( he's never met anyone like mikuni. there's a melancholy to him that runs as deep as the bones of the earth, and while being around him is like being near still water, there's a shipwreck of sadness beneath the surface that you can see sometimes on clear blue days.

he tips his head, weighing it. it's not a story he needs. not anything he has to know. and what would the telling accomplish? he already knows that whatever else happened between human and jinba on mikuni's world was as bad as anything the fire nation ever did to the others. maybe even worse. and that it's very real, and very recent for him in the same way it is for katara.

he's obviously deliberating on an answer. he's learned not to just say the first thing that comes into his head around mikuni, for good or ill. finally, )

I'm hard to upset.

( his capacity for the endurance of horror is as deep and yawning a chasm a it has to be. he's accepted everything life's thrown at him and survived it. it's not that he's hard, because he isn't. he hurts for other people, wants to help them. but he's never surprised by the worst of humanity or what they can sink to, either. )

But 'not minding' talking about something isn't the same as wanting to, and I don't think it's anything I need to hear if it'll... bring up any bad memories.