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

Momo joins the party, Part 2/3

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

"So where did Uncle say he was going?" Zuko asked testily.

"He just said he was going up to the temple," Katara said. Zuko's stomach rumbled. "You missed lunch, by the way."

He scowled at her. Sokka stepped back from the mural and poked his head down one of the hallways. "You didn't miss much," he assured him. "He brought no meat, just tea and these little cake things." Zuko scowled at him too. "So which way you think we should go?" Sokka asked, pointing around at the maze of corridors branching out from the entrance way.

Zuko tried to remember where they had gone two and a half years ago. They had spent weeks there, wandering around, with Zuko convinced that if he just stayed a little longer, looked a little harder, he would find the one clue that would lead him right to his quarry.

Uncle would probably have something wise and moving to say about him hunting his own self, and the very thought set his teeth on edge.

Zuko's ear twitched towards a faint chitter coming from down one of the corridors. "Hey, you guys hear that?"

Sokka slipped away from the mural and across the floor, to stand beside the Fire Prince and gaze into the dark hallway Zuko pointed into. "That doesn't sound like your uncle to me." He cocked his ear and drew his boomerang. "That sounds like... dinner!"

He took aim with the boomerang, angling it for the small shadow perched on the floor, but Katara yelled and grabbed his arm. "Sokka, you can't eat it, it's probably some kind of sacred creature!"

"Aww, Katara!" he cried, tearing after it. "You scared it off!"

"We're supposed to be looking for Uncle," Zuko hissed.

"Well it should be scared." Katara completely ignored him, taking off after her brother and the small creature. "You're trying to kill it!"

Sokka's head whipped around to shout at his sister. "This is why we don't take girls-" He bounced off Iroh's round belly and stumbled back, finishing the sentence almost inaudibly. "Hunting?"

Katara and Zuko caught up a moment later and Iroh beamed at them all. Huge lemur eyes blinked at them, terrified from around the general's leg. He bent down and held out his arm for the creature. "I see you have met my new friend."

Sokka's face heated guiltily, and Iroh favored him with a knowing smile.

~*~

Momo joins the party, Part 3/3

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

On the trail down from the temple, where it was just low enough for trees to grow, but not low enough for them to thrive, a few stunted trees clung to the mountain face wind warped and waist high, bridging the space between bare rocks and tufts of grass and the true forest below. Zuko dove his hand into Uncle's picnic basket sulkily, still a little puzzled as to how he ended up carrying it. The leftover tea cakes were wrapped in thin, translucent pieces of rice paper, and he crumpled one of the wrappers in the bottom of the basket and pulled the cake out. If Uncle was saving the leftovers for anything, that was tough, because if he was going to carry the basket, he was going to get something out of it. He finished off the cake and shoved his hand back in for another one. And it brushed against paper a lot sturdier than his uncle's cake wrappers. His fingers wrapped around it and pulled it out.

It was a scroll. "Uncle, what's this?"

At the reproving tone, Iroh craned his neck to look back at him. "It's my idea," he smiled at his nephew. "For what we should tell your crew we were here for."

Zuko unrolled it. "An airbending scroll? Why would we want an airbending scroll?" There were reasons, of course, that his uncle would want him to have airbending scrolls, seeing as he was an airbender, sort of, but he just wanted to stop airbending, not make it worse. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration before opening the basket lid. "Why would we want six of them?"

Iroh's smile took a small, conspiratorial edge. "If you were bringing the Avatar to my brother, wouldn't you want to prove to him your captive really was the Avatar?"

"Yeah," Zuko said guardedly, glancing back and forth between the Water Tribe siblings.

"Then the Avatar will need to know a little airbending, just to show he can." Iroh folded his arms smugly.

"Uncle." Zuko tried not to growl. "The crew saw airbending at the South Pole. Thats how we knew the Avatar was there."

Iroh waved his hand. "An accident."

Zuko flushed.

"Besides, I am sure these scrolls will come in handy for something else as well." His uncle fell back to put a hand on his shoulder.

"So I guess one of us is really going to have to pretend to be the Avatar now," Sokka said thoughtfully.

"Huh?" Zuko grunted, trying to decide whether or not to shrug his uncle's hand off.

He slowed down to fall in beside Zuko and his uncle. On Iroh's shoulder, the lemur Uncle had found at the temple squeaked and launched himself at Katara to get away from her brother. "Well, you wouldn't get us the scrolls if we weren't cooperating, would you?" Reaching inside the basket, he snatched a cake and shoved it into his mouth. "And if we were cooperating, we would tell you which one of us it was."

Iroh shot Sokka a fond, almost proud look, and Zuko threw his uncle's hand off his shoulder, furious.

"So," Sokka went on. "That's settled. I'll pretend to be the Avatar."

"You?" Katara jeered. "You can't even bend anything! If anybody's going to pretend to be the Avatar, it's going to be me."

"Katara," he said slowly, like she was a child. "You're my little sister, and it's my job to protect you-"

"You think that mean's I'm not going to protect you too?" she fired back heatedly. "You think you can stop me?"

Iroh put his hand back on Zuko's shoulder and reached out his other one for Sokka. "If the Avatar were you, you would have told us long ago to keep your sister out of danger," he told the boy wryly.

Katara shot him a triumphant glance and grabbed the scrolls out of the basket. Zuko watched her march out ahead with them, and felt like he couldn't breathe again, because even if it worked, it wouldn't for long. They weren't trying to stop the crew from finding out, they were trying to put it off, and that never ever lasted.

~*~

When they had launched the steamer back into the water and heaved themselves on board, Zuko stepped back into the cabin to take the helm, but Iroh held up his arm to stop him. "No Nephew, you get some rest. I will guide us back."

Re: Momo joins the party, Part 3/3

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Awwww

Re: Momo joins the party, Part 3/3

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

The family is coming together!