cyclicality | Spirit Wilds Vagabond Catch-All

"I'm coming with you."

This coming from a masked Zuko as he walked up to Wan, noticing that he was about to head out again. It didn't matter where he was going or what he was doing. He wanted, and needed, to do something. To feel useful somehow.

Wan gave a nod and waved for Zuko to follow, "You can take the mask off. I know what you look like already."

He was headed to the edge of a former shopping district. A small, one city block space, where most of the ground floor shops had already been looted. But he was hoping the upper stories that held the former shopkeeper's apartments and some storage spaces would still have some things.

"Your shoes holding up okay? There's going to be a lot of broken glass around the buildings we're going to. I'm trying to clean up what I can now that animals are starting to settle in with the spirits, but there's a lot more than I can carry at any one time."

There's a moment of hesitance but Zuko does take the mask off. You never know when they might run into someone.

"It's not because of you," he admits while tucking the mask into his clothes, just in case.

"They're fine." His shoes are pretty sturdy and wouldn't be wearing out on him for awhile. Though Zuko hadn't bothered to get more modern clothing other than the cloak he used to hide his identity, which wasn't with him at the moment.

Wan gave a nod to acknowledge Zuko's comment about who the mask was for and stayed quiet for about the first two blocks of travel. Far enough that if anyone was going to hear them, it would be because they chose to follow.

"The humans that used to live here didn't really leave a lot of clothes behind," he started. "At least not anything that fit me. Most of what I've found have been smallcloths or children's clothes. And what adult clothes I have found have mostly been too small for me. Shoes have pretty much been all cleared out. We might find a stray sock without a match. Those are worth keeping. But what I'm hoping to find today are more pots, pans, and intact plates and bowls. More people are living here now and those can be put to good use."

Wan hadn't had a handle to ramble in a while and with other humans that was something he felt inclined to do, "The block we're headed to had a lot of small first floor shops with apartments above them. I saw one that used to sell masks. We could find you a new one if you don't like the one you're wearing. Maybe."

Zuko listened as he followed along. Wan seemed to be pretty at home in this place. Zuko, not so much. He's had to rough it before, but that was a bit different. These 'spirit wilds' were unlike any forest he's ever been in, and it was teeming with spirits, which he wasn't used to. Speaking of which, a wide-eyed frog looking spirit sat there on a branch looking at him as they passed. He grimaced at it but kept on going.

"Right," he eventually replied to the list of things they were looking for. It made sense. Things to cook with could come in handy.

But Zuko perked up when he mentioned the abandoned shops, particularly the ones with mask. "Great. Maybe I can actually get something that Toph can't metalbend."

"I think the metal ones are neat, but I like the wooden ones a lot more," Wan commented. He didn't always get a chance to talk about the life he had ten thousand years before so the opportunity to do so, even if he didn't get to go into details the way those from only a generation or so before could, was doing to be taken advantage of. "I used to own a mask. It was a sort of dog spirit type creature. It was one I got at a festival."

One he stole at a festival along with the monkey creature mask that Jaya grabbed for himself. The most expensive items they'd ever owned. Ignoring the fact that they didn't pay for them.

Edited 2014-10-31 23:55 (UTC)

"I used to have a wooden theater mask," Zuko said back as he followed. "It was the dark water spirit, from my mother's favorite play."

If they were going to talk about masks and the past, Zuko was up for that.

"Love Amongst the Dragons. When we played, my sister always wanted to be the Dragon Emperor, and always made me be the water spirit."

That's why he had used that particular mask when he needed to conceal his identity. But he had gotten rid of it a long time ago.

"Love Amongst the Dragons," Wan repeated, slowly sounding the words as he tried to recall if he knew that one. Finally deciding he hadn't, he continued, "I've never heard of it. It sounds like an interesting story, though. With Dragon Emperors and Water Spirits. What's it about?"

"It's about two dragons. A lady dragon is in love with the Dragon Emperor, but he was too haughty and full of pride to recognize her devotion. Until an evil water spirit turned the Dragon Emperor into a mortal. Eventually he defeats the water spirit and returns to normal. The Dragon Emperor and Empress are then reunited and live happily from then on."

Zuko smiled to himself as he recounted the story and the last time he had seen the play. It was shortly after that, that he had been reunited with his mother and learned her story. But his smile faded a little as he remembered his sister.

"That... doesn't sound anything like how dragons actually are," he said with a confused raise of the eyebrow. "How did he defeat the water spirit?"

Zuko folded his arms. "How do you know what dragons are like? Anyway, it's just a play."

And it was a nice story. He liked it, okay?

"With firebending of course."

Duh.

Wan shrugged and answered without thinking, "I learned to firebend from a Spirit Dragon. I guess if the Dragon Emperor was a Spirit Dragon the story sort of works. Not that Dragons have Emperors or Courts the way humans do, but... well, I guess it is just a play."

Written by humans, for humans. And who knows, maybe Dragons enjoyed it, too.

"Wait, you learned firebending from a Spirit Dragon?"

Zuko paused to stare at Wan in awe and disbelief. That... would make sense he guesses considering Wan lived when there were still plenty of dragons around. But, wow, there were not many people from his own time that could say they learned out to firebend from a dragon.

Wan cringed a little at the question before nodding, "Yeah. I did. I've been trying not to say anything because there don't seem to be many dragons around anymore."

Zuko still didn't know he was the first Avatar, but he had already shared that he was from a time long before Zuko's. Admitting where he learned his bending from probably wasn't revealing too much. After all, from what he'd read, the dragons dying out was a fairly recent thing. Within the last several hundred years. Being from a time before that left a lot of centuries open for the possibilities.

Now it was Zuko's turn to cringe.

"Yeah, my people used to hunt the dragons."

Causing the near extinction of the dragons certainly wasn't one of his nation's finest moments. Among many not fine moments.

"When I lost my firebending. Aang and I found the last two dragons, and learned it from them."

Technically he wasn't supposed to tell anyone about that. But considering his older self rode on a dragon, and Wan was from a different time anyway, there was probably no harm in it.

"Your people. The Fire Nation," he repeated to himself before his interest was piqued by the next thing Zuko said, "You lost your firebending? Did a Lion Turtle take it from you for mis-using it?"

Zuko blinked in confusion at Wan.

"What? No. I've never even seen a Lion Turtle."

There aren't many of those left either.

"My firebending was fueled by anger. When I left my country and joined Aang and the others, I couldn't bend anymore. I didn't want to be filled with rage like I used to be. So the dragons taught me the true meaning of firebending."

Wan had not known that about firebending. He'd learned how to control it as an expression of his inner fire, his own light that brought life, from the start. He knew he could control it without that. But the kind of control that the hunters, the 'fire-tossers', had was not the same as what he'd learned from the Spirit Dragon.

"I didn't know firebending could be effected like that," his voice was somewhat awe-filled in his surprise. "You must have had a lot of anger if losing it made it so you couldn't control it anymore."

"I did," Zuko said quietly, a look of shame crossing his features. There were... a lot of regrets tied in with that.

"It's not something I'm proud of."

He then shook his head, not really wanting to burden Wan with more sob stories from his earlier years.

"Anyway. That's all behind me now."

"Sure," Wan offered a quick smile of apology. He hadn't meant to hit a nerve. "But if they taught you, then you must have learned to dance with dragons already, right?"

It wasn't Wan's fault, so there was no blame there. But Zuko was interested when the dancing with dragons was brought up.

"Yeah. That was part of the test they used to decide if we were worthy."

An eyebrow was raised at that, "So they taught you the dragon dance and then tested you to see if you were worthy of learning from them?"

"No, we found these statues depicting the dance at the Sun Warrior's temple. That's how we learned it. When we met the dragons, we danced with them, and they judged us. After that, they showed us their fire."

Zuko had a distant expression on his face as he remembered. It had been one of the most incredible experiences of his life.

"I had never seen fire in so many different colors before. It was beautiful."

Edited 2014-11-10 23:22 (UTC)

Wan listened and a soft smile came to his face. He remembered his own wonder and pride at how his teacher had shown him the life within the fire.

"When I was first given control of fire, all I thought about was how much power it gave me," he admitted, amused at his own naivete. "But then I learned how much a part of the world it was. How much more it was. Life and light as much as it was destruction. It destroys to pave the way for new life. It burns to shine a guiding light for the whole of the world. Dangerous, but also helpful. Balanced."

All of the elements had a balance to how they could be used and what purpose they had in the world, of course. But they were talking about fire. And it actually felt pretty nice to be able to discuss that. He hadn't really been able to share his training with anyone before. Not with someone that understood.

Zuko's eyes lit up as Wan went on. He too hadn't had an opportunity to discuss something like this with anyone else, aside from Aang and his Uncle of course. It was amazing to find someone else that understood.

"Exactly. That's how it was for me too. When I saw their fire, it's like it just... clicked. It all made sense. And I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. I was so blind. To everything."

Very very few firebenders in his time really understood this.

Scavenging/Stealing Food Whenever

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