InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "The backroom is reopened, boys"

fire_lord_zuko (fire_lord_zuko) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2008-11-08 17:40:00

Entry tags:

complete, day 22, katara, zuko

The Song of Fire and Ice
Who: Zuko and Katara
What: Katara harasses Zuko again... with much different results
When: Night time
Where: In the internet cafe
Rating: R
Status: Complete

Zuko remained alone, in his room for most of the day. Every day since he got to this place, he'd been accosted by the waterbender peasant or her earth goon, usually both. This time, he had other plans. As soon as he'd awoken he took the metal dresser and propped the door closed with it, crossing his arms and glaring slightly in the direction of the door, as if daring Katara to come through it, half expecting any moment to hear a thump of her trying to open the door and then her cheery voice calling out to him as if they were long lost school pals reunited again. He had to give the water and earth bender one thing, they were at least sticking to their little act about him being their friends. It was probably considered a sacred mission by the Avatar... or maybe they were brain washed too, intentionally so, to deliver him to the Avatar, but not really knowing themselves his fate until the end.

Zuko sighed. He was starting to feel more and more paranoid about the whole thing, and as the hours passed on, he smelled food in his room. It'd not been there before, and for whatever reason the planet seemed to provide him with whatever seemed to be on his mind as something good to eat. If he were anything less than a prisoner here, he might have been a bit envious of not having that sort of treatment back home. But what was home to him any more? He'd been away from the Fire Nation for three years... an exile... charged with finding the Avatar, which was a fool's errand at best. And then the next thing he'd known his father had been willing to take him back... only to have himself whisked away to this place.

He was the banished prince again.

"DAMN IT!" Zuko growled and slammed his fist into the wall, sending a bright plume of flame flaring across the wall. If he could somehow find a way back, then the Avatar would be at his most vulnerable. His little water bender not there to protect him, then Zuko might finally have a chance at defeating him once and for all. Then... finally, his father would be proud of him... he wouldn't be the son who always needed help, the weak offspring. His sister had gone mad... now it was Zuko's chance to prove that he was, if not on par with Azula... at least more consistant then her... He could weather the things that she couldn't... if he were only back home. Gritting his teeth he turned and screamed at the top of his lungs in his room.

"If you're willing to give me whatever I want, then why won't you just let me go HOME??"

There was no reply.

A few hours later, Zuko finally decided that he might be free of the water bender, and decided to journey out for a while in the afternoon. He was rather sorry that he had. It was freezing outside, and the whole damned place had changed to be covered in snow. He could just see the twisted smile of satisfaction on the water bender's face when she'd woken up this morning to see something like that. She was probably out in it somewhere praying that Zuko would cross her path. He wasn't going to oblige her though, if he saw the peasant he'd just turn right around back inside and hole himself up in his room. He could survive in there, it seemed, until he could figure out a way home.

Hours later, Zuko found himself wandering through the building, looking for some clue as to how to go home or what this place was. As he wandered in to the internet cafe, he blinked a little and stared around at the computers there. They seemed like magical portals, to places that he couldn't even think of. But when he tried to touch them, they seemed solid. He stared at the computer for a few long minutes, trying to figure out where the light in it was coming from. But what was more strange to him was he seemed to feel a certain... afinity with it. It felt like this was somehow made out of... fire... like some of the 'glow bulbs' as he'd taken to calling them, were in some way related to his element. This felt... more strongly so though...

Pausing at the screen saver, he brought one of his hands close to the monitor and tried to bend it... only to jump back a little as the thing sparked and short circuited, causing a thick black smoke to rise up from it. Staring at it for a moment, Zuko was about to swear again when he heard an odd sound coming from within it. Peeking in to one of the vents on the monitor he saw a spark flickering now and again, and his golden eyes widened slowly. Lightning. These things had lightning in them... that explained why he felt an afinity with it... but lightning was dangerous, something only the most skilled fire benders were capable of meddling with... to weild it in a box... Zuko paused and frowned... how was it even possible?

Moving to the next one he was about to try to bend it too, when he bumped the mouse. It had some sort of odd little tutorial on how to use it. Zuko blinked a little, and then sat down in front of the computer. The keyboard seemed odd, and yet he recognized what the characters would mean, even though they seemed foreign to him. still when he tried typing in a greeting, nothing happened. This was stupid...

Starting to stand up his hand brushed the mouse again, and he noticed the little pointer went somewhere on the screen when he did it. Scratching his head he sat back down, and started to move the mouse around the screen, staring at it. Why would anyone use something like this... On the desktop though, an icon caught his eye... it was a little planet icon, or so it looked like... maybe this was info on the planet... but how to use it... he clicked on it, discovering that the mouse had buttons... but nothing... growling a little he clicked a whole bunch of times, and then something popped up. What was a fire fox? He sort of liked the name of it... but it didn't seem to make any sense.

"Go... Google." Zuko read aloud, not really understanding any of this. Still, there was a little box there... maybe he had to.... click on it? No, clicking on it didn't do anything... evne when he did it a bunch. But when he pushed a button on the keyboard, it appeared in the little box there. Zuko tried to think of what to type. He put in 'How to get to the fire nation'. There were a few results, but Zuko looked over them and there wasn't anything there that seemed to be very helpful. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head, this was stupid. Whatever this box thing was, it clearly was some sort of childs toy, as it didn't seem to do anything very practical... Then again, maybe he wasn't asking it the right question... or maybe the planet wouldn't let him answer that question...

So he tried something else. 'How do I deal with a water tribe girl'. When Zuko hit enter this time he noticed there were quite a few more results than last time, and he blinked at one of the results in the top. It was text in blue which said 'Want to know how to deal with wet girls, our studs can show you how!'. Looking skeptical, he touched the screen again. What did they mean to come in? he moved the mouse a little around, and noticed it changed over the text... maybe...

Zuko clicked on it, and his eyes shot open as a face full of what the Internet was known for suddenly sprung on the screen. Frantically, his eyes searched the keyboard for anything to help him. He tried typing 'stop', but nothing happened. The same happened with 'go away' and 'help'. What if someone saw him here looking at this? Quickly, Zuko stood up and started to awkwardly walk away from the computer...

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k_waterbender
2008-11-08 10:25 pm UTC (link)

Katara was worn out, but the day had been a splendid one. She had truly enjoyed learning how to bowl and actually playing the game with a host of new people she had never before met. This time she did something with which she was moderately familiar. She had been penguin sledding in her home world, and snowboarding was sort of like that except you stood and steered with your entire body rather than allowing the penguin to do the navigating. Of course, she had her bending abilities to aid her the same way she did when she was surfing on the ocean. At the end, though, she hadn’t used her natural abilities. She had learned the right way to do it. She had fallen much more often than she cared to admit, and she had gotten soaked through with water until she bent said water out of her clothing.

All in all, it was a blast. There wasn’t a single regret. It had helped her to free her mind. Her worries had faded just as surely as the grape vines had. She was free. She was happy.

She was so free and happy that she didn’t go to see Toph or Zuko after the forced Group Activity was over. At least not right away. They would only bring back all of that worry, especially Zuko. Instead, she decided to go to dinner by herself. She ate her fill of stewed sea prunes and giant sea crab meat with seaweed soup. It felt so good to have a taste of home to go with the snow outside.

Her worries about Zuko began to take hold once again. Yesterday, she and Toph had had to force him to allow her to heal his foot more, but she could do nothing more than that. He wouldn’t allow her to help cure his blocked mind, and he had to be a willing participant for such a thing to work. Katara sighed. He was really unhappy with both of his female friends. Of course, as far as he was concerned, they had no friendship, but the waterbender would never give up on him. I will never ever turn my back on people who need me… The thought wafted through her mind, and it was true. She would never give up, even if her brother wasn’t here to back her up in this ordeal.

Katara went to her own room before seeking Zuko. Some part of her was all too aware that she looked the part of the peasant that he condescended toward, and she wanted to make herself presentable. How did one look like royalty to one who was true royalty? No, she wasn’t ashamed. She wouldn’t stoop to allowing him to control what she wore in front of him. It would bring back none of his memories, for she had never been royalty, and she had never looked the part. Instead, she pulled a comb through her hair, allowing the dark waves to shine a bit in their softened glory. She also combed away the stray locks that had fallen around her face. Her bun was tightened and her hair loopies were smoothed. The rest of her hair was not plaited, but fell down her back as was so common for her since she’d first traveled to the Fire Nation under the guise of one of its citizens.

The waterbender allowed a small, hopeful smile to take hold of her lips. If she was pleasant, Zuko would be less likely to turn her away. She just couldn’t allow pleasantness to overflow into creepily joyful. No one liked a Joo Dee.

She left her room and sought out a golem who led her through the halls of the main building until she reached familiar territory and saw the person after whom she sought. She was glad he was here rather than in his room because she knew he would never allow her to see him if he were able to shut her out that way. It was a little too late that she realized her water skins were in her room, for she had no need to carry around water outside where the entire world was blanketed by it in it’s softly frozen form. Now wasn’t the time worry about that, though.

Katara noticed he was at one of the computers. Tyler had showed her how to use one on her third day on the Planet. She hadn’t been back to this area since. It was all just too confusing, and she remembered the look of hopelessness, sadness, and anger that had taken hold of the blond when he realized he could see how his family had contacted him, wondering where he had gone, but he could not respond to them to tell him he was all right, that he loved them, that he hoped to see them again soon.

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k_waterbender
2008-11-08 10:27 pm UTC (link)

Maybe this time would be better. She was with Zuko who had no conception of e-mailing, and there wasn’t a way to contact their home world. He was standing, staring at a screen with his back to her when she approached, and her own eyes shifted to the same screen, curious as to what he was seeing. When her gaze focused, her jaw dropped.

Zuko was looking at a display of naked women, proudly displaying their bodies in erotic positions. One dark skinned woman with long chocolate lay in ankle deep water, breasts bared to the public as well as her nether regions. Katara felt the heat rise to her face in embarrassment, for she looked like she could have been of Water Tribe descent if not for her dark eyes, and she barely managed to coherently stammer out, “Z-Zuko? W-what are y-ou… uh… what… is that?” She had torn her eyes away from the screen, but she couldn’t look at him, either.

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fire_lord_zuko
2008-11-08 11:29 pm UTC (link)

He typed frantically on the keyboard, but the magical thing which had let him get to this page seemed doomed to let him off. He saw an escape key in the upper left hand corner and jammed on that a few times, to no avail. But then, for a moment... for just a moment he let his golden eyes focus on the page, and it caused him to swallow slightly. He'd seen some attractive girls before, and wondered what they might have looked like... de-clothed. But he'd never actually... and this was... like a view into a woman's dressing room or something like that. He could only imagine what Uncle would have said if he'd known there were something here that could magically give you an image of a woman naked...

And to boot, her skin was... she looked like she was water tribe. There were slight differences, but she very well could have been... no... he really really really needed to stop thinking about this now. Shaking his head slowly he turned, and started to walk away when... Katara stood right there in front of him. Zuko's face slowly started to turn red, then redder, then almost as if he were trying to turn into a tomato as he opened his mouth, held up his hands, then looked at the monitor, then at Katara, then at the monitor again. He swallowed, and for a split second thought... maybe... maybe the water tribe girl wouldn't say anything, maybe.. they were all strange heathens there and she wouldn't...

Oh who was he kidding, they all wore heavy coats. They probably never took them off ever...

He saw Katara look away, and he spoke softly. "No... this... uh... this isn't... I mean... I was just... trying to..." His face was still bright red and he stared at the computer screen until his firebending took a mind of it's own and caused the monitor to pop and fizzle and short itself out, and then the one beside it, until the whole row of computers shorted and the lights began to dim and flicker. How the hell was he supposed to explain this to Katara? She'd probably never used one of those things, she would have no idea how easy it would be to click here and then click there and suddenly wind up looking at some naked water bender girl in the magical portal thing. It wasn't his fault! Zuko's eyes looked down, and then suddenly looked back up at Katara... no...

"No... no... it's not like that... I don't..." Zuko's eyes widened as he stared at her in horror. She was probably thinking that he... he liked staring at naked water tribe girls! Ugh, could anything be more positively repulsive then the idea of laying with a heathen peasant tribe who thought that snow was the best thing that the world ever created? Did she really think that he could have been looking at her, picturing her naked... imagining how this curve of her outfit or that curve of her outfit might match up with the slender curve of a woman's hips, the supple swell of her chest. Was she thinking that he might be picturing her without her clothes right now?

And then, to his horror, he did. It sort of... popped in there, and as it did Zuko stumbled back and fell over and covered his eyes. "Gah!" He exclaimed, knowing that the mental image was probably never going to get itself out of his head now... and every time the damned water bender came to harass him, he'd be thinking about that naked woman he'd seen on the magical portal!

Growling, Zuko decided that he'd had enough. Forcing himself up he glared at her, and crossed his arms. "What the hell are you doing here anyway, peasant?" he said, trying to go on the defensive. "I told you to leave me alone yesterday! What's so hard to understand about that, that you keep coming back?"