InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "BIG O! And ACTION!"

The Doctor (notginger) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2008-07-22 23:51:00

Entry tags:

complete, day 8, katara, the doctor

Who? The Doctor & Katara
Where? The restaurant.
When? Evening.
What? The attempted teaching of science/technology.
Rating G, probably.
Status Complete.

After barely managing to successfully order a room-service brunch through a lot of giggling, the Doctor had decided that he would venture down to the restaurant to collect them something for dinner rather than go through another one-ended conversation with a golem on the phone. It was just easier when they could at least nod a confirmation to him. So, he had dressed in his suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, deciding to leave off the tie and suit jacket due to the change in resort. Finally, the planet was making him give up on the full suit, which was something of a miracle, although Rose's relaxing influence might have had something to do with it. He no longer felt the need to use his suit as a protective shield, stopping anyone from getting too close.

He headed into the restaurant, picked up a menu and ordered them some pasta to go - it felt like it was way too hot for chips, but he was sure Rose would disagree, so he ordered a portion of them as well, and headed over to a nearby table to wait for his order to cook. He fished Rose's mobile phone from his pocket; he'd promised to take a look at it and see what he could do about it's inability to call any other planet. He pulled the back off and examined the device he'd inserted into it to give her universal roaming; perhaps if he just tried to increase the signal even further he might get somewhere. He took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket; this was exactly why he needed the suit jacket, carrying everything in his trouser pockets was a little awkward. He pressed the tip against the roaming device inside the phone and turned the screwdriver on. It emitted a blue light, and gave an electronic sound, something like a mixture between TV static and a dial-up internet connection. He moved the blue tip along the edges of device, concentrating hard as the phone started to heat up in his hand. He doubted that the signal was the problem, but it was worth a try nonetheless.

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k_waterbender
2008-07-26 12:25 pm UTC (link)

“I heard people used to live in caves a long time ago, before they could build houses or bend elements. It would be interesting to meet her.” Katara thought aloud.

“Yes, it wasn’t very good. I could see in his face that he became really unhappy when he realized he couldn’t respond to his friend. It’s like, the Planet is toying with us, giving us a little hope here, only to shatter it there. It’s terrible.” The waterbender spoke with annoyance over the Planet’s horrid whims.

A blush tinted her cheeks. “Oh! I’m sorry. Everyone in my world knows about this, but no one here ever seems to. Still, I forget that sometimes… quite often actually… Bending is what we call controlling one of the four elements- water, earth, fire, and air- by moving in specific ways and allowing the chi in our arms to flow. Some benders can also use their feet to bend. I wish I could show you them all, but I’m not the Avatar. I only know how to waterbend.” With that said, she removed the stopper from the neck of her water skin and moved her arm in such a way that a stream flowed out into the air. “I use my waterbending for fighting and healing, but I’ve seen others use it for ice architecture. Earthbenders can do a lot of great architecture with their bending, too.”

Katara tried her best to follow what the man said, but sometimes she got lost. She’d never heard anyone use the phrase “stay on the line” before. “If it’s underground, how is it overhead at the same time?” The waterbender asked, supremely confused. “Yes. I know what I smoke signal is, I figured you meant a different sort of signal, but the way you put it, it makes a bit of sense.” At least as much sense as she could connect.

“Oh. You just said you need to be near a pole for the signal to work, so I bet the Planet just doesn’t have a pole on it so you can call others. I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I don‘t think trying to make the signal go farther is going to help.” It was a simple thought, from what she had learned about mobile phones.

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notginger
2008-07-29 05:48 pm UTC (link)

The Doctor remained confused, opening his mouth slightly as if to comment, but deciding just to nod along when she mentioned bending the elements in the same sentence as house-building.

"Uh huh... I don't think I'll tell her about that just yet," he agreed; if Mickey had emailed Rose, he really didn't want her to go through the hell of being unable to reply to his words of concern. He'd figure out a way to contact home; he'd have to.

And then she was talking about bending again, and the Doctor could only listen in amazement. He had never heard anything like it, and that was quite unusual, especially considering she was talking as if it were a perfectly normal part of Earth's history. His eyes grew wide as the water flowed into the air, and unintentionally pulled back, his chair screeching against the ground as he did so. His instant reaction was witchcraft, and as a childe he'd been taught to be wary of such unnatural magic, embracing the rules of science as an alternative. His view had changed somewhat with age, but it didn't stop him from recoiling slightly at something that seemed to deny all of his scientific beliefs.

"Is it... magic?" he asked, barely above a whisper. He felt like a stupid kid asking, because he was quite certain the answer was a negative, but... he needed to know for sure. He paused for a moment, tilting his head to one side. "Sorry, I never did ask. Are you human?"

He was distracted when she questioned his terminology. "It's... oh, I see what you mean. It... it got away from me a bit there. It's overhead most of the time, but they can also go underground. Clearly not at the same time, that would be... a bit ridiculous," he laughed.

"Right! Exactly. But this roaming device acts like one of the poles, and it's meant do the detecting. My friend, the one that owns the phone, she was able to call her mother from 5 billion years in the future, when the Earth was no more, so the poles were... gone," he tried to explain; his terminology always did seem to get a little contradictory, which he put down to having too many thoughts in his head all at once.

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