Written for avatar_500 prompt #5, Tyrant.

Summary: The strain takes its toll on the new Firelord.

Leaving and Gone

“What! Which one of you just said that?”  Through the flames around her throne, she could barely see the twins pointing their gnarled fingers at each other.  The flames first turned blue, she remembered, when Zu-zu left.  Everybody was always leaving.

“What a shame.”  Her eyes were bright.  “There’s only one way to resolve this. You two must duel each other. I order you to fight an Agni Kai.”

It didn’t matter which twin started the answer.  “But…”

“We’re not firebenders.”  Because they finished it together.

“Alright, fine.  Lo, you’re banished.”  it didn’t matter which of the twins she was pointing to.  “Li, you can stay.”  They were both going to be leaving.

~*~

“But what choice do I have?” Azula howled.  No!  She wasn’t going to think about Mai and Ty Lee.  She refused to think about the ones who’d already left.  “Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way. Even you fear me!”

“No. I love you, Azula.”  Her mother’s reflection gave her the saddest look.  Why did she have to look at her like that?  “I do.”

Her hand latched onto the brush.  She wasn’t crying.  She wasn’t crying!  The tears splashed on the top of her table.  Her mother was talking to her, and she was already gone.

Azula roared.  Her hand opened.  The brush slammed into the glass.  The air broke apart, and from the ruined pieces on the floor, her mother blinked back at her.  Why wasn’t she leaving?  Wasn’t she already gone?

Written for avatar_500 prompt #3, Undying.

Summary: The first new moon.

Uncharted

Yue rose early, pale and lusterless in the morning sky.  “Hello Agni,” she greeted, bowing her head.

Beaming, he waved to her as she climbed higher.  Her hands trailed though the air, pulling the ocean waters after them, and La reached his hand up to her, but she didn’t take it.

He wanted Tui.  She couldn’t be Tui.

When she came close enough, Agni took her hands and pulled her into an embrace.  “You feel so thin,” he whispered.

She leaned against him, letting his short, round body bear her weight for a while, her head against his pudgy arm.  “Is something wrong with me?”

He shook his head and tucked her braids behind her ears.  His eyes took on a faraway look.  “Tui always had a hard time just before the new moon too.”

Yue let go abruptly.  “I’m sorry,” she wanted to say.

She hadn’t realized she had spoken it aloud until Agni laid his hand over hers.  “What for?”

“You must miss your sister terribly,” she murmured.

Agni rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.  “Your sister too.”  Smiling sadly, Yue shook her head, and let him keep holding her hand.  After a moment, he let go and stood back, dangling in the air in front of her.  “Do you want me to help you through the sky?”

She felt horribly weak nodding, but her head bobbed without her permission.  He lifted her and her sliver of moon into his arms and carried her through the sky, letting the sun disk drift along behind them.  “Was-”  she stopped talking, and looked away.  “Was Tui your real sister, or was she your sister like I’m your sister?”

His brow furrowed, puzzled.  “You’re my real sister.”

“No, I mean, did you have the same parents?”

“We don’t have parents.”  He closed his eyes as she looked back to him.  “But I’m the Sun, and she was the Moon, so she was my sister.”

Yue wished he would smile. His round face was made for it.  She wished she could make him smile.

“I’ve never missed anyone before.  She’s the first of us to die.  I...”  He closed his eyes again and fought back tears.  “I didn’t even know we could.”

A piece of Yue was circling La in the pool at the spirit oasis, frail, and living, and vulnerable.  She brushed her hand against her brother’s cheek.

Written for avatar_500 for prompt #1: element.

Summary: People cross into and out of their elements all the time.


Ten Thousand Things

Playing another note on his reed flute, Aang grinned around the mouthpiece as another prairie dog popped out of its hole and echoed the note.  “I’m putting an orchestra together!”  He looked up at his friends.

“Orchestra, huh?” Sokka muttered.  “Well la dee da.”  But it didn’t matter, because Aang was in his element.

Toph crossed her arms.  “I say you guys go ahead without me.”

Katara rounded on her.  “You got something against libraries?”

“I’ve held books before, and I gotta tell you, they don’t exactly do it for me,” she sneered.  She didn’t like being out of her element.

~*~

“So, you like flyin’?” Toph drawled.  Appa scratched his ear.  Toph was out of her element anyway.

~*~

“I have an authentic waterbending scroll.” Katara smiled eagerly.

“Oh…” Wan Shi Tong murmured covetously.  “These illustrations are quite stylish.”  As he swept his wing over the scroll and it vanished into his collection, Katara bowed to him, still smiling.  She was in her element.

~*~

The water tribe boy dangled from the rope.  “Professor, let’s go!”

Zei picked his head up from the scroll in his hands, disregarding the sand pouring down around him.  He was in his element.

~*~

“Your waterbending won’t do you much good here,” the knowledge spirit sneered.  “I’ve studied Northern Water Style, Southern Water Style, even Foggy Swamp Style.”  He raised his head and opened his beak.

Sokka waited to let go of Aang and the glider until he was right above Wan Shi Tong.  The book in his fist crashed hard into the knowledge spirit’s head.  “That’s called Sokka style,” he crowed, beating the air with his fist.  “Learn it!”  As he ran, he was in his element.

~*~

Wan Shi Tong drifted out of consciousness, his knowledge flitting away from him.  He was out of his element.

The Will of a God

“I thought I told you if you ever slept with a man who could not beat you in fair combat you would suffer my wrath!” the war god thundered his bloody gaze falling on the scrawny form of the man beside her. The flames from the god’s sword miraculously didn’t set the pillows on fire, but she could feel them burn where the blade touched her neck.

Her new boyfriend stared wide eyed at the shining terror standing at the foot of the bed.

She didn’t even bother pulling up the sheet and winked. “Our Scrabble matches are very combative.”



Author's Note:  So it's a stupid, misogynistic, melodramatic trope, so I feel compelled to spoof.

Stop.  Don’t.

Ty Lee’s father’s feet were as light as hers, and when she was little, she watched him hesitate, and draw them down, and keep his steps even, but didn’t know why.

Stop.  Don’t.

Around her, her sisters followed his lead, and gazed at the sky with wistful smiles, and never left the ground, at least not where anyone could see.

Stop. Don’t.

Her mother always gave her father a puzzled look when he said that.

Stop.  Don’t.

But Ty Lee dreamed she could fly and woke up sure she could.  The air would never have let her fall.

Author's Note: So the other day, I gave Iroh a really silly drabble.  This counterbalences that.  Poor Iroh; a Dragon's work is never done.

Harmless Old Man

The tea streamed into the porcelain cup, but the man sitting behind wasn’t really there for the tea.  Iroh could always tell which ones were there to gawk at the Dragon of the West, to see their old nightmare gentled and humble and safe.

But that was alright, because he wasn’t really there for the tea either.

The Dai Li trickled back into the city with the multitudes, and the Earth King’s new power crouched unsteadily on his shoulders, restlessly waiting for someone to pluck it away, but no one tried.  No one dared rouse the Dragon of the West.

Time Flies

“I learned to bend water in vines at the side of my mother and father,” the young woman held her head high, hands balled into determined fists, “I mastered earthbending when I was seventeen.  The Fire Lord herself taught me.  I am twenty years old, and one element away from becoming a fully realized avatar.  I’m ready.”

The temple elder cocked her head and stared at her sideways, pulling her wizened, scrawny, shriveled body up to cartwheel and flip down to her.  “But do you think you can fly?”

All of her bravado spilled away behind a little girl’s grin.

Author's Note: Oh come on, we all know the next Avatar's going to be from the swamp.  Yes, that temple elder is Ty-Lee, and in my head, the current fire lord for this is Zuko's granddaughter.

This is another one of those drabbles I wrote in the gift exchange at atlaland, this time fore suzukiblu.  Her fanfic is seriously brilliant, and you can find it at white_knuckle.  Check it out.

Push and Pull

Yue stood thin and insubstantial in the grim half-light of the spirit world. “I am the moon for my people.”

La’s arms hung limp at his sides. “But you aren’t Tui. You can’t be Tui.”

The ocean spirit was crying, she realized, like a person, and she was the moon spirit, and every thing hurt and itched, and didn’t feel right. “I’m sorry,” she said the words falling flat.

His hand rested on her cheek, face slack with desperation. “I barely know you.”

She kissed him on the forehead and pulled away. “We don’t have to love each other yet.”

Author's Note: After all that running around after and then with the avatar and his brave companions, I can just see Zuko coming home and being really genre savy.  This is item number one on the evil overlord list, actually...  I don't know, it feels like he's channeling Gen from Megan Whalen Turner's books here, playing innocent and stupid most of the time, and then WHAM, oh yeah, that's why he's Fire Lord.


Form Over Function

“Tell me,” Zuko asked, “Why do Fire Nation troops wear face masks or helmets with visors?”

“They protect their faces and intimidate our enemies,” one of his generals replied, suppressing a sigh.

The new Fire Lord’s eyes flicked over the tax reports on the table and then narrowed on the general.  “Really?  Because I always thought they just made it easy for people to infiltrate our armed forces.”

The general flinched, finding himself missing Princess Azula.  No one ever forgot she was terrifying.  “My lord, I don’t...”

“It was really useful during the war," he deadpanned.  “Thanks, by the way.”

Author's Note: I really like the thought of Ty Lee being an airbender and not knowing it.  It's an idea I plan to play with in the future.  It's not supposed to be Aang/Ty Lee, but I guess it kind of gives that vibe.

Pointing the Way

The hair had finally started to grow back in a soft fuzz.  Every morning, she shaved all the way back to the middle of her skull, displaying her still healing arrow gracefully.

She rested her chin on her arms innocently as the needles bit into the skin over her spine, leaving their ink behind.

“It’s all your fault, you know,” and he remembered the way she had flinched and clenched her teeth when those same needles moved over her skull and between her eyes.  “No one’s impressed with my acrobatics anymore.”

“I’m still impressed,” Aang told her, re-inking his needles.