Mutatis Mutandis: Everything Changes. [OTA]

[princeinexile]

It's like a special engagement. The Midnight Showing. You know, that one time you get to see that one thing again? Maybe a rare showing of a cult favorite. It's always when you least expect it and rarely when you're ready (however you need to prepare) for it.

The Bar is like that. Zuko knows it. But he figured, a while ago, he was done with it. It had let him out into the world and it had not let him back in. He had left a student -- he had left friends and arguably, those who he could consider family. Sometimes he missed them; he missed the smell of loam and fur, bakeries that invoked a longing for a mother's touch, and dogs. After nearly two years away, he has tried to forget women with blonde hair (and the trouble they bring) and he's only been semi-successful.

But when once crown prince Zuko, now Fire Lord Zuko, at the tender age of eighteen, finds the door to his study has become the bar, he stands there, a bit dumbfounded. He is not what he was, standing in his long robes, hair done up in the queue of his station,the golden flame of the fire nation set into the knot. A lot has changed in the last couple of years for one young man. Not enough, though, that he doesn't remember something simple, something like home.

"Just a smoking mountain, Bar," he says as he approaches, and settles in to stare across a crowd that he recognizes some, doesn't others.

It has been a long time, hasn't it?


[A limited engagement showing of one Fire Lord Zuko, post animated series, after a very long absence of bar, in honor of the ATLA movie being universally loathsome. Get him while he's hotter then Dev Patel, people. You won't get another opportunity anytime soon!

CLOSED TO NEW TAGS. Thanks for the warm reception!


Tiny Tag Totally Like Aang: NARUTO]

Comments

[mnr_splinter]

"Yes?" he asks without looking up. He will not be deterred from his game. Bar cheats when you stop looking.

[princeinexile]

"No, I--" He's not a child (dammit, he's KING), "I just must've misheard. I thought you were someone else."

Someone a lot less furry.

[mnr_splinter]

"One second, if you please."
He picks up a white tile from the bowl to his right, and considers his next move. "I almost have her, you see. I just need to find the right..." He grins, and with the smug serenity that only the elderly can muster, he makes his move.

Pleased with his decision, he looks up at the young man standing before him.

"It is not often that I am confused with others. Whom are you searching for?"

[princeinexile]

Respectfully-- understanding the art of the game and those obsessed with it-- Zuko stays silent while the rat makes his move.

"You sound like my uncle, is all," he says once the moment has passed. "I know right where he is, though." Ba Sing Se, serving tea and not thinking about war, growing old and wooing widows contentedly. "Unless we're not on the same timeline here. We rarely were."

[mnr_splinter]

"Poor man, he should have his lungs examined." It's mostly a joke. Mostly. "Time flows strangely within these walls. Doors as well."

[princeinexile]

Zuko smiles again. "He used to smoke a pipe, but you'd find that's not a difficulty for my people," he says. He's the Dragon of the West, after all. He doesn't get bothered by a little smoke.

No firebender worth his spark does anyway.

[mnr_splinter]

Splinter looks off, eyes focusing on a unfixed point in his past.
"There was a time when I too enjoyed a good pipe now and then. It becomes harder and harder to convince one's children not to smoke, when one does it oneself.


...

Plus the smell of singed whiskers is one that lingers."

[princeinexile]

"We train young, to get used to the smell that fire creates--flesh, fur, cloth." He almost burned down a library, but that's not a story for right now.

"What were you playing with Bar, if I might ask?"

[mnr_splinter]

His nose twitches, and so too do his whiskers. The scent of fire is heavy, to be sure. The fur on the back of his neck threatens to raise, but he tamps it down with sheer will. Fear of fire is yet another animal instinct that must be kept in check through training and meditation.

"That is charitable of you to say. Playing." He chuckles, mostly to himself. "She has repeatedly bested me at every game we have played. This particular game is called Go. Earlier she defeated me at a game called Hungry Hungry Hippos."

[princeinexile]

"I've heard of Go," says Zuko. He became familiar with a LOT of traditional Asian things while on the run the Sarge back in the day. Hard to pass as 'generic Asian background kid' if you didn't' know what some of those things are. "We have a somewhat similar game called Pai Sho; it's somewhere between Go and Shogi."

[mnr_splinter]

His fuzzy brow furrows as he considers what a cross between Go and Sho gi would be like.

"I cannot say that I have ever heard of Pai Sho, but such a game does sound interesting. Do you play?"

[princeinexile]

"My uncle would tell you yes, and then tell me I am a deplorable player with no sense of style," he says, and then adds, "Which means I play to win, instead of to simply enjoy the game. He finds this somewhat insulting."

It's said with fondness, though; the uncle is really more like a father, though the bloodline is muddled enough as it is with treachery, alliance and madness.

[mnr_splinter]

Muddled bloodlines? Such things are completely unknown to Hamato Splinter.
...
Er...wait.

"There is something to be said for a game being an end unto itself, rather than a means to a victory. One may walk to get to a destination, or one may walk for joy of the act. Though different in intention, both are still walking."

The old rat restrains his amusement well.

[princeinexile]

"You can tell Uncle that, then, if you ever meet him," he replies. "He's come to the bar a few times."

Zuko remembers it well. He said some regrettable things.

Also, he remembers that Iroh got jiggy on his goddamn couch with Nanny Ogg. Augh. He could never deal with that couch ever again.

His uncle was never good at propriety.

[mnr_splinter]

And now Zuko knows what it's like to be SPLINTER and have MICHAELANGELO as a son.

"I think I would like that very much. Though, in order to prepare for such a meeting, surely I should be educated in his game of choice. Would you care to teach an old rat a new trick?"

[princeinexile]

But but but Iroh is OLD! He should have RESTRAINT!

"I'm sure I can teach you the basics," says Zuko. "If Bar will provide us with a--"

Board. Well, how about that. Thanks, Bar.

[mnr_splinter]

"Careful. She is wiley."

As further proof of this, Splinter gestures over towards the now abandoned Go board. The game space is not how the game was left, but rather how it would look at the end.

With Bar as he eventual winner.
Figures.

[princeinexile]

Of course. It's Bar.

Zuko takes up the box of tiles that he's given, and passes the other to Splinter. "I'm Zuko," he finally says as he sets up his tiles in his box jsut the way he likes them. "And my uncle, should you meet him, is Iroh."

And Iroh loves him some Pai Sho.

[mnr_splinter]

"It would be my honor to meet this man you speak of so highly, Zuko. Just as it is an honor to make your acquaintance. I am known as Splinter."

Splinter takes the box, and following Zuko's lead, begins to arrange his tiles.

[princeinexile]

The game is not really a GAME, it's an exploration of another world's culture. What flowers mean, the force of the elements, the way each tile moves, flips or otherwise affects the board while it is in play. Some tiles can be removed, some never leave. Some change hands, others do not.

It's gonna take a while, but thankfully, Zuko could teach this game in his sleep, thanks to Iroh.