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

[alwaysroomforhope]

"Your world is interesting," Steph says, looking down, voice quiet. "Mine's ... I don't know. I'm wondering if it's time to move on, honestly."

There's always the door, and the clearing at the end of the path. If she wasn't so afraid of it.

[princeinexile]

He looks at the wall; he can see his door. He can feel the heat of Hephaestos' ring under his clothes; it's not something he relinquished, not something he forgot. The favor of a God is not one that someone forgets.

Nor do you forget being the Avatar's sifu.

"And if we found a way-- for you to find a way to a more-- interesting world?" he asks, very quietly.

For her, he'd try.

No, he wouldn't try. He'd damn well succeed. If he had to throttle every last face off Koh.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph looks at him, serious and quiet. "I haven't made any decisions yet. I won't, not for a while. It's just -- what's that book? There's a line somewhere, butter spread over too much bread. It feels a little like that. I've been here too long. I mean - look at me, I'm quoting books."

The old Steph rarely even bothered to read them.

"It's not a bad thing, Zuko." His name still falls from her tongue as easily as it ever used to. "It's okay. Really."

[princeinexile]

He didn't read that book; it's a shame. He probably could have learned from it.

"I guess it just -- scares me a little," he says, voice dipping into a lower, rougher place. "Sometimes, when I take a moment to think of where I have been and what I have seen, I remember this place and the things it taught me, the people I knew. And I know-- I know that you're safe here. And Gifr and Gheri are with the Wellses on the farm, and the Wellses are happy and safe. That Hephaestos is creating something wonderful somewhere. These-- things that are right with the universe."

A world without Stephanie Brown, somewhere-- some pocket of the multiverse that he knows of-- seems like a empty, colder place.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph leans over to put a hand on his knee, gentle and affectionate, just for a moment before sitting back.

"Everything has a season," she says softly. "Whatever I decide to do, I'll be okay. And I'll remember you, wherever I am. I'll know you're well. That's important."

[princeinexile]

There are hard lessons everybody has to learn and one of the hardest is to accept the things they cannot change and recognize the things they can; they don't often learn this before the tender age of eighteen. But most people don't have to duel their own father over speaking out about what is right and most people don't have to know that to have something like world peace, most of his family has to be in prison.

Zuko is not everybody.

He lays his hand-- still callused from a time with a sword, warm with fire that is not yet seen-- over hers and is quiet for a time.

"Whatever you decide," he says.

[alwaysroomforhope]

She grins at him, sudden and bright and golden, and maybe she isn't that much older and wiser after all.

"Damn right whatever I decide." It's teasing, fond, even with that grin. Because she doesn't have that many choices left, and she loves him in this moment for not trying to take this one from her.

[princeinexile]

His grin is crooked, but comes more easily then it did before. He smiles like he means it now. There's no force, no demand, no lie. Just a young man and his smile, for a girl who was one of the first to win it.

"Damn right," he repeats. "I could quicker tame the wind like an airbender then get you to do something you didn't want to, didn't think was right." He says, "But-- still. If you decide you aren't ready for one door and want another to open...

"I'll find a way." And he will. There's simply no question. He will find his mother regardless of his father's meddling. He will come to the aid of Stephanie Brown if she wants it. These are the certainties of Zuko's universe. "I've got some friends now, and the White Lotus society... well... if I'm gonna become a member of the wise geezers club, they're gonna have to teach me a few things about spirit walking eventually."

[alwaysroomforhope]

"What are wize geezers for if not spiritual guidance?" Steph wants to know, solemn but for dancing eyes. "I'll keep it in mind, I promise."

She's not in a hurry to do anything. She has all the time in the universe. Very nearly literally.

"Tell me how Katara is? I miss her. She stopped coming here years ago."

[princeinexile]

"Katara's running around the world with Aang, when she's not at home dealing with her Grandmother and her master--who is a friend of my uncle's, and they're apparently marrying late," he says, illustrating the strange connections they all didn't know they had. "They're a thing now, but I don't know how that's going to work out. It didn't really for Avatar Roku. Who is my great-grandfather by my mother's side. She's happy with him, near as I can tell. We got to be friends, toward the end. Her and Sokka and Toph."

Toph is his favorite of the group, fhonestly, but he does not say that now. She might hear him. Yes, even here.

Especially here.

"Sokka, her brother, is marrying in the fall to a Kyoshi warrio named Suki. She's nice. He's trying to work on things that make the world better, right now. Toph's doing whatever she pleases with impunity thanks to her reputation as the girl who thought the Avatar earthbending, and Uncle Iroh returned, very safely to Ba Sing Se and has very thoroughly headed into retirement."

It's all very wrapped up, except for that 'mother' angle. Zuko's story is not quite complete, till that's wrapped up.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph is smiling, listening to this litany. He got to be friends with Katara, and Toph. She doesn't care so much about the others, she never met them, but - it's good to know that people she loves are happy.

"It sounds like the end of a story. 'And you all lived happily ever after.'"

Why does everything sound like the end of a story to her lately?

"If you see Katara and if she remembers, say hi to her for me."

[princeinexile]

"She remembers," he assures her. "Don't know that either of us would agree on story-book endings, though. I think more weddings have to happen before that's really 'storybook' and I don't think Aang's quite ready... or has the time just yet. He'll have to hurry, though. She's gonna be baby hungry sooner or later... sooner, probably, with Katara."

Zuko can do without. He's -- not exactly chomping at the bit to be a daddy. Wonder why!

[alwaysroomforhope]

Can't imagine.

Steph's smile is a little wistful. She'd have loved that, too. But it's good that Katara will have it, will be happy.

"Wasn't Aang very young? I guess you're all older now, though."

[princeinexile]

"Aang was twelve. He's fourteen now. She's sixteen. It's making things-- kinda awkward, I guess." Katara's seen more, done more. Aang's-- not ready, not yet. Also, really busy.

"I'll be nineteen in a few months," he adds. "Sokka will have a birthday shortly before his wedding. And the cycle goes."

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph's smile is a little sad, but only a little. She is Steph.

"It's going to get really, really weird when you guys all start hitting your thirties and forties and I'm still sixteen," she says, amused by the mental image.

[princeinexile]

Zuko makes a face that assures her is still young, and has no concept of his own 'growning old'. He doesn't want to get old! Right now he's just entering the height of his life and he's not even nineteen yet! Can it get better then this when you get old?

Zuko says no, and the world rolls it's eyes. Kids.]

"Not just yet, alright? Not just yet. There's time for that later." Isn't there. That's, after all, the nature of time.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Steph is giggling. "You look so panicked by that. It's kind of hilarious."

Ah, she really misses him sometimes.

[princeinexile]

Well, at least that's mutual.

"Well, it's just that's thirties-and-forties and then you blink and I've become Uncle Iroh when nobody was watching," Zuko says, face scrunching. "And while I should be so lucky to be that smart or wise... I'm not quite ready to be that old!"

He's got his whole life ahead of him!