Jetko Meme
Jan. 23rd, 2010 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weirdletOkay, 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!
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!
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Part One of Something, pt 1/4
Date: 2010-02-02 02:57 am (UTC)...
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
Date: 2010-02-02 03:01 am (UTC)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
Date: 2010-02-02 03:07 am (UTC)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 One of Something, pt 4/4
Date: 2010-02-02 03:10 am (UTC)Toph gives it a little while before she pads off to drag Twinkletoes out for a little practice under her tutelage.
…
The plan to go off to the ancient Sun Warrior ruins to seek the original forms of firebending does not start smoothly- it’s a long shot to begin with, there’s no way they’re letting Aang or Zuka go off alone, and certainly not alone together. But there’s been no progress on firebending lessons, and they can see how pissed Zuka is. Finally it’s agreed upon- Jet is the perfect tag-along to make sure nothing untoward happens. He won’t let the princess get away with anything.
The ride is long and with few land-stops. Zuka holds on grimly to the saddle and tries not to drink too much water. She’s four and a half months gone, and she’d always thought it was only when you were really big that you were supposed to get so uncomfortable- at least, that’s how she remembers women in plays being. She has strong muscle fighting her growing womb, and it leaves her aching all the time.
Jet is lounging across the saddle from her as Appa soars them through the skies, and he looks at her from under those sharp-arched brows like a wrangler looking at a straggling rhino, polishing his swords all the while. She bites back a groan and lays her head on her arm, trying to get some rest and ignore the uncomfortable triangle between teacher, driver and bodyguard.
“Aw- is the princess too delicate for this kind of rough travel?”
“Shut up, Jet.”
“Just sayin’- maybe you Fire Nation high-ups aren’t as tough as you think you are.”
“Shut up, Jet.”
“Strike a nerve?”
“Maybe you aren’t as great a l-“
“I WILL TURN THIS BISON AROUND, SO HELP ME!”
Silence reigns.
“…frickin’firebenderwitch…”
“You will never know how much I regret bedding you.”
“DID NOT NEED TO HEAR THAT!”
…
Re: Part One of Something, pt 4/4
Date: 2010-02-02 06:35 am (UTC)Re: Part One of Something, pt 4/4
Date: 2010-02-02 06:37 am (UTC)Re: Part One of Something, pt 4/4
Date: 2010-02-02 11:35 pm (UTC)Secondly, timeline wise would it be possible for Aang to defeat Ozai before anyone else finds out about the bun in the oven? I mean picture it- Azula and Zuka in full on Agni Kai- one of Azula's fire blasts goes to near to Zuka's belly (a.k.a. gestation chanber:) and then bam- MommaBear!Zuka. And then somehow Katara figures it out- maybe healing Zuka?
Anyway just an idea- you don't have to use it. But what would be awesome is if somebody asks Zuka how far along she is- and her answer is ridiculously precise- like to the day/minute precise- and the light of impending father hood crashes down like a really big anvil on top of Jet- with a blahblah days blahblahblah minutes- holy shit thats me she's talking about kind of revelationary moment.
Re: Part One of Something, pt 4/4
Date: 2010-02-03 12:25 am (UTC)