lovethisworld | RL with Zuko

How can you be? [His hands curl into fists with suppressed anger.] I still feel like-- like it's not right.

Because you are trying your very best. No one expects you to make the world perfect, Zuko.

The world doesn't need to be perfect, it just-- it never feels like enough! And everyone's telling me it is, but how am I supposed to believe them?

[Some part of him feels like he's never going to stop paying for his mistakes.]

... You have to have faith in yourself, Zuko. No one wishes to see you suffer forever for your mistakes but, if that's what you wish for yourself...

Do you understand what I am saying?

That no one else can give this to me... that I have to believe it myself.

Edited 2011-01-11 02:03 (UTC)

Yes. It's about to you to love yourself, Zuko.

Augh, that seems so cheesy... [he sighs, deflating]

If you still want to hear the story of how I met Aang, I'll tell you. It's just not very happy.

But, it is true. [She nods.] I do.

Okay... let's sit, then. [moving over to the couch for sitting]

It's a little long. It starts with how I got my scar. [he's self-consciously taken the seat that puts his good side facing her, by habit more than anything]

[She takes the seat next to him. Lilith had always wondered but, had never thought to ask. It wasn't important to her unless he was willing to share it.]

I am listening.

[He took a deep breath. He still hadn't really told anyone this, and it needed some context.]

My father always used to say that Azula was born lucky, and I was lucky to be born. That's how I grew up - I wanted his approval and Azula always had it. It took me a long time to grow out of that.

But I still had a conscience. I was attending a war meeting one day when a general suggested that we send the new, inexperienced soldiers to the front lines, to distract the earthbenders. [He swallows nervously just remembering the scene, and his voice grows quieter.] They would've been slaughtered, so I spoke out against it.

I was speaking out of turn in my father's war room. I didn't mean to insult him, I just-- ...He challenged me to an agni kai, a fire duel, to defend my position. I thought it would be the general I was fighting against, but it turned out to be my father.

[He takes a moment to compose himself before finally saying,] I think it's obvious what happened next. [It's enough to say it, to admit it out loud, even obliquely. Zuko can't bring himself to voice that he knelt before his father and apologized formally, and was still attacked. He'd already said to him directly on the Day of Black Sun, two and a half years ago, how inexcusable it was -- he'd come to terms with it as much as he could.]

[He glances over at her to make sure she was still listening before going on.]

He told me I was banished, and not to return unless I came back with the Avatar. The Avatar hadn't been seen in a hundred years, but if he did still exist, he was a huge threat to our stability in the war. I know now that he was probably looking for an excuse to get rid of me and instate my sister as heir, but at the time I thought... it was the only way to get my honor back. For my father to care about me again.

So I went on a mission to find the Avatar. I searched the world over for three years before I found him, trapped in an iceberg in the South Pole. Well, Katara and Sokka found him, I was late to the game. [more bitterly,] I met them by attacking their village. The Fire Nation had already taken almost their entire society, and the men were all out fighting us, so all that was left was a small village of old women and children.

Aang turned out to be twelve. Or-- a hundred and twelve, but really twelve. [He shakes his head.] He tried to be friends with me a few times but I always rejected him. Eventually when I realized that the war was wrong and I had to stop it, I left the capital to convince them to let me be his firebending instructor. They didn't accept me at first.

...It's still a miracle to me that we're friends at all.

[Lilith shook her head. The first half of the story she was carefully storing away to think over later. Revealing whatever thoughts she may have on it would be inappropriate right now. Deep down she knew what she would fully acknowledge later; that man didn't have a human heart and was unworthy of her compassion.

For now she only went to address the second half.]

I believe they must have seen you were not truly evil, simply misguided. It's only natural that upon realizing that they would eventually become friends with you. You are a good friend to have Zuko.

I try, but I just don't feel that way. [he's relaxing, settling more easily into the couch now that he doesn't have to tell a painfully personal story]

You're right, though. It isn't something I can have other people give me. I don't know what to do when I get these compliments.

Edited 2011-01-11 16:13 (UTC)

[Lilith chuckles.] Take them graciously of course.

But how do you do that? That's not a real answer!

You thank them for the compliment.

That's it? It doesn't mean anything?

Of course it means something, Zuko. Thanking them is just a good reaction if you are struggling to come up with how to respond.

This is all so complicated. I don't want to make something out of nothing. [And risk caring more about someone than they care about him. He never wants to do that again. One Azula in his life is enough.]

Zuko... [Have a saintly smile.] it's never a contest. You should love freely without worrying about the other person's feelings toward you in return.

How can you do that? [he asks, disgruntled.] It's-- it's awful when they don't return it.

I've never found it to be when they don't return my feelings. It's enough for me to love them.

It's not enough for me. Hasn't anyone ever rejected you?

Many did during my youth.

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