Extra-Meme Fic- Introductions and Machinations

[weirdlet]

Eh-heh- man.  When I whump on a guy, I do it but good...

Extended prompt-fic from my mpreg meme, for Attackfish- brainwashed!Zuko, and how he came to be where he is now.  Prequel to this.  Be warned- Not Fun For Him.
 

Introductions and Machinations:



Zuko wakes in a cell in the brig of a ship.  His mouth is dry, his head is sluggish and frazzled, and he feels as if his whole body is in a faint, never-ending twitch.

The lightning... she got me.  Uncle, where’s Uncle-

Not here.  He hears the clink of chains, feels weight on his wrists that holds them up.  He can move some, but he feels weak, and has to take a minute to gear up for testing his bonds.  In that time, he can hear the echoes and distant thrum of the engines, and he can tell that this ship is perhaps double the size and three times as well-kept as his own had been.

Typical.  He gets sent on a hunt for the Avatar, supposedly a mission of great importance, in a dented tin can from a retired line, and Azula gets an Imperial class cruiser to go errand-running in.

There’s no time for that- he needs to get out, has to find the weak spots in the chains-

Footsteps are coming down the hall, a steady march of at least five, six people, and four guards enter the room as he spits flames.  They dodge and sweep the flames out before grappling him to the wall and then the floor, collectively bigger and stronger and uncaring as he curses them.

He expects Azula when she steps into the gloom, but behind her are two others, a woman in what looks like the uniform of a senior palace servant and what looks like a Fire sage, of all people.

“What do you want?” he snarls, as brave- or foolhardy- in faded spa clothes as he is in full armor.

“Check him,” she orders, and strides closer to stand at his head.  He rears back his head to spit fire, and a guard knocks the breath from him and leaves him choking.

Azula keeps her eyes on him as the sage and the woman approach.  The sage has a couple of scrolls in his harms, and he begins to unroll them as the woman kneels down and begins to undo his sash.

“What- what are you doing?” he garbles as breath returns to him in little gulps, trying to squirm away, to fight, to break free.  The guards’ grips do not yield.

“It seems, brother, that at birth you were observed to be a freak of our line.  And while you have little use as a prince, a warrior or a politician- perhaps you can serve our nation in another way.  Just so long as the rumors are still true,” she says, flipping one of her little sidelocks as she stands next to him, looking as if she’s considering tapping his cheek with the toe of her boot.

“You’re sick, Azula-!  Where’s Uncle?  What did you do to- STOP that!”  The old woman doesn’t pay him any heed, just expertly shucks him of his pants and leaves him bare and spread.  She and the sage put their heads together and consult the scrolls the old man holds, and Zuko yelps at the invasion.

“As I said- if the rumors are true, Father may indeed have a use for you.  Apparently dragons’ blood runs oddly in our line- and you, well, in addition to your talent of being in the way when your betters are trying to accomplish things, you were noted to have inherited some of the odder quirks.”  She knows shecan’tknownonono-

“You said-“

“That Father wanted you home?  He does- because it’s only a matter of time before you embarrass us all even further.”

“You lied to me.  You lied to me!” he rages, and bucks and kicks as hard as he can while the soldiers hold him, and the sage and the woman examine him closer.  All under Azula’s careful, watching eyes.

“Like I’ve never done that before,” she smirks, and avidly observes his humiliation.

…

The next few weeks are a blur- first the brig, for weeks, and Zuko’s almost certain that they’ve put something in the food, and it’s a choice between taking it or starving.  A metal box of a wagon comes after, then another ship.  At last, in sorry condition and still spitting sparks when he can get up the effort and the aim, he comes to dark, greenish tunnels where water drips and he can hardly feel the sun.

A man with eyes like jade and the front crown of his head shaved smooth stands in front of where he’s been dropped kneeling.  He smiles like some of Father’s best advisors, but not nearly so crass as to show his fangs.

“Prince Zuko, firstborn- child of the Fire Nation’s reigning monarch.  I am Long Feng- I will be your humble guide to your new home, and help to prepare you for your new role.”

Zuko snarls wordlessly up at him, though at this point it’s mostly a sneer and a wobble instead of a proper lunge.

“Dear me, you must be exhausted from your travels.  Nevertheless, allow me to explain a bit of your purpose here.  You see- the war has not touched Ba Sing Se.  It has not.  It does not.  And it will not- not with the public treaty and peaceable marriage of the Earth King and the Firelord’s daughter.”

“’zula?  You’re… crazy…” Zuko managed, wanting to express just how like shoving it into a platypusbear trap that was, but his own treatment at her hands and on her orders had left him unable to do much more than bear incoherent witness.

“The Princess Azula is, unfortunately, not a good match for the king.  While she is talented and lovely- she shows overweening ambition and an unfortunate taste for going about conquest the hard way.  No, Prince Zuko- the Firelord has two children, one of whom is a matchless warrior and doubtless fits the mold of the ideal Fire Nation heir- and one of whom is, due to a quirk of physical inheritance, quite eligible for taking part in a political match and all it entails.”

All his life he has managed to keep that little extra bit of failure- why can’t he be just one or the other- to himself and, so far as he knew, his mother.  A mark of dragons’ blood- he’d have taken claws or extraordinary firebending abilities if he’d had a choice.  Anything to make it easier to be the son his father wanted him to be.

Now they proposed to use it, use him, and that scared him in deep and un-nameable ways like he’d never been scared before.  And whatever bargain this Long Feng thought he’d struck with Azula- Zuko wished he had the strength to laugh at him.  Peace treaty?  Political marriage?  Join the bloodlines, get equal claim and go about conquering Ba Sing Se the peaceable, generational way?

Just who did they think they were dealing with?

He put the last strength he had into fighting the stony cuffs and stony hands that hauled him off, and the last thing he heard before they strapped him into the chair and set the sun in a jar to whirl around him, was Long Feng, making an offhand comment to one of his many discreet subordinates.

“Get one of the Joo Dees in here after the initial run- we simply must do something about that hair.”

…

There is no war in Ba Sing Se, and so the sort of furor and cheer such a state-changing union might rate is neither expected nor appropriate, much less for a tenth wife- but there is still a procession, and a ceremony.  They say that the princess is strong and steady, scarred as barbaric firebenders tend to be but she cleans up nicely in the full formal robes and with her long hair draped beneath her red veil.

If anyone knows enough of the outside world to say something doesn’t match up, they don’t mention it- or they’re useless refugees adrift in the Lower Ring, unlikely to ever even see the palace, much less make their voices heard.

Here in the courtyard of the enormous stone edifice, it is the nobles who give a brief cheer as the princess bows down before the Earth King’s palanquin, and is guided to her own.  Her stride is strong and confident, even as she is accompanied by formal attendants in rigid green.

Comments

[permetaform]

D=

::points at icon::

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ASDOFAKFINGIHARIGAFOMG!!!!



...

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[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Yes, but was it fun doom? ^^

[permetaform]

...::stares blankly as does not understand how DOOM cannot be fun::

^_^

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

^^

I'm glad you like it (I think you do?)- Zuko just suffers so prettily, and at the same time, I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about doing horrible things to him.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'm obviously a sadist, as I enjoyed this immensely. Oh Zuko, at the beginning of season two you thought it couldn't get any worse? Imagine if she dropped the "Like I've never done that before" on you after you were already in chains.

Zuko snarls wordlessly up at him, though at this point it’s mostly a sneer and a wobble instead of a proper lunge. I'm sure Long Feng is properly intimidated.

I like the way you worked in the fact that Zuko's intersex condition wasn't openly known, and his humiliation, and Azula, already drugging him, could have knocked him out cold, but this was way more fun, and the way, drugged, he couldn't put it all together until Long Feng told him.

*briefly wonders if Zuko's wearing a wig*

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

See: guilty about not feeling guilty, repeat ad nauseum.

Only the Joo-Dees know...

[floranna.livejournal.com]

I've already had a dream about this fic. It was about about the time when Zuko met with the gaang and was pretty shaken up what was done to him and Haru was the one who calmed him down and helped him. It became also Haru/Zuko, of course.

Damn, now I have two verses from you which make me go crazy. Damn you! XD

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

...*surreptitiously scribbles that down*

[floranna.livejournal.com]

*victory dance* My dreams ROCK.


Sometimes. (frigging moomins and Auswitz)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

I've seen an icon comparing Smellerbee to a moomin. What is a moomin?

[floranna.livejournal.com]

A finnish kids' show, pretty famous in Finland and Japan especially. It was originally a comic but then made into an anime in Japan. It is almost like a cult relic here in Finland, we have two parks dedicated to them in Naantali and in Tampere. Kid's parks, but very awesome.

And made by Tove Jansson.

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Nifty^^

Oh! There's another Zura chapter before the current Tales of Ba Sing Se, Zura Alone.