thebastion | Day 210 [Open]

Entry tags:

Day 210 [Open]

Who: Zuko, ostrich horses, and you!
Open: Open!
When: Day 210, morning
Where: Near the monument
What: More weird animals.
Format: I'll match
Warnings: Honor

Anyone outside this morning might run across Zuko looking over a small flock (or is it a herd?) of ostrich horses. That's right, she's at last used some of her shards to bring more strange animals into the Bastion. The turtle ducks were not enough.

She's touched, used, even eaten things that came from shards, but none of them have been familiar until now. She thought there might have been something to give them away as copies or imitations, but as far as she can tell? They're perfectly normal ostrich horses.

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That might be a helpful skill to learn around here.

"'Chicken lizard'?" Rob mutters under his breath, then gives his head a slight shake and gets back on track.

"And when you try, and your trying only delays failure rather than creates success? How long can you go on before you start coming to the conclusion that you just don't have what it takes to succeed?"

"I would never come to that conclusion. If some people get things handed to them on a silver platter, some of us have to struggle for it. And that means failing, a lot. It never means it's not worth trying."

"Knowing something intellectually isn't the same as feeling it in your heart."

He lightly thumped his chest with a fist, but there was no real energy in it.

"Well, then that's another problem you're going to have to deal with."

Zuko is accepting no excuses.

"Yup."

He says it like he already knew it, though there's no sarcasm, only a sense of being resigned to his fate.

"You're infuriating."

The nearest ostrich horse gives a snort-squawk, reacting to Zuko's tone, and moves away a few steps.

"Yeah, I know."

Again, he sounds like he's resigned to that fate.

"Don't just accept it!"

He opens his mouth to say something and turns to face her, a look of frustration and pain poorly-concealed by irritation on his face. Before he can say anything though he stops. Zuko might be able to recognize what's happening from his gaze; he's finally noticed her scar and is looking at it, then realizes he's staring and looks lower but keeps seeing it out of the corner of his eye, then he looks even lower and realizes that he must look like he's staring at her chest, so he looks back up, can't avoid looking at the scar, and finally latches on to looking at one of the ostrich horses to escape. His train of thought has evidently derailed, since he doesn't say anything, only clenching his teeth and displaying a slightly pained look as he mentally kicks himself.

Zuko narrows her eyes at him. Not because of the unintentional look at her chest--there isn't much there to stare at so it's not something that even registers--but because she can definitely recognize a reaction to her scar.

"What?"

He flinches slightly.

Oh shit she noticed. I can't even tell her it's a cool-looking scar; it isn't.

He continues to look at the ostrich horse. His voice drops in volume, almost like a verbal cower.

"I-It's not important."

It should be obvious by now that cowering is not something Zuko has ever wasted much time on, and she has no problem getting up in his face in an attempt to force him to look at her.

"No, tell me. I'm sure I'd be interested to know."

Rob steps back at the violation of his personal space. Even worse is the idea of having to make eye contact with someone else, which is almost forced by the situation. The source of his sudden apprehension will probably go misinterpreted though. He attempts to compensate by looking at Zuko's mouth instead of her eyes; normally he can do it so that people don't notice the difference, but if Zuko is paying extremely close attention to where his eyes are aimed she might notice what he's doing.

He frantically tries to remember what he was going to say before he finally noticed her scar.

"I-I don't just accept it. But I can't change it."

No, it doesn't quite seem like he's meeting her gaze. Hope that works out for him because she's not looking away or backing off.

"That's still nonsense, and I'm pretty sure it's not what was going through your mind just now."

As long as he doesn't have to make eye contact with anyone it's better than nothing.

As it is, he's silent for a moment before scowling slightly. When he speaks again his voice has gained some volume.

"What do you want me to say? We've both already made up our minds about me."

Zuko huffs. He isn't going to own up to staring at her scar, is he? Honestly, she isn't sure why she's pushing it. People have always done that, they just haven't been doing it here.

Or maybe it's precisely because of what it means, and what they've been talking about, that it bothers her. Her father gave it to her because he thought she was a failure, an idea she's spent her entire life fighting against. Is this what happens to a person when they don't fight it at all?

"I haven't," she states. "All I know is that you're really getting on my nerves. You're the only one who's going to keep yourself from changing."

She prods him in the chest for emphasis.

He steps back when he's poked with teeth clenched and a pained look. His hands clench into fists, unclench, and then... he just stands there, looking somewhere around Zuko's shoulder, saying nothing.

Zuko said something he knows intellectually is true, and he doesn't want to think about it.

Zuko finally withdraws a few steps herself, folding her arms.

"You know I'm right."

...wow, she doesn't get to be right very often. It almost makes this less annoying.

"Head; heart," he says quietly, head sinking lower.

"There's a lot to be done here and a lot of people to learn from. That excuse is going to stop working sooner or later."

"S'not an excuse."

He straightened up and raised his head, though his mostly-neutral expression looked forced.

"Don't worry though; I don't plan on just sitting around doing nothing."

If it's not an outside force preventing him from doing anything? It's an excuse to Zuko.

"Good. You might actually be right about yourself if you did."

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Day 210 [Open]

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