AUDIENCE: ZUKO

[retellers]

Comments

[cuedoves]

[ yeah a shooting gallery minigame does sound like hell. ]

Yeah. I want to show you something.

[retellers]

Alright. What is it?

[cuedoves]

[ shows a copy of this! ]

.... I don't know if someone already showed you, but I'm pretty sure it's from the past.

[ unless wolf knows differently??? ]

[retellers]

[ ah. ]

... Yeah, I've seen it. It's from further in the past than you might think, though.

[cuedoves]

The mystery deepens, I guess?

[ he's not even surprised the realm is so whacky ]

What do you know about it?

[retellers]

I know if you read it carefully, you'll realize what it says never happened. [ they are helpful and tap the sentence starting with "some are hoping" ]

[cuedoves]

.... Yeah, I thought it was weird. [ also why he didn't want to share it, because people might jump the gun ] I'm pretty sure the monster came after, and I don't know how a leader would have been responsible for it.... or how their death would make it show up. And I'm pretty sure the sentence after says... contaminating it?

[ he can't make out the other blotted out bits, but. too much doesn't add up ]

Do you think someone faked it to try to get us to attack you guys or something?

[retellers]

[ they shake their head ]

Read it carefully. This thing implies a Leader died.

[ and, well. that clearly never happened, did it. ]

[cuedoves]

Yeah. That obviously didn't happen here, but.... in the past, I don't know. I heard that this happened before and it went really badly because they didn't stop the splintering.

[retellers]

One of the times. Yeah. [ quietly but surely. ]

[cuedoves]

[ fucking bad!!! ]

It's been... a lot of times, hasn't it?

[retellers]

I don't know how many. But enough that we've definitely been at this a long while.

[cuedoves]

What about the other leaders? Do you know anything about them, or what happened to them all?

[ aside from this dead one obviously ]

[retellers]

It was still us. Though I doubt that [ taps the paper ] was the only time one of us died.

[cuedoves]

WHAT?!

[ in hindsight this is pretty fucking obvious since they keep recalling memories, but it's hard for zuko to wrap his head around ]

So... for every cycle...

[ it's been them? ]

[retellers]

... Yeah.

[ duh. ]

[cuedoves]

That's... I thought...

[ give him a second. ]

How long has it even been for you?

[retellers]

[ ... shrugs? ]

Not sure. Same length of time has the rest of you guys, though.

[cuedoves]

But we've only been here for one cycle.

[ .... ]

Haven't we?

[retellers]

Group's stayed the same. [ ... ] It's a cycle. It repeats, with... different mistakes.

[cuedoves]

So it's---

[ all this time, he's been thinking it's different people, but... ]

Us? All of us?

[retellers]

... Yeah.

[ zuzu out here thinkin this is the avatar cycle ]

[cuedoves]

[ yeah bitch they're just reincarnating into dumbasses ]

So we've just been doing the same thing over and over again, and being really bad at it?!

[ maybe that's not such a big surprise ]

[retellers]

....... Yeah, kinda.

[cuedoves]

I can't.... I can't remember any of it.

[ but then again, even the last few weeks..... he can't remember much of anything that happened ]