uncle_iroh | Inbox for Sn: Pai Sho

Inbox for Sn: Pai Sho - Avalon

(Please note that Iroh still does not quite understand his phone so... this will be.... interesting.)

"My nephew tells me that I should ask you to leave a message. He says he will show me where to find that message once I have one. So please, leave a message."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Quite well. Any world with good tea and good company is a welcome one to me," he said with a warm smile. "Do you wish to play first?"

He nodded, eagerly. It was, really, all he needed to say. It'd been simply ages since he'd played pai sho - and he already knew Iroh would be a learning experience.

"Very well then, it is your move..." He said as he sipped is tea, then stopped. "How is it that you would like to be addressed? This is a new world, it seems, with new possibilities. Here you do not have to be the Avatar, if you do not want to be."

He thought about that for a moment.

"You know, I think 'Aang' is best. Either way. Not just a new world, but given everything that happened in our usual one..."

He shrugged. And made a bold opening move.

"Very bold. Both the move and the choice. And yet, I cannot find fault with either." He took his move, one that wasn't quite conservative and not bold. Actually it was rather odd, seemingly.

He watched it very carefully for a long moment, thinking about possibilities and potentials.

"Hmm."

He smiled, leaning down to look at the board from a different angle. It helped, sometimes. Then he made a move on the opposite side.

"A very interesting play!" he said, pleased. "It is as I often tell Zuko, you can see the most interesting things... when looking at a situation from another point of view." He managed not to make a pun on Aang's name there, though it was hard. Still he felt the implied pun would do the job. He made his next move, watching the old/young man carefully.

He laughed, a little bit.

"A good lesson, yeah -" he countered quickly, backing up his first piece. "even when it's hard to remember the entire board."

And he got it, though he didn't say anything about it.

"Even when you cannot see the entire board," he countered. "Retreating so soon? Then let me see if that is the trap I expect it to be." He advanced.

He grinned, shaking his head. Here he thought he'd been subtle enough. Apparently not. And now the trap would spring far too early.

He makes his counter, closing the trap early.

"You really are as good as Zuko said."

"My nephew flatters me," he said with a warm smile and a nod as he worked to turn the early trap to his advantage if he could. "But the game is not yet over."

"Not by a long shot," he agreed, pausing to sip at his tea before moving in a seemingly unconnected way.

"It's nice being all on the same side now," he adds. It's a known thing, an understood thing - but worth saying, nevertheless.

He sipped his tea as well. "I agree. This is how we should be. It is good not just for my nephew, but for us all. And our world, when we return to it."

He nodded.

"He's...happier. I mean, once the changes are settling in. He does well when given responsibility. Well, this kind."

He remembers the other kind all too well - but in fairness, Zuko had done well at that, too. Just...not so much fun from the other side of it.

"I sometimes wonder if my nephew feels that he is allowed to be happy. Perhaps that too can be learned here."

That causes him to nod.

"He puts so much emphasis on responsibility. But he'll find the rest. I believe in him."

"And if he cannot find it, he has us to show him the way."

He nodded, again, seeming to shore up his defences against Iroh's moves.

"He seems to be doing well here," he added, conversationally.

"I am pleased to hear that you see that as well," he said, working on his own defenses.

He shakes his head.

"Here I was thinking I'd only have to catch up to a different world once. If we count literally and metaphorically...well, it's three times now."

"That is the thing about worlds. And about travel. We are always seeing a new and different world. Even if it seems as though we have never left the one to which we are born. Time, nature, other people, spirits. Everything acts to constantly make the world new and different." He sipped his tea.

"In that, this place is much like all Zuko and I have seen since leaving the Fire Nation. It is much like Ba Sing Se. It is much like leaving your home must have been for you."

He's quiet for the better part of a minute, just thinking on those words. He hadn't thought about it that way, really.

"You're right, of course. And, at least this time didn't involve getting frozen."

"There is more than one way to be frozen," he said, seriously as he sipped his tea before taking the pot to refill both their cups.

He smiled a bit, nodding.

"Also true," he responded, thinking about the board and far more besides. "I keep changing with the times, and just hoping that some part of me stays recognizable. Seems to be working so far."

"That is one of the cores of bending after all. When we bend an element it both changes and yet stays the same. You can use bending to pull a breeze from a hurricane, it is yet the same wind. When you pull water from the ocean then return it, it fits right back into the water that birthed it. Take fire from a torch and it burns the same in your hand. You can make a orb of earth, it remains stone. We all change, we all can change. And yet who we are is always the same. The important parts of us remain, always."

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