[Thread] This much negative energy is bad for your skin.

[banishment]

Characters: Prince Zuko (OU) and OPEN [new character = new thread]
Where: the park, near the pond
When: morning
Summary: Zuko's angry and attempting to let off some pent-up steam.
Warnings: The usual amount of angst and emo-ness that comes with the Zuko package, with a side of rage, father issues, and some flashbacks.

Comments

[okinyanko]

For the best. FOR THE BEST! Ugh. There was something seriously wrong with him. To just agree to forget everything important between them all because Fye really had no choice. Damn that infuriating man and his pride. If it wasn't his way then it was the highway! Well he could just go die in a tar bit

[banishment]

"Maybe not," came the response and Zuko sat up straighter in the water, bringing a hand up to push his unkempt hair back so that the scar and mangled ear were no longer hidden by the long locks, "but I've burned down a few villages. People might've died during that. I wouldn't know. I didn't go back to check."

He got to his feet and turned around to face the person who'd approached him, having calmed down some from his initial rage. The prince crossed his arms over his chest and eyed the newcomer. The amber eyes didn't at all take him by surprise, being someone whose own eyes were gold, but the cat ears and tail were indeed a little weird. But, he'd seen stranger things in this place and didn't let it bother him.

[okinyanko]

"Then you should apologize for wailing on it..." Maybe. Pfft... Of course it wasn't the waters fault. Water is very passive and non-confrontational.

The first thing he noticed when the other turned was the scar and he wondered idly if that was because he acted carelessly with fire. To be polite he never once let his eyes drift to look solely at that. He instead found interest in the amber eyes that were similar in color to his.

"Well. I'm sure it was for a reason. Whether it's bad or good depends on the person themselves." Fye sighed a bit and glanced down at the water and his dripping clothes. He was in a similar boat then wasn't he? Fye had burned a couple villages and slaughtered a good amount of people in the war back on Celes.

Let's see if this person had a blood thirsty tyrant behind him. "You don't look like the type you goes into villages and burns them down on a whim though."

[banishment]

If this person though that water was passive and non-confrontational, he'd obviously not seen Katara one of her bad days--which, when Zuko was around her? Seemed to be every day. Water could be just as deadly as fire, if provoked in the proper manner. And Zuko had done just that. Katara proved she had it in her to at least attempt to do away with him, with the way she'd threatened him back at the Temple. She had said she would end his destiny. Feh, like he even had one of those anymore. Not here.

"I was hunting someone. Let's just say the villages got in the way."

[okinyanko]

When not being manipulated anyway... It was the nature of water. "Well then. Perfectly legitimate reason." Why not destroy a village if you needed one person hiding in it? "Though... I can tell right now that you probably never caught the person." Because a burning village meant the fugitive had the chance to run away. When hunting someone, surprise attacks were the best and perhaps only route to go. Now Fye was annoyed. "Are you going to apologize to the water or not, Hotshot?"

[banishment]

Zuko shrugged and shook his head. "I did a few times, but he always got away. I even freed him from someone else, once. And considering that I ended up leaving my own people and siding with him before I was brought here? No, I didn't."

Hotshot? That was a new one. Nicknames were something he was getting used to here and that one was tame in comparison to some of them. This one, he found himself not minding much. Just another one to add to the long list: Zuzu, Sparky, Sunshine, Jerkbender, Hotshot... Oh, how the list went on. People here seemed to enjoy calling him anything but Zuko. Still...

"My name is Prince Zuko," he clarified. "And the water is stagnant. It's not part of anyone. I was bending at it to hurting someone or burning down something. It doesn't need an apology."

[okinyanko]

Oh. He was dealing with royalty here...

He hated royalty. They were always so stuck up and arrogant. Though, this one didn't seem too bad on that scale. Then again, he barely knew him other than the fact that he betrayed his country and hated himself. Huh, he sounded a lot like his other half actually. Probably not as passive though.

"A pleasure to meet you, your highness," he said it politely. He wasn't going to bow though. He didn't bow to anyone but the one he served, and even that was reluctantly.

And then the idiot prince was being naive. He sighed. "You're wrong. Water is alive just like fire or the earth. The problem is no one ever bothers to listen." Fye used a bit of magic to summon a fluffy white towel to his as he spoke, and tossed it at Zuko's head. He was confident the other would be able to catch it. "Dry yourself off, prince. You're not very becoming when you look like a soggy puppy."

Then, he acquired a new curiosity toward the other. "Tell me, were you using fire just now?"

[banishment]

At the moment, Zuko was feeling quite humbled by his titles. In his mind, while he wasn't wearing his great-grandfather's crown, it was unnecessary to toss about monarchial stylings and waved a hand about dismissively to show as much. "No, that's alright. Just Zuko is fine. The highness stuff isn't needed, either. I'm not exactly wearing anything remotely regal right now. Please, just Zuko."

He frowned and looked back at the water. What this other boy said about the water...it sounded like something his uncle would have said. "I knew people who listened to it. They weren't big on sharing what it said, though." He sighed and muttered, "Sorry."

Zuko turned around in time to catch the towel, wondering where it came from, but appreciative of it as it saved him from having to use his bending to heat his skin and steam himself dry. He used it to soak up some of the water in his hair first, then started toweling his arms and upper torso off. At the question, he looked up.

"Yeah, I was. I'm a firebender."

[okinyanko]

"Doesn't mean you're not a prince," he replied. He would call him Zuko though, only because it was what the other preferred. Only the proper thing to do when he was a former servant of a king and was placed in front of a soaked prince. It just came naturally to him. He watched the other dry off idly before looking vaguely surprised as he spoke.

Ah! There was the apology! Fye smiled a bit and glanced toward the water at Zuko's feet. "The secrets of water is best kept silent. Just like any other element. Personally, I wouldn't want to anger one of the strongest forces on the planet."

"Firebender?" That sounded... dangerous. Fye glanced at him with slight wonder. It was different from what he was used too. He could manipulate fire to do what he wanted; like he could do with water and earth, but he could not summon fire, or any other element, on a whim. It seemed the the voice of fire was mixed with the man in front of him, like it was combined to his very soul. It was strange... and extremely intrigueing.

[banishment]

Zuko gave him a short, almost bitter laugh and shook his head of damp hair. "You sound like my sister." He would leave it at that, though. No need to go into detail about how his titles were technically ripped from him by Ozai, even though a vast majority of the people in his world still recognized him as the crown prince. Here, Azula did, too. According to her, he was born a prince and nothing could take that birthright away. He assumed that's what Iroh had been hinting at, too, when the old general had given him the crown that Sozin had worn as the crown prince over a hundred years ago.

He sighed flames, purely for show rather than a natural bending response to an emotion that he wasn't in total control of. "Yeah. Some here have called me a...pyrokinetic? I think that's the word. I can create and manipulate fire."

[okinyanko]

"Hmm?" Fye cocked an eyebrow in silent interest. He was obviously referring to the prince comment. Couldn't see why he found that so... troubling. That wasn't the right word. The Fye could tell there was a lot of things here he wasn't understand because he didn't have the whole truth, and he knew the whole truth was painful. Just like his past. Thus, Fye was not inclined to ask or really that interested. A past was a persons business, and if they decided to share then he would listen as expected

[banishment]

Despite the urge to say no, Zuko's good and only eyebrow arched slightly and he found himself asking, "What sort of payment?" before he could stop himself. Curiosity got the better of him more often than it should have and perhaps less frequently than it could have, had he not been cast out of the palace and tossed into the middle of a war. The prince didn't originally want to be the sort of fighter he'd become, but there was no way to change the path his life had gone down. And, as far as Zuko was concerned, his banishment saved him from turning into a replica of Ozai. Just like this place, as much as he hated it, had saved Azula from becoming as much. For that, he could be grateful.

"I can try," he said. "But, it might prove difficult for someone who's not a bender."

It wasn't every day that someone asked something of him that he'd been intending on doing back in his world. This person wasn't the Avatar by any means, but he was willing to at least give it a shot. It'd give him something productive do to.

(( ooc: sorry

[okinyanko]

Oh boy... that was a tough one. Considering He knew nothing of this person other than his name, and the fact that the person was a prince, meant he didn't really know what to give him and perhaps he really didn't have anything the other wanted. "Eh..." was his first 'intelligent' response. "What would you like me to repay you with?" There, when in doubt ask.

"I'd appreciate the effort, and I'm sure you will teach me well. You seem disciplined enough to know what your doing," Fye remarked. In fact, there were a lot of fine qualities in this man that he could see right away. He wondered what the other thought of himself idly, only because Fye knew that the qualities he saw were the kind that could be both positive and negative depending on how they were used.

Which in turn determined a positive or negative outlook of one's self.

((OOC: No prob~! RL can be tiring sometimes~))

[banishment]

What...what did Zuko want at the moment other than his father's head on a spike? Nothing that he could think of that wasn't out of the other boy's reach. He sighed and held a hand up, waving it dismissively. "Payment's not necessary," he said.

The compliments caught him off guard. Zuko wasn't used to his firebending being complimented, being that he grew up with a firebending prodigy for a sister and spent his more recent years alongside the Dragon of the West. He knew he was good, but he doubted he was among those who could be counted as 'impressive' by any means. He was excepted as the Avatar's firebending teacher, because there was no one else who could firebend who'd be willing to teach the boy. It was his offer of instruction or Aang guessing at the art on his own.

"...thanks."

He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "When would you like to start on this?"

[okinyanko]

Well... he could try that anyway, and he probably could have done such a thing with a snap of his fingers. It wasn't too hard, considering he his magic was one made for killing as many people as possible in as little time as possible. As it may, there were two problems. One, he had no idea what this person looked like and that helped, and two, the cuffs

[banishment]

Zuko couldn't help but feel a bit better all of a sudden about being stuck within the compound. This boy wasn't Aang, but he was eager to learn and the Fire Prince was eager to teach. He never thought of himself as an instructor, but was unable to deny just how much he'd enjoyed it when he first started working with the Avatar back in his world world. He'd barely gotten the chance to work with Aang when the boy had been here and there was only so much he could show Sailor Mars that she didn't already know.

"We can start next week, if that's okay with you."

Yes, he an official teacher again, wasn't he?

"The term we use back home is Sifu when referring to one's bending instructor," he told him and it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet gotten the other boy's name. "You know what to call me, but I don't know what to call you."