thebastion | Day 236 [Open]

Entry tags:

Day 236 [Open]

Who: Zuko and anyone
Open: Open!
When: Day 236
Where: All over the Bastion
What: Toph is gone. =(
Format: I'll match
Warnings: Honor

The first day, she wasn't worried. The second, she tried not to be. But now it's the third day that she hasn't seen the only other person from her world that she knows is still alive. Not one to sit idle, Zuko spends most of the morning searching the Bastion for any sign of her friend, asking whoever she runs into:

"Have you seen Toph?"

By afternoon she decides to move her search beyond the Bastion. She shoulders her swords and leads one of the ostrich horses out to the bridge to the Skyway, but there she stops. She's lectured more than one person on the dangers of going out alone. As much as she wants to get moving, it won't help Toph if she just gets herself into trouble, and it would be hypocritical of her not to wait for someone to join her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It may not be who Zuko wants, but Colin's noticed Zuko's search.

"Rosethorn and Skysong have been gone for over a day as well," Colin says, approaching from behind while Zuko's preparing the ostrich horse. "They may have gone out as a group. It's worrying that they haven't come back..."

He gives a nod to the ostrich horse. "Mind if I accompany you?" he asks. "Rosethorn doesn't have the best health."

No, Colin is not exactly the person Zuko would have picked, but she knows he can handle himself on the Skyway which is really what she needs right now.

"Can you ride? I have more ostrich horses." This one can carry two, but that will slow it down some. Plus she'd... be riding with Colin.

"I can ride, though I'm not familiar with this species," Colin says, studying the ostrich horse. "If they've got any particular mannerisms I need to know about..."

His father owns an extensive stable, with mounts from a half-dozen different worlds. Colin's not an avid rider, but he knows his way around an animal well enough to not get thrown, or bother the poor creature.

"These aren't war mounts, so they're fairly docile. Give it a try."

It's not like Zuko had any experience with them before she stole one. She'd mostly ridden komodo rhinos before that. Those can be tempermental.

"Got'cha," Colin says, walking up to the animals, letting them get a little more comfortable with his presence before he tries anything. Once he finds an animal that doesn't seem put off by him, he reaches out a hand to put it on the bird's neck.

"We're going to need to figure out a good search path, though," he says as he lets the ostrich horse prepare itself for what's to come. "Have you got any ideas on that?"

"I don't know about the other two, but Toph would avoid places where she can't see. Not that that narrows it down much, but I think we can at least rule out Jawson's Bog."

Though Zuko has had a lot of experience with 'search all the places' so being able to rule someplace out? Always a good thing.

"The bog is dangerous when you can see," Colin says, sighing. "If we were going there, we'd need a lot more than the two of us. If, for some reason, they couldn't get back to the Bastion, Rosethorn might have taken them to the observatory. But that's two days away on foot, so we'd be gone for a while. I'm due to fly out there again in a day or two with Paar, so I can check that out tomorrow."

He starts to pet the ostrich horse's neck gently as he speaks. "We should probably check the mines, I think," he says. "From what I understand, Toph would have felt more relaxed there. And there's a lot of reasons to go back there..."

Edited 2014-10-06 21:32 (UTC)

Zuko nods in agreement. "Any earthbender would have an advantage there. Maybe she took them to look for more of those big shards."

It does make sense for Toph to pick a place like that, when she's still learning how to handle a weapon and her best defense is her bending. Even with the place infested with snake birds, they're also basically earthbenders, so that's something Toph can deal with, not like the peckers and windbags that she can't see in the air.

"Let's get going."

"Agreed," Colin says. He moves to mount the ostrich horse carefully, not seeming to mind that there's no saddle for it. "You lead, I'll bring up the rear, see if I can't find any trace of them with my scanners."

He's hesitant to work with Zuko, but so long as they keep things professional, it should be fine. He's also more than certain that Zuko feels the same way.

Zuko mounts her ostrich horse swiftly, obviously comfortable with it, and urges it on out towards the Skyway.

"How do those work?" She's reluctant to ask him about another one of his technological mysteries because the explanations tend to be annoying, but if those scanners are going to be part of the search effort then it'll help to know.

"It's difficult to explain," Colin says, following behind Zuko. "It's mounted in my eye, and it detects specific presences in the world. For example, I can tell you exactly where a fire is anywhere within twenty miles. It can do it for any number of things. Biological signatures, certain chemicals, and heat."

As expected, she understood maybe half of that. She isn't sure how a person can see those sorts of things, especially not twenty miles away, but at least someone being able to 'see' differently from her is not a new concept.

"So you can 'see' body heat? ...well enough to distinguish people?" If he picks up on heat from animals, it might not be that helpful after all.

He won't even try to explain infravision to Zuko. That would probably make her mind implode on itself.

"Combined with the other sensors, I can tell the difference between people and animals, yes," he says. "If it's someone I'm familiar with, I can even pick them out of a crowd. ... I'm familiar with Rosethorn, so if she's with Toph and we come anywhere near them, I'll be able to find them."

She's a firebender. It might not be that far out.

"I thought you'd met Toph."

Always a possibility.

"I'd met her and spoken with her a couple of times, but not enough to be able to recognize her at a distance based on scans," he explains. "Think... trying to spot someone who you've only met once or twice in a crowd, at a distance. If you know what you're looking for, it's possible, but it's not easy."

He gently urges his ostrich horse forward, riding a little closer to her. "It's a matter of having a lot of information, and being able to filter the important stuff from the unimportant stuff," he says.

"I think I get it."

She's looking around now as they ride, although honestly Toph is more likely to notice them coming than Zuko is to spot her first. Assuming she's all right.

"We must all seem pretty stupid to you, not knowing these things."

"If I thought people were stupid for not knowing things, I'd have to consider myself stupid," Colin replies. "I come from a universe with different knowledge, different priorities. There's plenty of stuff you know that I don't. That everyone knows that I don't."

He smirks, a little wider than is perhaps necessary. "I'm a genius, and I know it," he says, not showing any trace of modesty. "But I wasn't raised to lord it over anyone, or think it makes me better than anyone. It just means I was educated differently, that's all."

Educated differently, huh? She can't argue with that. She stopped going to school when she was banished, and she learned later that most of that was Fire Nation propaganda anyway. She just wonders what she's supposed to know that Colin doesn't, besides the history of her own world.

"Well, I don't hear you ask many questions."

Combat, leadership, knowledge of bending... Colin can recite these the moment she asks, and that's just off the top of his head.

"I'm also incredibly arrogant, as you may have noticed," Colin tells her, giving a quiet chuckle. "I prefer to stay where my knowledge is useful. When I'm in the kitchen, I defer to Rin. When I need help with gardening, I ask Rosethorn. When I'm unsure of something, I ask Paar. Otherwise? You'll find me in my workshop, building and planning, and rarely asking questions unless it's necessary for a project."

Self-love and acknowledgement of her own talents would clearly not be on that list though.

"You really aren't a leader. And I don't mean that as an insult this time." Which... pretty much implies she's meant it that way before, but oh well. "I just... think it's important not to get stuck in what you already know, or what you think you know."

"Oh please," he replies, rolling his eyes. "The only thing I should be leading is an engineering department, with people who know my skills and who have studied my work. I don't have the qualifications to lead anything else. I'm the only person in the family that dad has said is NOT in the running to lead the empire when he steps down or passes. And that's for the best."

You're not telling him anything he doesn't know here, Zuko.

"Unfortunately, they way things are, we've got to rely on our strengths to get us through this," he tells her, shaking his head. "We haven't got the luxury to step out of our comfort zones for self-improvement. We've got enough of that just trying to survive. What I wouldn't give to be able to attend one of my department's continuing education seminars right now..."

He doesn't act like he knows that one a lot of the time.

"Your father is an emperor?"

Zuko shakes her head. "We might not have the time to focus on skills we can't use, but there's time to learn some things."

"He is," Colin says. "I can tell you more about him, if you're actually interested. I really look up to him."

He smirks then, and he shakes his head. "Some people have time. I have breaks to rest my brain. I haven't stopped working since I've arrived here several months ago. The Bastion needs a lot of work to keep everyone comfortable, to keep everything running. Nathan hardly sleeps, for much the same reason."

"I don't know if we look up to the same kinds of people..." Although, Colin does respect Paarthurnax, so maybe they do. Who knows. "I just wouldn't have pegged you for royalty."

She glances over at him, considering for a moment if she's going to regret asking. "What are you working on all the time?" She assumes that lately it's been that information machine they asked him to make, but who knows what he's been doing before that?

"Oh, dad's nothing like me at all," he says, laughing in amusement. "He's a real people person, knows what to say all the time, knows how to lead people. Brave, strong, able to stand up to anyone and anything. A lot of things I wish I could be."

He shakes his head then, still smirking fondly at thoughts of his father. "Let's see. The farm, the skiff, the observatory, Rin's kitchen, gathering supplies and making repairs, getting the training yard's exercise range set up, working on a solution to the power source, working on getting us some better transportation options, getting Yukio set up to be our new doctor, helping set up things for the events that we have every so often..."

He pauses, thinking as he rides.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject