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One - Audio - UN: XvXSherryXvX

[It's pretty early in the morning when Sherry sends out her message. She was still trying to really 'get' the network, but it was starting to make sense.]

[Also no one should make fun of her awesome 1998 style username.]

Hi. Good morning. I'm Sherry Birkin. I only arrived here a few days ago so I don't really know anyone yet...

Which I guess makes this a strange question but I-

[There's a pause because of a very audible yawn.]

Oh! Sorry about that. Okay. Does anyone have advice on what to do about getting rid of nightmares? I've never really had them before but they're...pretty bad right now.

If not it's okay. I'm sure I can get used to them.

Thanks though.

[There's another yawn that cuts off midway as she disconnects.]

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meditate before bed
drink enough water throughout the day
drink chamomile tea before bed. don't drink green tea before bed.

certain smells help too... my uncle also used to give me oils and herbs for my pillow... lavender, jasmine, sandalwood, mugwort... all these are good smells to calm anxiety and nightmares
i struggle with night terrors a lot
all these help me

I'm sorry. They're pretty awful aren't they?

Another lady recommended tea too.
But not meditation.

I don't know how to meditate.

yes. ive struggled with them for years...

be mindful what kind of tea youre drinking. not all tea is good for sleep. uncle knows a lot about tea so this for sure i know my stuff on just from being around him. green tea and ginseng wake you up. the smell of jasmine is good for sleep and anxiety but most jasmine tea is mixed with green tea so dont drink that either. chamomile is best. mint too. mint tea is also good for a bad stomach.

as to how to meditate
thats a practice you need to figure out on your own
you probably already do something and dont realize its meditative
but do something to release your focus before bed
and again in the morning
meditation is just very helpful and important all around honestly
you should meditate.

I'll try the tea Aurora wants to give me and then if it doesn't work I'll try to remember all that.

I can't think of anything I do like that, though...

I mostly play with my phone before bed anymore.

all you need to remember is chamomile. try both.
you can contact me again if you forget what herbs to use though

stop playing with your phone before bed then
obviously its not helping
you should be relaxing your mind
not playing with some stupid thing

[ Ouch? He's being nice, really... ]

I can just find your message again when I need to look it up.

But I've never had a phone like this before.
It's nice to read what everyone is saying before I go to sleep...

but youre still having nightmares
so clearly its not helping
youre not supposed to socialize youre supposed to sleep
youre overstimulating your mind before bed and then its turning against you
if you drink calming tea but then do an activity instead of calming your mind then whats the point?? tea can only do so much
whatever your bedtime ritual is isnt serving you
stop it and try something different
or else youll keep having nightmares
do you want your problem fixed or not?

[ He really thinks he's being so nice and helpful... Poor Sherry... ]

[He's certainly...blunt.]

I've never needed a bedtime ritual before!
I just fell asleep with music playing.
Or sometimes listening to my parents talking in the other room.
And I've never had nightmares before!
This is all new!

see i told you you were probably doing something without realizing it, music can be meditative! do that again!
what kind of music?
uncle likes music too

and look.
everyone needs a bedtime ritual, nightmares or not
night terrors are not new to me
believe me. i know what im talking about.
it seems like a lot to change. but all of this will help.
if youve never had nightmares before, obviously somethings wrong in a drastic way, so you need drastic change.
the shock of being in this place is traumatic. the first time this happened to me somewhere else i couldn't even get out of bed for over a week. i had fever dreams, horrible visions, i couldnt eat, fainted, constant lucid nightmares.... i fell physically ill from a panic attack over my place in the universe.....
i know what youre going through. and i know how to fix it.
but it takes diligence, like anything else in life.
if you want change you have to change

Classical music. Mom left the radio on for me.
I don't know if they have radio here...

I'm not having nightmares about being here, though.
I like being here. It's amazing. And I have magic powers!
It's about the monsters back home. I would've been having them anywhere, I think.

I'll try not to use my phone before bed though.

find it on the phone but put it away, just listen to the music in the dark in bed

trauma.
you need to meditate. and probably stretch and massage your pressure points to unblock your chi. if your body is tense your mind will be tense. do that before bed and in the morning, every day, even when the nightmares stop.

how old are you anyway?
you sound like a kid

I should sound like a kid, I'm twelve.

I don't even know what chi is.

oh. ok. well im sixteen.

chi is the energy that flows inside you.
your inner balance.
think of it like..... a river inside you, and your troubled mind is like a dam
if your chi gets backed up the dam could break and flood your life
the river should flow naturally
have you ever noticed your shoulders or head hurt when youre having a rough time?
troubles collect in certain areas of our body, so those are physically where the dams are
massaging those pressure points helps unblock your chi so your energy can flow inside you freely like a river should
does that make sense???

[ No. He's awful with metaphors. ]

Kind of. It's...like...stress?

[Her mom told her stress was what made your shoulders and head hurt...]

no
stress happens when your chi is blocked
or stress blocks your chi

your chi is like......
like the blood of your soul, not the blood of your body
its your deepest energy
its part of you even if its blocked
its what moves your whole being

if your chi isn't balanced there are problems
its an ongoing practice
this is way deeper than insomnia stuff, this is existential life stuff

It sounds kind of religious?
Souls and stuff.
My parents never took me to church or anything...

Do you balance it by meditating?

everyone has chi religion isn't relevant
this is your life force

yes
meditating
training
and just doing the right thing
if you veer off your true destiny you can feel it in your core
things start going wrong.....

i wish my uncle was here to explain this to you
he'd do a much better job
he's helped me balance myself a million times

It does sound complicated.
I guess I can try..

I don't think I have a destiny though.

look up meditation techniques
there are all kinds of different ways
full body progressive muscle relaxation would be an easy start
its a nice release

and everyone has a destiny
you're 12
you'll figure it out
destiny reveals itself in weird ways

How do you do that?

I mean maybe but
my parents were
they did some bad things
So what if that's my destiny too?

Um— ahem... Hello. This is too much to type. I'm not that good at texting. So I'm recording. Hope you don't mind...

[ There's an awkward pause, considering his words before he starts. His voice is rather raspy, but he sounds young, and while his introduction maybe was a bit fumbling, unsure about his transition to audio suddenly, he tempers himself to describe the technique in an even, calm voice as best he can. Even and calm are not the hotheaded firebender's specialties — which is why he's so practiced in meditating. ]

Okay, so— Progressive muscle relaxation is as it sounds. First, obviously find a comfortable, quiet place where you won't be interrupted — doesn't matter if you lie or sit. This will help you at bedtime, but you can do it any time you're stressed... It centers your mind and clears it, takes you out of the moment. It's bull shit trying to sit and think happy thoughts, or thinking about trying not to think. That doesn't work.

With this technique, you just focus on the feeling... Basically, from head to toe, you are tensing and releasing each muscle group in a particular way, concentrating on the pressure and relief. I can, uh— Well... I'm not as good as my uncle, but I can try to guide you through it, if you want. Over audio like this, I mean...

[ He sounds maybe more sincere than his blunt texts probably read, perhaps surprising in that he's not got the deep, grumbling voice of some tough guy; really, he's direct and earnest, even if a bit gruff. He's no good at offering help, in poor practice, but he's good at helping. Or at least he tries to be — he wants to be... ]

As to your parents, and your destiny...

[ His tone is thicker now, deeper, hoarser, cadence slower, showing his serious consideration of her words. This hits home far more than he'll ever say to anyone. So instead she gets a convicted, schmaltzy, projecting pep talk of an explanation. ]

Your destiny is your own — no one else can change it or corrupt it. My father did a lot of really bad things... It took me a long time to realize that he was bad, that I was doing bad things, too, just to gain his love and respect. And it took me a long time to realize that he couldn't decide my fate for me, that my destiny was entirely my own, that my father couldn't touch or take away my honor. I had to look inside myself and make a change. It was hard. But your actions and choices are what lead you to your true self, to fulfill your true potential — or, away from it... And you can feel it when you're astray, because it hurts. All the time. Like your soul hurts.

But when you know you're doing the right thing, you have to trust in that decision, trust in weird coincidences, trust people you get a good gut feeling about... These things we feel but can't explain are often destiny revealing itself. It will always surprise us, it never turns out exactly as we'd imagined, but it always turns out as it should. Everyone has their own path to walk, even if your destiny is linked with someone else to walk with you. And for me — I don't want to be by my father's side anymore. He's led me astray too long — since I was your age, actually. But I changed not that long ago... And it hurts less now, knowing I'm doing the honorable thing despite him. So don't worry about your parents. They didn't create your character. That's on you. It takes time, but... you'll figure it out.

[Sherry really was not expecting all of that. The advice, the confession, even just what he sounded like didn't quite match the picture she'd had in her head from his texts. He certainly sounded younger than she thought he would. So it's a few minutes before she actually responds, this time voice as well. And she definitely sounds as young as she is, whoops.]

That's...thank you. I, uhm. I'm sorry you had to do that. With your dad. I bet that was really hard, walking away.

My parents, they both...they died. Just...just two weeks ago, actually. Right after I started to, to understand what they were...I mean, I don't understand what they were doing, it's all science stuff but it...it was really bad and a...a lot of people died. And I...

[The longer she talks, the more her voice starts to break, because Sherry hasn't actually dealt with any of this, and has been running on pure emotional adrenalin since the moment she had arrived here. There were so many things to see, she could forget about what happened. Sometimes. For a little while.]

[She trails off into a hard sniffle, and the faintly audible sound of rubbing her hands across her eyes, trying not to cry.]

[And mostly failing.]

Sorry, sorry...

[ooc: Apologies for how late this is.]

[ Oh fuck, two weeks ago, for real?! Zuko is out. of. his. depths, oh boy. This is far beyond sleep tricks, meditation tips, or pep talks about ~*~DeStiNy~*~ for this traumatized teenager himself. But now he feels some vague connection, already bonded to helping this kid in smaller ways, more responsible now for having drawn out this information in the first place... He's not the comforting type, exactly, but he's the caring type, who wishes he were the comforting type, and even though he's still so young himself, he's got an early paternal streak growing in him. He doesn't like to see people in pain — or hear them, rather — and even for a stranger, he's honor-bound to his own compassion, as shaky and new as it is natural instinct for him, even if, yes, he's out of his depths... He doesn't want to tell her not to cry cuz as he sees it, she has all the reason to, but— he certainly wasn't expecting this. Plus something about monsters. And the nightmares. Poor kid. ]

N-No, don't say sorry, um—! I, uh— ...I'm sorry. That you lost them. So recently, and then arriving here, too... That's a lot to deal with. No wonder you're having nightmares. Um... It's complicated mourning bad people or, uh— loving people even if they're bad... I don't get it, but I do— sort of. My dad's killed a lot of people, too, in war, and even after he hurt me and I left home when I was thirteen, I still missed him for years... And, um— I lost my mother. When I was eleven. So— ...yeah, I sort of get it.

[ "Yeah, I sort of get it" is not the profound line that matches the drama its tone is drenched in, but you get what you get with this guy. He's fumbling but, clearly, he means as well as he can, for two kids who have clearly seen much more than any kid should. ]

((ooc: no worries at all, not even late! i'm technically on hiatus anyway but hhhhh i'm loving this whole thread, so I couldn't resist replying hehe))

[Sherry didn't answer for a minute or so, trying to get control of the unexpected tears. To say she hadn't had time to deal with everything that had happened was an understatement. The realization came in waves, at unexpected moments.]

[Eventually she manages to contain herself again, drawing in several ragged breaths before she spoke.]

S-sorry. [She said again, whoops.] Yeah it's...I...

[Mm.]

I'm sorry about your mom.

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