It's true that Zuko's not in a mental state to be particularly understanding right now. Oddly, thinking of this as a Council-mandated reassignment is what makes it easier to bear; he struggles to imagine himself following anyone but Iroh, which he knows is an unhealthy attachment, and one he should let go of even with his Master's death. Easier said that done.
Obi-Wan's straightforward acknowledgement and gentle, respectful welcome makes his throat uncomfortably tight. He hadn't really expected less, but being confronted with it is another matter. Everything is still too raw for Zuko to be used to accepting sympathy, something he'd always been particularly graceless at anyway.
He forces himself to focus on his breathing and reorient himself to the present. Zuko wants to say something self-denigrating, but in the context of Iroh as his master rather than Zuko as the student... He can't. "Thank you," he finally returns, the picture of awkward. Suddenly it clears as he thinks of his own intentions again, and his tension resolves into determination. "I intend to honor his wishes for me as much as I can. I won't disappoint his memory, or his faith in me." That seems a Code-approved way of coping, with the teaching that those lost have never truly gone. It's nothing less than the truth of how he feels, anyway.
Apart from that... he doesn't know what to say, and Zuko has never been eloquent. Everything seems to have swelled up inside him-- too much-- until, curiously, it fades, leaving a sense of distance and abstraction. It all seems so unreal. What he has to hold onto is his training, is getting better, improving as Master Iroh would've wanted him to.
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Obi-Wan's straightforward acknowledgement and gentle, respectful welcome makes his throat uncomfortably tight. He hadn't really expected less, but being confronted with it is another matter. Everything is still too raw for Zuko to be used to accepting sympathy, something he'd always been particularly graceless at anyway.
He forces himself to focus on his breathing and reorient himself to the present. Zuko wants to say something self-denigrating, but in the context of Iroh as his master rather than Zuko as the student... He can't. "Thank you," he finally returns, the picture of awkward. Suddenly it clears as he thinks of his own intentions again, and his tension resolves into determination. "I intend to honor his wishes for me as much as I can. I won't disappoint his memory, or his faith in me." That seems a Code-approved way of coping, with the teaching that those lost have never truly gone. It's nothing less than the truth of how he feels, anyway.
Apart from that... he doesn't know what to say, and Zuko has never been eloquent. Everything seems to have swelled up inside him-- too much-- until, curiously, it fades, leaving a sense of distance and abstraction. It all seems so unreal. What he has to hold onto is his training, is getting better, improving as Master Iroh would've wanted him to.