![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishDisclaimer: If I owned Avatar: the Last Airbender, I would have the money to donate to charity myself.
Summary: Zuko needs to find the Avatar and regain his cat.
Author's Note: Written for avrelia on Tumblr as a reward for donating twenty-five dollars to RAICES, a charity that aids immigrants and refugees coming to the US and is fighting Trump's crimes against humanity. She wanted Miyu's continuing adventures in the Fire Nation. Miyu's adventures begin here: [Link]. and are continued in Part One of this story, linked below:
Warnings: Harm to animals.
Part One
While the Cat's Away, the Mouse-Pigeons Will Play, Part Two: A Cat Amongst the Mouse-Pigeons
"Are you happy to be back on a ship again?" her human asked her. A lesser creature might have deigned to answer him, but not Miyu. She just looked at him out of her one eye, flicked her tail, and sped off down the hall.
It wasn't the same as the ship from before. It was bigger, for one thing, and the smell of age and slow decay didn't hang around it like a comforting shroud, but it moved under her feet the same way, and the same metallic tang filled her nose. The humans's fake feet rang when they hit the metal the same way, and small stupid creatures hid in the same kinds of places. It didn't take long before she had a plump rat-lizard in her jaws.
o0O0o
The human with the buns in her hair lay sleeping. Miyu watched from the floor as the ship swayed. Miyu liked her buns. If she ever found herself on the human's shoulders, she would have something to play with. They were in little cloth bags for the night, and it struck her that she didn't have to wait. She could climb up and swat at them now as the human slept, and she would never know. She could even steal one of the bun bags and runaway with it back to her human and play with it while he slept.
Miyu hopped up onto the bed and padded her way over to the human's head.
The human blinked one eye open, half hidden behind the fall of her hair. Miyu wasn't worried. Humans could only see in the very brightest of lights.
"What are you doing in here?" the human mumbled.
Miyu took no notice, but before her paw could bat at the bun, the human's arm snaked out from under her blanket and knocked it away. Miyu batted at the hand instead.
"You're kind of creepy, you know," the human said, her voice a dark, gentle rumble. She shifted on the bed and put a hand out to Miyu. The human had left a place for her just like her human did. The blankets were warm from the human's body. Miyu butted her head up against the hand. The human smiled as Miyu lay down next to her, and the next thing Miyu knew, there was a hand stroking her fur.
o0O0o
The hole wasn't that small. It only took a wriggle and a twist, and Miyu was inside. In a patch of sunlight from the grille, the old, round human who smelled like tea, sat with his legs crossed. Miyu pressed her head under his hand. Her back arched as she rubbed herself against it.
It was cold down there in the cage they had put him in. His hand was warm and large.
"Hello, little one," he murmured. "It is good to see you."
As his hand moved its way up and down her back, Miyu purred, but she stopped, ears twitching at the sound of skittering in the shadows. She could smell them. There was a nest somewhere, with fat little rat-lizard babies, and an exhausted mother, reluctant to move her brood.
The old round human chuckled. "Are you here to visit me, little one, or are you here to find your dinner? I'm happy either way."
Shooting him a quelling look, Miyu padded silently along the sheet metal floor, back into the deep shadows. Her single pupil went wide to catch the light Her muscles rolled fluidly as she crouched down. Her head shot forward teeth latching onto the mother rat-lizard's tail. The tail came away in her mouth, but the force had pulled the rat-lizard backward. Grabbing its body with her teeth, she pulled it free of its hidden nest and trapped it between her paws. The rat-lizard and her babies squeaked frantically. All thoughts of a quick meal dissolved. Gleefully, Miyu whipped her body around, batting the rat-lizard mother in front of her with her paw. She now sat crouched between her and her nest. She her free, to try to run around her, back to her babies, but before she could make it even halfway around, Miyu pounced again, trapping her beneath her belly. Stunned, the rat-lizard mother lay still under her, so Miyu waited.
And when she felt the faint movements of the rat-lizard mother against her stomach, she leapt up, let her scurry almost all the way back to her nest, and then bit straight through her spine.
With the mother dead, Miyu turned her attention to the babies. They were too small and stupid to be much fun, so she ate them quickly, and returned to the mother. She carried it over to the old round human.
She flopped down beside him with her prize. He grimaced at her, rubbing between her ears as she ate. "You are a vicious little thing." She was. It was nice that someone appreciated this about her. Even when the rat-lizard mother was no more than a rusty smear on the prison floor, Miyu lay next to him, purring, full and contented, drifting into a nap under his warm hand.
o0O0o
The grate screeched open. Miyu jerked awake, turning her one eyed glower on the offender. "Uncle-" he stopped, looking down at her, bemused and grumpy. "How did you get in here?"
Miyu leapt to her feet and slipped through the bars, out into the small space between the metal wall and the human-sized cage that the other humans had put the old round human into.
Really, Miyu thought the old round human should have scratched and bitten the humans who put them in there. That's what Miyu had done to the human on the old ship who made the food, when he tried to put her in a cage, and he never tried again.
"Uncle, I just wanted to check on you, to make sure you're okay."
The old round human didn't answer. Miyu wound idly around her human's feet as he looked back to the old round human, the scent of his agitation heavy in the stagnant air.
"Are he guards treating you alright?" her human's voice cracked on the last word.
The old round human didn't even look at him. Miyu's tail twitched with uneasiness. This wasn't how the old round human acted. At least, she had never seen him act this way before. He always was warm and friendly with her human, even when her human was yelling at him. This was new. It was unpredictable, and unpredictable things were dangerous.
"Uncle, please," her human whispered, but the old round human still didn't respond. He just sat still and silent, facing away, his eyes on the mother rat-pigeon's drying blood.
o0O0o
"Here kitty kitty kitty!" The human with the swingy braid did that thing humans did where they showed all their teeth. Miyu hissed. The swingy braid human shrugged her shoulders and walked away. Miyu watched her go, reevaluating her opinion of her. At least she was smart enough to listen, and to back off when Miyu told her to. Many humans were not that smart.
o0O0o
Miyu liked her human's bed well enough, but it lacked one essential quality. The metal of the deck outside was warm with the sunlight, but not yet too warm. The sunlight soaked into her fur, its warmth seeping into her, chasing away the cold and damp of the sea spray. She curled up in an out of the way corner, far from careless human feet, and closed her eye for a nap in the bright, warm glow of the tropical sun.
o0O0o
The air was acrid with the scent that lightning left behind, the sense that the air itself had been burned. Miyu fled to the relative safety of an awning, but the rain such smells always heralded, never fell. Miyu scanned the horizon suspiciously, but the sky was clear, the few clouds over hear were puffy and white, and too far apart to threaten a storm.
There was a human out on deck, unconcerned by the smell. This was a strange human. She smelled a lot like Miyu's human, like they might be from the same litter, but she didn't act like him, and her human stank of fear around her. She eyed the human warily as she crept closer, away from the safety of the awning and the shadows it provided.
The human was alone, moving her body in a way Miyu had come to associate her human reeking of frustration, despair, and not wanting to be bothered. But this human didn't smell that way. She didn't smell of anything at all, except herself.
Miyu leapt up onto the railing to observe her.
The human's eyes fell on her, and her mouth curled up, but she never stopped the pattern of her movements.
It came too fast for Miyu to get away, or even to see it coming. The air boiled, and the smell of it stung her nose. She leapt away, her one remaining eye blinded at the flash of it. The human's fingers still curled with smoke and steam when Miyu landed in a stunned heap on the deck. She could smell singed fur, her own, she knew it had to be.
The human laughed at her, softly, but meanly. Miyu hissed.
The human stopped laughing. "You should be grateful, you know. I could have easily killed you if I wanted."
The human did smell like something now, something that made her smell even more like her human, but Miyu couldn't tell what it was. Over the smell of burned air and fur, it was hard to tell what anything was.
o0O0o
Miyu's paws thudded against the metal with every step, because she couldn't see where to put them. Spots of light covered her vision as she made her graceless way down the twisting, maze like hallways of the ship.
Her human wasn't in the cabin he had claimed when she finally made it there. He had left the door closed tight, barring her entry. There was nothing for it, nothing Miyu could do. Dazed and wrung out, unable to even contemplate finding some other bolt hole in which to lick her wounds, Miyu curled up on the floor outside the door, closed her eye, and waited for things to feel normal again.
o0O0o
The door opened, startling Miyu awake. She scrambled to her feet, blinking and unsettled.
"Miyu, sweetheart, what are you doing out here?" her human asked, voice pitched in the lilting tones he used only for her. Miyu shot into the cabin and onto the bed. As her human sat down beside her, Miyu let herself stop worrying. He was big and warm, and most of all, safe. "What's wrong, baby girl?"
His nostrils flared, eyes going wide. He picked up a half-burned candle from the bedside table and lit it. It cast a faint light over hem both as he ran his hands carefully through her singed fur. Her skin stung. It wasn't bad, but it was... unpleasant. Still, she purred. She didn't want him to stop. "Who did this to you, baby girl?" he whispered. Miyu of course, couldn't answer him, but that didn't matter. It didn't sound like a real question anyway. It sounded like he already knew the answer.
o0O0o
The door was open just a crack, but it was enough. A sliver of light fell onto the floor and the bed from the dim little lamps in the hall. Miyu could sleep, safe in the knowledge that she wasn't trapped, and nothing on the ship could creep around too quietly for her to hear. The fat old rat-lizard she found menacing the rice stores sat easily in her stomach, as did the shrew-gull that had made the error of landing on the deck within striking distance. Together they left her satiated and sleepy. The myriad smells of a strange new land wafted tantalizingly out of reach, just waiting for her when the ship docked, and when she woke, she planned to head to the kitchens to wheedle gobbets of meat out of the human who made the food. The one on this ship was much nicer than the one on the smaller ship from before.
The sky would be dark by then, and the human who made the food would be cleaning up what the other humans had left behind. The best time to beg.
Miyu drifted lazily in and out of sleep as the hours passed, safe and content, and surrounded by her human's scent on the blankets and pillow, more than making up for the darkness and the cool of the cabin.
She could almost forget where she was, and think herself back on the other ship, the one from before, before all the strangeness, back when she thought her world would never change.
The door opened. Miyu's eye snapped open, flashing in the darkness of the cabin. Her human stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. There went her plans to scrounge leftovers from the human who made the food. Her human would just have to make it up to her. She thrust her head into his hand insistently, which he answered by rubbing his hand into her fur.
Miyu purred.
Her human collapsed on the bed as if his knees had simply made the decision for him to no longer bear his weight. The bed sagged beneath him, creating a valley in the blankets. Miyu padded over to him.
"Hey, Miyu," he murmured as his hands found that place between her ears and rubbed. "Did you do anything interesting today?"
Miyu's only reply was to continue purring. Miyu had done many interesting things, but she had learned the first time she had dropped a rat-lizard on his pillow, back when he had been smaller and skinny, and smelled of growing and constant hunger, that he didn't want to know the details of such things, even if he always asked.
"We're landing soon," he said. "Sorry. I know you like the ship."
Miyu waited for him to get up, to start doing all of the familiar things he always did to get ready for sleeping, like taking off his fake feet and bright fabric coverings and letting down his hair, but he didn't do any of these things. He just lay down and buried his cheek in the blanket.
"It's almost over now," he told her, voice soft. "We're almost home." But the stench of fear and agitation rolled off him in waves. Miyu didn't like the smell. I She wanted it gone. So she nuzzled him, rubbing her head against his legs, hands, and face, her purring like the low rumble of the ship's engines, until he was coated in her scent, until it covered up the fear smell.
And if she got that fear smell all over herself in the process, if it filled her nostrils and clung to her fur, that was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
Part One
Summary: Zuko needs to find the Avatar and regain his cat.
Author's Note: Written for avrelia on Tumblr as a reward for donating twenty-five dollars to RAICES, a charity that aids immigrants and refugees coming to the US and is fighting Trump's crimes against humanity. She wanted Miyu's continuing adventures in the Fire Nation. Miyu's adventures begin here: [Link]. and are continued in Part One of this story, linked below:
Warnings: Harm to animals.
Part One
While the Cat's Away, the Mouse-Pigeons Will Play, Part Two: A Cat Amongst the Mouse-Pigeons
"Are you happy to be back on a ship again?" her human asked her. A lesser creature might have deigned to answer him, but not Miyu. She just looked at him out of her one eye, flicked her tail, and sped off down the hall.
It wasn't the same as the ship from before. It was bigger, for one thing, and the smell of age and slow decay didn't hang around it like a comforting shroud, but it moved under her feet the same way, and the same metallic tang filled her nose. The humans's fake feet rang when they hit the metal the same way, and small stupid creatures hid in the same kinds of places. It didn't take long before she had a plump rat-lizard in her jaws.
o0O0o
The human with the buns in her hair lay sleeping. Miyu watched from the floor as the ship swayed. Miyu liked her buns. If she ever found herself on the human's shoulders, she would have something to play with. They were in little cloth bags for the night, and it struck her that she didn't have to wait. She could climb up and swat at them now as the human slept, and she would never know. She could even steal one of the bun bags and runaway with it back to her human and play with it while he slept.
Miyu hopped up onto the bed and padded her way over to the human's head.
The human blinked one eye open, half hidden behind the fall of her hair. Miyu wasn't worried. Humans could only see in the very brightest of lights.
"What are you doing in here?" the human mumbled.
Miyu took no notice, but before her paw could bat at the bun, the human's arm snaked out from under her blanket and knocked it away. Miyu batted at the hand instead.
"You're kind of creepy, you know," the human said, her voice a dark, gentle rumble. She shifted on the bed and put a hand out to Miyu. The human had left a place for her just like her human did. The blankets were warm from the human's body. Miyu butted her head up against the hand. The human smiled as Miyu lay down next to her, and the next thing Miyu knew, there was a hand stroking her fur.
o0O0o
The hole wasn't that small. It only took a wriggle and a twist, and Miyu was inside. In a patch of sunlight from the grille, the old, round human who smelled like tea, sat with his legs crossed. Miyu pressed her head under his hand. Her back arched as she rubbed herself against it.
It was cold down there in the cage they had put him in. His hand was warm and large.
"Hello, little one," he murmured. "It is good to see you."
As his hand moved its way up and down her back, Miyu purred, but she stopped, ears twitching at the sound of skittering in the shadows. She could smell them. There was a nest somewhere, with fat little rat-lizard babies, and an exhausted mother, reluctant to move her brood.
The old round human chuckled. "Are you here to visit me, little one, or are you here to find your dinner? I'm happy either way."
Shooting him a quelling look, Miyu padded silently along the sheet metal floor, back into the deep shadows. Her single pupil went wide to catch the light Her muscles rolled fluidly as she crouched down. Her head shot forward teeth latching onto the mother rat-lizard's tail. The tail came away in her mouth, but the force had pulled the rat-lizard backward. Grabbing its body with her teeth, she pulled it free of its hidden nest and trapped it between her paws. The rat-lizard and her babies squeaked frantically. All thoughts of a quick meal dissolved. Gleefully, Miyu whipped her body around, batting the rat-lizard mother in front of her with her paw. She now sat crouched between her and her nest. She her free, to try to run around her, back to her babies, but before she could make it even halfway around, Miyu pounced again, trapping her beneath her belly. Stunned, the rat-lizard mother lay still under her, so Miyu waited.
And when she felt the faint movements of the rat-lizard mother against her stomach, she leapt up, let her scurry almost all the way back to her nest, and then bit straight through her spine.
With the mother dead, Miyu turned her attention to the babies. They were too small and stupid to be much fun, so she ate them quickly, and returned to the mother. She carried it over to the old round human.
She flopped down beside him with her prize. He grimaced at her, rubbing between her ears as she ate. "You are a vicious little thing." She was. It was nice that someone appreciated this about her. Even when the rat-lizard mother was no more than a rusty smear on the prison floor, Miyu lay next to him, purring, full and contented, drifting into a nap under his warm hand.
o0O0o
The grate screeched open. Miyu jerked awake, turning her one eyed glower on the offender. "Uncle-" he stopped, looking down at her, bemused and grumpy. "How did you get in here?"
Miyu leapt to her feet and slipped through the bars, out into the small space between the metal wall and the human-sized cage that the other humans had put the old round human into.
Really, Miyu thought the old round human should have scratched and bitten the humans who put them in there. That's what Miyu had done to the human on the old ship who made the food, when he tried to put her in a cage, and he never tried again.
"Uncle, I just wanted to check on you, to make sure you're okay."
The old round human didn't answer. Miyu wound idly around her human's feet as he looked back to the old round human, the scent of his agitation heavy in the stagnant air.
"Are he guards treating you alright?" her human's voice cracked on the last word.
The old round human didn't even look at him. Miyu's tail twitched with uneasiness. This wasn't how the old round human acted. At least, she had never seen him act this way before. He always was warm and friendly with her human, even when her human was yelling at him. This was new. It was unpredictable, and unpredictable things were dangerous.
"Uncle, please," her human whispered, but the old round human still didn't respond. He just sat still and silent, facing away, his eyes on the mother rat-pigeon's drying blood.
o0O0o
"Here kitty kitty kitty!" The human with the swingy braid did that thing humans did where they showed all their teeth. Miyu hissed. The swingy braid human shrugged her shoulders and walked away. Miyu watched her go, reevaluating her opinion of her. At least she was smart enough to listen, and to back off when Miyu told her to. Many humans were not that smart.
o0O0o
Miyu liked her human's bed well enough, but it lacked one essential quality. The metal of the deck outside was warm with the sunlight, but not yet too warm. The sunlight soaked into her fur, its warmth seeping into her, chasing away the cold and damp of the sea spray. She curled up in an out of the way corner, far from careless human feet, and closed her eye for a nap in the bright, warm glow of the tropical sun.
o0O0o
The air was acrid with the scent that lightning left behind, the sense that the air itself had been burned. Miyu fled to the relative safety of an awning, but the rain such smells always heralded, never fell. Miyu scanned the horizon suspiciously, but the sky was clear, the few clouds over hear were puffy and white, and too far apart to threaten a storm.
There was a human out on deck, unconcerned by the smell. This was a strange human. She smelled a lot like Miyu's human, like they might be from the same litter, but she didn't act like him, and her human stank of fear around her. She eyed the human warily as she crept closer, away from the safety of the awning and the shadows it provided.
The human was alone, moving her body in a way Miyu had come to associate her human reeking of frustration, despair, and not wanting to be bothered. But this human didn't smell that way. She didn't smell of anything at all, except herself.
Miyu leapt up onto the railing to observe her.
The human's eyes fell on her, and her mouth curled up, but she never stopped the pattern of her movements.
It came too fast for Miyu to get away, or even to see it coming. The air boiled, and the smell of it stung her nose. She leapt away, her one remaining eye blinded at the flash of it. The human's fingers still curled with smoke and steam when Miyu landed in a stunned heap on the deck. She could smell singed fur, her own, she knew it had to be.
The human laughed at her, softly, but meanly. Miyu hissed.
The human stopped laughing. "You should be grateful, you know. I could have easily killed you if I wanted."
The human did smell like something now, something that made her smell even more like her human, but Miyu couldn't tell what it was. Over the smell of burned air and fur, it was hard to tell what anything was.
o0O0o
Miyu's paws thudded against the metal with every step, because she couldn't see where to put them. Spots of light covered her vision as she made her graceless way down the twisting, maze like hallways of the ship.
Her human wasn't in the cabin he had claimed when she finally made it there. He had left the door closed tight, barring her entry. There was nothing for it, nothing Miyu could do. Dazed and wrung out, unable to even contemplate finding some other bolt hole in which to lick her wounds, Miyu curled up on the floor outside the door, closed her eye, and waited for things to feel normal again.
o0O0o
The door opened, startling Miyu awake. She scrambled to her feet, blinking and unsettled.
"Miyu, sweetheart, what are you doing out here?" her human asked, voice pitched in the lilting tones he used only for her. Miyu shot into the cabin and onto the bed. As her human sat down beside her, Miyu let herself stop worrying. He was big and warm, and most of all, safe. "What's wrong, baby girl?"
His nostrils flared, eyes going wide. He picked up a half-burned candle from the bedside table and lit it. It cast a faint light over hem both as he ran his hands carefully through her singed fur. Her skin stung. It wasn't bad, but it was... unpleasant. Still, she purred. She didn't want him to stop. "Who did this to you, baby girl?" he whispered. Miyu of course, couldn't answer him, but that didn't matter. It didn't sound like a real question anyway. It sounded like he already knew the answer.
o0O0o
The door was open just a crack, but it was enough. A sliver of light fell onto the floor and the bed from the dim little lamps in the hall. Miyu could sleep, safe in the knowledge that she wasn't trapped, and nothing on the ship could creep around too quietly for her to hear. The fat old rat-lizard she found menacing the rice stores sat easily in her stomach, as did the shrew-gull that had made the error of landing on the deck within striking distance. Together they left her satiated and sleepy. The myriad smells of a strange new land wafted tantalizingly out of reach, just waiting for her when the ship docked, and when she woke, she planned to head to the kitchens to wheedle gobbets of meat out of the human who made the food. The one on this ship was much nicer than the one on the smaller ship from before.
The sky would be dark by then, and the human who made the food would be cleaning up what the other humans had left behind. The best time to beg.
Miyu drifted lazily in and out of sleep as the hours passed, safe and content, and surrounded by her human's scent on the blankets and pillow, more than making up for the darkness and the cool of the cabin.
She could almost forget where she was, and think herself back on the other ship, the one from before, before all the strangeness, back when she thought her world would never change.
The door opened. Miyu's eye snapped open, flashing in the darkness of the cabin. Her human stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. There went her plans to scrounge leftovers from the human who made the food. Her human would just have to make it up to her. She thrust her head into his hand insistently, which he answered by rubbing his hand into her fur.
Miyu purred.
Her human collapsed on the bed as if his knees had simply made the decision for him to no longer bear his weight. The bed sagged beneath him, creating a valley in the blankets. Miyu padded over to him.
"Hey, Miyu," he murmured as his hands found that place between her ears and rubbed. "Did you do anything interesting today?"
Miyu's only reply was to continue purring. Miyu had done many interesting things, but she had learned the first time she had dropped a rat-lizard on his pillow, back when he had been smaller and skinny, and smelled of growing and constant hunger, that he didn't want to know the details of such things, even if he always asked.
"We're landing soon," he said. "Sorry. I know you like the ship."
Miyu waited for him to get up, to start doing all of the familiar things he always did to get ready for sleeping, like taking off his fake feet and bright fabric coverings and letting down his hair, but he didn't do any of these things. He just lay down and buried his cheek in the blanket.
"It's almost over now," he told her, voice soft. "We're almost home." But the stench of fear and agitation rolled off him in waves. Miyu didn't like the smell. I She wanted it gone. So she nuzzled him, rubbing her head against his legs, hands, and face, her purring like the low rumble of the ship's engines, until he was coated in her scent, until it covered up the fear smell.
And if she got that fear smell all over herself in the process, if it filled her nostrils and clung to her fur, that was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
Part One
