thebastion | Day 246 [Open]

Entry tags:

zuko

Day 246 [Open]

Who: Zuko and anyone
Open: Open!
When: Day 246
Where: Around the Bastion
What: Daily Zuko stuffs
Format: I'll match
Warnings: Honor

Zuko keeps herself pretty busy around the Bastion. She likes to get involved in whatever's going on--not because she's a social butterfly, as anyone who talks to her can figure out, but because she feels it's important. Even if there isn't anything special going on, she's unlikely ever to be found lazing around. Her typical mornings have developed a certain routine to them.

A) Pool
This is one of the closest things Zuko has to a hobby, and she still approaches it entirely too seriously. Well, aside from the fact that she has yet to obtain a swimsuit and is in fact swimming laps in pants and a halter top. She's not remarkably fast or doing any fancy strokes, but she can make quite a few laps before stopping to rest, unless someone wants to interrupt her.

B) Training Building
Somehow, Zuko seems to keep picking up students. At the moment, it's just Rin and Rob whom she trains with any regularity, and she makes herself available at the training building for part of the morning if they or anyone else is interest in practice.

Personally, she prefers to train out of doors, so until anyone shows up, she can be found outside the building running through firebending forms (sans any actual fire).

C) Lake
Around midday, Zuko picks up some food from the distillery and makes her way over to the lake. There, she sits down crosslegged to eat, tossing crumbs of her bread out to the turtle ducks. It's about as relaxed and leisurely as Zuko gets doing anything, and a good time to grab her before she sets some other task for herself.

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The turtle ducks swim over in a little flurry to get at the new breadcrumbs, while Zuko takes advantage of the distraction to eat a little more of her own lunch.

She nods at the question. "Not from the Monument, though. I found them in the ruins."

Oh snap this just got like, six times cuter. Hence Edea's light giggling. She tries to throw enough crumbs so that each of them gets a little but it's questionable how successful she is.

"Lucky little guys. I didn't know other living things could end up here through the ruins. That's... both comforting and frightening." Because there are some things she does not want to show up from her home.

More crumbs! That elicits more excitement, and one of the turtle ducks who seems to get shouldered out of the feeding swims up close to the shore by Edea and quacks at her.

"...I think it's reassuring." Which is saying something, coming from a pessimist like Zuko. "There are some animals I wouldn't want to come face-to-face with, but they don't deserve the chance any less."

Her face scrunches as she notices that one turtle duck. She can't stand for that. With the next handful she crumbles, Edea tosses a good portion of it farther away for the main group to focus on. And while they're off, the closest one is getting its own batch. Eat up, little one.

Normally she is all for optimism but not when it comes to the creatures of Luxendarc. "Well there are certainly a few monsters from my home that had better stay dead."

This time Edea's plan works, the one turtle duck getting its own private meal. It gives an appreciative quack as it dives in. She's definitely making friends.

"Are they really that bad?" Zuko wonders. She doesn't have much context for outright 'monsters,' just animals that get especially vicious when you step into their territory or threaten their young.

"There's this big nasty giant called the Gigas Lich, he can almost instantly kill people. He can also heal himself. Probably undead," she begins to ramble. But before she continues Edea tosses a few more pieces out to the main group to make sure her new friend gets plenty of time to munch.

"Then there's dragons that would rather eat you than be your friend, large poisonous moths, and Chaugmar. It essentially looks like a giant brain with one eye that's got the weapons of those it has slain sticking out of it from every direction. Get your timing wrong and your attack does practically nothing."

"None of that sounds... Well, most of it sounds more like something out of a nightmare than anything that should exist in nature."

Poisonous moths and man-eating dragons are one thing (she's pretty sure the dragons of her world considered eating her), but a giant brain? Come on.

"Which is exactly why I don't want them showing up here," she says as she throws the last bits of the bread. "Our world was out of balance. Those creatures of darkness were taking the chance to multiply and run rampant. My comrades and I spent a lot of time fighting them."

"When you put it that way... I'm almost surprised we don't have anything worse here already. This world is more out of balance than I could've imagined for my own, but it's like there aren't any spirits to care. Or maybe this world never had a Spirit World at all. Most people don't mention them."

Maybe she isn't even interpreting what Edea is saying accurately. Of course her mind went to angry spirits, that's what happens when a world is out of balance, or at least, that's what happened in her own.

"Maybe they're all hard at work keeping this place running. To be honest, I was raised in a country that wasn't fond of the prevailing religion. I don't know all that much about spirits or the Celestial world."

Essentially it would be really tough for them to compare and the thought of even trying makes her shrug. With the last things she remembers from home, who's to say that the bits she had picked up on were even right? It was all too complicated for her liking.

"Is there something else you'd like to see show up from your home?"

"It's not really about religion. I've seen them. And I've seen what happens to people who underestimate them."

She does like the idea that there might be some looking after this place, though. Come to think of it, the few Ura and Caels in the Bastion have mentioned gods--maybe that's what they mean?

At Edea's question, she thinks for a moment before answering, "Dragons. But it's not likely. They were nearly extinct in my world." Plus, they'd be a little big for the Bastion.

"It is religion to me. But yeah, underestimating them is definitely a bad idea."

Who knows at this point. Edea's outlook on gods and spirits in general is pretty bleak, so while she too likes the idea of someone protecting the Bastion she doesn't want the pleasure of meeting them any time soon.

"Aside from my friends and my family there's not much I can think of, really. Most of the normal creatures we already have here. Most of the others do more harm than good. It's... weird, thinking that the things I want most seem to be the hardest to get."

"How is that weird?" For Zuko, it's always been that way. In fact, the things she's wanted most have often been not just difficult to obtain, but outright impossible. Wanting back her world, her nation, the people she cares about-- in a way, it's just more of the same.

"I don't know. Maybe because for once it doesn't feel like there's anything I can do about it."

Obviously neither of them are strangers to fighting for what they want. When you can't fight for it anymore, what do you do? Well if you're her you just run around having a go at monsters instead.

"I used to feel that way. I wanted to put everything I had into supporting the Bastion and the people I knew were here because I didn't think there was anything else.

"But I've realized there's no way of knowing that for sure. There are people lost out there who know the Bastion is here and haven't been able to find their way back. It stands to reason there are also people who don't know, and aren't trying to get here. That doesn't mean we'll never find each other. We just have to keep looking."

A+ inspirational speech, Zuko. Much better than 'you're going to fail a lot.'

That's okay, she doesn't need to be reminded that she'll fail a lot. She had plenty of that drilled into her head when she was still in her own universe.

"I've found two people. I'm happy I found them, of course, but there's still that little bit of disappointment. But I can promise you it's gonna take a lot more than that to make me stop looking."

Because stubbornness beats a momentary let down any day, and Edea is a bucket full of it. Now she's going to stop trying to be such a downer and change the topic.

"So what are the dragons from your world like?"

Being a downer is something Zuko is really good at, but they probably should get her to practice other skills.

"Well... a lot bigger than Paarthurnax, for one thing." It isn't true of all dragons in her world, but only having met two, Zuko doesn't know this. "They're also firebenders. My people learned from them, a long time ago."

Probably. Edea will do her best to help.

"Firebenders?"

She jumps to thinking it's someone who uses mostly fire magic, but considering she has now met people who are from worlds with no magic it's best just to ask.

"You know how dragons breathe fire." That seems to be common knowledge even with people who didn't have dragons in their worlds. "It's not exactly magic, but it probably looks like it. It's channeling your own energy to create fire."

She mulls over that a moment, and while it still sounds like magic to her it's interesting regardless.

"That's pretty cool. Are you a firebender?"

Zuko nods. "That's why, I thought it would be nice to have another bender around."

"My brain still has a moment of panic when it comes to dragons but I think I understand how you feel."

She sure did miss her teacher who was practically family. Edea imagines it's something similar.

"I hope you get to see them again."

Not exactly, although there is some sense of kinship. There's also a certain amount of guilt, since her family is to blame for driving the dragons nearly to extinction.

"...I guess there's the Monument, but I don't know if that's a good idea."

She chuckles, trying to picture it. There would probably be some panic and confusion on both sides.

"I imagine that would cost a lot of shards."

"I don't think there's room for them. Or enough mammoths."

And what would they even make of Paarthurnax? And would they try to eat anyone? Definitely not a good idea the more she thinks about it.

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