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]

"No, we're not. You're probably a better one than I am. Maybe."

[blackblooded]

"I'm not." Crona knows that without having to think about it. "Why do you think you're a bad person?"

[daughterofursa]

"Because I've made so many mistakes. I thought I could redeem myself... I thought I had redeemed myself, but then the world ended. It doesn't feel like it made any difference." How does it count for anything if her actions helped restore balance for a matter of days before the world was completely torn apart?

[blackblooded]

"That isn't your fault. It isn't your fault that the world ended. People can't change that." It's the end of the world, and they're still alive on the other side of it. "Nothing matters but what you do now."

[daughterofursa]

"Yes, it does. It still matters. We don't stop being who we were before just because things are different now."

[blackblooded]

"But what you did doesn't matter. That's what getting a second chance means."

[daughterofursa]

"And you're okay with just giving everyone a second chance, no matter what kinds of things they might have done before? What if they screw up again?"

[blackblooded]

"People need a second chance." Maybe not everyone, certainly not everyone. "Sometimes people even need a third chance."

[daughterofursa]

"...and if I slip up again, do I get a fourth? You can't just keep wiping it clean."

[blackblooded]

"Two is enough." People don't deserve chances over and over again. "Now you have two."

[daughterofursa]

"What?" Zuko frowns in confusion. "I already had that third chance. That's the one I'm on."

[blackblooded]

"It reset. No chances from before mattered."

[daughterofursa]

"...just like that? It sounds too easy."

[blackblooded]

"It's not too easy. The world had to end."

[daughterofursa]

"Wha- That's not the point! It didn't end in order for us to get second chances. It just happened."

[blackblooded]

"And then you get a second chance. So it doesn't matter."

[daughterofursa]

"You're really... set on this, aren't you?"

[blackblooded]

"I got a second chance." A second chance after finally doing something right, so not a second chance that Crona needed. But a second chance that Crona got, a second chance that everyone here got.

"Why don't you want one?"

[daughterofursa]

That's... kind of the question, isn't it? If everyone else wants to give her a clean slate, then why can't she just take it?

"...I'm still not sure I deserve it."

[blackblooded]

"What did you do that was so bad you don't deserve a second chance?"

[daughterofursa]

"I hunted the Avatar. I betrayed my uncle and helped my sister conquer Ba Sing Se to win the war. I was... on the wrong side and I didn't even know it."

[blackblooded]

"I knew I was on the wrong side. That's worse."

[daughterofursa]

"What?" It never actually occurred to Zuko to wonder what Crona might have done.

[blackblooded]

"You didn't know you were on the wrong side." And Crona tried to destroy the entire world. "I know I was on the wrong side. If I get another chance, you should too. I got another chance. So you get one. That's how this works."

[daughterofursa]

"Isn't it worse not to know? I haven't been very good at telling right from wrong. That's supposed to be basic."