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weirdletI'm in a creative mood. So- this here is an open Avatar: the Last Airbender meme. Post up to three- I'll promise one.
Since this is wide-open, please give me a specific to work off of- a line, a quote, a nebulous verb, something. Just a pairing does not count.
(And just as a note- the Dragon Hatching AU meme is still open, if anyone's interested!)
Edit- Meme is closed. I will fill out at least one of everyone's prompts, and more if circumstance permits. Thank you all for your patience, your comments, and the fun you've given me^^
Since this is wide-open, please give me a specific to work off of- a line, a quote, a nebulous verb, something. Just a pairing does not count.
(And just as a note- the Dragon Hatching AU meme is still open, if anyone's interested!)
Edit- Meme is closed. I will fill out at least one of everyone's prompts, and more if circumstance permits. Thank you all for your patience, your comments, and the fun you've given me^^
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Date: 2009-12-04 05:45 am (UTC)Zuko with wings! And only him. Only Ozai and Ursa know it, but Iroh and Azula suspect something is off on him but don't know what.
Sorry if these weren't what you were looking for...
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Date: 2009-12-04 05:53 am (UTC)Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-04 06:50 am (UTC)She’s seen every port from Gaoling to Chameleon Bay before her second birthday. She’s never felt the languid mugginess of summer in her home nation, or tasted fireflakes at a festival. She goes about in the arms of her mother, a banished princess fallen from grace, the brand of a coward on her face and an adulterer on her scalp, naked but for the lock that marks her once-rank.
There are men who have been broken to pieces and burnt to ash for wanting to tug that lock.
She gets to do it all the time, and her fingers are gently detangled from the pretty strands, her mother’s pretty eyes like the jewels in the furnace, and she doesn’t recognize sadness yet but there are times when they’re like the moon too, far away and lonely when the stars won’t come out to play.
Right now they’re blazing, in something she’ll one day learn is hope.
“Ma-ma-“ she starts, and gets a hurried kiss and is passed to Great-Uncle, who is warm and kind and smells of good things. Mama is heading to the bow, standing with her head tilted back, her arms reaching for the spyglass.
“Helmsman!”
And the lurching of the boat she knows the word will herald doesn’t disappoint, turning them around to chase the pretty lights again.
Lan Min claps in delight, and giggles when Mama takes her back after she’s done being shouty. Familiar calloused fingers smooth back her hair and replace her cap, tugging the flaps down around her ears, and Uncle stands nearby to block the wind.
It’s going to be a very exciting day.
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-04 07:45 am (UTC)My cousin has just gotten two kids and I am kinda baby-crazy. Been for awhile so that's why I request so much about characters having kids.
This? This is beautiful and makes me want to scream for more.
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-04 08:58 am (UTC)(If you like, make a few prompts for within this little AU- I wouldn't mind writing more, I just need starting-blocks.)
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-04 09:02 am (UTC)The first time Aang sees Lan Min.
Ozai meets his first grandchild.
Someone is questioning about Lan Min's father and Zuko reacts.
You are wonderful!
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-04 09:32 pm (UTC)He comes out of his crouch and turns around to see bright red hangings and gently glowing candles, a hammock and a desk and thick rugs on the metal floor.
In the middle of it all is that Fire Nation girl. She’s seated on a large cushion; her breastplate is off and her tunic pushed aside as the toddler in her arms nurses heartily.
“Whoa,” says Aang, who’s familiar with the basic idea but hasn’t ever seen it this close up before.
Or with someone he’d swear was only a handful of years older than he is.
Her face is bright red and blank with surprise, blushing clear past her scalp- and there’s a lot of that, which is weird. Still, Aang grins sheepishly and is attempting to back out as her face begins to twist into that snarl he saw back in the village.
“Stop.”
The marching that rumbles past the door is a better incentive, but the result is the same- Aang stays still.
The girl-captain rearranges herself slightly- face forward, kid tucked up protectively, chest hidden behind the baby’s coal-black hair. Her expression is grim, and Aang is beginning to wonder just how he’s going to get out of this one.
“You’ve never known a father, have you. Being raised by monks and all.”
“Ah- no…” he replies, back against the wall and eyes flicking to the corner where his staff is leaning. She catches his movement, and glares harder.
“Then you don’t know what it’s like, do you. To want one- or to be in want of one. That’s why there are laws- strict rules about how one behaves when there could be children involved.”
“Uh- I don’t know where this is going, but could I please have my sta-“
“No. You are going to listen to me. I broke the rules- I’ve had to wander the earth trying to find a place for us, where we could be safe-“ loved, her eyes say. “-and I had almost given up hope.”
The littler girl decides she’s had enough and turns to look at him, glittering gold-coin eyes in a round, chubby face like a porcelain doll, a smile gaping. Her mother pulls her closer, never wavering her snake’s-gaze on him.
“You? You’re her ticket to legitimacy. And that’s why you’re not. Going. Anywhere,” she finally growls, and the guards burst in grabbing at his arms and legs-
Aang struggles, but their grip is firm- and later, when Appa has gored through the metal plates and there’s half an iceburg burying the bow of the ship, he thinks that he’s never going to let himself get distracted by a pretty girl again.
He breaks that vow five minutes later, but it’s the thought that counts.
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-05 05:25 am (UTC)But I truly love this verse, honestly. But is Zuko completely banished, without the Avatar-mission or what? You sort of leave that impression.
And again, I love this.
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-05 05:29 am (UTC)Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-05 05:54 am (UTC)...You do realize that you ahve made me addicted n another Au again?
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-05 05:59 am (UTC)(I rather like this one too^^ But I'm trying to be good and answer some other peoples' prompts first before I dive back into Yet Another Gender-Bender AU)
Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
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Date: 2009-12-05 09:34 pm (UTC)Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-06 07:15 am (UTC)Re: Princess Zuko, Out Of Wedlock
Date: 2009-12-05 09:34 pm (UTC)Ozai Meets His First Grandchild (sorry, forgot italics)
Date: 2009-12-05 10:08 am (UTC)Now she looks as though she would like to leap across the barrier of the Imperial Flame and snatch her ill-gotten child from the Firelord’s arms.
The Firelord does not deign to acknowledge this, but simply inspects his first grandchild in a perfunctory manner.
He can’t tell, just by looking, who the father is. That was perhaps the great scandal of the time, beyond mere defiance, beyond rudeness in the war-room that bordered on treason- one cannot have the royal bloodline being flaunted about so commonly, not only for the honor of the house but the example it sets the rest of the state. He finds the gold-coin eyes are common enough, the skin baby-fair and perhaps on its way to porcelain, if not browned in the sun first.
His daughter watches him, eyes like a dragonhawk’s and like a startled komodo rhino as well, the white ring showing all around in fear.
He smiles, and lets the little creature tug on his beard.
Azulon will not like that his sister has returned, with yet another barrier between himself and the highest place he can currently occupy, that of Crown Prince. Yet the prince smiles and preens, the happy brother and young uncle, and Ozai knows that this is the time to watch most carefully, for when Azulon gets frustrated he gets clever, and Zura is a walking ball of easy targets.
This child will never be closer to the throne than now, as she sits in his lap and shows no fear from the dancing flames- but he thinks that Azulon had better be very careful about how he goes about clearing his path. He is the one who controls life and death in this kingdom, in this world-
And for now, he chooses to allow his grandchild her life. Zura has bought a great deal of leeway, with the Avatar’s death, and that she chooses to spend it on the cause of half her suffering shows her stubborn loyalty, if not her wisdom in its placement.
He suddenly has to pat out sparks that singe his beard, and the dear little thing giggles.
Re: Ozai Meets His First Grandchild (sorry, forgot italics)
Date: 2009-12-05 12:51 pm (UTC)Azulon, do not dare...
Re: Ozai Meets His First Grandchild (sorry, forgot italics)
Date: 2009-12-06 07:28 am (UTC)Azulon's already dared quite a bit- but there's some lines he won't cross if he thinks Father is looking.
Questions About Lan Min's Father- Zura Reacts 1/2
Date: 2009-12-06 08:47 pm (UTC)The full moon is on the rise, and Zura is staring at it over the rail of the ship.
She’s heard that the moon turned red, then black, while she was hauling the Avatar across blizzard-burned tundra, seeking a way back to the ship and losing sight of the stars in the howling gale. There are stories, about the terrible rage of the oceans and the loss of half a fleet- the death of a beautiful princess to make the moon rise again.
The thought makes her shudder, and not because she might have been at fault for it (she was there, she could have gotten what she wanted and got out, she had, but no one ever said she had to be in the same room to cause trouble).
The moon’s still there, though- or there again, pure and shining, and the terrible night of its death has passed away into history.
She doesn’t hear Mao ghost up to her until he lets her know with a footfall, knowing better than to sneak up on a soldier.
“You cold?”
“Everything’s changed. Nothing has.”
“I asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for philosophical nothings.” She can feel him resist the urge to roll his eyes, and glowers away to the side- another moment ruined by mutual malfunctions. But he tugs off his long black cloak, rich as sin in the fur of some dead platypus bear, and she lets it settle around her shoulders.
Mao looks at her funny- she can read his ghost-mask better than most, although that isn’t saying much- and stands next to her at the metal rail, looking upwards as if he can’t quite think of what to say.
The waves slap at the ship’s hull for a while.
Her brother’s bodyguard looks at her sidelong from under his girlish fringe- he keeps his nails like an Imperial lady’s, black and deadly, and no one says him nay. Zura puts her hand in his, feeling the different calluses between them; her nails are short and blank, filed down harshly to keep out of the way.
Mao traces the fuzzy outline of her hair, growing out from the adulteress’s cut. Now she has a peasant’s shaggy bob, her face a little too sharp for true beauty even under the scar framing her eye like a phoenix-wing.
He leans in and kisses her jaw anyway.
“Stop worrying. Come inside- I’ll make you tea.”
He learned the art from Lo and Li, Azulon’s tutors- he doesn’t flatter himself that he knows all their secrets, but he’s mastered a trick or two, including some that would blanch his mother’s hair if she knew. He’s pretty sure Azulon learned a few things as well.
Three years now, Mao’s always made a fresh pot.
Questions About Lan Min's Father- Zura Reacts 2/2
Date: 2009-12-06 08:47 pm (UTC)That mad protective streak that flares up when she touches the blanket, though- that fits. He thinks he can start to reassemble the picture of his exiled first-love-come-home from there.
They talk in low voices, in fits and spurts, avoiding the raw spots as best they can- it doesn’t keep them from stumbling on them headlong.
“You know people will talk about us if we’re all over each other when we get home.” He’s level-voiced as ever, as if he’s talking about potaturnips for dinner.
“Let them.” The reply is short and harsh, and Zura buries anything further in her teacup.
“Is that any good for Lan Min?”
She looks up at him, her good eye blank, her bad eye glaring.
“It’s gotta be better than the truth,” she finally allows, looking at the floor. The silence fills the air between them for a while, a heavy bubble growing slowly larger until Mao pokes it, more hesitantly than he’s ever thrown his needles or his knives.
“…what is the truth?”
A laugh bubbles up in her, something half-hysterical and more than a little like a sob. “I don’t know,” she says, running her fingers through her ragged, tufted hair. “Even now- I just couldn’t tell you, because I don’t know. It could be either. It could be anyone, if they were stupid enough.” Or unlucky enough to get caught in Azulon’s little games.
Mao bows his head, mouth in a straight line and eyes hidden. Zura doesn’t know if it’s from her pain or his.
She looks at the moon out the porthole, and shakes her head, setting down her teacup.
“It doesn’t matter. I traded a kingdom’s-“ Uncle’s- “freedom for her- if I have to bring down the walls of Ba Sing Se again by hand, I’ll do it. If anyone asks, I’ll say she’s the true-born Son of the Sun and anyone who says otherwise is blaspheming.”
It really doesn’t matter. The Avatar is defeated. She’s on a ship bound for home. The moon is still here. She is still here, or here again, even after a night when the world went from red to black and only the death of a princess could have restored her.
Anything is possible.
If she has to, she’ll make it happen.
Re: Questions About Lan Min's Father- Zura Reacts 2/2
Date: 2009-12-07 05:15 am (UTC)I have a weird way of liking/hating Mai, I hate how they treated her and Zuko's romance in canon but I love reading them in fandom. This makes me giddy, jealous!Mao is one of my favourites. And the moon...
Re: Questions About Lan Min's Father- Zura Reacts 2/2
Date: 2009-12-07 05:22 am (UTC)^^ Thank you. If you have any more notions for this one, by all means, send'em along.
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From:Re: Questions About Lan Min's Father- Zura Reacts 2/2
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Date: 2009-12-04 08:43 am (UTC)Ursa holds her breath as she looks at the scale, wide and flat in the palm of her hand. Thirteen ridges bar its copper surface- the last still faint, as if lightly scored.
Thirteen years, she has held her greatest gift back from the world, mother-madness deeming that she keep him from soaring away from her, as all children must, as she has taught and been taught by countless mothers, fathers, officers, teachers.
Very soon, she may not have a choice.
She watches her son, her precious son, as he fumbles in his training and grows ever more frustrated. She rebinds his bandages each night, and bites her lip as he hunches more and more. Iroh is growing suspicious, of course- Azula, her baby girl, the unexpected second gift, merely teases him ever more viciously and never seems to think that her temper and her tongue might make her worthy of the same.
Her husband grows impatient, and, she thinks, even a little afraid under the cloud of disdain and disappointment. First they had no child to present to Azulon as a sign of their devotion and duty, even with a stunning heir in place. Then they had one, after a secret trip and a secret bargain, never to be spoken of again. Now they have a stumbling, aching boy who grows ever more angry as he grows ever more pained, and a stinging, sly girl who is sweet and too much like her forefathers to offer much comfort to an aging monarch.
When the Mother of Dragons roars circling around their castle, she runs to prevent his madness, the father’s-madness that says something marked and marred is not wanted anymore. It doesn’t work-
She takes her boy back anyway.
The palace shaking down around her ears, her companions, her friends, her own body growing as stone and ash, she reaches out, and sees her son reach back, charred, scarred, his woven vest torn and tattered as ribbons.
His poor little wings, so bent, so small and deformed, still flair free, and he cries out in the shock of it.
Ursa can only wish with her last breath that they will at least grow stronger.
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Date: 2009-12-04 08:50 am (UTC)Wow. This is very powrful and I have to read this over and over again.
Thank you!
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Date: 2009-12-04 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 12:28 pm (UTC)