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499 word drabble: Laughing, Falling
Sep. 12th, 2011 07:20 amWritten for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avatar_500 prompt #35, Water.
Summary: Rain is a terribly disruptive thing.
Laughing, Falling
The grass grew thick and long by the edge of the turtle-duck pond, cropping up between the stones that lined it. Mai lay sprawled in it, head resting on Zuko's knee, idly turning a fan around and around between her fingers. There was a half-written letter resting flat on a portable writing desk beside her with a donation to a war orphanage, and beside him lay the reports from the field commanders on the disarmament. Both lay ignored as the clouds gathered heavy and black overhead, and the air hung humid and still around them.
The sound of his breathing steadied, faint beneath the hum and chirp of bright colored grasshopper-beetles and butterfly-crickets as she listened to him drift into a doze. The green, growing smells around her hung on the air and tickled her nose, and every so often, with a faint flash of guilt, she picked up the brush on her writing desk and set a few more words to the letter, before she let the sweet smells and the humming lure her back down to rest.
She unfurled the fan, trying to shift the still, sticky air. When she felt generous, she waved it in front of Zuko's face and thought, maybe it wasn't generosity that prompted it, but the excuse it provided to just watch his face as he slept. It was- It was soothing, better to watch than the clouds rolling in overhead. Off in the distance, she could see the rain falling over the city, and when she looked back at him, the grass puffing out from his face with each breath, she felt her face soften, felt an expression fighting its way onto it. She lay her head back down against Zuko's knee and let her eyes close.
The first fat drops of rain landed on her bare arms and face, and her fingers twitched, but she didn't wake. It was only when the lightning raced down the sky and the thunder cracked overhead, and the sky stopped leaking and just broke open that she jolted back to awareness, thrashing as Zuko squirmed awake under her head. "What-"
"Rain," Zuko said, and she almost shoved her fan down his throat, before she realized he wasn't explaining, just... "Rain, rain, rain..."
She grabbed the letter and shoved it into one of the portable desk's little drawers while Zuko threw himself over the reports and gathered them up. Lightning flashed, lighting the garden up with instant flashes of color, and his hand gripped hers. His hand gripped hers, and they ran for the palace, their clothes heavy and sticking to them, their hair coming undone under the weight of the water.
They slid through the palace hallways, wild and grinning, and into an empty room. And it wasn't important that their wet clothes were thrown in a pile on the floor, or that the couch was narrow and uncomfortable under them. All that mattered was that they were holding each other until they dried.
avatar_500 prompt #35, Water.Summary: Rain is a terribly disruptive thing.
Laughing, Falling
The grass grew thick and long by the edge of the turtle-duck pond, cropping up between the stones that lined it. Mai lay sprawled in it, head resting on Zuko's knee, idly turning a fan around and around between her fingers. There was a half-written letter resting flat on a portable writing desk beside her with a donation to a war orphanage, and beside him lay the reports from the field commanders on the disarmament. Both lay ignored as the clouds gathered heavy and black overhead, and the air hung humid and still around them.
The sound of his breathing steadied, faint beneath the hum and chirp of bright colored grasshopper-beetles and butterfly-crickets as she listened to him drift into a doze. The green, growing smells around her hung on the air and tickled her nose, and every so often, with a faint flash of guilt, she picked up the brush on her writing desk and set a few more words to the letter, before she let the sweet smells and the humming lure her back down to rest.
She unfurled the fan, trying to shift the still, sticky air. When she felt generous, she waved it in front of Zuko's face and thought, maybe it wasn't generosity that prompted it, but the excuse it provided to just watch his face as he slept. It was- It was soothing, better to watch than the clouds rolling in overhead. Off in the distance, she could see the rain falling over the city, and when she looked back at him, the grass puffing out from his face with each breath, she felt her face soften, felt an expression fighting its way onto it. She lay her head back down against Zuko's knee and let her eyes close.
The first fat drops of rain landed on her bare arms and face, and her fingers twitched, but she didn't wake. It was only when the lightning raced down the sky and the thunder cracked overhead, and the sky stopped leaking and just broke open that she jolted back to awareness, thrashing as Zuko squirmed awake under her head. "What-"
"Rain," Zuko said, and she almost shoved her fan down his throat, before she realized he wasn't explaining, just... "Rain, rain, rain..."
She grabbed the letter and shoved it into one of the portable desk's little drawers while Zuko threw himself over the reports and gathered them up. Lightning flashed, lighting the garden up with instant flashes of color, and his hand gripped hers. His hand gripped hers, and they ran for the palace, their clothes heavy and sticking to them, their hair coming undone under the weight of the water.
They slid through the palace hallways, wild and grinning, and into an empty room. And it wasn't important that their wet clothes were thrown in a pile on the floor, or that the couch was narrow and uncomfortable under them. All that mattered was that they were holding each other until they dried.
