hotel: zuko

[shaft]

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week 0, friday, lobby

[shaft]

[ Claude is just looking around the lobby. ]

Are we just supposed to sleep on one of the couches...?

[cuedoves]

[ kisses spoon tenderly. ]

I'm sure we'll get our own rooms at some point.

[shaft]

[ uwu ]

I suppose... it's not very comforting to sleep unguarded in a room full of strangers, wouldn't you agree?

[cuedoves]

We're not strangers.

[ a beat. time for claude to suffer yet another rude teenager. ]

But you do look..... old, now.

[shaft]

... I'm only 5 years older, you know!

[ huffs ]

Unless you met a two year-old version of me.

[cuedoves]

[ zuko considers this....... he decides baby claude would be weird. ]

You have a beard.

[ (spoon voice) ]

Week 0, post exec

[cuedoves]

[ hewwo claude..... zuzu is in the dojo punching a dummy. he has a shirt on now ]

[ he doesn't acknowledge claude right away, either. just punch punch. maybe he's upsetti ]

[shaft]

[ Claude doesn't say anything at first! He will just grab a bow and some practice arrows.

Even Zuko pauses for a second, ] Clearing your head?

[cuedoves]

[ punch, punch!!!! now he stops ]

Yeah, something like that. This whole thing is stupid.

[ thanks zuko ]

[shaft]

... It is. Kind of exhausting, isn't it?

[cuedoves]

No kidding.

[ he stops punching for a moment to kind of... look off to the side, expression darkening. less angry, more troubled ]

Your hostage.... Who is it?

[shaft]

[ His eyebrows lift. ]

Why do you ask?

week 3, tuesday

[shaft]

[ While waving pleasantly to Zuko in the hallway, they're going to get thrown into a memory!

The scrapes burn across your legs and your sides as you lie on the grass, eyes turned toward the sky. The grass tickles your bare feet, the evening wind cool enough to soothe your aches where the dirt road had dragged against your legs, and where the rope around your wrists had rubbed the skin raw. You're used to your father's efforts to mold your behaviour into something greater than you are, and while it hasn't helped your manners any, you've gotten remarkably good at emerging relatively unscathed.

The bruises that mottle your abdomen and face are from something else entirely, already starting to fade. It's something that might've left you spitting mad when you were younger, but now, almost fifteen, you've learned how to keep your calm.

Along the borders of Almyra, the war makes heroes at the expense of families and children. You don't know about the orphans and casualties yet, about the tragedy and strife that haunts them, you only know of the brave that venture out to the Throat, earning glory with the blood of women and men.

Your brother is one such star. He'd left for the border at the age of sixteen, spending five years making a name for himself before returning to the capital to receive thanks from the king. He's young and handsome, enchanting the women and children of the palace, and he hates you down to his core.

So he requests to spar with you in the evening, with an axe to the back. And he offers up a demonstration of his leadership skills, by arranging that his companions do the same. This, too, once burned rage in your chest, potent and furious, and you once screamed and shouted until you realized that it never made a difference. But now, like your father's discipline, you've learned the best way to survive these situations is to keep hold of your temper.

Normally it's a point of pride for you, that you're clever and slippery enough to rob others of the satisfaction they want out of your blood, but this time, after a match with your brother's cronies, when you catch his eye, you don't see the anger or hate. You see disappointment that cools into disgust, as though you were being tested, and you failed.

"Nothing ever changes with you, does it."

That, for some reason, infuriates you.

Which is why you slip poison into his wine at dinner, knowing full well that there could only be no other culprits when he kneels over onto his plate. You couldn't even feign remorse when your father had turned his gaze toward you.

You don't feel it even now, as you push yourself up onto your feet, thinking about the quiet darkness around you, and the golden lights of the palace in the distance. You realize you feel nothing toward the sight of it, toward your home or your family. So your gaze returns to the stars and you follow them west. And suddenly, you wonder to yourself if perhaps your brother was right. Maybe you do need to change.

... That's disorienting.

Claude is just going to pretend that didn't happen. ]

[cuedoves]

[ well, complicated families isn't anything new to zuko. nor sibling rivalry turned deadly. so he watches this play out quietly.... the context is lost on him, for the most part, aside from messed up royal families. ]

[ and claude poisoning his brother. ]

Did he die?

[ even zuko wouldn't feel nothing if azula died, but. ]

[shaft]

[ sometimes... you have a messed up family. ]

Nah, I wasn't that brutal. My father would've done a little more than let the horse drag me around if I'd killed him.

[cuedoves]

[ ... yeah, that seems more like it. he doesn't think claude is the type of guy to just kill his brother cold-blooded. ]

He seems like a real jerk.

[ claude having a bit of a temper as a kid is... interesting, though. he just passes off everything with easy jokes. ]

[ maybe there's some steel there. ]

My family's messed up like that too.

[shaft]

[ He gives him a sympathetic look there. Commiserating! ]

You're a prince, right? Sorry to say that doesn't surprise me.

week 3, thursday

[cuedoves]

[ idk how they meet but zuko is looking over at him with concern (tm). i do not know the state of his injuries ]

Are you okay?

[shaft]

I should be asking you. I heard you nearly drowned.

[cuedoves]

Obviously I didn't. I'm on the mend.

[ he might be healed by now i think ]

What happened to you?

[shaft]

Fought a couple of beasts and supernatural creatures.

You?

[cuedoves]

.... Kind of same? And robots? And did puzzles. It sucked.

[ grumbles. ]

I did find something, though. A clue, I think.

week 5, sunday

[shaft]

[ Hi Zuko!! A hand will appear and pat him on the head. ]

Zuko. Keeping busy?

[cuedoves]

[ zuko makes a face but he'll let it go because claude just died. ]

Yeah, yeah. Plenty of stuff to do on this side.

Sorry you died.

[ just. a bit awkwardly. ]

[shaft]

I'm sorry about you too.

.... I thought might be Hilda. Your hostage.