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

[twinked_witch]

"... Oh, right. Forgot his name," Megaera admitted.

"That's... Not discomparable to ancient dragons in my world. An interesting similarity, for sure," she observed.

"Hrm. You definitely place a high value on history - a tough thing out here, unfortunately..."

[daughterofursa]

It felt strange to hear her say that--history never had been her best subject in school--but she thought she understood what Megaera meant. Her origins, her culture was important to her.

"...yeah. There's only so much you can hold on to."

[twinked_witch]

Megaera nodded. "Yeah... That's rather an understatement. It does make finding what's new harder, as well," she observed with a chuckle.

"Perhaps teaching some of the traditional games would be appropriate?"

[daughterofursa]

"Games?"

Megaera expected Zuko to know games? Oh wait, she did.

"Well- Aoi already knows kuai ball, only she calls it something else."

[twinked_witch]

"Sounds like a field game. We could probably figure that out, but I was thinking board and card-based games. I'm willing to bet a fair stock would be easy enough to get, so...

[daughterofursa]

"I'm not that good at Pai Sho. That was Uncle's game." She did know the rules, but she wasn't in a hurry to teach anyone.

[twinked_witch]

"Perhaps you will be better at Chess, then. It was considered a test of leaders, where I'm from."

[daughterofursa]

Zuko wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. What if she was bad at chess, too?

"I don't know. Pai Sho was a game of strategy."

[twinked_witch]

"Perhaps. The other side of it is, how can you expect to get much better without practice?", Megaera observed.

[daughterofursa]

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

[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.

[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."

[daughterofursa]

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

[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.

[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.

[twinked_witch]

"Well, I could, but I don't. Not intentionally, at least. Though before we had the hair shop, I was using a spell to clean it. Prestidigitation, the most basic tool of any Wizard's cookbook - you cast it, and you can do petty magical things for a few hours. Nothing that goes much past the 'party trick' category, but it's enough to work in place of some of the more high-tech conveniences developed here. Except with a limit of three casts per day..."

Megaera chuckled. "Well, I could probably figure out how to create a magic item for the effects that I could carry around, but there'd near-definitely be a Shard cost involved."

[daughterofursa]

"Presti..." What.

Zuko felt like she understood only every third word of that.

[twinked_witch]

"It's a fancy word for 'really basic magics'," Megaera quickly explained. Not quite accurately, but...

"I'd compare it to your first punch. Once you have that one right, the art begins to develop from there."

[daughterofursa]

"Oh." That made sense, she guessed. "You seem to use it for some pretty strange things."

[twinked_witch]

"Well, why wouldn't I?", Megaera responded. "If I have the spell and it does the thing, there's little reason not to use it unless I'm already out of my three casts for the day."