Kindle the Wind (The Avatar! Zuko 'verse) commentfic meme

[attackfish]

That's it, folks, I can't take it.  In the hopes that maybe writing some of what I want to write will get me unblocked on the fic I'm trying to write, I'm giving in and running a commentfic meme for my Avatar!Zuko verse.  Comment with up to five requests, and I’ll guarantee you at least one commentfic.  I’ll probably answer with more, knowing me.  weirdlet , fanficforensics, beboots, and floranna  get seven requests and a guarantee of two fics, because beboots  and floranna  are the best betas ever, and weirdlet and fanficforensics just because.


Also, the 'verse has a title now, Kindle the Wind!


Air, Water, Earth, Fire.

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.

A hundred years passed and the new Avatar crashed into the ice sheet that borders our village. Although he is the Fire Nation prince, and it's his family and his nation that have brought this war to the world, I have hope that inside Zuko lies the spark of greatness. In the end, he has to save the world.

Front Cover Illustration

Timeline:

The Turtle-Crab and the Hawk
The first time Zuko struck a Fire Nation soldier in anger
Banner
Meeting Sokka and Katara
The joys of new bending
Zuko surprising himself by being spiritual and philosophical
Gran-Gran criticizing Uncle's parenting skills
Uncle Iroh finds out
Iroh has a talk with his nephew
Agni Kai against Zhao
Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple
Momo joins the Party
Sokka finds out the women on the ship aren't there to cook (and learns something, maybe)
Act of Providence
The Spinning Gates

Comments

[floranna.livejournal.com]

1. Learning earth-bending.
2. meeting with Jet
3. The joys of new bending.

And I'll give the rest a bit later. ^^

The joys of new bending, Part 1/2

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

The boy twisted his hands against his bindings. Leaning over in the rhino saddle, Zuko swatted him on the back of the head. "Don't do that. You won't get free."

He worked his wrists harder. "Then why do you care if I try?"

"Because you'll take all the skin off your wrists."

The boy just glared at his captor. Katara, trussed up behind Lieutenant Jee, wasn't glaring. Her eyes stayed on the saddle leather, lost in thought as her brother struggled. As they made it to the top of one last rise of snow, she looked up, and sucked in a breath at the sight of Zuko's mangled ship. In the back of his mind, almost unconsciously, Zuko tallied up the repair costs, and what he could cut from the budget, for just a little while to cover costs until the year was over and he could collect his allotment of funds, hoping that there would be enough to cover a year's worth of coal and food, before he realized with a wild sort of glee, that it didn't matter. He had captured the Avatar. It didn't matter that it wasn't in some heroic battle, he was going home. He never had to worry about stretching his ancient ship's tiny budget ever again.

The rhino stopped at the bottom of the gangplank. Zuko flicked the reigns and the beast started lumbering up the steep metal ramp. The Water Tribe boy tried to shimmy off the saddle and over the side of the ramp, but Zuko caught him by the back of his tunic. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Uhhhh..." He flashed a grin. "Nowhere?"

Grunting, Zuko turned back around.

At the top of the ramp, Zuko dismounted. The soldier whose mount he stole jumped down from behind one of his fellows and ran forward to take the reigns out of his prince's hands.

"Soldiers," Zuko snapped. "Take the prisoners below decks. I'll be down to speak with them soon."

"Renshu, Zhen," Lieutenant Jee said curtly. The soldiers he had named grabbed the Water Tribe prisoners and pulled them out of the saddle.

"Wait," the boy said, looking at Zuko. "You don't even know their names?"

Zuko shot him a poisonous look as the soldiers marched the two of them away. He turned to the chief mechanic, who was staring over the rail. "How long will it take to repair the ship?"

The man grimaced. "Days, a week even, and that's just to get it able to take us to the next port for the real repairs."

Zuko closed his eyes. He didn't catch the glimmer of a scheme in Katara's eye as the soldier hurried her down the stairs, into the hold.

~*~

The joys of new bending, Part 2/2

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

As the guards opened the door for Zuko, the Water Tribe boy threw himself at the gap, hands high to fasten around the Fire Prince's throat. Reflexively, Zuko shoved a hand out at the boy's chest and swept his feet out from under him with one leg. He fell down to the iron floor with a shocked expression.

Zuko didn't lower his guard. "Close the door," he told the guards.

"Sir, are you sure."

"I'm sure." If that girl was going to start talking about her crazy idea that he was the Avatar, the last thing he wanted were witnesses. When the door clicked closed, he stayed standing in front of it. "I'm willing to make a deal with you. If you tell me which one of you is the Avatar, I will let the other one go. You can go home to your village, and I will never come back."

"We already told you who the Avatar is, but you don't believe us," Katara insisted, fisting her hands and putting them on her hips. "Besides. I think we can escape on our own."

The boy stepped in front of her. "I'm the Avatar. Let my sister go."

"Stop trying to protect me, Sokka," the girl huffed. "He's just trying to protect me, don't listen to him. Anyway, I have a deal for you."

Zuko felt even more like a complete idiot than usual, because it really should have occurred to him that they might just lie. "Whichever one of you is the Avatar is going to have to demonstrate it," he growled. "And I already gave you the only deal I'm going to make."

"Just hear me out." She nudged her brother out of the way as she stood to face her captor. "It's the Avatar's job to maintain the spiritual health of the world right?"

Zuko nodded uneasily.

"Well, my brother and I found somebody frozen in the ice today, and he definitely isn't Water Tribe, and I was kind of hoping, since you're the Avatar, that you would... bless him and send his spirit on its way?" She smiled at him.

"I told you, I'm not the Avatar!" Zuko yelped.

"Then this won't mean anything," she said stubbornly. "But if you go with us, after we get back, we won't try to escape, and we'll answer any questions you have."

Sokka's mouth dropped open. "Katara!"

She shushed him. "You're going to be stuck here for days anyway. Might as well."

They were going to ambush him, Zuko knew, but he also knew he could take them. "We'll take the steamer."

~*~

"So." Sokka peered through the window at the furnace. "How does this thing work."

Zuko kept his hand on the wheel. "Shut up."

"It's just little further west," Katara called to him from the front of the ship.

"How did you find this person anyway?" Zuko sighed, annoyed.

"I sort of accidentally raised an iceberg out of the water." Katara shrugged, embarrassed. "I mean, I don't know how I did it. It's not like there's anybody here who can teach me."

it hit him all at once that he was in a boat, surrounded by water and ice with an untrained waterbender, and probably an untrained Avatar. Suddenly this didn't seem like such a good idea.

Re: The joys of new bending, Part 2/2

[floranna.livejournal.com]

You can't believe how much I am curisng the fact that I forgot to put this entry on alert for every comment and the fact that I missed the one meant straight for me...

I really like Katara in this fic. It's obviosly a bit specky or not complete because it's from Zuko's perspective and he thinks they are enemy, but you show her in a way that intrigues me and makes me really happy.

ANd Zuko, oh your denial...

Re: The joys of new bending, Part 2/2

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It took me the longest time to even realize you could track entries.

Oh good! Usually I have a really hard time with Sokka, but in this, he's so much more demonsterably crazy that he comes through clear even trough Zuko's warped perspective. I'm working on Katara.

Zuko's denial is LEGEND!

[floranna.livejournal.com]

4. Zuko's confrontation with Amon.
5. Zuko and Korra meet.
6. How does Mai react?
7. Ba Sing Se!