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

[freedom_engineer]

People can get properly prejudiced against anything, given the proper motivations. The...

[He pauses, and shakes his head.]

You probably don't care about a cultural lecture. I've seen cultures worship dragons as gods, and cultures hunt and skin dragons to make armor and tools.

Every set of circumstances is different.

[Nothing wrong with having a soft spot for animals. Colin likes most animals more than people.]

[daughterofursa]

My people hunted them, too, but- that was because of my great grandfather.

[She comes from a long line of assholes, if Colin hasn't picked up on that yet.]

[freedom_engineer]

I wish I could say that the people doing it for the armor were any better, but...

Well, look at Paar. He's basically arrow-proof and element-proof. Lots of people want that, and they don't care if the thing they skin for it is intelligent or not.

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko winces at the thought of that happening to Paar.]

No one could ever do that to Paarthurnax. We'd take them out long before.

[freedom_engineer]

I suspect that Paar is more than capable of defending himself. But it's not the aged dragons that are usually the victims of it. It's the younger dragons, the ones without experience, without nasty tricks. The ones who still think that they're invincible...

[He pauses, and he shakes his head.]

We've gotten horribly diverted...

[daughterofursa]

Have we?

[Do they really need to get back to her self-esteem issues?

It's not like she can't blame herself for dragons being killed, too.]

[freedom_engineer]

[He gives her a curious look.]

Is this topic something important to you?

[daughterofursa]

The dragons were the original firebenders. Of course it's important to me.

[freedom_engineer]

Ah, I was not aware of that fact.

[Colin bows his head slightly in concession.]

... So, where do you fit in that equation?

[There's a tilt of his head.]

Have you killed a dragon before?

[daughterofursa]

No! [Wow Colin what kind of question is that?

Except that she absolutely just told him her family hunted dragons and acted guilty about it, but her taking offense doesn't have to be logical.]

They were supposed to be extinct before I was born. Except they weren't, but I didn't kill them. I had the honor of learning from them.

[freedom_engineer]

[Yeah, sorry Zuko. But you didn't exactly paint a picture that had him assuming otherwise.]

Ah, that makes sense. It just seemed to be weighing heavily on your mind.

I've seen your bending, though. Clearly, good teachers.

[daughterofursa]

[Colin, practically the only thing that doesn't weigh heavily on her mind is where the meat comes from.]

I- [No, not protesting that compliment.] They were. I've improved a lot.

...they're probably extinct for real now.

[freedom_engineer]

In this universe, perhaps. In some other universes, perhaps.

Not all over. Time is not so fragile as to wipe out every timeline.

Nor am I willing to call everything lost.

[daughterofursa]

Is that supposed to make me feel better? That the Ran and Shaw I met are probably dead, but some other versions of them might be alive?

[...actually, when she says it out loud, it does sound slightly better than them not existing at all.]

[freedom_engineer]

The probability is the same that the Ran and Shaw you know are alive, just as much as the probability that you're alive.

... That sounds harsher than I mean it to.

[He shakes his head.]

The point is... there's still way too much we don't know. For all we know... our universes could be fine, and we could have been the only ones obliterated and brought here. The possibilities are endless.

[daughterofursa]

[For once Zuko isn't sure how that sounded harsh. She is alive.]

So you think there's a chance that there's something to go back to.

[freedom_engineer]

I think that we don't know enough about what happened to say that everything's gone.

And I think that there's enough people from enough different universes to say that there's a chance.

Just look at Rin and Yukio. Two different versions of the same universe. The odds against that, if everything was supposed to be destroyed, are incalculably bad.

[daughterofursa]

I don't know. They are twins, even if they're... [What's the word she's looking for?] ..alternate twins. Maybe that drew them together.

[freedom_engineer]

It's not unheard of, but it is decidedly uncommon.

... And yes, where I'm from, we do have experience in matters like this.

[daughterofursa]

With worlds being destroyed or with different universes?

[freedom_engineer]

Do you want an honest answer to that? You're not going to like it.

[daughterofursa]

I don't usually like anything you say. Why do you bother warning me before some of it?

[freedom_engineer]

Because the answer is horrifying.

[There's a simple, matter-of-fact tone there...]

[daughterofursa]

Tell me.

[Colin, she is too stubborn to change her mind about wanting to know things just because someone says they're bad.]

[freedom_engineer]

All right.

I, personally, have experience with hundreds of different timelines. We've seen worlds erased from existence because some idiot did something wrong with time.

Our empire has had to lock two planets out of time completely to keep them from collapsing on themselves. Billions of lives in limbo as we try to find a way to stop it from happening.

And that's not even going into the times a hellmouth has opened a gap to another plane of existence. Your spirit world, for example.