A Cure For Pain

[princeinexile]

A few days ago, a funeral announcement went up.

Two long-time visitors to Milliway's -- one of the longest, and a recent return, anyway -- spoke of it between the clang of hammers and roar of flame as billows got pumped. It was a short conversation, and to some it might be uncharitable. The dead often returned to Milliways, and having a funeral was like asking for them back.

But while the funeral goes on -- Zuko did not go, because he did not know any of the dead, and he had no idea of Teja did -- preparations were made. Tea was gathered, snacks were stockpiled, and come mid-morning Sunday work began in earnest to take their preparations and put them to use. Zuko dropped a little sign on the bar Sunday morning, reading in simple script:

Stressed, upset, angry, sad? Come to the forge today! Whether you need tea and cats or a dummy and live steel, you can find some way to vent.

It's not the most eloquent, but Zuko figured to-the-point was the best way to go.

At the forge, they'd been busy. They'd set up several stations for whatever combat one wanted to engage in. Straw-wrapped dummies for practice with blades or other weapons, while there are standard wooden dummies for martial arts practice. Got to work off the negative energy somehow.

If work is not the type to allow one too unburden, there's also Teja over with the mass of forge cats that have come to lounge, beckoned by treats and warmth. Hay bales, blankets, cushions for sitting -- they've made a little area near the forge to simply rest and beat, with Teja providing tea and cats providing cuddles. He's there to provide a different type of comfort - an ear to listen while one sits with the comforting weight of a cat in one's lap and a cup of tea in hand. There are snacks for both people and beasts

Zuko, less good at the whole 'comfort' thing, he sticks to what he knows: beating things up. Doesn't mean he doesn't come to get tea of his own or pet the cats, or that Teja won't give a demonstration of the weapons on display. They are doing their best to help people with the strengths they have, and there is some overlap. After all, Zuko's uncle didn't go to all that trouble to teach him to make tea and not use those skills.


[ Mingle post! Zuko and Teja are both; if you want one specifically, please tag with that person in the subject line. Otherwise, tag around and have a good time.]

Comments

[ostro_goth]

Tea isn't the delicate affair that one would connect with the cultivators whose grief Teja and Zuko will hope to lessen; it's not the refined delight that Zuko and his uncle Iroh served in their tea shop in Ba Sing Se, it's just Teja's usual windowsill mix -- a random grab of the living herbs that originally were a gift from Demeter, brewed up with about an equal amount of black tea in a large clay teapot. It's smells very nice, though, with peppermint, lavender and rosemary the leading aromas.

The cats are, at this moment, clustered around Teja, who is perched on a bale of hay with his harp leaning by his feet, distributing fish to all six of them. Yes, there are six today; Myrrh and Kyber have come down from Galen's and Bodhi's rooms, too.

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Hannibal Lecter had seen the preparations and gone upstairs, only to come down again half an hour later in his kendô gear and a couple of extra shinai. He made his way through the autumn leaves on wooden geta clogs, but now, true to kendô custom, he's barefoot.

If you ever wanted to hit Hannibal Lecter, now is your chance.

[hat_and_dimples]

Jin Guangyao is there, wanting neither comfort (he knows two of the three people being mourned aren't dead because he holds them, on his father's orders and with Xue Yang's practical involvement, in the dungeons beneath Golden Koi Tower) nor beating up things (that's not what his cultivation is about), let alone the barbarian forgemaster's rough herbal tea.

But he's curious, and hopes to see Zenigata to talk about the watchtowers and local police some more. When he goes back home, he wants to have a plan ready to present to people.

[zenigatcha]

Zenigata is there, alright, beating one of the wooden dummies into submission with bare-handed combat in a crisp, white judogi. If he's bothered by the cold in his bare feet, it doesn't seem to show.

His size and strength alone are enough to give most combatants pause, but add in the speed he's developed over the years to work against Lupin... Well, that's a hell of a thing. He's only just stopping for a breather between rounds when he notices the gold of Jin robes and glances over before he gives a little wave. Hi there, he's catching his breath, he's been hitting things very hard for a while.

[hat_and_dimples]

Jin Guangyao comes drifting over. "That dummy is dead," he says, smiling at Zenigata. "What happened to your shoes, though?"

[zenigatcha]

"Ah, at home, I'd be barefoot in a dojo. Not that I can't fight in my shoes, but -- it's a matter of habit," Zenigata says, smiling slightly. He's still not up to his normal Big Happy Feelings, and it'll probably be a while. "I take it you Cultivators practice combat with shoes on?"

[hat_and_dimples]

"Oh yes," Jin Guangyao says. "We have good solid boots that help us to stand squarely on a blade."

[zenigatcha]

"Ah! Well, we do no boots on blade. Any sword I might use is in my hands and that's all," Zenigata says, pondering the whole idea of a sword being something you fly on. Wild, but he's seen some weird shit in his day so maybe not as wild to him as it might be to others. "Like the fellow in Kendo gear -- that's beating on the dummies over here. That how I would practice swords at home."

[hat_and_dimples]

"The one over there wearing a helmet with bars over his face, heavy gauntlets, a long robe, and bare feet?" Jin Guangyao says, looking over at the strange apparition systematically hitting the dummy on apparently prescribed spots.

[zenigatcha]

"Yes. That's for Kendo, our sword arts," Zenigata says, looking over to the man he's never met before who is definitely enjoying his time with the shinai. "Good form," he says mostly to himself.

Putting his attention back on Jin Guangyao, he asks, "You given more thought to what we spoke about?"

[zenigatcha]

When Zenigata first investigated the forge, he was pleasantly surprised. He wasn't one for tea and petting cats, but the set up to punch or cut things? He's there, needing to burn off rage and grief in a productive way.

While his best art is definitely Judo with its sibling art, taihojutsu, and he's very practiced in Kendo, thanks to years as a police officer and then Interpol inspector, he's picked up a lot of other combat along the way. So he went back into bar, got a fresh white judogi and gloves, and then came back to put his hands into action.

The style he has now weaves through everything from the grabs and locks of Judo to the brutal elbows and knees thrown in Krav Maga. He's a machine, making plenty of noise over here as he beats the wooden dummy within an inch of its life. Tea can come after, to replenish his energy, but for now he is all about the beatdown.

[princeinexile]

Zuko is out and about, though he's mostly lounging once everything is set up. Leaning against a hay bale, he's in what are both combat practice and casual clothes for the lord of the Fire Nation, but he's not getting up to punch or cut anything unless asked.

He's also got some entirely different tea brewed, and it's a ginger-ginseng green blend.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei drifts over, looking like the late-afternoon sun breaking through a gap in storm clouds. This is because he is still dressed in grey mourning robes, and is carrying Ferdinand the orange forge cat, who was one of Wen Ning's favorites.

"Zuko-san - thank you for doing this. Even during a period of mourning, it is not good to fall completely into despondency."

[princeinexile]

"Oh! Uh, hey, Abe-san," Zuko says, looking up from his own tea cup and contemplative thoughts. He smiles, gold eyes bright. "No, it's -- I figured some people might need something, and Teja agreed. I didn't know who died at all, but that doesn't mean you can't still be kind."

If his journey with the Avatar taught him anything, it is that there needs to be more kindness in the world.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei sits down on a nearby hay bale and rubs Ferdinand’s belly. “I knew Wei Ying only a little, and Wen Qing I never met. But Wen Ning I was fond of. It is terrible to think that he and his loved ones are muen.”

This word does not translate well from Japanese, and after a moment or so Seimei seems to realize that this is the case. “That is, they have no family to inter their bodies, perform their funeral rites, and visit their graves. To know that makes their loss even sadder.”

[princeinexile]

In the dark nights of his exile, Zuko wondered if he would suffer a similiar fate. To die an ignoble death at sea, bones giving the most insulting fate of being swallowed up by water. Or would he be burned, and his cremains scattered to nothingness? Not to rest with his family, to not be interred near Lu Ten, his beloved cousin, as part of the family of Azulon?

"They have you, at least," he says after his dark thoughts drift off. "That has to be worth something."

[yinyangwizard]

“They have Zenigata-keibu as well. And Lan Wangji, I am sure, will do rites as he is able.”

But it is the three of them against the worst sort of circumstances.

“Perhaps those who have been here before will return. But I would not rest on this assumption.”

[princeinexile]

"Can't say I've met either of those men," Zuko says, considering. Both of them are new, though, and hard to miss. One is extremely good looking (even of Zuko's not into men, he knows beauty when he sees it) and the other is extremely big and loud. Both are hard to miss.

"If they do come here, then maybe they'll find some more peace knowing their deaths were tendered to in the right manner," Zuko says. He doesn't say that he'd bet money on at least one of them coming back, but... well, that'd be rude.

Plus, he and Teja are too nice to bet money on such a crass thing.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato isn't one of the mourners, although he's been distantly aware of the shift in mood in the bar, and the preparations for the funeral.

But he saw the preparations in the forge, and he could always use more martial arts practice, so he gets changed and sets himself up near one of the wooden dummies, going through the familiar motions of kickboxing practice.

[hat_and_dimples]

A small man with golden robes and a black, official-looking hat stands nearby, with a cup of Zuko's tea, and watches people spar or practice.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato's accustomed enough to people watching, at least enough to not feel awkward about it, so while he spares the man a quick glance, he doesn't pause in battering the training dummy.

[hat_and_dimples]

The man gives him a polite little bow and keeps watching.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"I'm not keeping you from using this dummy, am I?" Yamato asks, between kicks.

[hat_and_dimples]

"Oh no, I'm just watching," the little man says. "We mostly fight with swords. Or magic."

[angry_friendship_wolf]

"'We'?"

Yamato only counts one little be-hatted man.