding Bucky's priorities with Aang that that's the part he gets hung up on. "What the hell was wrong with them?" he growls.

If you asked Bucky he'd say that Aang should have left the people of the town to the mercenaries. "They didn't deserve your help."

Bucky, seriously. He tells you he transformed into a giant woman who made an island out of a peninsula, and you get hung up on the bit where a small child gets sentenced to death for a centuries-old murder.

"Well, I did do it. I just did it in another life." It's complicated. Aang gives a smile to Bucky, nudging him gently with his elbow to soothe him. "They blamed the Avatar for the state of their town. They were poor and weak and stuck in this big war, and I'm the one who's supposed to take care of things like that, so they were angry that I stopped them from becoming their own great nation that might have made their lives better. People sometimes do bad things when they feel hopeless."

Only Aang would sympathize with people who wanted to boil him in oil. "Besides, it's not like they could have actually done it. None of their shackles were small enough to fit me and their prison was open-air. I could have left if I really wanted." He's not sure if he would have gone through with their sentence if the mercenaries hadn't come along. In retrospect, probably not. He had given his word that he would, but Katara and Sokka would need only point out that he had also given his word to save the world. He could have escaped, dealt with the Fire Lord, and then come back, he supposes.

He has priorities, Aang, priorities regarding your safety. He may get to the rest later.

Bucky makes a softly frustrated noise when Aang says that, "It's not..." he searches for the words to describe what he's thinking. Sometimes it's so hard to express himself, especially over things that really matter. "It would be like punishing a child for its parents crimes."

Maybe not exactly the same as Bucky can't relate to the experience of being born over and over. He doesn't know the ins and outs of it the way Aang does. All he see's is a young boy who he can't imagine ever murdering anyone and who certainly be punished for a crime that a woman who he used to be committed.

"Then why did you let them imprison you at all?"

Aang could try to explain that it's not quite like punishing a person for a relative's crime. He could try to explain that the spirit in each Avatar is the same, and that the only difference between them are the upbringings and time periods, but it would be hard considering he's not entirely sure how to say it. So he just shrugs. "Everything she ever was is inside of me now." The person known as Avatar Kyoshi is preserved in his memory and spirit. The only way to punish Kyoshi so many centuries after the fact would be to punish him.

"I guess... I wanted to know if she killed someone or not."

He wanted to know if he himself would be capable of killing a person. He wanted to know if his abhorrence for killing was consistent across all lifetimes. It wasn't. Maybe that was okay. The Avatar was always going to do what it believed was right for the world--and maybe what's right for his lifetime isn't always what is right.

But now isn't the time to contemplate morality. Aang looks up at Bucky's face with a wry smile. "I think you would have liked her. She's pretty tough, but usually only when she thinks she has to be." He doesn't know how he knows that. Every time he's ever seen her, she has been dignified and frightening in her indomitable will, but he just... knows.

"They should've accepted they missed their chance." It doesn't matter how Aang tries to explain it, Bucky's never going to agree that these people were in the right for what they did. Especially when they were okay with sentencing a kid to death, which Bucky is fairly sure back in most countries of the world he comes from is not okay.

Bucky shakes his head at that. His hand coming up and resting briefly on Aang's shoulder in reassurance. He doesn't exactly know what else to say. It's an alien concept to relate to, especially for someone like him.

"Yeah? Maybe I would've." he smiled a little, "If she was anything like you."

Aang won't argue about it. Bucky's priority is his safety, and it makes sense that he wouldn't like threats to that. It's nice, really. It's nice to have someone who cares about him enough to want to keep him safe, even if sometimes it's not the best for the world. He leans into Bucky's touch and accepts the care for what it is.

"They're all like me. Sometimes it's just not so obvious at first." There are core traits that are always universal to each Avatar, even if demeanors and mannerisms and beliefs change over time and culture. A mischievous sense of humor, a deep belief in the ultimate goodness of humankind, a forgiving heart, and an incredible amount of compassion all run through each lifetime, among other things. Those are the traits that are most important.

He looks up at Bucky, resisting the urge to bite his lip (which would be unpleasant, since it has makeup on it). He has a feeling he's breaking some kind of script, but he's technically the oldest, so he's going to say that makes it okay for him to say, "Please try to come back safe." He doesn't want to come back without Bucky.

"I'll take your word for it."

Bucky looks surprised at first that he was beaten to it and that Aang was saying it to him, "I was going to say the same to you." he let his hand sit on Aang's shoulder then instead of dropping it away, intending to be reassuring in the face of what they were about to do. "I don't intend to let anything happen to me, or to you, Aang."

"I'm older. I get to say it first."

Aang gives him a small, cheeky smile. It's easier when Bucky touches him. It's rare, but it's more meaningful because it's rare. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm quick." He reaches up and touches the hand on his shoulder. "We'll both be okay." He knows he can't know that for sure. He knows he can't promise that. He also knows that saying it makes them both feel better, and right now, that's what's important.

The Binding of Isaac

Aang: Collector, Fighter | Open

Prepping for the fight

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Prep time

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