milliways_bar | Lake Party Water Post Day Two

Entry tags:

Lake Party Water Post Day Two

Sunshine Dust, the golden squid, frolics closer to shore today. There were so many people to play with in the lake yesterday! And squids need love and attention too!

There's a soft breeze coaxing the water into gentle waves, playing around the Black Pearl's sails.

If you didn't get a chance to swim yesterday, there is only today.

Tomorrow, it will be February again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"So why are you still here?"

Fighting with him tooth and nail, still. Trying to make him see.

'Helping' him.

"Because I can't get away from you!"

Why not help him if he's there, every time she turns around, hurting someone she loves without thinking? At home, in their world, at least, she was certain he wasn't in Ba Sing Sei.

Haha. Funny, right?

Hilarious.

"So sorry," he drawls, and mock bows. "I forgot, I'm only allowed to have places you don't?"

Bitch.

"Spirits, did I say it was your fault?!" she snaps, angry, so angry at him, her hands finding her hips now. Why is everything a fight, why can't he grasp the most common of human decencies?

And sometimes... why can't everything just be his fault and let that be the end of it?

"You're just-- always there! So why shouldn't I try to help if I see you all the time?!"

"Because you don't want to help, you just-- want me to-- to accept! Accept defeat, accept -- this -- filthy little life I have, playing at -- at living like a peasant, living like some refugee! That's not help!"

Human decency? Whose shown Zuko that? Even when he was at his best, most compassionate and understanding -- he was rewarded with spit at his heels and rocks in the hands of peasants.

"Stephanie is filthy?!"

You are in the realm of the Best Friend, Zuko. Tread carefully.

"Stephanie is dead!" Zuko shouts. "There's a difference. But--"

He realizes he's said too much. "It's -- not. Here. This -- at least... I have a fraction of respect. No army of beaten and hungry peasantry have lined the road, waiting with rocks, here, at least."

Not yet. Maybe sometime they'll tire of him here, and they'll shut the door forever.

Her hand is up before she's stopped to think, her face twisted into something ugly and hating, nothing that sits well on Katara's loving face--

But then, she doesn't much experience with slapping people across the cheek either.

"If you think that makes her any less of a person, if you think that makes her feelings worth any less than anyone else's then you don't deserve her or any of the other love and respect you get here! You're a selfish brat sitting up on a pedestal you put there for yourself and you won't rest until you're back on the throne or everyone who's made the mistake of caring for you is broken with regret!"

The scar is now flushed-- the cheek below it pinkening, making it look that much bigger.

"It means I couldn't take her with me," he says numbly; it's hardly the first time he's been struck in disgust -- for, really, if he sees Katara and not Ozai, it will be a miracle here. "I tried. I tried to find a way. But it can't be done. That cannot be denied. But neither can our world."

And that's all he needs to say, isn't it? But maybe it won't matter-- that he can't accept that failure, and what it means for them.

No. Ozai struck him down in disgust because Zuko cared too much for people who were not people-- to him.

Katara strikes him because he looks at a girl who loves him and only sees a corpse.

"And how many times have you left Milliways without finding your way back?" she asks, voice low and trembling, dangerous almost and she is livid in the way that Katara rarely is - she doesn't even regret hitting him. "How many times have you left and not been back within a month?

"Yes, Stephanie's dead. No, she can't go anywhere else, she's stuck here. But a part of you is, too - a part of both of us, all of us. You might not be able to stay away from home but you can't stay away from here either. So stop using this place and our world and the spirits and fate and whatever else you're using as a shield to hide what you're really saying: you wouldn't try to have a life with her.

"You could but you won't."

"This isn't a life," Zuko snaps -- all the same, he knows it's true. "This is a stay in a -- a way station, a stop on the road. This is not a place you live, settle down, have a family! Even you can't say you want to raise damned children here! I want a life and a family, and I want to do my duty by my people, and I want to see time pass! I don't want to grow old while she stays young! Why are you damning me for this?!"

He sighs. "You stop. You relax. You rest. You recover. But you don't live."

This should make it better somehow, easy. She hardly needs to damn him when Zuko does it himself so well with his own words. Katara looks at him and her anger only grows, though her voice stays quiet, trembling with rage.

"Right. You meet the girl, you kiss the girl, you lie with the girl. But you don't marry the girl.

"She's a way station."

"I can't," he replies. "You understood before, now you can't. What changed?" He asks, his eyes narrowing. "What changed that you accepted that answer as fair once, and now it's bad? Find yourself a little dead boy? Want to lie to yourself, say it's going to last? That you won't wonder when you never know what it's like to have a baby at your breast?"

"Somehow, I don't think you broke up with Stephanie because you were worried about your breasts, Zuko!" she snaps, but it's louder now, none of the restraint, all of the anger in a rush, a torrent.

Struck a nerve.

"Maybe it was fair once because I asked you! I asked and you answered so I left it alone! But now you're trying to justify hurting someone who thinks and feels and loves by saying she's dead-- and the only way you can tell she's dead is because she can't pass through the doors!

"You want to feed yourself this crap, go ahead, but I won't chew on it any longer than I have to! That's rust, Zuko, and you aren't just building it up on yourself, you're putting it on everybody else, hoping they'll be as miserable as you!"

Zuko smirks. "Enjoy him while he lasts. In a year-- you'll regret it as much as I do."

He's not even listening to the rest. She's revealed herself -- and her beau. The lat word is his-- he turns and whistles for the dogs. It's time to go somewhere else.

Good thing, since they look like they want to take Katara's arms off. It's not really good to slap Zuko around infront of his pets, y' know.

At this point, she might have slapped the pets, too.

Glaring as he walks away, Katara crosses her arms over her belly, suddenly chill despite the sun.

"Don't you ever go near her again! She deserves better than you!"

And Jet... Jet would never feel the pain Stephanie did.

Families were made without blood. Good families.

Now? Katara's striding off toward the Bar, hands fisted at her sides. She's got a boy to find.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lake Party Water Post Day Two

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