milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There is a maimed prince with a whole VERITABLE STACK of books, note pads, and a couple of scrolls with him on the table. There is also a slender case on the table, which holds a flute inside. He has gone through two parts of ginseng tea and thus, remains both busy and rather energizeed.

Zuko has been busy, it seems, and he has not had and entrance post in some time, so here he is -- please, come and ask about the several projects that keep the prince from going insane while he waits for the door to appear.

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Wells smiles, tucking the weapon away again. "Thank you," he says. "So do I. Never had one quite like it... it's enough to make a man wish he were more used to knife-fighting."

Zuko smirks, just a little. "I am most fond of swordsmanship," he says. "Though I am not so adept with knives." But that's like saying 'I am only slightly less a god when the blades are shorter.'

"Yeah?" says Wells. "One of these days you'll have to show me. There's not much call for sword-work in my time, but-"

Well, after last night, and the use of natural weaponry, pretty much anything that comes between him and the actual act of violence is a good thing.

"I don't teach," he says, his brows furrowing. "I'm no master; still just a student." A beat. "And the blades are secret, where I come from."

"Nothin' wrong with an exhibition-" But he stops. "Ah," he says. "That part I didn't know about. My apologies, Prince."

"Well, here it would be nothing," he muses. "And the man who would -- recognize what they were and who they belonged to... is dead now." He fidgets a little, uncertain of how to put his 'Robin Hooding' as the Blue Spirit.

It isn't, after all, entirely altrustic.

Wells nods. "As you wish," he says. "I'm not about to ask you to go against any principles for my sake, if that's what's involved. But I'd quite like to see, if there was a way you could do so. I think the Bar can give practise weapons, at the very least."

"I'll show you," Zuko agrees after a moment. It's not like the Blue Spirit can be revealed HERE. Aang already knows the truth, after all.

Wells smiles. "Thanks," he says. "I'm lookin' forward to it."

"I am not so used to performing," Zuko says with a wry smirk. "But I'll do my best."

"Good," Wells says. "When I can lay my hands on the ammunition for 'em, I'll show you the other two weapons Hephaestos made for me; he's made them silent and without smell, so I won't have trouble with that on the battlefield. Not exactly in the same class as swordsmanship, but it's all I've got that I can show."

Zuko waves a hand, unconcerned. "No," he assures, "You've shown me plenty, Master Wells." The jibe with the title should tell him that he's in better spirits for that comment.

That provokes a bit of a smile, the first real form of that expression he's had since yesterday. "Good to know," he says. "Means you've been paying attention."

"Hrmph," Zuko says. "I told you I was a dilligent student," The young prince says. And he is! He is totally dilligent!

"So you did," Wells says. "Glad to see it borne out. 's been a long time since I had a student who could be arsed to pay attention without someone threatening them."

"Tsh. It's merely that threats need not even be implied; we are raised knowing that our masters will take us to task if we don't prove attentive!" Zuko replies with a smirk.

"I hear it used to be that way, back in the days of the British Empire," Wells says a bit wistfully. "The schoolteachers made damned sure the lads were used to obedience by the time they came old enough to sign up for soldiering. Made the trainers' lives a lot easier."

"We never stopped," Zuko notes dryly. "But I am well trained to obedience and respect -- perhaps even more so then a prince should be."

But then, he has had very good teachers.

"Your empire's a bit different, I think," Wells says. "One day I'll have to show you the history of ours, once you've come far enough along with English. Might turn out you could learn from our mistakes."

The young prince seems to consider that, and says, "We have already destroyed one of the four peoples, and half of a second. I don't think we can learn from anyone's mistakes if we don't know better already."

Blink. Blink.

"I wasn't talking about the actual process of conquest," Wells says after a bit; genocide really wasn't high on England's list of priorities that he knows of, historically speaking. "More, ah... holding onto it once you'd got it. People take it into their heads to rebel at the oddest times... destroyed? What, entirely?"

"Wiped them out, utterly. The Avatar was to be born to the Air Nomads," he explains. "So, the best way to keep the world powerless, was to kill the next group that would have him... and so they did. In less then twenty years, there was not an Airbender left."

Except one. Asleep in ice, far away.

"... fuckin' hell," says Wells eventually.

Because honestly... genocide?

Genocide. "The Water Tribe was next; the Southern Tribe was easily smashed, but the Northern held our people off for that entire time -- we hadn't been back in 80 years... We focused on the Earth Kingdom, instead, the last fifty year. They are the largest, after all."

Wells exhales, nodding. "Sounds like you know how to go about arranging a conquest, at least," he says neutrally.