uncle_iroh | Inbox for Sn: Pai Sho

Zuko stretches his legs out on the couch (sorry, did you want to sit here, Iroh? Whoops. All the extra time he's spent with Azula shows itself in small ways... like the way he lounges...) but cranes his neck back to look at Iroh from behind, almost upside-down. He's surprisingly quick to respond. Obviously, he did want to talk about it, then...

"I've never met anyone like her, Uncle — she was... I dunno, elegant. And kind, I could tell. Gentle. But she seemed smart, too."

He flops over in his seat to lay on his frontside and look at Iroh like a normal person, propping his chin up in one hand.

"Uncle, why don't people dance in the Fire Nation?"

Where did this question come from?!

[Given that it's Iroh, he opts for a more formal style. His respect for the man is about as high as it can get, really.]

Sir,

Zuko informs me you would like to meet for tea, and it would be my pleasure to accept such an invitation.

Sincerely,
Avatar Aang

"Then I accept. Thank you, prince Zuko."

He was smiling as he listened but at that question...

Iroh found another seat and brought it over, before bringing them both tea. It wasn't that he wasn't going to answer. He was. It just wasn't a simple thing to answer. And he was trying to figure out how exactly to explain it. He knew that it cast their family in a bad light. A very bad light; while he was used to that by now...

He sipped his tea and then set it down, arranging himself in his chair before he spoke. "Part of how you grew up was because you are a prince, Zuko. But some of what people outside the Fire Nation might see as odd about how you were raised is the same for all the Fire Nation children of your generation. Dancing, music, art. These, and many other things are passions, prince Zuko. For many they can consume a person's life. We were taught to believe this is a bad thing. And if you want to bend those people into warriors who follow your every order, they are."

He tugged lightly on his beard in thought. "Take yourself for an example. Your father taught you that what mattered was his opinion of you, your honor - as he defined it, and your duties to the Fire Nation. Had other things mattered strongly to you, then perhaps I could have convinced you to set aside your hunt for the Avatar. Who knows how things might have turned out then," he mused, then waved that aside.

"Had you been interested in dance or music, as examples, you would have learned that they can be used to communicate. If you came across someone using Water Bending to create music, you might have stopped to listen, you might have spoken to them as a person you could respect, rather than a potential subject to subjugate. The fewer interests we have not tied directly to the glory of the Fire Nation, the easier we are to control. The easier it is for us to see people who are not part of the Fire Nation as other. Lesser. It is my hope, Zuko, that when you serve as Fire Lord you shall welcome in other passions, and learning from around the world. Our world has had too much of war, and too little of music."

"Avatar,

I woud be onord t"

[He gives up and switches to voice. That is easer than trying to hunt and peck with the phone flat on the table.]

"I would be honored to share tea with you, young Avatar."

[ Of course he'll put on tea... Zuko doesn't want any tea, but he knows better than to tell Iroh so. He'll make it anyway. It doesn't matter.

The boy shows up within what feels like moments — had he already been on his way? Surely. He knocks at the door with loud, dense pounds of his fist. He's scowling when Iroh answers the door, deeper than usual, doesn't even try to smile or say hi. And... he has a black duffle bag full of stuff with him on one shoulder, and Zunyan perched on the other shoulder, wrapped around Zuko's neck in part. Zuko has the hood of his black sweatshirt up, and looks thoroughly disgruntled, far more so than Iroh had seen him in a long time, and disheveled, too. In fact, his hair is messy beneath the hood, his jeans are covered in dirt for some reason, and his good eye looks mildly puffy; and upon a closer look, for someone who knows the boy's face as well as Iroh does, the faint freckles of burst capillaries beneath the thin skin of his right undereye, his brow still knotted so deeply in frustration it almost hurt — the face of someone who's been crying and screaming furiously. And the look of someone who's clearly expecting an impromptu sleepover. ]

You can borrow the tsungi horn whenever you want, too.

[ OH. So Zuko's keeping the tsungi horn for himself, then, it sounds like. Interesting... ]

Edited 2021-06-03 20:56 (UTC)

He pulled the boy into a hug. Answers and explanations could wait. Zuko needed him, and had come to him. So he would be here for the boy.

"I would rather hear you play it, Zuko. Perhaps we can gather other instruments from home and play together with friends."

Edited 2021-06-03 21:23 (UTC)

We could. I wanna find a zheng to show Aurora. Gokudera says he's found somewhere private that has a piano. He took me to a bar once where they let him play the piano, but it was the middle of the day so no one was there except a couple old drunks... I don't wanna play tsungi horn in public. But I do wanna play with Gokudera. You'd like the piano, Uncle — he's incredible.

[ The piano is incredible. Ahem. And the pianist, too... Freudian slip. ]

"I look forward to it."

I'll send you a video if you aren't there the first time we play... He's gonna come over now so I can show him, but no piano today. I haven't played tsungi horn in like— a year. Since that one you got when we were on the ship, I think... I'm probably rusty. Not bringing it to that bar...

He hugs Iroh back, but loosely, and it's quick before he pulls away and makes his way inside without a word. He's not in the mood to be touched. He sets his bag on the floor next to the couch, but doesn't sit. He sets the dragon on the couch to sit, but it just hops off with a little flap of its wings and scurries over to Iroh, standing on its hind legs with its claws snagging the old man's clothing — pick me up, pick me up, as if to say. Zuko may not want to be touched, but Zunyan does. This was a distressing night for the little dragon, too, clearly. Meantime, Zuko just sets to pacing across the center of the room, dragging both his hands alongside his temples and all the way back across his scalp and down his neck, self-soothingly. He doesn't say a word right away. Just paces.

"So she was right..." He mutters, more to himself than to Iroh, an odd, thoughtful expression on his face, before explaining himself a little more clearly.

"Aurora said she meditates through music — by singing, and dancing. When I told Aurora that we don't dance in the Fire Nation because it's considered inelegant and a waste of time, that as an art it does nothing to glorify the Fire Lord, that even in the theatre it would not make him look stronger, just foolish and flippant, so without that patriotic aspect, people don't see much value to it... She said something that struck me. She said there was much about dancing that a powerful leader should be afraid of. That it is a silent language — the soft touch of a hand or a simple glance can mean something much deeper than can be understood by someone who's not dancing the dance. That a dance can be mournful as much as it can be joyous. And if people can communicate silently through soft touches and certain looks — then that's a threat to a nation leader who wouldn't want his people exchanging words he cannot understand."

A vague melancholy look creeps over his face, still cupped in his hand languidly as he ruminates over this confirmation of thoughts that have been on his mind for a good month or two now.

"...Our people are being deprived of a basic human instinct, aren't we? It's just something else the Fire Nation has stolen and ruined for us, all for the sake of our family's politics, for the Fire Lord's ego! No one can dance because of our fear! It's just more propaganda — isn't it?!"

Who knew Zuko would have this philosophical epiphany about dancing... Iroh, your nephew has come so far in such a short time, in so many unexpected ways.

"The honor would be mine - please, tell me a time and place of your convenience, Sifu Iroh."

"We could practice first, if you wish."

He scooped up the little dragon and closed the door before getting their tea. He set it on the table and stood with the table and tea between them to give Zuko the space he seemed to want. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Yeah. It's better if I practice with you, anyway. Look—

[ He sends a picture of a set of teethmarks on his calf with his pantleg rolled up. It's been cleaned up, but clearly the skin was broken and it was bloody at some point. Why's he always covered in injuries somewhere...?! ]

Azula's dragon hates the tsungi horn, apparently. Or— just found it as another excuse to bite me for no reason. It does that sometimes... But this time in particular, I think it doesn't like the sound of the music.

[ Neither does Azula, get out of her house, go practice at Iroh's room with your giant noisemaker, shoo! ]

I mean, that, or I'm just that out of practice.

[ He's trying to make this seem funny and it's... not... really funny... Ouch? ]

The dragon nuzzles itself rather frenetically against Iroh where it's held, frantic little claws twisting to find the most comfortable spot in the old man's grasp, squirmy but desperate for love, hello. It's in crisis too?! And Zuko's not comforting it! It needs to be held! Look at them, in distress together...

Zuko's content to pace anxiously, though he does stop for a step to glance at the tea when Iroh comes and sets it down. As if considering his options: to calm down or to talk about it. He shoots his look away from the teaset sharply, waving his arms in the air dismissively as he turns to pick up the pace again. But still he says nothing. Until finally...

"...Mother is alive!"

His voice breaks, volume erratic, not at all using his inside voice. His tone shatters any calm Iroh's trying to establish here. He's just gonna drop that bomb, just like that, yup.

Edited 2021-06-04 07:04 (UTC)

He was impressed. And wanted to meet this girl. He sipped his tea as he listened, then set it down and refilled his cup. "It is not dancing, but yes. Look at all the art forms in the Fire Nation, then see how they are expressed in other cultures. Why do you think there are songs that I taught you, or tried to teach you, that were not the few songs allowed and taught in school, prince Zuko?" he said gently, knowing that this could be painful. In many ways Zuko's childhood had been worse than is, but in a great maybe ways... they had been nearly the same. It had been a hard lesson for him to learn. At least he could be here for Zuko.

"I am free now, if you wish." [So they were going to be formal? Interesting.]

"We will see to the wounds as well when you arrive. I shall put on tea." [He is not impressed.]

"I never understood it, Uncle, until coming to this world... ...I taught Aurora songs from our world, too, actually. We, uh—" He glances aside, nervously, realizing this is an open admission that he was singing with a stranger — a pretty girl. Not that he's mentioned she's so pretty yet, but it's implied. "We met in a meditation tent. A magic tent that played sounds that relaxed whoever was in it. There was this exercise going on about learning how to synchronize magic with people, a trust exercise. Uncle, when she sang— a forest appeared...! An enchanted forest appeared all around us, an illusion, glowing, and there was the sound of a zheng playing that Fire Nation lullaby about the little soldier boy, and it was like— like magic! I mean, it was magic, but it was like magic, too, you know?"

He'd never seen anything like it in his life, he was stunned from that moment on, amazed at this world, all its possibilities, amazed at his own blindness...

"We also sang Four Seasons. And— I taught Gokudera that song, too, much later on. Not so long ago. He played it for me on the piano, actually — he just copied it when I sang it... Uncle, it was amazing, I wish you could have seen him— I've never heard sounds like that!" Somehow the mafioso has found his way into this conversation, too, as he has many others, with the same kind of energy as Zuko speaks with when speaking about Aurora, little change in his animation and admiration. "And when Aurora sang, too, and her voice, wow— she sang a song about a dream... The way she danced, the way he played— I don't know how to describe it. There's something deeper moving them than like anything I've ever seen back home. It's not like singing 'the Girls In Ba Sing Se,' Uncle. It was different. Is it really just— passion, you called it? That's it?"

That seemed too simple. Zuko felt he knows what passion feels like. But he's far more limited than he even knows yet. He knows what intensity feels like; he knows what drive feels like; passion is something else he's not been allowed to fully explore, whether by his father, his culture, or his own self.

[ Zuko doesn't bother responding. They live so close, he just loads up the tsungi horn on one shoulder, and his own non-biting dragon on the other, and within moments, he's knocking at Iroh's door, quite the sight like this... But even if he got bitten again by Zuko II, truly he doesn't seem in bad spirits, not compared to how he'd been not so long ago after his argument with Azula, at least. ]

Hello, Uncle...

[After everything, it's the least he could do, as a mark of respect.]

"That's fine by me - where am I going?"

Inbox for Sn: Pai Sho - Avalon

no subject

Text

Re: voice;

no subject

Re: Text

action;

no subject

Re: action;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Text

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Text

no subject

no subject

action;

Re: Text