deercountry | September & October Catch-All

Impressive save, bud!

[Vyng enjoys a sparring partner who rolls with the punches and keeps him on his toes. As Mako's stance solidifies, Vyng mirrors that grin and lets go of the other man's hand. He rolls into a half-crouch of his own.]

Quick, another!

Turtleduck.

[ He gets the game now, at least, and Vyng's really coming along on the bending front, which is impressive. It took Korra forever to learn how to airbend, but then, Vyng's a lot more... floaty than solid, aggressive Korra was back then. Vyng and air make sense together. He even looks like he should have wind around him at all times, with all that hair.

And it's kind of nice to know that Mako's world is going to live on with someone else, even in this tiny way. ]

[How much this exercise is preparing him or Mako for actual combat is...questionable, at best. But hey! At least it's fun.]

Turtleduck Style!

[The faint outline of wings unfurls behind Vyng, casting a shadow across the ground. Maybe it's a trick of the light, maybe it's a manifestation of his Spirit Animal. Either way, another wind gust stirs sand behind Vyng as the air propels him toward Mako with the speed and agility of a bird taking flight.

Which would...almost look cool. If not for the fact his mouth is wide open. Like he wants to bite somebody.]

[ It takes Mako a second to react to that because the biting is a very unexpected part of this. As such, what could have been a very neat dodge comes a few seconds too late and Vyng absolutely just full-frontal tackles him, teeth and all, while Mako goes slamming into the sand, torn between laughing and shouting.

Wrestling is training, right? Because now literally all he's doing is grappling with Vyng trying to get the upper hand. ]

[Vyng gives an aggressive snap of his teeth at Mako. Rather than actually biting him, though, his jaw bones rattle as the two of them abruptly collide into the ground.]

Eel! Eel!

[For such a spindly guy, Vyng has a surprising amount of body-strength. But in situations like this? He'd rather wiggle his way out. ]

Eel Style!

[This is totally training!]

That's not even an animal!

[ It absolutely is an animal, Mako, just not from your world. He's trying to keep hold of Vyng despite the weird wriggling, and also kind of laughing from a tangle of limbs on the ground, and this has truly devolved into just wrestling. Mako throws a leg over Vyng, somehow ends up on his back, and then shoves at Vyng's shoulder with the kind of laughter that takes over your whole body making it hard for him to focus. ]

Alright, alright, I give! You're not even bending anymore.

News to me! Bee-eel, then! Or, or whatever they've got in bender land!

[Once Mako's body starts shaking with laughter, Vyng doesn't put up much resistance against the push against his shoulder. He moves back and falls into a crouch on the sand, just in front of his friend. Some of his gray hair is plastered to his forehead.]

What, you want me to use the water in my gills, then? To make myself slippery? Because I'll do it.

[...Gross, Vyng.]

What?

[ Should that make Mako laugh harder, even as he's scrambling to his feet and trying to to get the sand off himself at the same time. ]

You have water in your—I gotta stop asking you those questions, why would I want you to be slippery?

Well, eels are slippery. And you said I wasn't bending anymore. Buuuut if I used the water in my gills to make my body slippery, then I could've been the one that got away!

[Why you laughing, Mako? Vyng is being 100 percent serious here.]

This is fun, though. [He grins, glad his friend seems to be taking a load off for once.] Thanks for training with me, pal.

[More like dicking around, but shhh.]

[ Mako is trying so, so hard to follow that logic. Eels are slippery, and Vyng would... get away... and win somehow because, what, Mako couldn't keep... hold of him?

He blinks up at Vyng, landing on that conclusion, and finally just grins. ]

Man, it's a good thing you were never on a pro-bending team. You would've gotten disqualified immediately. Bet you're terrible with rules.

Just when they suck. Or I don't want to follow them.

[With a crooked grin, Vyng finally draws himself to his full height. No reason to keep crouching, if they're taking a break from ~~horseplay~~ training.]

Back during my pro-racer days, I never cheated on the track.

[There are definitely stories about shit he pulled off the track, though.]

You were a pro-racer?

[ That is way more interesting than teasing Vyng about not following the rules. Mako drops out of his defensive stance entirely. ]

What does that mean?

[He doesn't expect Mako to know what he means. One benefit of talking to someone who lacks that context, though? His friend just asks, instead of trying to guess based on Vyng's appearance. It's more refreshing than he expects.]

I was an ice racer. You pilot a ship outfitted with blades across the tundra and try not to die.

Also, everyone shoots frozen food at each other.

[ Mako's face really says it all. Why does this happen so much with Vyng? Mako has sand in his hair and also everywhere else and they were in the middle of sparring and he doesn't care about any of that because Vyng is talking about frozen food races and Mako's burning need to know what the fuck that's about has eclipsed literally every other thought. ]

What a waste. You had me until the food thing.

[It's not the first time he's gotten this reaction from a friend. Ice racing, his year-long stint as a circus elephant, some of the gnarly shit he found while working as a janitor for 10 years...there's a wild tale for almost any occasion, though Vyng rarely tells them.

Of course, he's more inclined to share those snippets into his past lives with other Sleepers. He'd be lying if he said it wasn't fun. Mako's what-the-actual-fuck expression is pure gold, and Vyng can't help but quietly laugh.]

Yeahhhh, that was a big-leagues thing. You actually needed money to compete in those. And if you didn't have money, you used what you could find.

[A beat, before proudly adding:]

My arsenal came from compost.

[Meanwhile, other ships were hurling rib-eyes at their opponents. And while Vyng could rag on rich elven families, he imagines that simple detail would be enough for a former ragamuffin like Mako to understand the kind of inequality he grew up around.]

Smaller races had less shooting. And lower fatality rates.

[As he speaks, Vyng crouches beside his suede bag and starts rifling around for some water.]

They had fatality rates?

[ Vyng why.

Mako's what-the-fuck expression certainly hasn't gone away even as he shifts just to sit cross-legged there on the sand. ]

From the food? How hard were people flinging this stuff? What a way to go.

Nah, food just knocked people off their game and damaged their ships. Crashing into the shitty flash-frozen waves is what usually killed people.

[He casually holds out a waterskin for Mako before adding:]

And if it was mating season, you had stampedes of pissed and horny ice rhinos to worry about too.

...Vyng.

No offense?

But your world is... weirder than mine, sometimes.

[ After a moment, Mako accepts it, hefting the thing in his hand for a second. ]

D'you miss it?

[Vyng plops onto the sand, and he tucks his lanky limbs beneath himself.]

Me? Miss it?

[To be honest, he'd been too busy grieving Billie to consider whether he missed the world itself. Vyng's first instinct is to downplay the question, to bluff by claiming he's moved on and has zero interest in looking back. But his words would likely ring hollow. None of those things are true.

After a moment, he carefully admits:]

I miss certain things about it, I guess. But not everything.

[He can't walk through the Spirit World like he used to. He'll never lay eyes on Cerulean Depths Seen From Great Heights, nor the family he was deprived from knowing for much of his life. Resonances from relationships he painstakingly cultivated still remain, of course, allowing him to move through Trench in much the same way as before. At the same time, he will never be able to replicate those exact connections here. He will never get a chance to repair that ones that were lost or damaged.

As his mind briefly wanders down that morose path, Vyng's gaze toward the ocean horizon becomes unfocused. Thankfully, he catches himself before he goes too far. Rolling his shoulders to snap himself out of it, he turns to look at Mako.]

What about you?

[ What was that?

Mako wonders, but he doesn't ask: it looked a little bit like Korra meditating, with that hazy distance in Vyng's face like he was somewhere else. It's only fair. Mako asked about his home, sent his thoughts along that path in the first place.

He shifts a little too, trying to get comfortable on the sand. It isn't the sand, though. It's discomfort in his own skin, too-cold, strange. He hasn't felt right since waking up here.

And he can be honest with Vyng. There's a raw edge to his voice. ]

Yeah. I do.

It's—

[ He huffs and turns to look at the same horizon, squinting at the shapes of high, distant birds. ]

I get pretty sick of people telling me how weird our animals are, you know?

What, koalaotters and turtleducks? Weird? Pfft, they're the weird ones. That's normal shit where I'm from.

[Cabbage skunks. Polar bees. Hybrid animals emerge from the Spirit World all the time. Vyng didn't miss a beat during their earlier exercise, because each creature was well within the bounds of his own imagination.]

I can see why it makes you tired, though. It's like..."Yeah? And? Thanks, asshole, you're the fifth person who's said that".

Yeah! That's—

Yeah.

[ Not the coolest finish, but then Mako hadn't meant to burst out in strong agreement like that, and now his nose and his cheeks are flushed pale blue. ]

It just, I don't know. Don't need to be reminded that I'm never gonna see home again and that literally nothing I think is normal is actually normal to anyone but... you, I guess. It's a stupid thing to get annoyed by. I know that.

To be fair, a weirdo like me going "yeah, that's normal" can't be much of a consolation prize.

[There's a hint of laughter in Vyng's voice, mainly directed at himself. And okay, maybe he's a little bit amused by how strongly Mako agreed with him. But that's because he's been there too, in a variety of ways.

Vyng shifts in the sand, so he's more clearly facing Mako.]

What makes you think it's a stupid thing to get annoyed by?

[ Vyng and his insightful questions. Mako shifts a little, curling his fingers into cool sand just to feel it before letting the grains drop bit by bit into a small pile. ]

I should be used to it by now. I've been... not at home, for food, for more than a year now.

It does help, though. You. Your world. People talk so much about earth. There are so many people from it. They have all these... references and phrases and idioms. Curses. Stuff like that.

Okay, but for real, though. Who is Jesus? And why is he fucking Christ?

[Please tell Vyng he's not the only one wondering this, Mako.]

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hello, a missed notif!!! sry about that!!

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