[Thread] Lightning crashes.

[banishment]

Characters: Prince Zuko (OU) and Jaina Solo (OU)
Where: the commons behind the stores
When: horribly backdated, holidays = mun!failure
Summary: Practicing with different forms of lightning.
Warnings: well, sparring, but it shouldn't get too bad

Comments

[banishment]

Zuko had not heard her approach and jumped when she dropped her coat and spoke, spinning around while dropping into a defensive stance, a fist full of flames drawn back and ready to strike. Her words registered a second later and he backed down once he realized that this was Jaina Solo. He halted his bending and stood straight, looking the girl up and down as he uttered an apology - "Sorry."

She was wearing clothes that struck him as neither belonging to his world or what people here seemed to wear collectively. The devices at her hip were strange and foreign, and he didn't pretend to know what they were or did.

"That's right," he said. "I'm Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation."

[banishment]

Still baffled as to why a well-trained tracker like himself hadn't heard her coming - he could even hear Aang coming when the young airbender tried to sneak up on him - the prince nodded in agreement. "Yeah," he said neutrally, "nice to meet you, too."

It wasn't that he was putting up a hard, stoic front for just Jaina, it was the way he was with everyone, save a handful of people who he dropped the act around, but Zuko had issues with letting people get too close to him. He always had, ever since he was a boy and especially since his banishment and the incident with this father that had earned himself the scar on the left side of his face. He wore a skilled mask, but behind that was a series of turbulent emotions that tended to bounce back and fourth between subtleties and extremes - something he would learn sooner or later he couldn't hide from Force-users, just as he couldn't hide it from empaths, like the Quatres.

He nodded. "Yes, let's."

[banishment]

Zuko calmed himself and backed up a bit, clearing his mind of his frustrations and wonders to focus solely on the girl out here on the concrete with him and the talents she possessed - talents that would soon be coming this way. He turned to face her when he felt he was a good enough distance away, flexing his hands at his sides, ready for her advance.

He nodded at her and bent his knees, almost - but not quite - positioning himself into a proper bending stance.

"Show me what you've got."

[banishment]

Zuko caught her lightning, but instead of simply holding it there in a bundle of bolts in his palm, he took the electricity into his being, drawing it along the lines of energy running through his being, chanting in his head: in, settle, and back out. What seemed like minutes to him was mere seconds in reality and after pulling the lightning into his form and moving his arms back, he pulled the lightning back out and sent her own bolts back at her - not right at her, of course. The lightning struck the ground at her side.

The prince shook himself out of the stance and flexed his hands, staring at his fingers with his good eye to make sure he was undamaged. That was the first time he'd redirected lightning that wasn't generated by a firebender. It had felt different, yet the same, all at the same time. His belly still tinged with energy he'd held within him for the briefest of seconds.

Remembering Jaina, Zuko looked up and said, "That...that went well."