milliways_bar | Lake Party Water Post Day Two

Why should he be surprised? After all he's done to the people she loves, after all their encounters have only ever ended in hatred and shouting, insults thrown? It makes sense for them to hate each other, perfect sense.

So there is no explanation for the way her face falls, struggle in her expression, trying to keep her anger, or the quiet voice Katara uses as he twists.

"I wish I did."

Sloshing out on shore, the dogs are a little subdued-- but he does reach out to pat their necks, shoulders. THey are getting so very tall! At least he can be gentle, though.

He doesn't look back, or give her anything.

"Everybody else does," he says simply. "It'll be fine if you do to it too." He reaches down, flips a towel over his shoulder, and then looks toward the grass-- he points, speaking to the dogs, and then, twists, and tosses the littlest fireball EVER into the distance--- off they race, baying, and he twists his fingers and palms to make it zigzag, to amuse them for a while.

THey can't CATCH it, and they all know it, but still. Chase is fun.

But is he letting them chase because he wants them to have fun and enjoy themselves-- or just to get them off his back.

Quiet for a long moment, Katara sighs softly and then swims after him, sloshing onto the shore herself, wringing out her hair. She doesn't bother looking at him and doesn't expect him to look at her either.

"...We aren't entirely the choices we make," she says softly, watching the dogs bound. "Don't think I don't hate you to spare you anything, because that's not what it is. I don't hate you because I don't know you - I only know what you do."

Which isn't the same. Isn't that what Steph used to tell her?

He is still invovled -- it's not the same as throwing a tennis ball and making them fuck off for a while; it's somethnig he keeps moving, zipping trough the air, around trees, back toward the shore, and over the water, before he plunges it into the water to extinguish it.

They... are happy to paddle again now, barking and wagging and wiggling in the water all the while.

"You're wrong," he says. "We are what we chose, as much as what we are born to be," he says with another hint of heavy regret. He is tired; tired of this, tired of her, tired of the place, tired of strange horizons. "Otherwise, what are we?"

This is-- difficult. These are not all Katara's ideas and the one who taught her is long gone, the product of a war fought by his people. She may remember the lessons but reciting them to Zuko will mean he will be watching her to make sure she lives by them-- as she looks down on him for not.

Still... she may have put her pendant away safely to keep it from getting lost in the lake, but that doesn't mean it is any less of a weight against her throat.

"...People make choices because of situations. They're put in a position where they have to choose and they don't always have the options they want. Some people force their way in to get the options they want and some... don't. And that's either because of who you are, or because you've been in-- situations so long you don't want to fight anymore.

"You are who you are but that doesn't mean that-- that no one changes, that people can't wear down just like-- like rust on iron."

"Rust?"

Yeah, he feels rusted, like there's something wearing dull the sharp blade of his spirit. That is something he can certainly empathize with.

He looks skyward at the sun -- blazing bright, the light that's part of his heritage, and then away.

There is no good answer for her.

She wasn't looking for one.

"Yeah, rust."

And she is silent, watching the dogs, but not him - never him.

"So when you tell me that I hate you, when you don't believe that I don't... just realize that... I can't see the iron. Just the rust. And... yeah, I hate that."

"You won't like the iron. It's too complex," he says. "You're like Makita-- you're going to want things simple. Her people good, the other people bad. Freedom good, fighting to reclaim what you think is yours, bad." He shrugs, and then says, "I -- don't blame her. But it's a simple, unthoughtful view. There's always more to a conflict then simple good and evil, or your side and their side."

He does not like philosophizing. Living with Iroh, however, has made him terribly good at it in his own way.

She makes a noise - frustration, exasperation, irritation, something - and only crosses her arms a little tighter around herself.

"Unthoughtful... you know what, Zuko? No matter how brilliant and learned you think you are, you're too complex. I might not have as much rust as you do but you can't see nearly as much of the iron as you've always thought you could."

To think, by this point, he thought she still saw in black and white, not shades of grey.

Zuko snorts softly. "It's not that I can't. It's that I won't." He admits to willful ignorance. "Seeing a person for a person-- has only gotten me disgrace and shame. EVerytime you say you see only peasants or people are numbers and pieces on a board -- you think I'm my father," he says.

And he's not.

He's not at all. He doesn't even want to be. He just wants to return home and be loved. Is that so wrong?

"Because you never argue it in a way that convinces me," she replies, voice soft but strong, and now she's starting to get irritated. How many times have they gone over these questions, these thoughts? When has it gotten them anywhere but louder fights?

"You can say the words as much as you want, but the fact is, you treat people like they're beneath you, like they're pieces on a board. And every time I see you start to turn around, start to treat someone like an equal, like someone who's worthy, I watch you break it into a thousand pieces, too - all on your own."

There is one convincing arguement. It's all over his face-- but those words are locked in his throat. He will not explain his dishonor to her. He did it for Wells, because Wells was a good man, a soldier, someone of honor.

She can't begin to understand! Katara'd find a way to devalue that, or put it in the hands of her precious Avatar.

The dogs paddle over to Zuko, because they know the smell of his grief and his hurt, and they know when he stands straight like that he is not happy. But at the same time, they are uncertain; they duck heads, approach low; pups to an alpha, and he sighs, turns and squats down. Belly rubs are in order, through soggy, matted fur, as they roll.

"You can't understand my reasons," he says, " And I won't tell you my secrets and make myself vulnerable to you. I have done it too much here -- doing it to someone who can walk into my world, and-- make it worse? The Earth Kingdom already spits on me. Why should I give you more reason?"

"I've never asked you to."

That's the clincher - no matter how close he came to her here, through her friends, through people she considered family, she never asked him to explain himself to her. She took those she trusted at their word - that he was good, that she didn't see the good in him like they did.

She watched him make them eat those words, felt hollow and empty when friends hurt by him apologized for not believing her.

"I never asked what your reasons were, I never sked you to be vulnerable, I never asked for your secrets - if you don't want to tell me, fine, that's your business! You're the one who brings it up, like I'm some evil jerk that's trying to get you to tell me everything so I can ruin you at home!"

The dogs come up and she lowers her voice, calms and softens it-- but there is still anger there, still frustration.

"I never asked you about Steph - you dragged me to that fire world and made me talk to you. So I figure if there's ever anything you want to tell me, you'll find a way to do it. Whether I want to listen or not."

"I asked you about her. That wasn't about me. I just--"

Couldn't get the answer from Steph and -- and -- yes, that blew up in his face. For precisely that reason. He was vulnerable to her.

He loved her.

"You don't have to try and ruin me," he points out. "I'm already there."

There's-- less spark there, less fight, the more he talks. More a dull burn, embers that sometimes pop, but ultimately, have no thing but the noise. The fight isn't gone, but...

The rust is eating through the iron.

"It was about you! You knew I wouldn't want to talk to you and you dragged me off, knowing that I was going to scream and yell at you because that's what we do to each other!"

But-- he's getting quiet and somber and dull, yes.

"You're only ruined because you won't let anyone help you."

Of course, the iron can't turn away the person that offers to clean the rust. But that's why it's a metaphor.

This is real.

"You can't help me," he retorts without energy. "To do that you'd have to give up your own mission, and you won't."

And honestly? At this point, he'd never ask. It'd be as insulting as asking him to lay down and give up... like his uncle often does.

"Zuko, that you think I'm talking about me helping you, while we're in Milliways, with all these people," she waves her arm out over the expanse of the lake - Wells was here once, and Steph, Rachel had passed through, and perhaps even Hephaestus had enjoyed the sun at one point...

This is home to his friends, his allies, the greatest collection of people who love him. And he thinks she is offering her help.

He flinches, and looks away.

"My problems-- my world is not theirs. I can't -- ask anymore then I already have," he says lowly. He's already too weak. He can't ask anymore.

Idiot, isn't he?

Yes.

Scowling, Katara isn't thinking of Zuko - she's thinking of all those people who have passed under the sun, who have taken a chance and cared about him.

Wasted their cares.

"Then you're putting the rust there all on your own," she snaps, turning from him finally to walk away.

Maybe there had been someone to blame in the past, but now? It's all on him.

"I've already taken too much," he says. "I-- can't take everything that's offer without something to give back."

He honestly doesn't understand unconditional love.

But he doesn't stop her. He just lets the dogs paddle up, and flop beside him. They make for good, soggy cuddles. Not that he needs one. Never.

Right. What he needs is tough love, hard blows and sharper tongues.

Isn't that lucky? Since Katara's coming back to yell at him.

"You're just-- you're so--" She struggles for words, turned back toward him, hands up and fisted, brain not working and she's so angry at him and so-- tired of being angry at the same time.

"Sometimes people just love you and the worst thing you can do, the most ungrateful, cruel, thoughtless, selfish think you can do is ignore that love and treat it like something to be paid back with something other than loving them back!"

Zuko flinches, blinking up at her with a -- bewildered look.

He-- seriously doesn't get it. Everything demands a payment, doesn't it? He's never gotten anything for free. Not in a long, long time.

"That's not enough," he says quietly. "If it was, I'd be home."

If it was just enough to love his father, to try hard in his name, to love his people... he wouldn't be here. He'd be home, they'd be happy, and... and that'd be perfect and good, wouldn't it?

But it doesn't work that way.

Not for Zuko.

"It is enough, so long as--"

Someone loves you back.

But even Katara really just can't-- quite-- say that. Not to Zuko, not to anyone.

"...You're too obsessed with home as a place," Katara says quietly after a very long moment, her gaze down on the grass rather than him, the dogs, the people around them-- everything. "You're ignoring all the other things that make a home a home."

"That's where my family is," Zuko says sharply, an edge of desperation there. "THey're waiting for me." Waiting for him to fail, so they can forget him.

"That's why it's home."

They're not a real family. They can't be.

Look at his sister, look at how she hit his uncle, without a moment's thought. Automatic.

Katara just looks at the grond-- but her gaze rises a moment later, without pity.

Just intense sadness.

"...they're not your only family."

The tribe was her family, but so were Sokka and Aang and Toph-- and Steph and Jet. She had several homes.

Why couldn't he?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject