Day 256 [Open]

[daughterofursa]

Who: Zuko and anyone
Open: Open!
When: Day 256, evening
Where: By the lake
What: A failure to meditate
Format: I'll match
Warnings: Honor

Zuko knows she's always been hard on herself, but she's never really considered it to be too hard. But some of the things people have been saying about her... Well, people in the Bastion have always expressed a more positive view of her than she thinks she deserves, and she always figured it was because they don't know what she's come from, but she's finally starting to wonder. Maybe the flawed perspective is her own.

Which is why she is attempting something else which, like positive thinking, she is not very good at: meditating. Whoever really wants to can find her by the lake, sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed and... definitely scowling more than she ought to be.

Comments

[daughterofursa]

"I'm not sure I have that kind of patience."

[four_quarts]

At times when I could do nothing else for whatever reason, or when complete relaxation was necessary.

[And even then almost never an entire day. Things to do, you know.]

[wayofvoice]

Geh. That is right.

Sometimes, parts of a forest must be burned down. In the new earth, clear of obstacles and the heat forcing things to emerge that not normally would have, new things can grow.

It is much like that, I imagine.

[twinked_witch]

"Patience is wisdom, young one," Megaera observed. "To know when one must wait, or when one must repeat, in order to master something... I'm willing to bet your martial techniques weren't completely innate, in spite of having a bloodline component, after all."

[daughterofursa]

"They weren't, and it was really frustrating." No one would have described her as a patient student.

[daughterofursa]

It sounds a lot simpler, with trees.

...

People keep telling me, it doesn't matter what I did before. I haven't hurt anyone here. But the person who did all those things, is still inside me somewhere. I can't just forget that.

[But how does she find balance with it?]

[daughterofursa]

I'm not exactly doing it to relax.

[Although it might help if relaxation was a step that she included.]

[wayofvoice]

[There's just a slow nod at that.]

I understand this very well. [Paarthurnax has made no secret of his past to anyone who has asked, after all. He will not lie about himself.] It can be difficult for others to truly understand when the only aspect of yourself they are familiar with is that which they see in the now.

[daughterofursa]

[She thought this was something he might understand. That's why she's bringing it up now.]

That doesn't mean what they see is wrong, though. I mean, I try to be a good person. It's just not what I see when I look at myself.

That's... not right either.

[twinked_witch]

"You understand, then. Mind, I guess you could burn some shards on a shortcut, here... But that'd be negating the value of the journey."

[daughterofursa]

"Exactly. You wouldn't really have learned it."

Zuko believed in the value of hard work. Just not so much in putting that effort into board games.

[twinked_witch]

Megaera, on the other hand, saw the value of a potential hobby being developed.

"Indeed. A master has failed more times than a novice has even attempted, I think is the phrase?", she considered. "All those sorts of lines, anyways."

[wayofvoice]

It is difficult to accept the good that others see in you when your own actions still weigh heavily across your shoulders.

The key is to understand that often, despite how some may say it is not so, things that are contradictory often exist alongside one another in the same place and in the same people. You and I can easily become cruel as much as we are often kind.

Yet it is because we know we have been cruel that we are kind.

[daughterofursa]

...

I never thought of it that way.

[Maybe her being a good person was better informed by her understanding of the effect that being a bad person had had. She'd been a kid before everything that happened, but maybe if it hadn't, she wouldn't really get how important it was not to do those things.]

[wayofvoice]

[Just a small nod.]

Does it assist you at all?

[daughterofursa]

"I don't know if it's like that for everyone, but that's the only kind of master I'll ever be."

[daughterofursa]

Yeah. I think it does.

Thank you.

[wayofvoice]

I am always glad to help any of my friends and pupils.

Su'um ahrk morah.

[daughterofursa]

Zu'u los... kogaan fah mindopah. Ahrk fahdon.

We all are.

You're probably better at realizing that stuff than I am, but maybe it's good to hear, too.

[twinked_witch]

"... Trust me, most Wizards are like that too. With terrifying but sometimes hilarious results."

[daughterofursa]

"Hilarious?" This being Zuko, she was more curious about what Megaera meant than hoping for a laugh. Getting laughter out of her would be a miracle.

[twinked_witch]

Ever spend a week with your hair a completely different color and resisting any efforts to dye it back to your normal color?

That sort of thing.

[four_quarts]

Perhaps not, but it does look as if you could stand to do so. After all, tension tends to inhibit the contemplation process.

[This is his way of saying that Zuko looks as stiff as a board without using that exact phrasing. Tact, he knows how to use it.]

[daughterofursa]

"...you mean you use magic to get your hair that color?"

She assumed some people just came from places where things like red or blue hair were normal, but this might be a better explanation.

[daughterofursa]

[That's okay, Ghaleon. Zuko can interpret that into something tactless.]

I get it, I'm bad at all of it.