thebastion | [Day 197] Open | You could say he's absolutely alluring.

Entry tags:

dropped: ryu (3)

[Day 197] Open | You could say he's absolutely alluring.

Who: Ryu (3), Zuko, open!
Open: Open
When: Day 197
Where: The river!
What: Dragons go fishing, it's a thing that happens!
Format: I'll match!
Warnings: Ryu is a huge dork about fishing.

The morning proves particularly eventful with everything going on, but with troubles resolved and friends taken care of, Ryu finds time to indulge in his favorite hobby. In truth, he's been wanting to go fishing for the longest time, but there was always something going on at the Bastion. After returning home from the hospital, Ryu tracks down Zuko's home after a bit of searching and asking other residents where she might be staying. Once he finds her home, he tacks a note to the door explaining where he'll be, of course taking special care to procure a second fishing rod. With that taken care of, Ryu takes off for the lake near Paarthunax's field.

As far as species of fish he recognizes, there aren't many. What little he can see looks vaguely familiar to some species he's seen before, but he doesn't have any real idea if they're anywhere near similar to what he would have found back home. He figures there's only one way to find out. With a deft cast of his line, Ryu watches the lure sail through the air and land in the water. He knows the lake isn't that deep, so his particular choice of lure is one that won't sink terribly quick.

Now the wait begins, though he wonders if Zuko will show up before he catches anything.

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Zuko's day perhaps hasn't been quite as eventful, but she has spent less of it training and more of it talking to other people than usual. She's stopping back home with the thought of fetching her swords and changing that when she finds the note.

The note that she can't read.

She squints at it for a few minutes, but about all she can discern is that it probably isn't from Rin, and she's not sure who else would be leaving her notes. Is it urgent or important? No idea. With a sigh, she takes the note from her door and sets out to find someone who can explain it to her. Maybe Paarthurnax's isn't the only language she should start learning.

Luckily, with her home being not far from the river, Ryu is actually one of the first people she comes across. "Hey." She holds the paper out to him. "Can you read this?"

He looks up to Zuko with a smile, prepared to greet her and welcome her to sit at his side. It's when his eyes fall to his note that the cogs start turning in his head. "Oh, Zuko! I see you got my n--" He answers, then stops himself mid sentence. Oh, right. Just because they can understand each other doesn't mean anyone in the Bastion has any earthly idea of what the hell he's written down.

"Oh, jeez. I'm really sorry, I didn't even think of that." He answers after a moment, cheeks burning red from embarrassment at his mistake. "That was supposed to be an invitation to come fishing with me today. I brought a spare rod and some bait." Ryu explains while motioning to the spare fishing pole resting in the grass. For all his skill with a sword and the whole being a dragon thing, the boy can be a little awkward sometimes.

"Well... I guess it worked one way or another if you're here!" He adds with a small laugh after a moment of thinking.

Zuko snorts when she realizes the absurdity of what just happened; it's the closest she normally gets to laughter. "Yeah, I guess it did."

She glances at the note again, then folds it up to tuck it away. Nothing urgent, just an invitation to go fishing. While that's something of a relief, she's not especially excited about this after her last experience fishing. Of course, she'd been a hungry, penniless fugitive at the time who hadn't known what she was doing. Having someone to teach her and not needing to catch anything should make this less frustrating.

She takes a seat next to him and picks up the rod he's left for her. "So... what do I do?"

"Well, first you need to bait your hook. I've already threaded and set the hook on the line for you, you just need to put on the bait." He motions to a metal container with the lid loosely hanging on. "Usually you would use worms or some other bait depending on what you're trying to catch. Once you have that done, you're ready to cast your line."

He reels his line back, drawing the hook back out of the water and up to the tip of his fishing pole, showing the bait is still there. He hasn't let it sit for very long, so it was unlikely he would catch anything just yet. "So when you're ready, just do as I do." He adds, turning his body so that Zuko can very clearly see his cast technique.

Ryu curls his arm back and flicks his right arm forward with a practiced and precise motion. If he were really so inclined, he could clearly land his hook anywhere in the lake he wants, but he chooses to aim for the center where the water is presumably deepest. Ryu lets his arm linger as the hook flies through the air again, until he confirms seeing the hook land in the water. "Don't worry if you have difficulty with it at first, it takes practice. I've been doing it all my life, it's a good way to eat when you're out on the road."

With his line cast, he takes his seat once again and turns to Zuko with a smile. "Now you try."

Edited 2014-06-13 12:13 (UTC)

Zuko watches him carefully before picking something out of the bait box and sticking it on her hook. At least she's not squeamish.

She tries to immitate his cast, pulling her arm back and then throwing it forward. It's not bad for a first try in that the hook doesn't catch in her hair or anything but manages to land in the water, but she doesn't really have the motion down. It's clear she wouldn't be able to get that hook to land anywhere she wanted, and she frowns at her own lack of precision.

"Getting my own food wasn't exactly required learning for me," she mutters. Even in her banishment, she'd had money for supplies and someone to cook for her. At least until Zhao took her crew and blew up her ship.

"There's a saying where I come from. Give someone a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach them how to catch their own fish, and you feed them for life." He answers back, watching her technique with interest. "Not bad for someone who hasn't really done this before. Just practice, it will come in time."

With that he leans back, lazily holding the rod in one hand. "Now we wait. Fishing has a lot to do with waiting and patience, so we can find ways to pass the time, but you never want to completely lose focus on your lure, otherwise a fish might come along and take your bait without a fair fight."

Edited 2014-06-13 12:44 (UTC)

"Waiting and patience, huh? It sounds like something my uncle would've enjoyed." He never was in a hurry about much of anything.

Zuko can be patient. Sometimes. Maybe she was never all that good at meditating, but passing time with someone else is a little different. ... No, she's still bad at that, too.

It's okay, they'll have plenty of time to work on that. "From what you've told me about him, he sounds like a good guy." While Ryu is curious to learn more about Zuko, he's not sure how much he should push the subject. Instead, he settles for a different question. "There's something I've been wondering, if you don't mind talking about it. Well... A few things, actually." He adds after a moment, unsure of where to begin.

"It's something I've been thinking about for awhile, but... Do you remember what went through your head when you saw me transform? I know it sounds like a weird question, but I just want to be sure nobody is scared of what I am." The explanation comes with an apprehensive expression. It's pretty clear this is something that has been bothering him for awhile.

Edited 2014-06-13 13:08 (UTC)

"He was," Zuko confirms. With time, it's getting easier to talk about the people and things that she's lost, but thinking about them still makes her sad.

She glances over at him at the question, and tries to think back. "I was pretty surprised," she says, "but we were in the middle of a fight. I didn't have time to think about it." She's had time enough to think about it since then, but her mind hasn't really gone back to it. There are so many strange things for her here--people 'bending' more than one element, Kitten's mind speech, washing machines--that if she took the time to be weirded out by all of them, she wouldn't be doing much else.

So she just shrugs. "It's weird, but it doesn't scare me. It's just something you can do, right?"

Edited 2014-06-13 15:08 (UTC)

He nods. "Yeah. There used to be more people with this power, but they all gave it up to hide from the Goddess who was hunting us." Though he isn't sure if he should tell Zuko everything about all that, or if she would even want to know. If anything, Ryu is more curious to learn about Zuko. "I've seen fire magic before, but nothing like your bending." Though what he really wants to ask about is the scar. With the way her hair seems to fall around it, it seems like something she's trying to cover up.

But people can be sensitive, especially about something like this, so he isn't sure exactly how to bring it up, other than to just ask. "I... don't want you to feel like you have to answer this, but I'm curious to find out how that scar happened." His voice goes a little softer, hoping that maybe seeming a little smaller won't rouse any sort of anger in Zuko.

Zuko goes rigid at the question, her grip tightening around the fishing rod. She's been asked before, but more often the subject is left to silent speculation. She's wondered once or twice what people in the Bastion assume; maybe, like her former crew, they think it's from some kind of training accident. Fire is a dangerous element.

Ryu is the first person here to actually ask. In the past, she would have refused to answer out of shame. But she isn't ashamed of what happened anymore. She knows who was in the wrong.

"...my father gave it to me." There is a low anger in her voice, but it isn't anger at Ryu.

"Why would he do something like that?" He snapped, showing one of the few times Ryu actually has any anger in him. Zuko seems like such a nice person, so what kind of cruel person could do that to her? It didn't seem fair, no matter what the reason.

"Family shouldn't hurt each other..." Of course, Ryu's experience with family is really only about Rei and Teepo, and given he and Teepo eventually had to fight... Well, he'll still stand by what he says. "How did it happen?"

Zuko gives a start, surprised by Ryu's anger. She doesn't know what kind of reaction she was expecting, but she's not used to other people being angrier than her. No, that's not exactly right. Her anger may be quieter right now, but it runs deeper.

"My father was a terrible person." That much has gotten easy to say. What's harder is the how. She's never had to explain it to anyone; either they knew, or they didn't. She could let it go at that, but if Ryu is going to know what happened, then he should understand it in full.

"You asked me about duels before. When I was thirteen, my father demanded I fight an Agni Kai, a fire duel, because I spoke out of turn at an important war council. I didn't realize he would be my opponent. When the duel began, I refused to fight."

She raises one hand to her scar. "He said this, was to teach me respect."

"You didn't deserve that." He answers without a hint of hesitation. "I don't know how you guys exactly do things where you come from, but hurting children, especially your own children is treated as a harsh and terrible crime." It's pretty clear from the way he's talking that any sort of violence or abuse against children is something of a nerve for him.

He didn't realize it until know, but the grip on his fishing pole had gone white knuckle. He loosens his grip, realizing he probably could have crushed the handle of the fishing pole easily at that point. It takes him a moment to calm himself, exhaling softly until the fire he feels inside of him subsides. He wants to say something, but he can't quite figure the words that he wants to say.

"For what it's worth, I think you're very strong. You faced something like that, and who knows what else, and you carry yourself with your head held high." He pauses for a moment, thinking on what to say. "I guess... Sometimes it looks like you're trying to hide your scar, under your hair. But you shouldn't, because it doesn't take away from who you are. If anything, it proves that no matter what he did to you, you're still the better person in the end."

"It took me a long time to realize that," she admits. Ozai had done it in front of an audience, hundreds of people who, with the exception of her uncle, probably thought he was in the right to do it. People who probably agreed with her subsequent banishment, who thought she was weak, and a disgrace to their nation. And she'd bought into that, for a long time.

She feels like most of the people here would have understood how wrong it was from the start. Which is good, but she wonders where that comes from. Are some people just born knowing right from wrong?

She shifts uncomfortably at his last statement, returning both hands to the fishing pole. "I know it's just a mark, and by itself, it doesn't change who I am. But it's still a scar. People don't like seeing it." What it did to her skin, the way her eye squints, the complete loss of her eyebrow... it's ugly. If it were anywhere else, she could hide it better.

"I don't think that's the case." He says after thinking for a moment. "At least to me, it's just part of you. It doesn't make you ugly or anything like that." He might have even gone so far to describe Zuko as pretty, but felt that might have been a bit too forward for how little they know of each other still.

Of course, Ryu had plenty of scars of his own from being beaten and bruised through his journey. If Zuko looked closely enough, there were a few that trailed out from beneath the bandages wrapped around his forearms and up to his hands. Whether the bandages were there to hide something or for the sake of padding beneath his gloves was difficult to say.

That's the thing though: if she looked closely. A person would have to be blind not to notice hers.

...funny thought, that.

Zuko just scoffs at Ryu, obviously not believing him. "I know what it looks like. I don't need anyone trying to coddle me. You can learn to look past it, that's all."

"I'm not trying to coddle you. Why would I do that to someone I see as equal?" He asks, looking a little confused. He isn't the type of person to do that sort of thing, thoughhe figures Zuko may not know that. "I mean what I say."

She's close to flat-out calling him a liar, but between the sincerity in his expression and what she knows about him so far, it just doesn't make sense. Of course, neither does what he's saying.

"Then you need to get your eyes checked. No one's going to be interested in me for my looks."

"Alright, so how should I prove I'm telling the truth?" He asks, wondering what she might come up with. However, his expression is still one that's stubborn and resolute. "If you won't take me at my word, then give me something to prove I'm not lying." Despite the challenge, he doesn't sound angry. If anything, he can see this is definitely something that has been bothering Zuko for quite some time.

"There's nothing for you to prove," she insists with equal stubbornness. It was fine to be ugly as a soldier, as a refugee, as a traitor, and now at the end of the world, it's fine. No one even knows what it means, except for Ryu. Why should it bother her? It doesn't. It's fine.

"So you believe me then?" He asks, glancing back to his line for a moment. The hook has dipped a few times, but he hasn't felt that significant pull yet. He expects a bite sooner or later, though their minor bout of bickering might have scared the fish a little.

"I believe you're a little delusional." It's the only explanation.

And yeah, the argument probably isn't helping to attract the fish.

Ryu can't help but laugh a little. "Is it really so hard to believe that someone doesn't think you're ugly?" In Ryu's defense, he also thought a naga demigod looked better with her lower half as a snake than as a human, so either he's really open minded, or Zuko might be onto something.

"When I see you, I see someone who has suffered a lot, but you're still putting yourself on the line for others. We're a lot alike at least in that respect. But you definitely have better control over fire than I do." He answers with a sheepish grin. It's not so much that he couldn't learn to use fire magic, but his dragon forms only gave him two settings: Flash Burn and Nuke.

Edited 2014-06-15 02:35 (UTC)

Zuko looks at him. He really is sincere, isn't he? Well... she still has her good side, and 'not ugly' isn't a strong endorsement for her looks either. "Maybe not," she says. It's the closest she'll get to conceding his point without that proof he was talking about.

She's glad for the new topic, though. "There are a number of people here who don't seem to have good control over their own abilities."

For a moment, he turns back towards the line, expression turning a bit more solemn. "I still remember when that was true for me. I was terrified I would hurt other people, and that was only made worse when I did end up doing that and more when I wasn't in control." He pauses, it's pretty clear this is a difficult subject for him. "None of you have to worry now, of course."

What he doesn't mention is there are still some nights that he can't sleep. He can still hear the screams of innocent miners he burned alive, either because he was afraid, or angry. He didn't want anyone coming anywhere near him after Angel Tower.

She didn't realize she was hitting on something that bothered him instead.

"It's different if you hurt people unintentionally, and that's easier when you don't know what you're doing. I'm guessing you didn't have a teacher either." He did say his abilities were rare, though she isn't sure exactly how rare.

He shakes his head in response. "I didn't find out until much later that of all the Brood, there were only three left who weren't dead or didn't surrender their power in order to hide from her. Circumstances led me to fighting and killing the other two. One of them willingly to give me the power to challenge the Goddess who destroyed them, and the other was one of my adopted brothers."

In reality, it hadn't been that long since either event happened for him. From his arrival to the Bastion to now, it had only been about thirty days or so, if he was keeping track properly. "The Goddess believed my people were too powerful, that they would destroy the world. She made Teepo believe that, and he would have stopped at nothing to keep me from leaving Myria Station to see the Goddess herself."

He's silent for a minute before he continues. "Now that I hold the full potential of my people, Myria had every right to be afraid."

"...I'm not sure I understand all of it, but it doesn't sound like any of that was easy for you."

She does assume it was longer ago, though, for him to have learned control of himself. She'd taught Aang fairly quickly, but he was the epitome of natural talent, having mastered firebending hundreds of times before. For most people, it takes years of practice and discipline.

"And I still don't think you're scary. It isn't how much power a person holds, but how they use it that's frightening. Someone who's in balance with himself and with the world... That's nothing to be afraid of."

"It's a long story tied into an even longer war. My people were waiting for their Prince of Dragons to appear to deliver them from Myria. They spent four hundred years, if not longer, waiting for me to wake up and make it across the ocean." For all the title meant now, but perhaps the prayers Zuko might have had the chance to overhear at the Shrine made a little more sense now.

"I'd be lying if I said revenge never crossed my mind. I've used my powers twice out of anger. Once against the men who burned down my home and tried to murder my family. The second time was against Myria herself." Though if anyone were to ever ask him if he regretted it, he would always answer no. Even if he could find it in himself to forgive Balio and Sunder, the two and their gang had made so many people suffer. When he had his chance, he took it. None would ever find a trace of them aside from their ashes scattered in the wind. They got off lightly compared to Myria.

"But she was wrong about one thing. If it wasn't for protecting Nina, I would have never willingly changed into a dragon. I just want to keep my friends safe, even if I wasn't strong enough to stop the Calamity. I can still throw everything I've got into protecting the people who live here."

And Zuko thought a hundred years of war was long.

"Only twice? I couldn't count how many times I've used my firebending in anger." Though, she's never killed anyone with it. She's had the opportunity a few times, but she hasn't.

"Protecting everyone in the Bastion... is a good use for power. My nation is gone, so- it's what I want to do, too."

He nods in agreement. "At least that I can remember. Some of my time as a dragon is... Hazy. I can't tell you how strange it felt to walk without a tail after so many years." Nowadays shifting between his myriad forms and moving around with them was effortless, but before all of that practical experience he was clumsy and prone to either missing his attacks or causing a bit more collateral damage than he would have liked.

"There's some part of me that hopes that... Maybe someday, we can find a way to fix things. However delusional that might sound." He knows it certainly sounds like a long shot, but he misses his friends and remaining family so. He knows he should probably just keep moving forward, but he has little doubt everyone in the Bastion at least partially shares the sentiment of wanting to go home.

Except for Aoi and her crazy murder school run by an unbearable dictator.

Zuko actually glances behind him as though looking for the tail that isn't there. She's gotten kind of used to Rin's, so it's at least one thing that doesn't strike her as weird anymore. "You couldn't- keep it or something?" No idea how the shapeshifting works.

Her expression quickly sobers again. How do you 'fix' everyone being dead? She's seen the statues, and the most hope she holds out is that there are people lost on the Skyway whom they have yet to find.

"It is pretty delusional," she states. "But... I can understand wanting it."

Ryu shrugs, he doesn't really understand how it works aside from what genes grant what transformations. "It would make me a little more conspicuous, don't you think? It helps me balance when my body weight shifts or when I can actually sort of fly. Aside from that, it'd probably just get in the way." Though when he thinks about it, he realizes Zuko has only really seen the Behemoth in action, and not some of his lighter and faster forms. Or Kaiser, for that matter.

He's a little embarrassed by what comes next. "It's kind of funny, actually. I can sort of glide short distances, but I've never really had time to learn how to fly. At least until we found our way to the land beyond the ocean. It would have been a problem to explain why a dragon was flying around when they were all supposed to be dead. I hope I can work on that while I'm living here, it would make things easier if I could carry someone in an emergency."

"I don't know that it'd make you that conspicuous here." He might even blend in more with their growing dragon population.

Zuko blinks. A dragon who doesn't know how to fly? She would have thought that came naturally somehow, but then, plenty of other animals have to learn how. "Have you asked Paarthurnax?" He would be the authority on the matter, after all.

She actually has a point, at least as far as he's concerned. "I haven't yet. We usually get caught up talking about his language and other stuff from his world's history." Though now that she mentions it, he probably would be the best person, er, dragon to ask.

"Definitely a smart idea, though. He could teach me plenty about it. Now I just have to pick a form I can last in long enough to get anywhere." The whole time limit thing is something that's never really come up to anyone else before, but he definitely feels more fatigue after changing since coming to the Bastion. He isn't sure of his exact limitations, but it's something he should definitely be testing.

"He does have a lot to tell." Zuko probably hasn't spoken to him as much as Ryu, but it doesn't take many conversations to figure that one out.

With the exception of Skysong, she hasn't talked to anyone much about their abilities being different here. Maybe it's instinct, not wanting to make obvious a weakness, but it seems to be the same for everyone.

"So just being in one of your other forms has its limits, huh?"

There's a reason we call him grandpa. "Yeah, though there have been times my life has been in mortal danger, and that lets me linger in a tougher body while my wounds heal, but I don't have much control over that." As he speaks, one of his hands drifts to his lower back, a reminder of the first time he changed. A knife through the back should have killed him, but all it did was woke his power up and knocked him out for a few hours.

"It's gotten worse since getting here. I feel more tired after I change back."

Zuko prefers 'uncle dragon.' Her grandfather ordered her to be killed.

"I can only firebend for so long every day before it's just... gone. It's a little unnerving."

"Same with my healing magic. It's why I've been asking Colin to teach me more about medicine. I shouldn't rely on something I can't count on, you know?" Though he certainly wishes his magic was as powerful as it used to be.

The longer he thought about it, the more his answer feels like it made sense. "Do you think it's part of the Calamity? I haven't asked around, but it seems like too much to be just a coincidence."

"Yeah." She's been using her swords a lot more than she used to. By necessity, they've become her first mode of attack, with her bending reserved for more difficult foes and tight spots. But even with them to fall back on, she doesn't like it. It's one thing to choose not to firebend, it's another not to be able to.

"It has to be part of the Calamity," Zuko says. "This world is completely out of balance. It's hard to say why it affects everyone the way it does, but I can't say I'm that surprised things don't work the way they're meant to."

"It might be something to ask Colin about, or maybe one of the people native here." Though he isn't sure how much they would know about it, given they're likely not as affected by the change if this is the world they're originally from. For better or worse, when something needs explaining via science, Colin is usually the first person he'll think to ask.

"I wonder... If we can spend shards to rebuild things, do you think they can do more than that? Maybe make something that can help us feel a little more stable with our powers?" It's certainly an idea, but Ryu has no idea how powerful the Bastion actually is when it comes to rebuilding stuff.

"I don't know. I haven't even thought about using mine until lately..." She's still hesitant, not because she can't think of what to do with them, but because she has no understanding of how the Bastion's powers work. And unlike Ryu, she's not interested in asking Colin.

"It doesn't seem like it can affect things outside the Bastion, though. The moon we have here can't be seen from the Skyway." She has to wonder if a waterbender would even be able to bend out there.

The moon is something Ryu never realized, especially since he rarely, if ever, will travel the Skyway at night. "Maybe it can get strong enough to do that if we find more of those Cores. It's worth a try, anyway."

It's starting to dawn on him that nothing has bitten on the line just yet, but at the same time he doesn't necessarily mind. He's come to enjoy Zuko's company, and he hopes she's been enjoying doing something a little different, even if he hasn't been able to teach her much about fishing.

"Maybe. They seem pretty rare." Despite everyone's efforts on the Skyway, the last one was found shortly after Zuko's arrival here.

And speaking of rare... "Is it supposed to take this long to catch anything?"

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[Day 197] Open | You could say he's absolutely alluring.

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