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

[ellectrical]

"Something like that."

She doesn't even say it to be reticent. It's the most honest answer there is.

And maybe partly because of the way he'd said it, she glances over a little more directly and asks, "Disposed?"

[princeinexile]

"He and my sister are currently in the Tower," and there's totally said like it's capitolized. "He's-- been stripped of his bending and I took the throne by force."

With the Avatar's assistance.

"Since, we've had two years of peace after a hundred years of war," he says, and this is no small thing. "Two years of busy peace, but still -- nobody's fired a shot. We're still dealing with occasional riots in the Earth Kingdom colonies and occasional revenge terrorism, but... it's a lot better then what it was."

Terrorism can be dealt with. Treaties can be forged. Colonies can be given over to the new governments or people can return to their home nations. It's politics, but it's what he was prepared for.

[ellectrical]

Elle can figure out what some of this means. Otherwise, she... doesn't care a lot.

(Elle should never be Supreme Ruler of anything.)

"It doesn't sound like it bothers you."

What she's referring to isn't entirely clear.

[princeinexile]

"My father being deposed or the war being over?" Zuko asks, his one good brow arching. "The one is a fact of life, and really, so is the other. They were both necessary for the continuation of life on our world."

[ellectrical]

After a moment, she shrugs one shoulder, and takes a sip of her coffee.

She'd comment further, but she's not really sure what to say about that.

[princeinexile]

"It does," he admits. "But I can't fix him -- or my sister -- and the nation needs a Fire Lord. A Fire Lord who works for peace instead of conquest. I seem to the the only possible candidate."

He shrugs once. "How's the new job, then?"

[ellectrical]

After a long moment, she replies, "I think it's a lot less complicated than yours."

Elle even manages the good-humored expression to go with it.

[princeinexile]

"I think a lot of things are a lot less complicated then mine," says Zuko, "but that may not mean they're more enviable. Aang's got a hell of a job ahead of him, playing emissary of peace and the spirit world right now."

Things could be just as difficult for Elle; he doubts it -- she's not the world savior type -- but it could be.

[ellectrical]

Elle doesn't ask who Aang is. The description alone is enough to confuse her.

(She's more familiar with the world conquest type, but she finds both about equally confounding.)

"You wouldn't want my job." Elle says it with certainty, but only because she's really the only person who can, or would want to, do it.

"But I'm the only one who needs it done."

She doesn't mind that,either.

[princeinexile]

"I could say I'm in a similar position." She wouldn't want his job either. "Is it difficult, then? Your new job?"

[ellectrical]

It sounds like a lot more people depend on what Zuko's doing, though. Elle's okay with skipping that.

"Sometimes it's a lot of work," she says, in a measured way. "And I don't get a lot from it."

"But I still have to do it."

[princeinexile]

There's one job that Zuko wishes her could do-- find his mother-- but unfortunately, that's something that's backburnered while he lifts his Nation out of a bloody gutter.

"I think I can say I know how that feels," says Zuko. "But now is different." Being Fire Lord -- isn't about what you get, but about what you give, at this point.

[ellectrical]

"Is is better?"

When it comes down to it, Elle's current work has her missing jobs from which she didn't have to expect anything other than not being bored.

But somehow, she doesn't think it's the same.

[princeinexile]

"For years I did what others told me for a promise of reward. There was no reward to work, and it was largely madness," says Zuko, remembering exile. "Now, there's something important I want to do--just for myself. But I can't. But in the mean time, I know my people are safe, the world is at peace and we have even more work ahead of us before I will ever be able to say, 'this time is mine for this quest'. But it's frustrating, all the same -- knowing that the longer I wait,t he less likely I am to succeed."

"Sacrifice is honorable, but it cuts deep if you're called on for it." He shrugs. "It's something you learn to live with. Especially if you're the only possible person who can do what you do."

And it sounds like it is.

[ellectrical]

But in Elle's experience, reward was a strange concept. Sure, there was get better, and you can have your own room. Get better, and you can go outside. That kind of progress had stagnated long before she'd picked up Peter Petrelli; by then, it was do the job, because it's the only thing a crazy bitch like you can do. Selflessness was ingrained in her.

It was doing things for herself that proved painful and uncertain. The nature of what she'd found didn't help; and maybe fortunately, now, she had no real other options. But what proved more difficult was to keep at bay the longing to work entirely for someone, or something, other than herself.

She doesn't doubt anything Zuko's saying, however, so after a short stretch of silence, she answers, "I don't think we're that much alike."

"But you know what you're doing."

It sounds like she thinks that's a good thing, at least.

[princeinexile]

"Thanks," he says. About knowing what he's doing, at least.

She doesn't have to think like he does, anyway-- may not be what she needs. "I think you'll do fine, anyway."

[ellectrical]

It occurs to her that she's not entirely sure if that would be a good thing.

She sips at her coffee again, and after a very long moment (a combination of pondering the question, and deciding whether she really wants to know the answer)-




"Have you seen your old student here?"

Unlike the suspicious and sarcastic demeanor she'd taken the first time they'd talked about Sylar, her tone now is entirely even.

[princeinexile]

"No," he says without rancor or fear. "I haven't. That's probably for the best. I have had better students since-- he was, shall we say, a learning experience."

On how easily he can be duped by a good story. Liz and Aang were different, though; one needed him, and he needed the other.

[ellectrical]

"Yep."

It's quiet. She's looking over the bar now, rather than at Zuko.

[princeinexile]

"Is he still a problem in your world?"

He wonders if he made it worse.

[ellectrical]

"Guess that depends on who you ask."

It's the only time yet her tone has become a little bitter. But she doesn't know Zuko's other question, and so offers no response for it.

[princeinexile]

He frowns a little.

"Sorry if I made it worse," he says shortly. It's about all he can offer for now.

[ellectrical]

She shakes her head, the bitterness dropping out of her voice once more.

(Between the two of them, she feels by far the one who made it worse.)

"He doesn't do that radiation thing anymore."

Beat.

"I think."

After a pause, she shrugs one shoulder. "Not since the last time I saw him."

[princeinexile]

"Good. That-- was--" unnatural, even to a bender, a power so-- beyond Fire-- "disconnecting. Even when I didn't really know what it was."

[ellectrical]

It gets another shrug.

"It's just someone's ability." Sprague's power seemed no stranger than hers - and it was easy for her to get her head around than something like telepathy or precogs.

"And he has others."