<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/e/ed/Warrior_Sokka_by_Mandy_Mo.jpg)</div><div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/b/b3/Image015dw.jpg)</div><div align="center"><strong>Name:</strong><br/>Sokka and Iroh<br/><strong>Location:</strong><br/>Aboard Zuko's Frigate, now in Earth Kingdom Waters.  Below deck in the officer quaters.<br/><strong>Weather:</strong><br/>The storm behind them, they head southward under clear skies, the sun setting in the west.</div><hr/><hr/><br/>The dragon and the leviathan sat at a Pai Sho table.  The room was hot and humid as the steam pipes hissed around them.  Candles flickered on either side of the table.  The dragon moved his tile into an opposing zone of the board.  The faint candle light cast an almost sinister shadow over his elderly features, despite the enlightened and knowing smile hidden in his thick beard.<br/><br/>The younger man across from him studied the board once Iroh's hand moved away.  He hadn't always been known as "The Leviathan".  Precious few still bothered to call him Sokka of the Water Tribe.  Once he'd earned the reputation, he'd made no effort to escape it.  As a child, all he'd ever wanted was some title of respect that marked him as a true warrior.  Now that he had one, though, he never felt like he really belonged to it... he hadn't earned it, he felt.  Not like Iroh had earned Dragon of the West.  Iroh had boosted him up as some symbold of the Water Tribe to help lure other warriors from his people into their resistance.  They called him a hero for killing the Combustion Man when he'd come to kill the exiled Prince.  They called him the rebellion's jack of all trades.  The truth, as far as Sokka was concerned, was that he was a sponge.  Nothing more.<br/><br/>His sister's necklace was tied around his wrist.  The constant reminder of what he'd lost and what he had to reclaim.  His mission had given him focus, and focus had given him humility.  He wasn't a great warrior because anything was special about him.  He simply spent enough time around better people than him and soaking up whatever greatness they had eminating off them.<br/><br/>He'd learned to hunt watching his father.  He'd learned to fight watching the Kyoshi warrors.  He'd learned the sword from an old friend of Iroh's.  He'd learned tactics watching the Dragon, himself.  What he knew of machine smithing he knew from tinkering around or reading books and scrolls they picked up journaling the work of others.  He wasn't great, he told himself every day, he'd just absorbed what leftover greatness they'd had... he wasn't worth the name until he'd gotten his sister out of that cage.<br/><br/>Pai Sho was supposed to be part of his strategy lessons.  He'd yet to beat the man, but he couldn't help but feel like he was close.  He tried to hide his excitement as he set his tile down.<br/><br/>"The Cao Ren gambit?" Iroh said admirably as he brought a steaming cup of tea up to his lips.<br/><br/>"Uh... yeah," Sokka replied with fake confidence.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/c/c8/01Cigar.jpg)</div>Iroh studied the board over his cup, wise eyes clearly working moves ahead.  It was intimidating to Sokka to watch Iroh look over the tiles, he felt like the old man knew where tiles were going to fall before either of them had made a move.  This must have been how all of his oponents felt on the battlefield, Sokka thought.  The idea only made it harder to plan ahead, a self fulfilling prophecy.  He had to shake it off.  He knew the rules of this game by now... and Iroh had been making mistakes early on.  Sokka had him this time, he knew it!<br/><br/>"It's exciting isn't it?  On our way to find the Avatar.  No one has seen him in over a hundred years..." he placed his next tile down.  If Sokka were going for the Cao Ren gambit that tile would have been a step in preventing it.  Of course, if Sokka had no idea what the Cao Ren gambit was then that tile was probably wasted and did little to secure Iroh's territories on the east side of the board.<br/><br/>"You're trying to distract me," Sokka said.<br/><br/>"No, I mean it," Iroh said.<br/><br/>Sokka placed his next tile down and made it clear that he wasn't working with the strategy that Iroh had believed him to be working with.  Sometimes the best way to outsmart a genius was to attack like an idiot.<br/><br/>Iroh set his tea down and nodded as he looked at the board.  He seemed impressed by Sokka's move, and it was fairly obvious that he hadn't been anticipating this.  "It will be a great honor for us to meet the- BY THE SPIRITS!  WHAT IS THAT?!" Iroh shot to his feet and pointed over Sokka's shoulder.<br/><br/>Sokka drew his sword and turned quick as the falling rain, "What is it..." and nothing was there.  When he turned around and resheathed his weapon, he noticed changes in the board.  "Hey!  That's not where the pieces were!"<br/><br/>Iroh looked down at the board in confusion, "I believe you are right.  The tiles must have shifted from the rocking of the ship!"<br/><br/>"I was about to beat you!" Sokka protested.<br/><br/>"I believe that you were," Iroh nodded in agreement, "I was very happy for you."  He shook his head and began putting the tiles away, "Damn these waves.  Perhaps, tomorrow, I can convince Zuko to play a game with you.  He needs to play against challenging opponents like yourself."  That may as well have been Iroh's way of saying he wanted to retire from the game undefeated after his technical victory here.  His grin suggested that he was quite proud of himself as he gathered up the tea and began to take it towards the Prince's quarters.<br/><br/>(( Am I gonna get kicked out of this RP for using a picture of the ships from the movie? >.> I swear, they just didn't have a good one of the boats on water from the cartoon!!!! :'(  Don't banish me! ))