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]

[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.

[daughterofursa]

[Beside the Calamity, it... doesn't sound as horrible as he suggested it would. Especially after trying to convince her the Calamity may not be as bad as she's been assuming. Or maybe Zuko just can't fully wrap her mind around what he's telling her.

Actually what seems to bother her most is his use of the Spirit World as an example.]

You're comparing that to... hell? [From what Rin's told her, it's a pretty awful place.]

[freedom_engineer]

Not hell.

[A pause]

Not JUST hell, I should say. Other planes function with other rules. For example.... imagine a plane where fire cannot exist. My wife ventures there regularly.

When you cross the planes, cross the rules at work in the planes... things turn bad in a hurry.

[daughterofursa]

Of course the rules are different in the Spirit World. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing it was connected to ours.

[freedom_engineer]

And would you say that things would work fine if suddenly the spirit world and the real world suddenly became one world? No warning, no preparation, just all of a sudden two worlds with wildly different laws of existence folding into one space?

[daughterofursa]

[See also: Korra.]

I'm sure things would change, but the spirits balance our world. It would be worse to be cut off from them...

[freedom_engineer]

[Colin pinches the bridge of his nose. Trying to explain this is never easy, but it's vital to understand..]

Okay, let me rephrase this another way.

Imagine that you're laying in bed.

Now, imagine that a ostritch horse appears in your head. Not in your imagination. In your head.

[He reaches up and puts one index finger on his right ear, and one index finger on his left temple.]

[daughterofursa]

That's not possible.

[An ostrich horse would never fit in her head.]

[freedom_engineer]

No. It's not.

And yet, one of those worlds we had to lock out of time?

Had every portion of time collapsing into one spot. Which, as you so succinctly stated... Is not possible.

Imagine everything that ever stood or ever will stand where you're sitting now suddenly occupying that portion of space.

[He looks out over the lake, his gaze distant for once.]

It was unrecognizable.

There was a lot of blood.

[daughterofursa]

...

It sounds worse than what happened here.

[Even if she still can't really imagine it because it's not possible.]

[freedom_engineer]

The universe has laws that it adheres to. Every plane, every planet, every time.

When those laws are broken, bad things happen.

Yeah, what happened here was... light, compared to what I've seen. But that's only what we can see. Time is beyond our perception.

What do you think happened to the land HERE when we were pulled in?

Those things don't just poof out of existence.

[daughterofursa]

I hadn't really thought about it.

[freedom_engineer]

I don't like it when things don't work the way they should. I like it even less when I don't have answers for such vital things as this...

[Colin shakes his head.]

And... we diverged again.

[daughterofursa]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[What's wrong with talking about other things.]

[freedom_engineer]

Just an observation, this time. It's the nature of an infojaunt.

One thing leads to another, and soon you're talking about high explosives when you were originally talking about dinner plans.

[daughterofursa]

That could probably happen with Paarthurnax.