IC Contact

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Voicemail | Text

"The number you are trying to reach has yet to record a greeting. Leave a message after the tone."

Comments

[Text] - March 11

[daughterofursa]

[Some time after this thread...]

Hi Rob. Zuko here.

How are you doing? Mind if I come by?

[Text]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Rob was not expecting Zuko to be texting him. He'd assumed that she would have knocked on the door if she needed to talk to him. Or call. She doesn't strike him as a texting type of person.]

im alive

sure you can come by im in the infirmary

[Text --> Action]

[daughterofursa]

Okay. I'll be there.

[Texting is one of the few technological advances Zuko can get behind. It allows her to think about her words for as long as she wants before actually communicating them, and also talk to people she doesn't like without interacting with them directly. It's great.

...but yeah, she totally would have just shown up if Sans hadn't told her to check first. Instead she shows up some minutes after her text.]

Hey.

[Shoot she didn't bring anything. She should have done that. You're supposed to do that, right?]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Hey.

[Rob's reclining on a bed when Zuko enters. He doesn't seem to be put out by the lack of gifts. The half of his face that isn't bandaged smiles weakly. His shoulders, upper arms, and chest are bandaged as well. Whatever else Zuko may feel at the sight of the bandages, at least she doesn't have to see the wounds that they cover again.

After a moment his smile fades. He can guess why she's here. It was nice of her to let him rest for a bit before making him face the music. He appreciates that. He decides to just get it over with.]

Sorry. I was careless. I wasn't taking it as seriously as I should have.

[A moment's hesitation.]

I hope you'll be okay with me coming along next time you do a push.

[Action] I could've sworn I replied to this yesterday....

[daughterofursa]

What?

[Zuko is completely thrown. Why is Rob apologizing to her? Does she look angry? It's kind of her default expression. Maybe she's making him feel like he's done something to apologize for.]

I don't care about that.

I came to apologize for not coming sooner. [...there was more to it but she forgets what she intended to say.]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Why?

[Rob is confused. Why is Zuko apologizing for giving him space and time to recover?]

You were letting me rest before we talked about what happened. ...Weren't you?

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

No.

[A more socially adept person might have just gone with that. He makes her absence sound like a good thing.]

That was my mission. You got hurt on my watch.

I was... ashamed.

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[A more socially adept person wouldn't have made her absence sound like a good thing. Unfortunately there are no socially adept people present. Unless the Squirtle who's listening to this conversation from inside his shell counts as people.]

What do you have to be ashamed about? You did great out there, just like you always do. I was the idiot who pushed forward without waiting for backup.

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

I didn't do great, I--!

[No. Deep breath.]

I made it through. That's all.

I couldn't protect you. I thought I should've been able to do that. I'm sorry.

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

What more could you have done? I probably wouldn't have a face or legs anymore if you two hadn't gotten them off of me as fast as you did. Who knows if becoming a shadow would've healed me at that point? Not that you would've let them take me.

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

[Surprisingly, that doesn't make Zuko feel a whole lot better. She looks at the bandages over his face.]

Do you know how bad it is yet?

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Rob takes a moment to answer. He's been trying not to dwell on the details, trying not to imagine what he's going to be seeing when he looks in mirrors. What people will think of him when they look at him. He wouldn't care about his injuries as much if he didn't think about other people's responses to them.]

I still have both eyes. I can still breathe through my nose, even if it feels weird. I can't feel any holes in my cheek anymore. Most of my teeth are still where I left them. No dangling chunks hanging off of me anymore. I'll still be able to do everything I normally do once I'm healed up.

[Rob, Zuko asked you how bad it was, not how good it was.]

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

[It's okay, Zuko can infer.]

Well, that's... something.

[Good job, Zuko, why did you ask him about that? She should know better, scars are a touchy subject for her.]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

It's way better than it could have been.

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

That doesn't mean you have to be okay with it.

You can say it if you're angry.

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Rob looks at his lap. Anger isn't an emotion he allows himself to express often; the things that he wants to do when he's angry scare him. So, like most things he doesn't want to deal with, he usually just buries the feeling and never deals with it. Still, Zuko just gave him permission to talk about his anger. He's already disappointed her enough, so he should probably be honest and say something. Or everything.

When he looks back up at her, there's an intensity in his gaze that's not normally present. This is a Rob who looks to be seconds away from breaking someone's nose.]

Yeah. I'm angry. I'm angry that I'm stuck in this castle twiddling my thumbs instead of getting the Bastion up and running. I'm angry that I'm stuck between a bitch who considers me her enemy just because I was drafted into this war and a zombie who can't wield his divine powers properly. I'm angry that there's maybe ten fucking people here who are even trying to clear this castle that we should have been finished with months ago! I'm angry that a bunch of racist, xenophobic assholes burned dozens of worlds and still didn't manage to kill their targets! I'm angry that I've been deluding myself for the past two years into believing that I'm actually some kind of warrior who's good enough to fight on the front lines when I'm really just a dumb fanboy pretending to be one of the heroes from a fucking video game!

[He grabs a glass of water from the bedside table and whips it across the room. It shatters against the opposite wall. He falls back against the pillows. He breathes heavily, a faint growl coming from the back of his throat whenever he exhales. Small dark spots appear on the bandages covering his jaw and the arm that he threw with.

Kresh tentatively peeks out from his shell. Is it over?]

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko flinches as the glass shatters, and looks after it. She wasn't expecting that from Rob. She wanted to know if he was angry at her.

But this is still very familiar in a different way.

She's quiet for a time before speaking. Anger makes it hard to listen. What would she want to tell herself when she got like this? Would she have heard any of it?]

I guess we really are alike.

You're being hard on yourself. The best warriors still get hurt. You work hard. Screwing up sometimes doesn't mean that the other stuff you do is worthless, or that trying doesn't mean anything.

[She doesn't have anything to offer on the rest of it. But being angry at yourself? Is the worst.]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[There's a difference between hearing Zuko's words and hearing what Zuko's saying. Rob is doing one but not the other.

He snorts dismissively.]

I'm not one of the best warriors. Not even close. I thought I was pretty good. I thought ending a battle with nothing but a few cuts, bruises, or broken ribs meant I could handle myself. Just swing an axe through anything that gets too close before it can get too many hits in and victory will follow.

[He lets out a brief, humorless laugh.]

I'm no Saurfang. I was just fighting low-level mobs this whole time.

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko's not sure what mobs Rob has apparently been fighting but--]

That's not what I was saying.

You've been at this for two years. I had the best teachers ever since I was a kid, and for years I just lost, constantly. You think I'm great at it now. There are confrontations I only survived because my enemies took pity on me.

You got overconfident. You got hurt, but you survived. That means you can keep moving forward.

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Feels like I've been doing a lot of surviving these past two years.

[Bitterness and weariness are starting to take over as his anger and frustration fades.]

Forward is the only way I can move now. I don't have anything else left.

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

I know the feeling.

Things can get worse. But they can get better, too.

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Yeah. I could still lose an arm or two, couldn't I?

[Rob you were supposed to think of something for the "get better" category.]

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

I mean- you could, but that's not really where I was going with that.

[She's so bad at this.]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Where were you going then?

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

Towards the- things getting better part.

Good stuff does happen, sometimes.

[She might sound a little like she's trying to convince him of the existence of a mythical creature, but look, optimism is not her strong suit.]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Their roles seem to have been reversed.]

Yeah, I know. It feels like it's been forever since anything good happened around here though.

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

You came back. That was a good thing.

[She's not even trying to be nice or sentimental, that's just the most recent good thing that came to mind.

And okay it's been a few months, but it hasn't been like.. years, so that's good right?]

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Congratulations, Zuko. You found a topic that overrides everything else that Rob was thinking about.

He's even quieter than usual when he speaks.]

Yeah. I did.

I guess this isn't the worst place I could be, eh?

[Action]

[daughterofursa]

[She's not sure if she said the right thing. Maybe she's just made him think about where he was before. That's... not a great thing to think about.]

No.

Not the worst people you could be with either, right?

[Action]

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Yeah. They're all pretty good.

[Did the undamaged corner of his mouth turn up for a moment there? It might have.]

Some of them put up with way more of me than I'd ever ask them to.