likesboys | lucy takes the long way home

If there's one great weakness that Kurt feels, going into Henry IV, it's his combat skills.

Rote memorization of lines and proper inflection has never been an issue for Kurt, who has often looked at life as though from a great distance, finding it easier to think of himself as a character in a story rather than living everything out so closely, so personally, feeling the sting of rejection. He's lost himself in countless stories, preferring to run as far as he can from the narrow high school halls he's spent years in.

He can slide his way into another skin without any problems.

But there are some practical skills that he lacks, and self-defense may just be one of them.

He sits on the beach, on the very fringes of the sand, where the trees offer ample shade from above. There's a scene that he has in this play which requires a quick spar and a death, and there just doesn't seem to be enough time in initial rehearsals to worry about his form. Still, he carries a play sword and tries to swing it about, feeling its weight and trying to think of it as a weapon.

It's not really working.

Sighing, Kurt plops his way down in the sand and stares at an array of swordfighting books around him, hoping for some sort of clue. It's difficult when the pictures printed there don't move.

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Zuko doesn't always wear his swords, but he has them today, joined and strapped across his back as he heads out to the beach for practice. He still practices every day, goes through the Firebending forms even if it's obviously not the same. It's not just keeping that level of discipline or the skills fresh, though that's part of it. For Zuko, it's a connection to home, in a place where so many things are different down to the animals and the food they eat. The links to home he has - Lee, Iroh, Korra even if she isn't the Avatar who is his friend - they're all incredibly important to him, and so is this.

He starts to pass a guy who looks familiar; Zuko's probably seen him around. Zuko's about to keep going, to an open and empty stretch of sand where he can practice without obstruction, but one of the book covers catches his eye and he stops, frowning down at it and the practice sword he now notices. "Trying to learn?"

When working on his own doesn't seem to be giving him much headway, Kurt welcomes any form of distraction, especially those that come in the form of good company. Smiling brightly, he tilts his head up at the guy— a name comes to mind, Zuko or something of the sort, though Kurt can't put a finger on where he's heard it from, has no clue if he just pulled that name from his imagination. Either way, he sets his sword down to the side, where it gently rests on the sand.

"Yes, sort of," he nods, lips pressed in a slightly embarrassed smile. Judging by the swords Zuko wears on his back, any attempt on Kurt's end that he might witness would probably look... well. Silly, at best. "I landed a role in an upcoming play, and there's a scene where my character crosses swords with another. I just want to be a bit faithful to actual swordfighting, but this..." He glances down at his books. "It's hard to understand without any previous experience."

Zuko can appreciate that the guy wants his swordfighting to look authentic. "It's probably not really the same kind of swordfighting, but I can show you a few things, if you want," he offers. He's not about to offer full-blown lessons, at least not yet, but he can at least do that much. "Uh, I'm Zuko."

"And I'm Kurt. It's nice to meet you, Zuko," he replies, smile widening appreciatively upon having remembered the boy's name correctly. It's something he appreciates about having been on the island for a good chunk of time; everyone, sooner or later, becomes a familiar face. The thought of getting to know everyone in the community isn't at all far-fetched, and everyone seems to be open, friendly, welcoming. "That would be absolutely amazing, actually. If it isn't too much trouble. I mean, if nothing else, I really, really enjoy people in their craft, and swordfighting's always seemed so artful and passionate to me."

Zuko doesn't think he's ever heard anyone describe what he does as either artful or passionate, but he's pretty sure it's supposed to be a compliment. "...Thanks," he says, after a moment's hesitation. "Yeah, it's - it's no problem, really. I can show you the correct stance, stuff like that."

The hesitation strikes Kurt as odd. Not a bad thing, necessarily— people react the way they do for a reason— but it's different enough than Kurt's own response to such compliments that he has to wonder. People's worlds vary so much on the island that it only stands to reason that he'd end up meeting more and more people with backgrounds completely different from his own.

He carefully molds his expression to an even one, quietly contemplative.

"So... I guess you didn't learn swordfighting for the theater," he says, lips pressing thing as he gives the swords on Zuko's back another brief glance. "Was it, was it something that was expected, where you're from?"

"It - wasn't exactly expected, no," Zuko replies. "I'm from a place called the Fire Nation, and normally I have an ability that, uh, doesn't really need swords. I chose to learn that on my own." He'd wanted an edge, some kind of advantage over his sister, and Master Piandao had been a good teacher.

"Is the ability a secret?" Kurt asks, before scrunching his nose slightly at the intrusive question, shaking his head. "I mean, never mind. That was nosy of me. That's really neat, though, that you decided to take up swordfighting all on your own, without obligations. The only swords that I have any familiarity with are sai swords, which, um. They kind of look like tridents. Like this."

Briefly stooping, Kurt draws the shape of a sai on the sand, glancing up to Zuko to see if he has any level of recognition.

"Not that I knew how to fight with them, but I learned how to twirl them around and stuff. It was a little more impressive to most people than baton twirling."

Zuko shakes his head with a faint, crooked smile. "No, it's not a secret. I just never know if it's going to freak someone out when I tell them what I can normally do," he explains. "I'm a Firebender. I can create and control fire."

He watches Kurt draw in the sand and nods. "Oh, sure. I'm familiar with those, but I haven't really used them." Mai had used miniature versions, but Zuko has always stuck to his broadswords.

"I guess it's a little less intimidating when the island... doesn't really let anything extraordinary like that happen," says Kurt with a slight note of apology. It isn't that he's making fun of Zuko, but instead explaining the very reason why he doesn't tend to freak out when people talk about what they used to do, back before they arrived on Tabula Rasa. "I'm sorry that you can't access that here, though. I can't imagine what it must be like to lose that kind of ability."

Pressing his lips together in a nod, Kurt grins down at his drawing before sweeping it smooth. "And yeah, I don't think sai swords translate well to the use of a longer, broader blade. They're neat, though."

"It's...not easy to get used to," Zuko replies. "It's something I was born with, so having it just not there is - it's like a part of me is missing." It doesn't help, either, that the island's idea of a joke was to give him Waterbending for a few days instead. Zuko doesn't know if he'll ever get his bending back.

"Yeah," Kurt says, understanding in concept, even if not necessarily on a deeper level. His gaze drops slightly, then raises back hopefully. There are words that always fall on the tip of his tongue in these situations, meant to be reassuring and to call back to the fact that their lives are probably still going, or perhaps plotted out for them. It's just a matter of the time it takes to get back.

But these days, Kurt isn't sure he entirely wants that.

It's complicated.

"Well, maybe someday we'll find a way to lift whatever it is suppressing people's powers here. I'm... not a huge believer in magic, but there's obviously a lot that goes on here that people keep on trying to learn more about. Who knows what can happen?"

lucy takes the long way home

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