thebastion | Day 325 [Open]

Entry tags:

Day 325 [Open]

Who: Zuko, Colin, Ikuri, and anyone else!
Open: Open!
When: Day 325
Where: Around the Bastion, Dragonfield
What: Time for some Talks
Format: I'll match
Warnings: Honor. Also fury, and not much patience.

It's been a few days since the disaster of Crona's death. Zuko would like to think that that's given her time and distance to process it, but most of her feelings haven't changed much since their return. If anything, she's just forced herself to focus on other things, and avoid dealing with her grief, and her guilt. Not that she's realized it.

It probably doesn't help that she hasn't gotten a decent night's sleep since. But she's used to that, and if she's going to lose sleep, she can at least do it standing guard instead of tossing and turning. She's been taking regular shifts guarding the prisoners, and she's taken to carrying her swords with her within the Bastion, as a precaution not only against escape attempts, but any threat of outside attack as well.

And the swords are also for Colin. Once she's finished a guard shift, she'll be looking for him to take him up on his challenge, and also for Ikuri, for the talk she thinks she's clear-headed enough now to give.

[Later...]
Besides all that, she is still a dragon mom, and that's probably the only thing that's gotten her to settle down at all. Later in the day, she can be found near dragonfield attempting to teach Kizuna how to breathe fire. In addition to a short demonstration, this seems to involve lying down on the ground with the little dragon on her chest so she can feel Zuko's breathing.

So far it doesn't seem to be working, but neither of them appear discouraged. For Kizuna's part, it may be because she doesn't know she's supposed to be breathing fire.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Colin's been keeping himself more than busy these last few days. Security devices need constructing, networking, and proper redundancies in case of sabotage. He's been in no rush to go see Zuko, but he's been monitoring her position in the Bastion this whole time. Just in case.]

[When she comes looking for him, he's where he can almost always be found, in his workshop. The normally pristine workspace is a mess right now, with boxes of parts scattered everywhere. (The mun is reminded he needs to go to the shard page for that, whoops.) When she reaches the door of his workshop, he looks up.]

Stop.

[He stands and looks at her.]

We're not doing this here. Outside the Bastion. No defense field.

[He smiles at her, not at all a friendly gesture.]

You're going to want to hit me, and I see no reason to deny you the pleasure.

You mean I'm going to hit you.

[Considering she's wanted to for about as long as she's known him, and now he's saying he's going to let her?

She turns to head for the Skyway bridge. He issued the challenge, he can choose the place. Anyway she doesn't want the Bastion's magic calming her down either.]

You're going to hit me.

[He walks behind her, stripping off his gloves, his shirt, and his goggles in short order and leaving them by the door.]

Whether you're going to hurt me is another matter entirely.

[He reaches the skyway bridge and he nods to her.]

But more importantly... you're going to listen.

Because I'm sure what you have to say is the most important thing I'll ever hear.

[Her attempts at civility may have done something to hide her venom towards him before, but that's definitely not the case now.]

Considering that you got Crona and Ragnarok killed, I'd hope you'd listen. But it's a slim hope right now.

[Friendliness? Civility? What's that?]

What right do you have to make that judgment? You weren't even there.

You were in charge, weren't you?

Leader?

Guiding everyone there?

Just like you seem to want to be doing?

You weren't ready. You got sloppy. Crona and Ragnarok died.

Everyone there let their guard down. SOMEONE should have told them to keep their eyes open.

If not for the person in charge, then who, Princess?

[With that, he steps onto the sky bridge and heads off out of the peace field.]

[Zuko growls and stalks after him.]

We were keeping our eyes open.

If you think you could have done a better job than any of us who went on that trip, then maybe you should have been there yourself instead of criticizing me for my mistakes. It's a lot easier to see them after they've been made.

You clearly WEREN'T.

I've told all of you to be careful. That everything out here can kill you. That there are agents working against us.

I've told EVERYONE that we need to coordinate and learn to work as a team. I've said countless times that we can't keep walking into situations assuming that things are going to go okay. I've warned everyone, TIME AND AGAIN, that every trip out for even the most mundane purpose can result in someone we love getting killed.

Night proved that. Everyone who's wandered off and not come back proved that. And now, Crona and Ragnarok have proven that!

YOU! WERE! SLOPPY!

You say a lot of things. You're always talking about how you know better and we should all listen to your superior intellect.

And the second anyone disagrees with you, you call us idiots. If we make mistakes, it's because we didn't listen to you. We're children to you!

If anyone needs to "learn to work in a team," it's you. You have no respect for any of us. You don't respect what we know or what we can do.

I do my best, and maybe my best will never be good enough, but I am trying. I am not going to let you tell me that I'm not.

I've ALSO saved the Bastion, the Ura, and our collective hides SEVERAL TIMES OVER.

Without me, all of you would be dead from the plague, that I and Jay stopped before anyone died.

Without me, the Ura would either be dead or invading us because of a food shortage that I foresaw, and planned to circumvent!

Without me, do you care to guess how many people would have died from injuries? From sickness? For the sake of the Gods, I'm an engineer, and I learned to be a doctor because WE DIDN'T HAVE ONE!

I've given us FOOD. I've given us a mental balm from the agony of the end of the world! I've given us a fall-back position in the worst case situation that we have to run because something went wrong!

I've seen problems and proactively addressed them and SAVED LIVES! You may not like me, child, but even you can't deny that! What have you done besides look for a girlfriend and give yourself a pet?!

But no. Because I've got a character flaw, you seem to think that I'm only ever looking down on you people. And you can't even see it in yourself.

And don't think I've forgotten, yes, you brought back the cure... But you wouldn't even have been able to WALK if I hadn't insisted on a quarantine. That each and every one of you complained about when I first set it up. And WHEN you came back from that, you brought Ahime back with you two steps from death's door! Because none of you thought to heed my warnings that there are traps everywhere!

Edited 2015-07-18 04:53 (UTC)

You talk about what we've done like it's an afterthought. It's never good enough, is it? We're not as smart as you. It's never as perfect as how you would've done it.

I have never denied that you have useful skills, but that doesn't make the rest of us less important! You're not the only person responsible for the fact that we're still here. We're all in this together!

At least, that's how it should be. You think it's some kind of flaw that I've been able to connect with people? That yes, I have a girlfriend? [There's an extra defiance to that because it's not something she's said very often.]

We all come here from different nations. No one's going to follow me because I'm the Fire Princess. They're only going to follow me if they know me and respect me and believe that I respect and care about them, too. If you think that's a waste of time then it's no wonder you don't have any friends of your own.

It IS an afterthought! It's not a question of what you can do, it's a question of the potential you're squandering!

Without the Bastion, there are FOUR people who would have survived.

Me. Paarthurnax. Crona. And Ragnarok.

Two of them are dead now. You're only mourning one of them. I think me and Paarthurnax are the only ones who even knew Ragnarok existed. Gods, is it any wonder that Ragnarok was such an ass?! Nobody gave him a fair shake, nobody treated him like a person!

And you're STILL doing that! You wanna complain about things not being good enough for me?! About me not thinking we're all in this together?! You look at Ikuri and you see a monster! You keep treating her like that, and she's only ever going to be a monster!

She probably hadn't SEEN another person that didn't try to kill her before she wound up here! She watched one of the only people who she'd been able to talk to die in front of her. Her life is VIOLENCE and she's terrified. And you're treating her like she's a liability instead of someone who needs help!

[He gives her an angry, accusing point.]

And you think that I'm doing what I do because I like it? Because I want you people to be less than me? I've got problems of my own you self-centered twit. I can't interact with polite society without having handlers. I can't understand people, no matter how hard I try! I am MENTALLY BROKEN and there's nobody here that can fix that! But I know that, and still I try!

Nobody will follow you because they don't trust you! Nobody will follow me because they don't trust me!

WE. ARE. FUCKED.

Because we can't get our acts together and LISTEN to each other!

Edited 2015-07-18 05:21 (UTC)

[Wow Colin you really don't know Zuko well enough if you think she would have died without the Bastion. She's not even going to dignify that with a response.]

You want to talk to me about Ikuri? I hadn't heard one word out of her mouth, and because of her I had to watch two more people die that day. I'd never... [seen anyone die like that before.]

She is a liability. Until someone can help her, she's dangerous. And I was planning on trying.

If you don't understand people, then stop acting like you do. Stop acting like you know what we think about each other or the potentials we're not living up to. I'm not going to listen to you if you don't accept me as I say I am. If you don't accept that this is the best I can do right now.

People try, and they fail. It doesn't mean they're not trying. It doesn't mean they're not listening.

And THAT is why you'll never be a good ruler. Because of her, your foes retreated. Because of her, you lost less than you would have. Because of HER, your allies are still alive and we're only mourning two people instead of more. Instead of maybe all of you.

You had to watch two more people die? Cry me a river. I've had to watch BILLIONS of people die. More people than you would even know EXISTED on your world.

They had you dead to rights. You walked STRAIGHT into a kill box. And you only got out because of dumb luck, a loose cannon, and two sacrifices that never should have been made.

Your best isn't good enough, Zuko. Your best needs to get better. Failure isn't an option any more. Failure means DEATH.

If you can't get that through your head, you don't deserve to be setting foot out of the safety of the Bastion. And you sure as anything don't deserve to be "leading" anyone.

They were already retreating.

[It's said under her breath, half a growl, because she's done arguing. Because she didn't see it coming, because Crona died on her watch, everything she did right that day doesn't matter? Colin wasn't even there, and he's trying to assign credit to a berserker who would have been more help if she'd listened to orders, and luck. It wasn't luck that got them through that situation, because they sure as hell hadn't had any. It was Rob and Megaera, Tobias and Mitellux. And herself.

He's like her father. Ignoring her efforts because they don't lead to perfection. Ignoring the fact that it's hard, and perfection is impossible for anyone, not just her. Even ignoring the fact that two people dying is a big deal, even if they're enemies, because the only path to victory doesn't have to be a violently bloody one. A hard heart doesn't make a good ruler.

It took her years to learn that she doesn't have to take this. No one has the right to tell her who she is or who she will be. Especially not someone who wasn't there, and won't acknowledge the efforts of her friends either.

Forget swords. Zuko brings her leg up and kicks a plume of fire directly at Colin. Because it's Zuko, the heat dissipates quickly enough that it's unlikely to burn, but the force of it would knock a normal person down.]

[See, here's the thing Zuko.]

[He knows a lot more than he's saying.]

[But right now, he just wants to hurt you. And he's going to give you every chance to try and hurt him. Because you've certainly earned it for dealing with him all these months.]

[But the key word there is "try".]

Are you so militarily inept that you don't know what a tactical retreat looks like?

[And here comes the kick. He simply shifts his weight into it, and he barely moves when she hits him. It's a good kick, there's no denying it. But the flames don't frighten him, and he's been raised with people who've taught him at least enough about combat to not die horribly, so he knows how to take a hit.]

Harder. That would have been enough to take out a squirt, maybe.

[To say he's expecting perfection is the truth. Normally, he doesn't care. The only place perfection is expected in his life is on the job. But he's buried too many people, watched too many people make mistakes, and too many people here don't realize just how much the rules have changed.]

[When the worlds were whole, when people could live life mostly carefree, he'd have left this alone. But now, everyone else's decisions have a miserably important effect on his own life expectancy.]

We STILL know nothing about who's coming after us. You wanna root for yourself? You wanna feel good about getting screwed? That's your call. But I'm not the only one judging people by an insane metric.

[As much as Zuko wants to hurt him, she... also really doesn't want to hurt him. Not in any lasting way. She'd hate herself for it.

Even with all his goading, her next fireball just goes flying past his face. He's just standing there, he's not even fighting back.]

You think I feel good about this? You think it's insane not to want anyone dead, on any side?

I don't want to see the world you come from.

I don't particularly want ANYONE to die. It's a waste of so many things, not the least of which is a good life that shouldn't have ended!

What will it take to get you to see that?! I haven't killed ANYONE except that damn lizard that ate me, and I had a lot of help on that one! Until last week, every single weapon I've built has been non-lethal except for two turrets and a couple of HE grenades that I don't plan to use except as a last resort!

[And the grenade launcher, but that guy went and got himself killed or lost.]

But if you want to fight back without killing someone, you need to get some intel on who you're fighting! Because I GUARANTEE you that they don't feel that way about us.

And for gods' sake, quit trying to scare me! You suck at it! Work out your damn aggression already! I didn't come here to drink tea!

I'm not trying to scare you, I want to settle this!

[If Colin was a firebender she would have challenged him to about 60 agni kais by now.]

I know we need to deal with these people! I know they're still out there and they could show up any day now and attack us or attack the Ura-- but we haven't gotten them to talk yet and I bet you'll call that my failure, too!

Don't be dense! The prisoners are probably one of the few things you did well! You don't get intel out of a prisoner in just a day or two. But there are other things we need to be doing that we're NOT.

We need to go back to the Ura, investigate the scene, find out more about the weapons they used and how they made them! Find out where they retreated to! Find out if the Ura saw anything suspicious in the days leading up to it!

We need to use our brains!

[He scowls.]

Why did I even tell you to bring the swords out here if you're not gonna use 'em? You need to get out your aggression just as much as I do!

Oh, thanks, at least I did one thing right according to you.

I'm not carrying these swords for you. As much as we hate each other, we're on the same side.

And this is a waste of my time.

I'm not exactly contributing to the good of the Bastion by being out here with you either, princess!

You think I want you to try and kill me? ... Let me rephrase. You think your swords CAN? Your swords might be the only thing you've got that could do any damage to me at all.

You're the one who thought it was essential to bring me out here and insult me.

... Are you trying to tell me you're fireproof?

I'm rated in fire-fighting, I know how to minimize the harm, and my natural instinct to be afraid of fire has been suppressed. So yes, for all intents and purposes, I am flame resistant.

And I brought you out here to try and get through to you and maybe let you work out some aggression. The insults are just a happy bonus.

Day 325 [Open]

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