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

Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 5/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

They followed him out of the courtyard and up the path that wound around the mountain like the thread of a screw. "My nephew and I found this place when we first came here."

"Why did you come?" Sokka panted on the thin air. "Everybody's gone. There's nothing here."

"I know," Iroh said sadly. "But Prince Zuko needed to see for himself."

"But why?" Sokka demanded. "I know you said he was hunting the Avatar, but why?"

"Oh!" Iroh stopped at a a hole in the wall of a low, long building and picked up the tattered curtain that hung in the way. "This is it."

As Sokka thrust his lips out and grumbled about sneaky old men who never answered anything, Katara pushed her way through the curtain and into the dark, empty room beyond. Iroh and her brother joined her, and the old Fire Nation general pointed to the faint light that shined from under the edge of another ragged drapery. Through the gloom, Katara made her way over to it and threw it aside. The scream leapt out of her throat before she could stop it.
Sokka dashed over to her. "What is it?" Then he looked. "Oh."

"I'm alright," Katara told him.

Iroh came up behind them and lowered his eyes in respect for the dead filling the small, broken room, Fire Nation dead in their red armor, skull masks over real skulls, and Avatar Aang's body, layed in the lap of a yellow clad skeleton on a mound of snow and rubble.

"There he is." Pushing his sister aside, Sokka sauntered into the bone chamber. He knelt down next to the prince lying in the shadows between the heaps of rubble and bones. "Hey why's his scar glowing?" Sokka poked him with his club, but the boy didn't move. He pulled Zuko's good eye open, and the light that shone from it bounced off the crumbling walls.

Iroh rushed over to him to examine his nephew. Sokka poked him again, tentatively. "Why isn't he moving? He isn't dead, is he?" Katara sucked in a harsh, frightened breath at his words.

"No, he is in the Spirit World." Iroh's face broke into a wide smile. "This is a step forward. He is the bridge between the two worlds now. It is a good thing that he is accepting this part of himself."

"What should we do?" Katara asked from the entranceway.

"You will stay here," he told them softly. "I need to go back to the temple." He grinned, bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet. "I have an idea."

As he waddled out of the building, Sokka took a lingering look around the room. "So we're supposed to stay here, with a bunch of dead people?"

"Shut up, Sokka," Katara said, trying to sound exasperated, as she joined him glancing at the bodies with trepidation. "You heard him, we're guarding the Avatar while he's in the Spirit World. This is important."

"But Katara!" Sokka waved his arms at her. "Dead people!"

She heaved a sigh. "Just sit down."

~*~

The pale, insubstantial rays of light that found their way through the canopy flashed across the inside of Zuko's eyelids, luring him deeper into his doze. Insects droned around his head and the heavy perfumed air tickled-

"We're here!"

Zuko yelled, his eyes snapped open, and he rolled to his feet in the saddle, only to see Aang bouncing up and down on the bison's neck.

"We're here, come on," he burbled. "Get off, we're here!"

"You said that already," Zuko grumbled, swinging his leg over the edge of the saddle. "Let's get this over with so I can go back."

A high dome of roots rose out of the water like a hillside. As soon as Aang had jumped down from Appa's back, the bison hauled himself up out of the water and collapsed on the tangle.

Zuko cast the tree that topped it a sceptical look. "What's so special about this place?"

"This is the mother tree." The old woman's voice rattled, like dry paper catching the wind. "All others in this swamp come from her body. All of their roots are joined to hers. This grove is one tree with many trunks, and this is the first."

Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 6/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Zuko fell into an automatic fighting stance, his head snapping around as he hunted for the source of the voice.

"I am Avatar Lu, young Avatar." She stepped away from the tree trunk and waved her arm in one sweeping, graceful movement. "And this is my domain."

Zuko decided he could forgive himself for having thought she was just one more section of tree trunk, with her bark covered board strapped to her chest in place of a shirt, and her skirt made of swamp grass and the broad, flat canopy leaves. She tipped her canopy leaf hat back, her wrinkled face closed off and unhappy. Zuko swallowed and set his jaw. "Why was I brought here?"

A tiny hand parted Avatar Lu's grass skirts, and a pair of bright green eyes stared at him around her leg before the skirts closed and the eye's owner cowered back. Lu stepped back and swept the little girl up into her arms. "This is Avatar Baoshi, and she is why you have come."

The little girl's eyelids were stretched as wide as they would go, her face pinched with fear as she tried to keep staring at Zuko and look up at the woman holding her at the same time. "Make him go away," she whispered.

"It's your armor," Lu explained, patting Baoshi's hair. "She died in a Fire Nation raid."

Zuko's stomach clenched, and he almost reached out to the terrified little girl. His eyes narrowed as he fumbled with the ties on his armor. "If you're trying to make me feel guilty-"

"No," Avatar Lu interrupted sharply. "That is not what this is about. It's my fault she's dead. I'm the one who failed my destiny."

Zuko pulled off the collar and shoulder pads and stripped off the breastplate, leg guards, arm guards, and assorted bits and pieces until all that was left was his gray undertunic and red silk pants, but Baoshi still stared at him, afraid. He kicked his armor aside, frustrated. "What does she want?"

Lu snorted. "You can't just take it off and expect her to forget she ever saw you in it." She wrapped her arms around her young charge and leaned back against the tree. "If you want her trust, you'll have to earn it."

"Why am I here?" he said again, keeping his voice low.

"Hold her for me," Lu told him, trying to hold the child out to him.

"No!" Baoshi screamed. "Don't make me go, Lulu! I don't want to!" Tears poured down her face as Zuko took her awkwardly and tried to settle her on his hip. She squirmed, beating his chest with her fists, her voice cutting through the swamp air.

"Um," Zuko tried. "It's okay, don't be afraid."

She looked up at him like maybe he wasn't that scary, like maybe he was too stupid to be. He rubbed her back, and she shot him a look full of childish disgust before turning into his chest with a wet, snuffling sob. When he held her close, running his hand over her back in soothing circles, he could see her crying, locked inside an abbey, the nuns trying to soothe her tears as the building burned around them and the smoke cut off their air. Zuko gasped.

Lu put her hand on Zuko's shoulder. "When I was alive, I squandered the chance I had to put the world right. No, don't speak," she said when Zuko opened his mouth. "I knew the Fire Nation was bent on conquering the world, but I also knew our swamp would protect us. My people weren't in danger, why should I care about the rest of the world?"

Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Baoshi pushed herself away from Zuko's chest, and he struggled to hold onto her as she fought her hardest to escape, back to Avatar Lu. "Put me down."

"I'll take her," Aang said, sliding down his bison's neck. He held his arms out for the child, and Zuko shoved her into his arms. Baoshi turned her glare on Aang instead.

Lu smiled wryly at the little girl and shook her head, before turning back to Zuko seriously. "For seventy-nine years, I was the Avatar, until I died of mosquito-fly sickness. The Foggy Swamp Water Tribe flourished as never before." Zuko felt his eyes close, and he could see the swamp, and Lu's husband and children. She wove her arms back and forth, bringing vines, roots, and branches, up and down, until they wove together with the movements of her arms. They grew into floors and high walls, houses, roofs, and gates, a net of living, growing tree that made a village, built by Avatar Lu's careful hands.

"How-" Zuko breathed, and Lu squeezed his shoulder to silence him.

"When I died, a baby girl was born in a newly colonized Earth Kingdom town. the Avatar had been lost to the world since the Fire Nation had killed the Air Nomads, so when she made sparks dance around her fingers, her father took her to a local abbey, saying that he wouldn't raise a Fire Nation soldier's bastard. Then, when she began to walk, her feet left prints in the solid stone floors. The earth nuns pulled inwards, to keep the new Avatar secret from the Fire Nation authorities, but when an underground resistance rose in the town, the captain in charge of the local garrison blamed the nuns, and believed that they must have been protecting the revolutionaries. They herded the nuns and their orphaned charges into the abbey, barred the doors, and burned them all to death."

Zuko opened his mouth and turned around to gaze at the little girl in her pretty green hanbok, sitting in Aang's lap and playing with Appa's reigns. "I don't know why you're telling me any of this! If you think I'm going to feel guilty for something that happened before I was born-"

"Your job isn't to feel guilty," Avatar Lu snapped. "Your job is to fix things. I failed my destiny, and Baoshi never got the chance to find hers, but you you can achieve your destiny, and redeem our mistakes."

"No!" He pulled away from her and staggered backwards. "My destiny isn't to fight my own people! I won't do it."

The roots under him disappeared, and he fell into the shallow swamp with a splash. Lu held her hand out to him, but he didn't take it. "Then whatever the Fire Nation does to the world now will be on your head, as it is on mine."

Zuko struggled out of the mud, fuming, while behind him, Aang picked Baoshi up and pulled a marble out of his pocket for her to play with as he carried her over. He put her down on the root dome and let her run back to Avatar Lu. "You're going to have to," Aang told him, sitting down next to him on the roots. "Sozin's comet is coming back this summer, and if you don't stop them, the Fire Nation will use it to end the war for good, and then no one, not even the Avatar will be able to put things right."

"I know what my father plans to do with the comet!" Zuko hissed, shooting to his feet. "And-"

"No," Aang said softly. "You don't."

Zuko bared his teeth in a defiant grimace. "Take me back."

"Will you think about what we told you?" Aang looked back at Lu and Baoshi, sitting together against the trunk of the center tree once more. Lu nodded to him once.

Sighing, Zuko let his shoulders fall inward, the cold, horrible realization that they had all the power and he was never going to go home if they didn't want him to washing over him. He swallowed, gritted his teeth, and nodded.

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[ergo-awesome.livejournal.com]

This was better than I could have hoped for!

1. I really enjoyed the fact that Zuko does, indeed, know his crew. Adding this detail really adds to his character, since it shows the mixture of contempt and pain Zuko feels towards his men. It's a great detail.

2. Laying Aang to rest with Gyatso is heart-wrenching, but beautiful. Such a sad, but fitting resting place.

3. Zuko and Aangs interactions are a great mixture of Season 1 Zuko's anger and Season 3 Aang's enthusiasm. Their banter reminds me a little of their side-trip in The Firebending Masters.

4. Thank you for explaining how in the cycle Zuko came to be the Avatar. I was wondering if two Avatars had come to pass in your world, or if the cycle was somehow flipped. This explains a lot and ties your fic into canon. Also, I really enjoyed that Lu was from the Foggy Swamp Tribe.

Kudos!

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Zuko's interactions with his crew, along with Katara and Sokka's interactions with them are about to show up more in the next few installments, and I hope it continues to work.

It also does the double duty of hinting at Zuko's unconcious memories of his past lives.

I love that episode! Zuko needs a more upbeat attitude! One of the sad parts of this AU is that Aang is dead, which makes it hard as an author to milk all the lovely comedy he brings when he and angstboy are in the same scene.

I've been waiting for somebody to give me a prompt that I could use to tell their story. I've had them knocking around in my head since almost as far back as "Bannner". When I first started poking at this, I knew I wanted one of the Avatars to have died young and unknown, but that left a lot of time for the other Avatar to be doing nothing about the war. Lu is a slacking slacker who slacks.

On a side note, Foggy Swamp Avatars show up repeatedly in my drabbles. I wish we got to see one.

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[ergo-awesome.livejournal.com]

(I was inspired to write a little Foggy Swamp Avatar ficlet about the Water Avatar after Korra's cycle.)


Bao pressed his palm to the cold metal surface of the ship’s wall, listening for any sign of its spirit. A dull mechanical hum answered him, devoid of any life. He sighed heavily, green eyes shifting listlessly to stare at the sterile, crisp lines of his cabin. The room was completely devoid of life, an empty metal shell floating in the cold vacuum of space. “Ah wish ah were home,” he murmured.

A sharp hiss of air startled Bao, his head twisting around to watch as the door to his room slid open. The bright light of the hallway silhouetted the figure of Mission Specialist Chang, her trim form hidden beneath her bulky uniform jumpsuit. “Hey kid,” she called, voice full of gentle sympathy. “Enjoying it way up here?”

“Ah hate it,” Bao scowled. “Space is dead.”

A soft chuckle escaped Chang, her boots thudding softly against the metal floor as she walked towards the teenage boy. “It’s the truth,” she admitted with a shrug. “But when was the last time a kid from the Foggy Swamps got to see a view like this?” Striding over to the control panel embedded in one wall of the cabin, Chang pointed to the opposite side of the room. “Just watch,” she instructed. As her fingers deftly pressing a few keys, a soft mechanical whir filled the room. The metal wall began to retract, revealing a large window.

Bao gasped rushing towards the glass and pressing his palms and face against the transparent surface. His eyes immediately fixated on the swirling ball of green, blue, and white that seemed to float effortlessly before the window. “It’s beautiful...” he breathed. “Ah ain’t never seen nothin’ like it!”

Chang laughed softly. “There’s not a view in the ship that can beat this one.” Watching the boy, her expression sobered as she added, “We thought it would be fitting for the Avatar.”

Turning to look at the mission specialist, Bao smiled and bowed his head polietly. “Thank you, Miss.”

“No need to thank me,” Chang admitted. “After all, I didn’t come here to show-off the view.” She tapped her watch. “It’s time for training.”

Bao’s smile instantly vanished, his lips pulling into a deep frown. “Ah still don’t see no point to all this. Can’t even learn Earthebendin’ up here where there ain’t no earth to bend...”

Sighing heavily, Chang beckoned the boy towards her, returning his frown as he stubbornly refused to follow. “You know the point,” she replied in an exasperated tone. “We need to study the Avatar’s potential within a controlled environment. The data is important to unlocking...”

“The nature of bendin’ an’ the way it’s affected by the energy found on the planet.” Bao scowled. “Ah know. Y’all told me before. Still don’t make it make sense.”

“It’s hard to explain...” Chang trailed off for a moment before she quickly added, “To someone who’s never had a formal education in the biology, physics, and chemistry of the bending arts.”

“You mean to a stupid kid from the hick swamp?” Bao cast an accusatory glare at the women, frown deepening.

“To anyone who’s not read and versed in our research,” Chang corrected. “And that includes plenty of people from the Capitol.” She beckoned to the young Avatar again. “Now come on. The sooner we get to training, the sooner it’s over. And the sooner it’s over, the sooner you can return to this view.”

Bao looked longingly out the window one final time before heaving another sigh. With a muttered curse, he strode slowly towards the mission specialist, still scowling. “Bein’ the Avatar was different back in the day,” he informed her. “Used to be people looked to the Avatar for spiritual guidance. Didn’t treat ‘im like no science experiment.”

With a nod, Chang held her arms out before her, bowing her head with theatric flourish. “Well then, Mister Avatar. Guide us to training.”

The pair’s footfalls echoed hollowly down the metal hallway as they moved through the ship.


(Note: If the Avatar world's technology can progress so quickly between Aang and Korra, I only assume four Avatar's after Korra will be Avatar in Space.)

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like this. Bao isn't too sure he likes this new way of doing things at all!


Two notes: I don't actually think technology is progressing that quickly. It's a complaint fandom makes a lot, but in AtLA, the Fire Nation had steam ships, tanks, hydraulics, insulation and refrigeration systems, machinery factories, a lot of the hallmarks of the early industrial age, and beyond. We didn't have tanks here until we had cars, for example. I think what happened after the war is that the Fire Nation started sharing, and all of a sudden, there was a democratization of technology. Sometime after that, they made the jump to using electric and having radios, bringing them from the early Victorians to the Interbellum period in 70 years, roughly what it took in the real world. Second, if technology goes at the same pace as it has in our world, Korra could easily live to see the space age, at least the 1960s orbiting the earth/going to the moon variety. Avatar Jinora in this verse definitely has a cell phone.

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[luunyscarlet.livejournal.com]

I think it's actually possible. Avatars do live a long time after all. Kyoshi lived to be over 200 and if you count the time frozen in an iceberg, Aang was 166 years old when he passed away. It could be a good few centuries before the next Water Avatar is born. Enough time for space travel to be common ;).

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I agree. See what I said about Korra getting to see space travel? (Can't you just see sixty year old Korra demanding to go to the moon?)

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

I like the detail that this installment gives to the AU. I especially like that there's an Avatar who doesn't do her duties. Very nicely done!

Zuko and Aang's interaction is lovely. I hope there are more chances (somehow) for them to talk. One thing I love about the whole thing is how well Zuko's personality shines through in the little things: knowing every member of his crew, but not acknowledging them and his sorrow at hearing about Baoshi's death while still being angry for being (in his opinion) manipulated both really stuck in my mind.

Re: Laying Aang to rest at the Southern Air Temple, Part 7/7

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Thank you! One of the problems with any Avatar Zuko AUs is what has the Avatar been doing for the last hundred years? Also, it gave me a lovely chance to give Zuko a bad example.

Thank you! Zuko's recalcitrance to speak and his tendency not to understand his emotions any better than anybody else does can make him a bit hard to write.