milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

monkey,
zuko

(no subject)

Monkey meanders through the bar on his hands, feet waving in the air in a flaily sort of way, his tail flicking back and forth like a streamer in an air conditioner vent.

This is because he's juggling with them. He's just about as good on his hands as on his feet, but the half-dozen discarded bottles rotating through the air above him takes a bit of quick motion to stay under and keep in motion. Every few moments his tail has to lash out and grab an errant one.

His safforn robe has fallen down around his waist, revealing his (awesome) tiger-print underwear.

Wait, that's not tiger-print. It's just tiger.

Also, he's singing.

Monkey likes attention.

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Yeah, he's got it. Zuko's sitting on a couch, his head tilted, as he tries to figure out of Monkey is -- just strange, or if he is mentally ill. Also, he dresses somewhat like an airbender, and the Avatar seems pretty crazy, so... cultural link, maybe?

Hmm, thinks to ponder.

"Hello!" Monkey says cheerfully. And upside-downly.

"....hello," Zuko says, very carefully-- the way you talk to an animal before you back away slowly and then run.

Monkey shifts very carefully onto one hand and fishes a wooden bowl out of his robe with the other. He holds it out.

"Alms? Giving to the priesthood ensures a good rebirth!"

There's some wheat and fruit and a few square metal coins in it.

Zuko's lip curls, just a little. Having watched Iroh beg (coins for poor refugees? A hungry old man?) to feed them, he was... less inclined to kick the bowl right out of the crazy man's hands.

"I have nothing for you," was all he said.

If Monkey wanted something, he'd have to take it. Zuko learned that the hard way.

"All right," Monkey says. "I am sure you will make a good bug."

He looks speculatively at the fruit in the bowl, but it doesn't seem feasible any way he tries it.

Zuko snorted softly.

"I am a wolf," he says darkly and there is a truth to those words, looking out from behind gold eyes. "Not a bug, begger."

Monkey grins. It's not a friendly gesture, with most primates, and Monkey's no different. His teeth are big and solid--not sharp, but strong and yellow.

He flips upright, the bottles crashing where they will.

"Iiiiiiiiiiiiii am the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the Handsome Monkey King, called in religion Awareness-of-Vacuity, Stone Monkey, slayer of tiger-spirits and fox-spirits and wolf-spirits, too. No beggar I, but a priest of the Buddha's way and a master of the Daoist magics."

Zuko's brow arches -- and there is a sinking stone of dread weighing down, down, down in the pit of his stomach. Shit; just what he needs to tell Uncle. 'Pissed off another spirit today, uncle. So how about that lesson in spirit walking?'

"I am Zuko, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, Crown Prince and heir to the Fire Nation throne," he said without a moment's hesitance. He knew who he was. Now, so did the monkey.

"And a wolf," Monkey says darkly.

Although he's somewhat mollified; that's a pretty good title.

"And I must have your vow that you will not harm my master, skinchanger, or I must destroy you now."

"I don't even know your master; why would I harm him?" Zuko asks, blinking his eyes. Was this man truly mad?

"Spirits do that," Monkey says, with a shrug. He's learned (painstakingly) that telling evil spirits that eating Tripitaka will make them immortal is a bad way to keep them from trying to eat him. "And you--" Monkey makes a chattering noise, peering at him with bloodshot eyes. "You are either a wolf-spirit or... one is in your body."

Monkey's eyes see a lot.

"I have a wolf within. I was born a man," Zuko says, eyeing Monkey carefully. he is openly and totally suspicious. "Why does that concern you?"

"Because beast-spirits keep trying to eat my master," Monkey repeats patiently. "And I must protect him."

Monkey eyes him back. "Did you eat it?" He means the wolf; he's trying to figure out how you get a wolf inside you.

"No," Zuko says. Why would he eat a wolf? Ew! "It-- bit me. And..."

Uh, how do you explain lycanthropy to a monk? You just don't. "It made me sick."

This makes good sense to Monkey, except for the part where it got inside him. Monkey tries cocking his head to the side and looking at him that way.

"Huh. Your qi is very messy. Lots of yin, lots of yang, and they are fighting."

He makes vague wavy motions with his hands, and in the process seems to notice the nest of broken glass around him for the first time.

The broken glass? Yeah, that. It's still there. It's part of why Zuko hasn't gotten out of his seat; he doesn't want to manuver around it right now.

"I know that!" he says irrititably. "I know I'm-- sick," he says, and grumbles. Fire and water, sun and moon-- it's a messy mix, makes him unhappy. Makes him sick.

Monkey plucks out some fur; blows on it. Lots of little monkeys pop out and begin scurrying around, cleaning up the glass.

Monkey is a Responsible Bar Citizen, unlike some clocks we could mention.

The main Monkey climbs onto Zuko's table and sits cross-legged. "You still didn't promise."

There is a heavy, tired sigh: the resigned sort of sigh a man gives when he feels unjustly burdened. "I promise I won't eat your master."

Zuko does, anyway. The wolf can't make promises like that.

Satisfactory! Monkey seems pleased.

"Where is the Fire Nation?" Monkey's knowledge of geography is much better when it's more properly called cosmology than it is for actual nations and landmasses.

"Far to the west, in my world," Zuko says, as he looks at Monkey with blinking, bewildered eyes. Does... that answer your question, strange spirit?

"I am going to the West!" Monkey says. "Probably not the same West. I have never heard India called the Fire Nation."

The little monkeys hop up on the table with him, crawling around his shoulders and lap.

"I have traveled to an Earth; India is not the Fire Nation," Zuko says. But...he loves Indian food! So, that's something, right?

"I am going to India," Monkey says, absently. He's thinking.

He doesn't like it.

"I am not," Zuko says dryly. "I am ..." in exile and can't go home? "Traveling abroad," he says with bitter humor."

"Are you on a quest?" Monkey is on a quest.

Quests suck.

"Yes," Zuko says flatly and with no happiness.

He hates quests.

"I'm sorry," Monkey says sympathetically. Also: while scratching the back of his head with his foot. "Do you have to protect an idiot?"

There is the slightest, slyest smirk as he thinks of Uncle; buying lots of stupid, heavy junk on their journey, making tea from the white jade planet...

But no, that's not the quest itself. Just a sort of side aggravation.

"Not quite," he says.

Scratch scratch scratch. "You should stop being a wolf. It's bad for you. You're all tangled."

Zuko's nose wrinkles. "I can't just stop. I'm sick. Sicknesses... have to have cures, you know?" Or maybe, since he's a monkey, he doesn't know. Idiot.

Monkey chitters. "I do not get sick," he says smugly. "A great sage can regulate his own qi to cure imbalance and prevent illness, even warding off his own mortality. I don't think I've ever gotten sick, except when I ate too much."

Oh, how this grates. Sages! Avatars! So much power and arrogance! Zuko starts to simmer a little, in his own irritation. "I am not a sage! I am a prince on a quest, that's all!"

He can't MAGICALLY CURE LYCANTHROPY WITH WANTING TO. ...if he could, he'd be much happier.

More chittering, and Monkey regards him with his head cocked. "You have a lot of power for someone who is not any sort of sage at all. You haven't studied any magical arts?"

"Maybe you are going to explode." Monkey sounds... more intrigued than worried.

...explode?!

"No!" Zuko says. "I'm not going to explode, either!" What sort of insanity is this? ARGH. "I am a Firebender. That's all!" And right now, he actually is. He's far enough from the full moon he has some bending back.

Monkey seems disappointed. He doesn't know what a firebender is, but it can't possibly be as interesting as a walking qi bomb would be.

"You might explode," he says sulkily. "You never know."

"What is a firebender?"

He extends a long wrinkly black finger to poke at Zuko, because he's rude.

"I won't," Zuko says firmly. The very idea is preposterous!

But when poked, Zuko shows him what a firebender is-- he spits a little flame out, a tongue of flame slipping past his lips to lick at invading fingers. No poking!

Monkey squawks, and pulls away. He's not easily burned, but... rude!

"You are some kind of practitioner, then. You know how to channel your qi to some extent."

"All Firebenders learn to control their breath," Zuko says loftily. So there, Monkey!

Same difference, says Monkey's expression. If you can read a monkey's expression.

"Then you should be able to get rid of the wolf," he says loftily. "Or at least tie it down. It would probably be easier than attaining the first step of immortality, even."

"I don't know how," Zuko says, grinding his teeth. "Someone else bound it inside me, already. But.."

It's still there.

And it's angry.

It is not a dog to be domesticated!

"I do," Monkey says. Strike a heroic pose. "I am the Great Sage equal to Heaven; I attained the secrets of immortality and baked in the cauldron of Master Laozi himself! I was trained in the Daoist arts of... someone I had to promise not to say teach me, but he was very good."

Frowning slightly at the lame ending, he does a handstand. "I could help you!"

Or you could fall off the table and crack your skull, Zuko thinks sullenly to himself.

"And o, great sage," cue the voice dripping with sarcasm, "what will it cost me?"

Monkey is just a con man. Con man in tiger skin undies.

A ripple runs down Monkey's form, and it's...

Zuko, upside down.

"It is my duty as a monk," he says virtuously, "and accrues good karma."

Monkey doesn't know what underwear Zuko is wearing, so it's tigerskin still.

Zuko is not amused.

"Great."

He's really starting to loathe monks.

"I have mastered the seventy-two transformations." Smug.

He holds himself on one (human) hand for a moment, then hops to the other, then flips himself over and shrugs. "Enjoy being a wolf, then. Try not to lick yourself too much."

"HEY!"

Ew! That's nasty!

"I --"

There is molars grinding. Maybe to powder.

"I didn't say no."

Monkey turns back, his form shivering back to normal, a big monkeygrin on his face. "Then maybe I will see you again soon."

And then he's gone, faster than the eye can follow.

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