Jetko Meme

[weirdlet]

Okay, folks- I got art I need to be doing, stories I'm working on but which aren't gelling, and some things have been said that are setting me off in a 'yeah, you're right!' direction.  SO.  What we have here, is a Jetko meme.  I get to work on one of my favorite pairings whilst trying to get more into their heads (Jet in particular is a slippery bugger), and we all get some hot starcrossed boy-love.  Or hate.  Whatever you like.

Give me a prompt, a sentence, a song, whatever; any AU/universe in progress you like, just so long as you keep to this restriction- no rape.

Two prompts per person, promise of one ficbit, standard not-very-fast warning applies.

Do have at it!

Comments

[floranna.livejournal.com]

...

I am trying to control myself for not requesting mpreg.

...

(could I please?) I am hopeless.

But the first prompt which comes into my mind is that in your Zuko mindfucked-by-Daili-and pregnant-Au, Jet arrives before the gaang or they meet after. Zuko is still visibly pregnant. Sexxors!1! And angst.

Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

(Consider this a first installment- the whole idea got big, and there's a ways to go before the lusty bits)

Jet wakes up with a headache and an armful each of Smellerbee and Longshot, both being very careful not to jostle him. They’re what keeps him from freaking out at the long dark echoes and drips of the ship they’re on, at the dim lights and red hangings- Smellerbee strokes his hair, young-old eyes already worn out from their crying.

“Old man Mushi found us,” she tells him, and Longshot nods. “He got us out- said he was tired of losing sons to the war.” Jet scowls at the mention of the old man; he’d been looking for a lost relative, he’d said, and the renewed Freedom Fighters were happy to help a fellow refugee out (and maybe he’d helped them, as well).

Too bad who those lost relatives turned out to be.

Jet stays still and relies on Smellerbee’s intel and his own ears to fill him in- his ribs are busted and bruisy and he knows if he sits up he’ll regret it. He’s in the infirmary of a stolen ship; things had gone even further to hell in a handbasket after the fight under the lake, and the Avatar is lying unconscious on the next pallet over, and beyond that is a girl who sleeps under a spill of dark hair, and cries in her sleep in a low, husky voice.

“Who’s that?” he asks of her.

“She’s- another victim of the Dai Li,” Smellerbee answers, and won’t say more.

…

In daylight- or as good as, with no windows- Katara comes by, and Jet is gently but firmly relegated to second priority as she tends the slip of a boy, last hope for the world. He watches quietly as she coaxes what little progress she can from Aang’s flesh and chi, only teasing and joking with her once she moves on to his battered body. Her hands are cool and her mouth firm.

“You’ll have to take it easy for a while,” she tells him, and he hears where she’s grown harder, the doctor’s voice that means do as I say. “There’s only so much I can do once the bones are set in place- some things I can push along faster than others.”

“Tell me you won’t leave me alone in this tomb?” he says, and the cracked grin is only half-joking- the rest is desperate.

“I can’t be here all the time,” she says honestly. “But you have your friends- and soon enough you can go up on deck.”

She wants to touch those healing hands to his temples, but Jet puts her off, and amazingly, she lets it go.

“When you’re ready.” And then she’s across the room, to the girl who’s been sleeping so heavily since she tossed all night. She gets a curtain, and low, hushed voices for her questions, and it takes all his skill and patience to catch any of what’s being said.

What he hears doesn’t make any sense. But considering just how much painkiller must be in him, he’s surprised he can tell up from down.

…

Re: Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Mushi- no, Iroh, is down with breakfast, or lunch or something. Jet can’t believe he’s on the ship, the ship that’s supposed to have all the people who are fighting against the Fire Nation on it-

But Iroh isn’t paying attention to him, not yet, he’s gone down to his knees at the girl’s side and Jet really sees her for the first time as she’s dragged into the ragged embrace of her uncle. This can’t be who Mushi had said he was looking for- for one thing, he’d said he was looking for his nephew, and this is-

Shit, that’s the princess the Earth King married, he’s seen the wedding banns where they were pasted up on walls in forgotten layers in the Lower Ring. She’s Fire Nation- and so was Mushi and seriously, what the hell were they doing here?

“Nephew,” Mushi is saying, and the girl, the really pregnant girl is turning to look straight at him. Him. She has a scar around one eye and a look that he’s seen on too many survivors’ faces. “This young man across the way is Jet. He helped me to find you.”

Jet recalls doing nothing of the sort- but then again, he found the Dai Li all by his own damn foolishness, and Smellerbee had said that she- he? –was another one of their playthings.

He swallows a battery of retorts as those yellow eyes flicker over him, that drawn, shocky face stills into a serene mask and she gives him a bow from where she sits, something hand-over-fist formal and foreign to his vocabulary.

“Thank you, Jet.” It sounds like there’s a lot of things she could add to that, with her low, just-raspy voice, but she leaves it there.

Uh.

“Don’t thank me,” he says, sincerely.

…

The next few- days? –blur together as he realizes just how little he can really move and how much the pain-potion is actually there just to keep him from flopping around, almost purely in self-defense because he’s feeling too clumsy and thick to do anything right.

Sometimes he’ll wake up to the sound of breathing, and sweat at the crackle of flames that are really just a row of candles in a steady holder. In and out, up and down, they grow and fade in a steady rhythm that devours the set, one after the other, like a drinker’s bottles.

It keeps the princess quiet. He watches her clutch her round stomach, wrinkle her brow- her expression will waver between devastation and determination at a moment’s notice before it finally slams into the eyes-closed mask of meditative serenity.

Her shoulders are wide and her chest is flat under that dress, pink silk that probably didn’t suit her even when she was done up prim and proper. Jet’s still not sure what that’s all about, but she’s not laying waste to the countryside and his dreams are probably scaring her about as much as hers scare him.

Once in a while, though, when he’s too-freshly dosed or the night’s too long and he can’t stand hearing it from his damned natural enemy he yells for her to shut up, won’t she please shut up!

There’s a fight in her face in response, and sometimes the polite lady wins and turns away- and then sometimes- sometimes she sneers at him and sparks grit out between her teeth, like she’d reach out and slap him if they weren’t across the room from each other.

Jet wonders why doesn’t she.

Re: Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[floranna.livejournal.com]

You are killing me. Oh my god this is so powerful and I cannot stop reading it over and over and over again. So many nuances, so much sadness...

Marry me?

And now I am supposed to think the second prompt. I am right now empty.

(dear gad...)

Re: Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Heh^^

Glad you like it. Zuko's all pissy that he didn't get to have a say this round, but he'll get his turn later^^

Re: Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I must echo Floranna's proposal. We can be a love gang! United by a twisted love for torturing fictional characters and internet connections!

More topically, I love this. I love the way drugged!Jet barely questions a pregnant person being someone's nephew, and him having no idea what to do with a pregnant Fire Nation thing healing up with him, in the same room with him and his need to tug Zuko's pigtails.

Oh, and the mention of the banns. *heart*

Re: Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

^^ Some things, you just need to be really stoned to accept.

Zuko: "Don't pull those."

Jet: *does so anyway, then yelps when said pigtail comes off in his hand*

Zuko: "I told you not to pull those."

(And don't get me wrong, torture is fun, but I like equal parts fluff and shatterglass ^^)

Re: Egg and Ashes: Introductions (1/2)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

*on second reading* Oh me, this is so sudden... (*grins*)

Can I ask what makes the banns heart-worthy?

[floranna.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll give my second prompt right now.

Female!Zuko (not from your AU this time ^^) and Jet (duh...) have hot sex in the ferry and it has...consequences.

(I am sorry, but I just could not!)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

man, you should be so glad you didn't post this on any meme I was holding, Zura'd end up with those consequences being an STD just because I'm perverse.

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

(I'm working on it, it got long- they always *do*...)

[floranna.livejournal.com]

I refuse the feel guilt of anykind.

Part One of Something, pt 1/4

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

(I do not even have the cold-meds to thank for this, because I only just took them. This is what I got so far, and if I come up with more, I'll plunk it in.)

...

Everyone knows the herbs for the contraceptive teas are most effective when taken consistently- unfortunately, Zuka’s life has been anything but consistent. Her supply sometimes runs out, or they go bad from damp weather. Sometimes when she and her uncle have to leave in a hurry, the leaves are abandoned with their packs, and even when she can find the same thing from place to place, the strength varies. Given that the lean times make her courses irregular and she’s not of an inclination to try any boy she meets for size, it’s pushed back as a lesser concern.

And then came Jet.

He’s smooth, and he thinks he’s recruiting for his merry band- and for once, Zuka thinks, why can’t I indulge. Up against a wall in the deserted engine room, they find in each other matching lean muscle and scars that tell stories they aren’t going to divulge- he nuzzles the shell of her shriveled ear, and she counts the stripes on his back that aren’t ribs. It’s fast and hard and satisfying in a way that the great romances at home make a big deal of but never seemed to really explain.

Less than two weeks later, Jet’s attacking her uncle and screaming her nature for all to hear, and she only wishes she could have given him some horrible embarrassing disease that she could blame his outburst on.

Well.

Time goes by, and her courses never have been regular- she’s in a new city and getting used to different water, even boiled. She’s got More Important Things to worry about, and Jet is out of sight and out of mind- she can’t blame him for the rage, but she can sure as hell resent him for almost getting her and Uncle run out of town on a rail.

Before Azula shows up, she’s not even sure she’s pregnant. By the time she is- Zuka doesn’t dare trust any herbs she might request to stop it. Her little sister is all smiles and clever slander, and Zuka thinks the only reason she hasn’t twigged on to her older sister’s problem is because her mind is a thing of blows and counterblows, hooks and probing knives- she has yet to really comprehend the female softness that is a fertile ground for vicious strikes, does not read the signs that society matrons can catch at thirty paces.

It looks like it’s you and me, she finally thinks when she’s exhausted her discreet options- Mai can hold her hair and rub her back, but if any of the high-rank girls makes a request for an abortifacient, there will be gossip that may lead to an official inquest. Depending on whose it is, it’s not always permissible to cleanse oneself.

With the reputation she’s earned as a warrior, Zuka thinks she can tough it out- invoking the right of a true-born Child of the Sun is usually for foreign concubines claiming their children to have been fathered by a Fire Nation noble, but the technical requirements are only that the child have royal blood by at least one line of parentage and that its parents not be bound by traditional matrimony.

She can’t think of anyone less likely to have been marriageable than the Earth-Kingdom boy with the butterfly hooks.

Damn him.

…

Part One of Something, pt 2/4

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Traitor, traitor, traitor. She is- but there’s nothing else she can be, after hearing what she’s heard. Zuka is her father’s favored daughter, who slew the Avatar and brought the Fire Nation victory. And she’d give anything to take it back, on realizing just what they’re going to do with that triumph.

This is not the honor she was looking for. It is not the inheritance she would have for her child. It’s not the world she wants for her child, or for any other. She pushes the balloon on, seeking the temple she knows that the Avatar will take refuge in, and tells herself the queasy feeling is just lingering morning-sickness.

If she lets herself think of just how badly screwed her chances with the Airbender and his cohorts, she may lose her nerve.

She’s been such an idiot.

…

She finds the temple alright, and makes camp in order to keep a close eye and to figure out what she’s going to say before she tries to beg for forgiveness and offer up her aid.

She’s not expecting there to be scouts.

She’s not expecting them to be Freedom Fighters.

The running battle takes them up, down, and finally into the temple itself as she tries to escape arrows, knives and hookswords. Zuka tries not to hurt them, blasting defensively and keeping glibly on the move.

The lot of them burst in on preparations for the afternoon meal, and she throws herself on the mercy of the Avatar, who’s looking utterly stunned.

They almost pin her to the stone before she can babble out the full spill of words- IhavefoundmyloyaltiesbetrayedandrealizedmymistakesandIwishtoteachfirebendingtotheAvatar.

Sanctuary.

Apology.

Katara sniffs and snipes- her, Zuka has betrayed personally, and she cannot blame her. Jet calls her a liar, and she spits back at him- when she was trying to stay safe, he almost got her killed.

It takes some doing- the assassin, the nearly dying again for the fifth time that morning- but she’s in. Even so, there is little trust or goodwill to be had.

The baby flutters in her. She’s not going to be able to hide it much longer, but like hell is she invoking it like some kind of mystical pass- that would open up a much bigger can of worms than she can readily solve right now.

The world needs saving. Her problems can wait.

…

“She’s hiding something.”

“Ya think?” Katara mutters. Jet’s pacing, expertly skinning a potaturnip without missing a beat or slicing a finger while she’s busy swirling broth in the communal cookpot.

“I still say you should have let us-“

“What, Jet?” she interrupts. “Kill her? No. Don’t get me wrong, I’m angry- I’m so angry at her. But we don’t do that.”

“…no,” he subsides, biting hard on straw as he digs in around a particularly stubborn eye on the tuber. Jet is trying- hauling back hard on reigns he’s needed to have free just to survive most of his life. It’s really, really difficult, and some things, he knows the Avatar and his friends are wrong about, and that they’re going to need someone at their side who faces facts and does the dirty work.

But he’s making the effort to be better, at least.

“Drive her off, maybe. But let her get close to Aang? Think she can just waltz in and claim to be anything but Fire Nation poison? That can’t stand.”

“She hurt you, too, didn’t she.”

The wild-haired boy whips a glare at her, lips clenched.

“You ever wake up with a snake in your bed? Wonder how it got there, if you’ve been bitten? How you ever let it get that close?”

Katara looks at him, mouth in a flat line.

“…right. Right…” he says. “Look- I want to find out what she’s up to as much as you do- and I’m going to. I won’t go nuts at it,” Jet heads off the obvious with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “-but if there’s any funny business going on, I’ll dig it out.”

…

Part One of Something, pt 3/4

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Dawn is the traditional time for strict masters to begin teaching their students, and the discipline of firebending is no exception to this. Aang is fortunately an early riser, and Zuka lets him ease into it as she settles herself.

It’s good that they start early. By the time noon rolls around, she realizes just how weak her bending is, even at the height of the sun’s power. Bored and confused, Aang is only too happy to scuttle off with a polite excuse at her dismissal. Frustration roils in her-

And Jet walks out of the bushes with a low, smug grin.

“Well, that was pathetic.”

She’s immediately on-guard, nothing like the gormless awkward girl who’s been fumbling around camp, eager to please and looking to worm her way in.

“I suppose you’ve had a lot of experience to talk from.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell.”

“I generally don’t.”

“Funny,” he says, strolling forward and stopping just on the edge of fighter’s reach. Hands on hips, all that lazy arrogance that hides spring-steel skill. “Really funny, coming from you.”

She looks at him as he circles, cold and expressionless.

“See- you may have the Avatar convinced you’ve got something worth teaching? But you and I both know that when the chips are down, Fire Nation looks out for themselves. I’m watching you, princess.”

“Lemme know if you see anything,” Zuka says with a roll of her eyes, and walks off.

Spirits save me from oblivious men.

…

The camp is not a harmonious and peaceful place.

Aang is trying to learn firebending from a girl who was once his enemy and whose increasing frustration is neither helping him learn nor the others accept that she’s changed for the better. Katara snipes but reigns in Jet, who keeps making comments about dogsnakes and firefleas in the bedrolls, but smacks Sokka when he makes jibes about Princess Ponytail letting herself go with the indolence of palace life.

Toph sits in the midst of it all, and taps her foot slowly.

One morning when Aang’s expected at noon and Zuka’s off meditating in the pre-dawn chill, she plunks down next to the former princess and nearly sends her bolting with a question.

“So when are you going to tell them about the baby?”

Zuka’s heartbeat soars through her eardrums but she recovers quickly, enough to not fumble her denials too much before finally settling down and resigning herself to the truth.

“Sometime after the world’s been saved and the war ended. If then. If I told them- I don’t want to know what would happen. I just can’t deal with that right now.”

The earthbender shrugs.

“If you did, you might catch a break from Katara- she’s kind of a soft touch when it comes to-“

“I think I used up my chances with her back in Ba Sing Se. Besides- I don’t want to be coddled, or told to go off someplace safe. We don’t have time for that, even if I somehow managed to earn enough goodwill that anyone would care. My biggest concern right now,” besides not having enough slack in my belt, “is trying to figure out where my damn bending went. It’s all I’ve got to trade on, and it’s the only thing I can bring to the table to help end this war- if the Avatar isn’t fully realized before the comet, we’re all doomed.”

“Well, I dunno what to tell you- I’ve almost never not bent. It’s- prettymuch how I interact with the world, same as the badgermoles that taught me.”

“You learned from badgermoles?”

“Yep- original sources. I see other ‘benders, and they’re drawing on- something, like their joy or their anger or sheer stubbornness to make the rocks fly- which is fine, it works okay- but wills can be broken, and you don’t sound like the raging bitch the others were talking about anymore. Maybe you should try looking for- well, how fire interacts with the world, how you use it to ‘see’. Or feel, or something. I dunno how this stuff works. Might give you a better angle than just ‘wham,’ ‘whoosh,’ ‘blast!’ ‘fzzzt,’” she ended, the fizzling sound a disappointing echo of just about every firebending move Zuka has tried the last few days.

The sun’s coming up- the chill is starting to disperse, and the clammy mists that sometimes wrap the temple are beginning to burn off.

Part Two of Something, 1/3

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

“You had to pick up the glowing egg, didn’t you.”

“Hey, I just figured why come away completely empty-handed? That’s a lot of food and munitions right there, if you find the right buyer,” says Jet, who’s taking this with the same sort of ‘I know the way out of this, I’m just not telling you yet’ attitude that’s made Zuka want to slap him or drag him off for kissing in the past. Before, you know, the whole ‘you’re a firebender and must die’ thing.

Right now, she’s leaning more towards ‘slap.’ Or she would if they weren’t all three stuck in goo and pressed against a grate.

“It’s an ancient Sun-Warrior artifact! You can’t sell that- how disrespectful can you get?”

“Oh, excuse me if I don’t genuflect before the ancestral shrine of the superior element, princess! Why should I respect fire or its people? They’ve never done anything but burn me!”

“-you are- the most- ignorant-! –oblivious-!”

“Don’t talk to me about oblivious, do you know how many lives you’ve-“

“HEEEEELLLLLLP!” Aang interrupts them both, howling to the heavens in a plea for rescue, and possibly ear-plugs.

When the stranger in the ominous headdress approaches them, it’s almost a relief. Unfortunately for Aang, Jet and Zuka are still sniping bitterly in the background as giant anteaters lick the horrible sticky goo off of them and a growing crowd of he-can-only-presume-Sun Warriors surrounds them.

“For trying to take our Sun-Stone, you must be severely punished!” rumbles the leader, glowering behind red paint and orange feathers.

“We didn’t come here to try and take your sunstone- we came here to find the ancient origin of all firebending,” Zuka says, wincing away from an overlong tongue as it de-stickifies her hair.

“Speak for yourself- I’m just here to make sure she doesn’t run off with the little guy,” Jet says, reaching out his one free hand to scratch the ears of the anteater attending his bonds. “No telling what other precious treasures she might have her eye on.”

“That’s enough, you two-! Look, I don’t normally play this card, but- I’m the Avatar,” Aang interjects, a little less smoothly than he intended. “Hear us out, please?”

…

Part Two of Something, 2/3

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Jet has been skeptical of this entire venture from the get-go. There can’t be anything worth doing in an ancient Firebender ruin but kicking over rocks and scoring back a few points of pride- but not while the very grouchy-looking natives outnumber you twenty to one and are looking on with the distinct impression that they don’t take kindly to vandalism.

So he holds his tongue and palms the hilts of his swords, and listens for anything useful amidst the blather about light and life.

Li-that-traitor-witch-Zuka is standing next to Aang and taking it all in, acting like a student with a new master, or what he thinks a student might be like- humble and contrite were not words he would have associated with the Li who burned angry and repressed, wearing an ill-fitting skin (this skin doesn’t fit her either, but she’s not fighting as hard against it). She takes a handful of the fire that the big chief pulls from the roaring stone hearth, and holds it in steady hands with a look of reverence. The Avatar joins her, flinching, and they’re turned towards their destination, a distant mountaintop.

Spears close when Jet turns to follow, and his blades leap out in response.

“You do not carry tribute for the masters- this is not your journey!”

“Oh the hell it’s not,” he snarls, and if he’s grinning while he does it it’s only because his blood’s singing. “You think I’m letting those two out of my sight on this crazy quest? You got another thing coming.”

More spears rattle and fire leaps to hand in the crowd of many and Jet grins and his hooks flash sharp.

The chief looks him up and down, lips pursed. And just when Jet’s about to say to hell with it and leap he smirks, and parts the crowd with a wave of his hand.

“You shall be judged worthy, along with the supplicants. Go and face this trial, young man- it shall not be the least of yours.”

Well. Cryptic and it galls to do anything a firebender says- even one who doesn’t seem to be toeing the Fire Nation line- but better to leave these fellows for another day and concentrate on the one firebender he knows he’s got a problem with.

It’s a long walk to the peaks.

Zuka and Aang are chatting with each other, Aang being afraid his flame might go out and Zuka advising him to be bolder, to give it more juice.

Jet whistles a jaunty tune and strides alongside them, unburdened. He thinks he can get Zuka to snap if he keeps it up long enough.

He’s right. She doesn’t drop her flame the way Aang keeps threatening to, but he can make that pale-as-ash skin flush red as a beacon and rage snort out of her nostrils, and it’s good to know, even after having his read of her turn out completely wrong, he can still effect some positive change in the world. Pissing off royal firebenders? Good in his book.

She owes him a lot for what happened after the arrest, and if it weren’t for the fact that he’s trying to stay on the Avatar’s good side? This would just be a start.

He’s working on getting a third explosion out of her when they reach the base of an enormous stone staircase to nowhere, and the fire-worshippers are waiting for them. All that lovely ire he’s managed to raise drains from her as she faces the chief and his cohorts, listens to his final admonishments before they take part in this ‘trial.’

“Facing the judgment of the fire-bending masters will be very dangerous for you- your ancestors are directly responsible for the dragons’ disappearance. The masters might not be so happy to see you.”

“I know I wouldn’t…” Jet flicks a glare at the skinny guy who’s putting the intimidation on his evil princess. She doesn’t seem to take it, though- she flicks her eyes down, staring into the heart of the flame she carries below her breasts.

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

Part Two of Something,3/3

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

The three of them make their way up the stairs, while below the Sun Warriors are chanting and gesturing with flame. Some joker blows a giant horn, and Jet stands between the two bowing benders and waits to see what all this earth-shaking is about.

When the dragons explode out of the tunnels, he swings wide his blades, stands at guard, and dares them to try and take the three of them.

I’ve stood up to your mad children, your destroyers, your legacy! I’ve taken all I will ever take from them- now come and get some from me!

He doesn’t know the steps of the dance- but his own beat seems to be entertaining enough. The big lizards open their jaws wide and roar. A firestorm spirals around them, pressing them all back against each other, and sweat pours off him as he fights not to scream.

Aang’s on his left side, Zuka on his right, and all around there’s fire it’s burning it’s screaming there’s crackling sparking burning and the timbers crumble and his family is ash-

seedlings creep through the crust, flaring open to the sun-

a tiny hand jerks away from the kettle, and his mother kisses the blister-

his breath steams as he chafes his hands, waiting for the kindling to flare-

the surge in his breast when he knows he’s not going to lose this batch of orphans to anyone’s blades-

the lifespark the surge in the belly and the brain and the race along the pathway, head to hand and back again water makes the pathway fire signals along it-

Fever. Scars in the woodlands. Light in the dark. Light in the eye of a Freedom Fighter, every time he’s told them what they need to hear. Rhythm and rhyme and the thunder of breathing.

Zuka makes a sort of gasping sound next to him, and he starts to jerk his hand away from where they’re brushing together. The colors are swirling madly, a riot across the eyes, and Aang’s just taking it all in and Zuka mutters something, like ‘I understand’.

What’s there to understand?

Fire is scary shit.

His hands are shaking, his swords have slipped and clattered to the ground from slick palms.

But he’s not dead.

He’s not dead, and the firebenders (reawakened, newly inducted) haven’t gone berserk, and the giant lizards have scuttled back to their holes.

“That was it? A light-show and some scorched eyebrows?” he mocks, not sweating or shaking at all, thank you, really. Aang’s looking at him, and Zuka’s pointedly not, and he casually holsters his blades and struts down behind the two of them to greet the chief.

The two of them have what they came for- good. If he can get out of here before someone tries to tell him that there’s fire in him too, so much the better.

Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

“She’s- not gonna make it.” That’s her little sister, spiraling through the air like a turtleduck on its back-

Fwwoomph!

The royal crown’s point digs into rock, and a terrifying slide into oblivion comes to a halt.

“Of course she did.”

Zuka watches as her sister glares up hatefully, the fire-points of her eyes disappearing in the distance as Appa flies them away from the battleground that the Western Air Temple has become. It’s only as she loses sight that the adrenaline and the wild leaping and jostling and the stark raving terror catch up and bend her over the saddle-rail, retching.

“Uhgh-!”

“What-“

“-oh, gross-!”

“Problems, princess?” Jet remains unsympathetic, whether by habit or inclination Zuka finds doesn’t really matter. He’s shut up a little since the thing with the Sun Warriors, but still seems to take her presence as a personal affront that can’t be mitigated.

“…nothing you need to be concerned about,” she mutters, and curls in on herself.

It doesn’t really catch up with her until later. Later when the stories have been traded around the campfire, and Katara lets slip just enough to find her mother’s killer. Jet sneaks in on the act, grim and grinning- the Rough Rhinos are deployed too far away to be able to reach in a reasonable time, but they make special note of where for after. After the world’s saved, after they’ve got the leisure for vengeance.

Jet’s been taking it in bits and pieces for years- he can wait a little longer for the big score. Katara, though- she hasn’t got that. It’s not just the whole of the world she’s fighting against- there’s one man who took her mother away, and now that she knows, she can’t let it go, not and be who they need her to be. She needs this- and it’s something Zuka can give.

Zuka guides the mission, tries not to push herself too hard, but someone has to be the restraining hand, especially where Jet’s involved- and that requires more acrobatics than is recommended for someone in her state. It all finally hits on the way back from Yon Rah’s quiet little village, when she doubles over in the saddle, biting her tongue in pain- and newly-risen fear.

Shit shit I knew this was a bad idea but it had to get done I’m sorry I’m so sorry...

“Katara- help me, please-!”

The other girl shakes out of her reverie at the reigns, still trying to make sense of her own decisions, her deferred vengeance- Zuka needs her help, and the fact that she dares ask, much less in that tone, means it’s serious.

They end up all three in the saddle while Appa makes his way in a vaguely homeward direction. Jet’s holding her head in his lap, her shoulders, calloused fingers dug into her sleeves while Katara looks her over.

“-didn’t mean to jump around so much but things kept happening-!” Zuka hisses, trying to calm down like Katara keeps telling her she needs to.

“Shh, sh- this isn’t too bad… how far along are you?” she asks, and Jet’s looking over this scene with an expression that blends mystification with disbelief.

“Since when are you pregnant?!”

“Four months, twenty-three days and this morning,” Zuka says offhandedly, and bites back a moan of relief when Katara counters a new wave of cramp handily. If the Water Tribe girl is managing it so easily, then maybe it’s not too late...

Jet’s still as a stone under her head and she swallows words and fears and tries to concentrate on letting Katara do her work. The stars fly overhead, and Zuka wonders why he hasn’t said anything else- he certainly had plenty to say when he first thought she was Fire Nation, had first betrayed him by not being what he thought she was.

She wonders why he’s still holding on to her.

The trouble passes before they make it back, and Katara tells her to rest carefully, she and the baby should be fine but she’s not to do anything strenuous. Zuka nods, exhausted, and Jet’s the one who helps her stagger to her tent without saying a thing, who pinches out the light- who stays with her.

It can’t last, but like the one night that started this whole mess- it feels good right now.

Re: Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[floranna.livejournal.com]

Eeh! Zuka...he ahsn't left, yet at least. And the terror... Next morning will be interesting.

It seems now that the whole Avatar-fandom has joined in to the effort to cheer me up. ^^

Re: Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

^^ I aim to please.

Yes, yes it will.

Re: Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[cinderscape.livejournal.com]

oh oh oh, this whole AU is amazing. Will there be more? >:

Re: Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Perhaps at some point- I can make no promises, but if I can fill in a few more points here and there, I would enjoy sharing it.

Re: Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[tsukiryuu.livejournal.com]

Wow, this whole AU was made of WIN! Are you going to write more in it?

I'd love to see the Agni Kai between Azula and Zuka, or hell, just Azula's reaction to finding out she's an aunt to a half-Earth Kingdom brat and further down the line of succession to boot. XD

Re: Part Three of Something: The Reveal (or, Southern Raiders)

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Can't promise, but if I get the bug again, I would love to fill in more of this^^

Hm- I just wonder if it'll play out the same way (clearly, a rewatch is in order!).