EVENT: Day 322 [open]

[bastionpc]

Who: Those who went to the Ura camp, plus anyone in the Bastion
Open: Open
When: Day 322
Where: Northern Bastion + wherever
What: Everyone comes back from the Ura camp. They have a core, but they also have some very bad news.
Format: action
Warnings: dead character within



[Late on Day 322, getting closer to evening, the group finally returns from the Ura camp. Vee and Zee have been left behind, as they were going home anyway, but there are a few changes to the rest of the party.

First off, there are two new people, but they don't look particularly happy to be here. They are also being watched closely by at least a couple of the group of Bastion people.

Secondly, only seven of the eight who left are returning from this trip alive.]

Comments

[/3 in the end!] - keywords relevant, I guess? also editing out durr

[darkshooter]

[Welp, right at the start of things...that sharp look would've been nothing to her; had your eyes met for it, you would've gotten a sharp look right back. Specifically: Do not do this. I have no desire to harm you but I will go over you if I need to...and if you fight me, I promise I shall fight back. Do not put me in that position.]

[If you caught that look, that is. And if you did, it would've only been for a few seconds; she's unwilling to stay on Zuko's eyes, not on account of feeling at all intimidated, but rather the opposite. The struggle Ikuri faces is to keep reason in the face of hunger: the former fueled by trust, the latter by anger and grief. The favor of that battle sways like a pendulum - not only with each passing moment, but each sentence spoken by a given party. And such direct challenges as those you are repeatedly handing her? Are not only feeding that darker side, but scratching very familiar Old World itches.]

[In short, she is not intimidated by you, but you are in fact kind of threatening her stability. And how's that for irony: she's trying to serve the cause you want in spite of you. Stop helping, Zuko.]

[And speaking of helping...many of Colin's words, they need addressing. In the opening, he was right. Other things, though...other words and concepts bothered Ikuri as surely as Zuko's did, if not more so. We gain nothing by your deaths. True, but only for the moment. Ikuri is waiting for that to change. Hungry tiger is sure she's going to get her scraps once the others are finished, you see. And really, that particular hope is her primary weapon against the hungrier side, paired with "killing them won't help Crona, it's what they know that will help Crona, and we need that."]

[But the finality, see, the finality of that stated concept: we are not going to hurt you. The difference between 'yet' and 'ever' might be the difference between Ikuri winning...or losing.]


[It is possible that the engineer is only weaving a deception. She is intimately familiar with such means firsthand; she never used them, only suffered them. A cruel thing indeed to be employing here, and if she cared anything for these wretches she might've actually spoken against it.]

[But that one thing, that one word, 'justice'...see, that's a little something she can't get past, Zuko - she's wrestling with that idea in her head over and over. Killing those who wronged you - even killing those who lost a combat - that is justice. That's how things were done, the accepted method. Yes, the Bastion is different; it's a different world, these are different people, they're not Otherian, they're not fighters of her species or make. She's made progress in accepting and incorporating this.]

[But justice? Justice?]