lucetilogs | "I'm still the same, pursuing pain./Is it worth all that I've gained?"

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"I'm still the same, pursuing pain./Is it worth all that I've gained?"

Who:

markofthebrave
What: Just a friendly match
When: Thursday, after dinner
Where: A friendly forest clearing by a friendly stream
Summary: It's the middle of a heat wave and tensions at home are rising. What better way to blow off steam?
Rating: PG for violence

Zuko helping Katara prepare dinner wasn't exactly uncommon, odd as it was for a prince to be getting his hands dirty in such a way. Zuko was, surprisingly enough, one of the better cooks in the house and she welcomed his help. His suggestion that they spar afterwards was equally welcome. Katara didn't like the heat, and the atmosphere in the house had become increasingly - awkward - in the evenings. She doesn't blame him for wanting to get out and she takes the fact that he actually asked for this as a positive step to renewing their friendship.

"This looks like a good spot."

It is a good spot, actually. They'd sparred here before, not that Zuko remembers. But it's far enough away from the trees that they won't accidentally get scorched, the grass is low and flat, and the stream bubbling to the left is a good source of water for her without being an overwhelming advantage.

"What do you think?"

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She watches as his fire eats away at more of her water - the supply from her waterskin is limited, after all - but she's not ready to just move on to the next step yet. The steam from the encounter is bent back down, reinforcing her water as she continues to meet him, hit for hit and stroke for stroke.

...they fought like this once before, but this time she has no angry words to fling at him across the distance. There's no betrayal to address. It's just an honest outpouring of power and frustration, a meeting of equals, and it feels good.

He wonders how long she'll do this. It's a good feeling -- no doubt about that -- and he enjoys the raw power, but this isn't really a spar. Zuko holds there for a moment, centering himself before pushing forward.

There's no question in her mind that she can hold this - and she does, for a stubborn moment, even as he pushes, giving every appearance of continuing to hold as she pours everything she's got into driving back his flame.

And then she withdraws it, standing her ground and lifting the water as his fire comes barreling towards her. She doesn't move, instead turning what had been a long stream of water to a flat slice and moving to interrupt his flow mid blow in a move that will only cut the element off from his control if he's surprised.

He almost expects her to give at some point; Katara is stubborn but she's also resourceful. He's expecting something. He's just not sure what.

She's quick with her water, but he's almost as quick with his fire. As soon as he sees that wall of water coming down between him and his element, he lets go with a final shove in Katara's direction. His dodge is a short series of quick steps backward and he sends a wave of fire in Katara's direction. It might get past her wall, but it might be enough to occupy her while he regroups.

The fire not cut off by her wall of water disburses before it reaches her. Which was a risk, but an informative one. As Zuko moves backwards, shooting that wave in her direction, Katara keeps the wall of water between them while she takes several steps to her left. She hopes to continue to maneuver him back towards the river, and to that end sends out what's left of her watershield in an scythelike wave about shoulder height.

She doesn't anticipate that catching him, though, and decides to start closing the distance between them, stepping forward in the wake of that wave.

Getting out of this one is going to take some serious maneuvering. She's trying to herd him back toward the river -- and, damn it all, but it's actually working, thanks to his stupid missteps. He should have dodged in the other direction.

He doesn't dodge the wave, because doing so would land him in more trouble than he'd care to admit. Fire is, for the most part, offensive and most of his training reinforced this: dodge if you must but fire is to be used to attack. Overwhelm your opponent with fire and there will never be a need for defense.

He's learned a few tricks though. He stands his ground as a wall of fire erupts between himself and the wave. Katara will have to work harder if she wants to push him into the river.

"Impressive."

And it is impressive - it's a giant wall of flame. She doesn't want to even think about the kind of concentration it takes to sustain that and not let it spread along the grass.

But if he thinks that's going to block off her only route of attack, he's sadly unaccustomed to fighting a waterbender who's had to adapt to traveling to the Fire Nation. Katara raises her hands in a wave-like motion, but no water streams forth from her waterskin. Instead the attack comes from behind him, as a stream of water whips out from the river with only the whistle of motion as its warning to wrap around the foot closest to the river. If it connects, Katara can use it much as anyone who's coiled a whip around someone's limb - and she will use it to tug him back hard in hopes that he'll fall.

Edited 2011-05-27 20:55 (UTC)

"Yes." It is. He'll take that acknowledgement to heart, thanks.

It does take concentration to hold that wall of fire, but not so much that he doesn't realize that the water is rising from the river. It's with a deft motion that the wall of flame splits and the smaller section becomes a stream of flame that shoots out to meet the thin whip of water.

Had Jeong-Jeong held the wall of fire this long? As the seconds build into a half of a minute, a minute, Katara doesn't let him countering her first offensive stall her - it was just the first offensive. Again, she keeps her attack subtle - and instead of drawing out one massive wave starts with a fast rush of water, just skimming along the ground, heading towards him.

But that water doesn't get halfway towards him before she brings her arms straight up - and now there are two waves rushing to meet you, Zuko. The smaller one along the ground and the much, much larger one that's cresting just above head-level.

He's got to get away from the river if he has any hope of making a showing for himself in this spar. Hopefully, he can do just that while her attention is on attacking. He brings his fists together and shoves that wall of fire toward the wave even as he ran forward -- and away from the river.

That wall of fire runs into a bit of difficulty when it meets the forerunner wave along the ground, and Katara works fast. She brings up the other wave and converts it quickly into fist-sized globs of water - globs of water with a thin layer of ice, as she's learned that ice moves faster through the air than water, and brings them down hard in Zuko's direction.

...from behind. But then, he's the one who's running straight at her with the water at his back. He should be expecting something.

He's expecting something all right, but when he reaches a point where he thinks he can turn and look without immediately being pummeled, he has to acknowledge the sheer resourcefulness behind what she just did.

"Nice." And he means it, but that doesn't mean he's going to let those things catch up to him. He could use a little target practice; fist-sized fireballs shoot through the air to meet her fist-sized globules of water.

... At least, the first few. The rest get a sweeping wave of fire aimed at them.

And while she bends them towards him from behind, Katara rushes forward - ice in that quantity is not a good weapon against a firebender, so she doesn't waste much time or effort directing them towards him - they've already launched, so she lets gravity dictate their fall.

Meanwhile, she bends out some of her remaining water from her waterskin and closes in on him, shooting it towards his chest in a hard fast pulse.

When Zuko realizes that those ice balloons aren't his greatest worry -- he's been running pretty much toward Katara; that's where the biggest threat was -- he turns the wave of fire almost back on itself and sweeps it through the air in front of him. The globules of water fall behind him and he grimaces a bit when some very cold water splashes the back of his calf.

... That's really cold water she's throwing at him.

Yes, and that's really hot fire you're waving around in front of her.

She follows up her attack, drawing the water from the grass at his feet and bringing it up in a narrow cresting wave to both push back and grab onto his arm.

The pulse of water doesn't hit his chest, thanks to that wave of fire he threw in front of himself, but there's precious little he can do about the water coming up to grab his arm.

... Cold water. Cold water.

He probably should address the water on his arm, but he brings his free hand up, snaps it into a fist, and punches a large fireball forward. It's low, skimming along the grass, and fast as it races toward her.

And Katara adjusts her direction and runs towards him, scooping some more water from the grass and going for his free arm as she jumps over the flame.

This would be so much easier if he had both hands free. In the moment after Katara jumps over his flame, Zuko pulls it back on itself. He's not blocking her, but she does have a wave of flame bearing down on her back.

That just means she has to run faster. She's less than three steps away from him now, and if he sets her hair on fire she is going to kill him-- and she veers sharply to the left, because her hair is seriously not worth risking to a spar and because that fire is hot and close to her wings --

--and she uses her grip on Zuko's water-covered arm to yank him forward, hoping to throw off his stance and disburse the fire.

Throw off his stance? It sends him to a knee and the fire does disburse as she passes him; it's a simple enough matter to send something else her way though, even as he fumbles to regain something close to a good stance. He sends a fireball -- probably not quite as awe-inspiring as his last ones -- cutting across her path. She didn't like the fire behind her; let's see how she deals with fire in front of her.

...Hopefully her dealing with it would include letting go of his arm.

Well, crap. Katara skids to an abrupt halt in order to let the fire shooting by in front of her pass bare inches from her face, but the position she lands in is a familiar crouch and she uses what's left of the water in her waterskin to shoot a waterwhip at Zuko's foremost leg.

And no. She's not letting go of his arm.

Zuko lets the fire disburse in order to confront the more immediate problem of the waterwhip coming for his leg. He hates being immobilized, but he has to admit that Katara did a good job of catching him. If he had time to concentrate on it, he might be able to break free, but no. Of course not. She kept sending things his way.

He sent a stream of fire out to meet Katara's whip and followed that up with two fireballs in quick succession toward her. If he could just gain a moment...

Hard to do, with her, though. She... was good.

She's too close to him to have much time to react and too stationary to automatically dodge - the stream of fire eats up some of the water as she stops and pulls it up in a shield to divert one of those fireballs - and she's moving, dodging to the side and closer.

Out of water in her waterskin and unwilling to let go of her hold on his arm, Katara has heartbeats to make up her mind as she continues to rush towards Zuko. The hand that's not keeping her bending in place - her left hand - draws the knife from her belt. If she makes it that one step closer, she'll be laying the flat of her blade against his chest.

Edited 2011-05-30 05:13 (UTC)

He isn't expecting the knife -- because, really, he was under the impression that this was a bending spar, but then again, the only rule had been to stop when someone one says stop. Zuko drops all pretense at bending and brings his free arm up to knock her hand aside. He'd like to disarm her and he hopes the blow to the wrist will do it, but that will be difficult with only one hand.

Yes, technically, it is a bending spar. But fighting Zuko is... kind of automatic. And consistently requires that Katara give it everything she has - and it's in this mode which had her reaching for her knife - but the weapon isn't something to play with, and he doesn't have one, and as soon as he blocks it she feels a sharp stab of regret - one that she probably wouldn't have felt if she succeeded in her attack, but as it is, leaving the knife in play...

She goes with the motion, lets him bring her hand down and actually springs back long enough to awkwardly sheath it. "Sorry."

...she doesn't stand there for long. If he has something to say he'd better say it quickly, because she'll be springing right back towards him if given half a chance.

Edited 2011-05-30 05:26 (UTC)

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