10th Swing [Video]

[deadalready]

I missed my birthday.

[It's said with no small share of amusement on his part, the fact is he was kind of in the middle of having a huge crisis with Ganon going ape on his birthday so...he doesn't feel too bad but still.]

I've been eighteen for six weeks now -- weird. Where I come from, it's a...pretty big deal. The last year of having your name put in and the last time you'll ever have a chance of being in the Games.

[He says chance like it's some kind of honor to be picked. For him, it was. Was.]

If I had been home, [Still alive that is.] next year the whole town would have gotten together to celebrate - we never did those things small.

[He smiles, mostly to himself.]

It would've been fun.

Comments

[twodragons]

I have a couple friends who've been here long enough to have aged noticeably. None of them were dead before they got here, but I suppose I could ask them.

Even if you don't, I don't think there's anything wrong with still celebrating your birthday.

[deadalready]

Thanks...for that. I've been here a year now but it feels like it's been way shorter than that, yanno?

[twodragons]

Maybe that's better than it feeling like it's been longer. It means there's more to do here than laying around being bored.

[Which he's heard is also a thing.]

[deadalready]

Been there. When it wants to, this place can be awful.

[Luckily he's has plenty of problems to wade through to make the lulls interesting.]

[twodragons]

Is it really that bad? I've seen plenty of things to do around town.

Did you know there's a building where you can create illusions of all kinds of things to fight?

[This is a much more novel concept to Zuko than it is to Cato, most likely.]

[deadalready]

The Battle Dome, yeah. I train there sometimes. It's higher tech than I'm used to but nothing the Capitol hasn't used.

[When he's having a spectacularly crappy day it's a favored haunt.]

[twodragons]

There isn't anything like that back where I come from. Bending can do some pretty incredible things, but nothing like that.

[The technology here blows his mind.]

[deadalready]

What's bending?

[Yay! Learning!]

[twodragons]

Bending? You mean you haven't run into any benders while you've been here?

[He would have thought everyone would have been familiar with Aang and Katara, but it's possible an opportunity to see them use their bending just never came up.]

It's the manipulation of elements: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. The types of techniques used for bending are generally only used by people from my world, though.

[deadalready]

Not at all.

[He's been a bit of a recluse.]

....No fucking way.

[There's magic here he knows about. And they have wings, so he isn't entirely in the camp of 'you're insane'. Entirely. He's just never had the pleasure of seeing it.]

[twodragons]

Is that so hard to believe?

There are spirits here that can help people use different elements even if they didn't have the ability originally, from what I hear. It's not quite the same as bending, but it could be worth learning.

[deadalready]

Not sure if I'm patient enough for that.

[Fair point.]

So can you bend? Or is it just something that happens where you're from?

[twodragons]

I can bend. Not everyone can, but anyone in my nation that can typically bends fire.

Must be something about the environment that just naturally makes it that way.

[He's never really put much thought into it.]

[deadalready]

I take it you bend fire too?

[twodragons]

That's right. I might have just been straight up disowned by my father if I couldn't, being prince of the Fire Nation and all.