attackfish

Disclaimer: If I owned Avatar: the Last Airbender, it would never earn a TV Y-7 rating.

Summary: Zuko is now Firelord.  That means confronting his father again after three long years.

Author's Note: Written for ultrasanaposts on Tumblr.  More information for this AU can be found on my Tumblr at the tag: "#Half Feral Firebender verse": [Link].

Warnings: dark themes

Set in the same universe as Brave Soldier Boy.

( In the Outside )

Written for the tumblr meme prompt, Mai, Steampunk.

Queen of Gears and Sorrow

Ty Lee cocked her head and looked at her sideways. Mai wondered if that made it easier or harder for Ty Lee to orient herself when looking at something, given that she was currently hanging upside down from a very ugly, very heavily reinforced iron chandelier. “What’s wrong?”

Even more disconcerting than hanging from assorted bits of architecture was Ty Lee’s gift for always knowing what Mai was feeling. In fact, Mai was tempted to go so far as to say it was the most disconcerting thing of all about Ty Lee, though it had remarkably stiff competition. Anyway, it meant there was no real point in denying it. “Some academy kid told me to tell my designer she’s amazed how realistic I am. Again.”

“That’s probably just because of where they saw you leaving from.” With a swing and a leap, Ty Lee descended to the floor, her feet alighting on the tile with flawless grace. “Don’t worry about it.”

That’s what Mai had told herself last time. They had probably seen her leaving her ancestral home, for a given value of ancestral, since families that had won their land in the conquest two generations back, and had only gained a title one generation ago, didn’t have ancestral anything no matter how grand. They had seen her leaving her ancestral home and now the home of the greatest clockwork inventor in the world. Yes, that was probably it, except: “I was leaving the tea shop.”

“Oh,” Ty Lee hummed, sympathetically. “Well if it helps, I’m pretty sure you’re real.” She wrapped her arms around Mai. “You feel real.” She squeezed. “Yep, I can feel your ribs.”

Mai squirmed. “You can feel my ribs crack.”

“Don’t be silly Mai,” Ty Lee chirped. “I’m not hugging you nearly hard enough to crack any bone in your body, including your ribs.”

Mai was pretty sure Ty Lee could tell her exactly how many pounds of pressure per square inch she was exerting, too. The six identical copies of Ty Lee in storage downstairs probably could too, and Mai had a sudden horrible vision of all of them hugging her.

Letting go, Ty Lee stepped back. “They’re idiots. You look perfectly human to me.”

“Thanks, Ty Lee.” She almost managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Maybe next time she would succeed.

Ty Lee smiled as if she hadn’t noticed. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. Now, can you wind me up? I’m kind of at the end of my rope.”

Mai nodded as Ty Lee came forward and lifted up her braid. Deftly, Mai unbuttoned the little flap on Ty Lee’s jacket and pressed the key into the warm, living skin between her shoulder blades and turned. A shudder ran through Ty Lee’s body, her limbs curling tight into her body as if she really were made of the gears and springs she so skillfully manipulated. Her head bowed, and her braid flicked Mai’s arm, and when Mai was done, Ty Lee waited for her to button up her jacket flap before planting a quick peck on Mai’s cheek and darting away down toward her favorite workshop. Ty Lee was the greatest clockwork inventor in the world, and if she needed to pretend she was one of her own inventions sometimes, who was Mai to argue?

Written for the comment_fic prompt: Zuko, "Set Fire to the Rain"


( And all the Games You Played, You Would Always Win )

Written for the avatar_500 Out with a Bang Blowout, prompt - Element.

Summary: An old man takes a nap on the beach.

A Fire in the Sun

There were rows and rows of them, the figurines on the table, and the portraits on the walls, showing dozens of variations on the same kind of tall, stern, martial man, with gleaming armor and long black hair.  "I suppose these are supposed to be Agni," he said to the clerk minding the shop next to the sun temple.  He rubbed the topknot on the head of one of the statues, and then ran his fingers over his own bald head.

The clerk nodded eagerly and started jabbering about house shrines and family blessings while he tuned her out.  He set down the figurine, and gave her a wide smile as he left the shop.

The sunlight hit him full in the face, and bounced off his nose and cheeks until it seemed to be shining out of him.  He waddled down the beach town streets on his short, pudgy legs, breathing in the playful avarice that floated palpably on the air as the locals did their best to fleece the tourists with their mouths gaping open.  As the cobblestone streets turned to sand, he idly contemplated going back to purchase one of the statues, to show it off, and to wonder at how the people of the Fire Nation saw their god, as they saw themselves.

But the smell of island flowers wafted towards him and children laughed as they ran half naked into the surf.  So instead, Agni flopped down on the sand to lie in the sun.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #75, Thrill.

Summary: Because the Fire Nation had taken her freedom away from the people who had taken it from her, and nothing had changed.

Day Trip

She showed the train attendant her passport and sat down on the bench with the throngs of farmers and laborers heading out for the day to the agricultural district.  The tenements and shops sped by, below and beside the train tracks, and she could hear the faint whoosh of earthbending as it pushed them along.  As the tunnel through the wall that marked the end of the lower ring blocked out the buildings and the streets, Jin closed her eyes.

And when she opened them again, Ba Sing Se's outer wall lay in the distance, beyond the hills, and trees, and rippling pastureland.

When the train at last stopped at the outer wall, Jin didn't climb down with the rest.  She slipped away and clambered up on the ladders and handholds meant for the people whose homes were built into the wall's inward face.  There was no one on top of the wall.  No soldiers, no interlopers, no Fire Nation princess, as far as Jin could see on the miles of undulating wall, there was nobody but Jin.

Now that the Fire Nation had conquered the city, she guessed there was nobody to watch out for anymore.

Here, on the top of the wall, Jin could look down on the outside and see the barren desert stones, so different from the fair farmland and parks just inside.  She could look out over all of Ba Sing Se, and see the fields, and roofs, and courtyards, the palace, and the glittering lake waters in the distance.

There were still Dai Li agents hidden behind the walls,.  There were still tens of thousands, millions of people.  There was still the same job, and the same landlord to pay, the same hunger, and the same gang to placate.

There was nothing new except that crippling feeling of loss.  And out there, on top of the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, Jin sat hugging her knees, and trying to find something, anything they had really lost, something, someday, they could win back.

But Ba Sing Se was silent for her in the distance.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #73, Revolt.

Summary: Even when Sokka says the right thing, it becomes the wrong one.

Small and Afraid

He used to joke about it.  He told the kids the story a couple of times, shaking his head and smiling.  It isn't a funny joke anymore, not with the Equalists saying that that's what all benders really think, and how they treat anybody who can't bend.  Tenzin sometimes tells the story, with a tight, unhappy look.

She asked her uncle Sokka once, about it, when she was fourteen and gawky, and taller than her mother already; he was the one who kept telling the story anyway.  She remembers folding herself up on a bench in a back room of her mother's school, and watching him attempt some new fighting move.  "You want to help me practice?" He asked her.

Lin stood up reluctantly, shoulders hunched.  "Okay."

"Your mom riding you hard?"

She shrugged.

He waved her close.  "She does that to everybody, don't worry about it.  You know what she said to me first time we fought together."

Lin rolled her eyes.  "Yeah.  You only told us all the story a million times.  Why she say that anyway?  You can fight as well as anyone."

Grimacing, Sokka rested his hand on her arm.  "I think when she was a kid, she hated the way people pitied her, and assumed she was helpless because she was blind, and that for a little while she believed it."

"What does that have to do with anything?"  She stood back and slipped into a guard stance, waiting for him to do the same.

Sokka didn't move.  "What I mean is, and I don't think your mom's got any idea she's doing this, she decided that we're the ones who should be pitied everybody who isn't Toph Bei Fong.  She has these amazing powers, and she feels like that's all she's got, so she has to think that's the most important thing, or she'll feel small and afraid again."  He sighed and copied Lin's stance.  "She used to say she felt bad for everybody who can't see with their feet, the same way people felt bad for her because she couldn't see with her eyes."

"But I can see with my eyes and with my feet," Lin pointed out.

"And nobody will ever pity you," Sokka assured her.  "Now, I want you to block this punch, and I'll try to get around the block."

Lin snorted weakly, aping her mother's bravado.  "Yeah, you'll try."

Written for the white_lotus, Lunar New Year Exchange, as treats for such_heights, eruthros, and jack_of_none respectively.

( Maiden Voyage: Lin and Tenzin - They're ten years old, and they're really not supposed to go to the rock garden by themselves, even when Lin isn't grounded. )

( Sink like a Stone: Katara and Toph - Toph's in charge. Have fun. )

( Knowledge Becomes Spirals: Professor Zei - There is no place for a human in the library of Wan Shi Tong. )

Written for elrhiarhodan's Prompt Fest VII.  The drabble titles are prompts from the fest.


( Bugsy - Power (100 words) )
( Kate - Survival (100 words) )
( Diana - Loneliness, and Jones - Friendship (100 words) )
( Neal - Portents (100 words) )
( Fowler - Disaster (100 words) )
( Sara - It's not always about the work. (250 words) )
( Peter and Neal - Truth (500 words) )

Written for avatar_500 prompt #69, Temple.

Summary: They have grown, and they will make their home grow to fit them.  Sequel to Ice Cold Change

All the Patterns of the World

The shadowed recesses of the shrine made the numbers on her measuring tape hard to read.  "Come on, Sokka, bring the lantern over here."

"Can you hurry it up a little?  They're giving us funny looks."  As Sokka held the lantern up for his sister, the northern Water Sages stood gathered together in the middle of the shrine, faces set in severe expressions.

"It was your idea to do this," she shot back, scribbling down the measurement on her scroll.  "I told you I could build a temple just fine without it, but no, you wanted to see how everybody else in the world made them."

"Hey, you were the one who said you liked the swirly things they had at the temple in Omashu."  The lantern bounced with every gesture her brother made.

Letting her brush drop, Katara put her face in her hand and rubbed her forehead.  "Look, I'm sorry if I'm a little crabby, but-"  As she picked the brush back up and turned to him, Sokka tried to stifle a snicker behind his hand.  Katara's mouth twisted when she saw the ink on her hand.  "No."  She touched her forehead and cheek where the ink had smeared.  "No, you don't get to laugh at me right now."

But that just turned his snicker into a fit of giggles.  Glaring, Katara bent the ink at him.  "Hey!" he yelped, dodging.

"This is a holy shrine," one of the Water Sages moaned, unable to contain himself any longer.  "A place of peace!"

"Well, I've got everything I need anyway," Katara said waspishly.  "Let's go Sokka, this better be worth it."

He smiled.  "Don't worry sis, the temple you build will be better than all of them."

She gave him a warm smile before smearing ink onto his cheek.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #67, World.

Summary: She's starting to think she never should have left home.

Bright Lights, Big City

Korra hugged her knees and stared out the window, listening to the wind hissing through the tree branches.  The radio sat off on a shelf above her, silent and foreboding.  It seemed like every time she turned it on, Amon's voice billowed out.

She was starting to wish she had never left the South Pole.  Growing up there, nothing had ever scared her, not like this.  She had never doubted that someday, she was going to be the Avatar the world needed, one of the greats, as great as Aang or greater.

And now, even Tenzin was starting to notice, and Tarrlok was throwing a party in her honor.  There was no getting away from it, and all she wanted was the ice and isolation of home, the simplicity of training with the Order of the White Lotus, and her old confidence in herself.

She had still seen so little of the world, just one city in one country.  There could be more little wars, and more Amons all over the world, and she wouldn't know it yet.  If Republic City was too much for her to handle, how was she ever going to keep the whole world in balance?

Written for avatar_500 prompt #65, Air.

Summary: She feels it around her when she walks in its emptiness.

Marking Boundaries

Toph remembered when she was very young, before she met the badger-moles or became the Blind Bandit, sitting in her window and listening to the wind blow through the trees.  She remembered hanging her feet out the window, with the ground only a few feet below her, and feeling like it was miles below instead.  She remembered the way she used to crawl, or cling to walls when she thought her mother wouldn't catch her, and she remembered feeling like nothing in the world existed except the ground underneath her feet. 

Once, after a party, where a bunch of her father's friends had all sat around and talked about the way the moon looked reflected in a pond, someone told her it was a shame she was never going to see the sky.

Aang and Katara told her that when they were on Appa, they were flying through the sky.  Aang talked about being in the temples, high up in the mountains that touched the sky, but Toph had been in the temples.  They didn't feel any different.  They all talked about the sky and how far away it was, and only Toph remembered that they all touched it, always.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #64, Green.

Summary: Uniforms are symbols which hold meanings.  When she puts it on, those meanings change, and change her.

Into Ashes

The first time Ty Lee put on that uniform, it meant nothing.  It was beyond nothing, a trap for someone else.  It was one more lie she was telling on Azula's behalf, and one more example of how far she had learned to go to satisfy Azula.

The second time Ty Lee put on that uniform, she felt it sink into her, into her skin, into her bones into her being, into everything except her blood.  It wasn't a lie, and the paint on her face didn't have to be a mask.  She had taught the Kyoshi Warriors the skills she had once used to defeat them and lock hem away, and they had forgiven her.  They were letting her come with them, giving her a place to settle down, making her a part of them.

The second time Ty Lee put on that uniform, she was going to live earth.  If she married, she would probably marry earth.  Her children would be earth.  She wore green, and held fans that would be wielded for the sake of Earth Kingdom citizens.  Inside, she felt the future trying to choke off the fire, to smother it, to drown it, and she had no idea if it was enough, if any of it was enough to make up for the part of her that had fought earth, and stood at Azula's side, or if it was just covering that part of her up, and this was just the biggest lie of all.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #63, Between.

Summary: Her shoulders aren't ready for the weight of the world.

Flaw in the System

She ran through the grass, her glider opening to take in the wind.  It pulled upward, stretching her arms above her head, and lifting her up off the ground.  The woman who had been watching her out of sight through a window above turned away and ducked behind a wall.  "We can't keep letting her get out like this."

"Yangchen is a spirited child.  The closer we hem her in, the more she will try to escape."
 
"You think I don't know that, Amala?"  She rubbed her temple with one hand.  "But I'm trying to keep her alive.  If we could just tell her what she is-"

Amala's lips turned up wryly.  "You think she would understand?"

The child playing below dove towards the ground and pulled up sharply, just before impact, giggling wildly as the grass skimmed her toes, stomach, and nose as she glided.  The other nun shook her head as if she were trying to shake a way an insect that had flown into her face.  "There should be a better way.  The Avatar before her is dead.  She is what we're left with.  It will be years until she is any use, and the whole world knows it."

"So for a few short decades, we are called upon to keep the peace ourselves."  Amala didn't blink.  "How dreadful."

Nam Kha sighed and saw in her mind's eye, the changing map, as a thousand small wars in the Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes, and Fire Nation let city-states swallow their neighbors whole, in the name of unity, and in the absence of anyone to stop them.  "If every tinpot tyrant and petty warlord weren't just waiting-"

There was a loud thud outside the window, as the girl managed to collide with a small rise in the grass.  "Ow..."

Written for avatar_500 prompt #61, Speech.

Summary: The Dai Li ruled with silence. Shangyin has a voice.


Voice

Shangyin struggled uselessly against the Dai Li hustling her down the tunnel. "If you just tell me what we did wrong, I promise, we'll never do it again!" she gasped, panic seeping into her body like water through the cracks in the tunnel ceiling. "I swear, we didn't know..."

Tears ran down her face as they strapped her into the chair and set the lanterns spinning. She screamed to block out the agents' voices.

The gag came down over her mouth to choke away the sound. "Your name is Joo Dee, and you are honored to serve our wonderful city."

~*~

It was so strange tha they all were named Joo Dee just like she was. She didn't remember having ever met another one before coming to work here. Of course, Joo Dee's memories from before were a little hazy. Everything paled in comparison to the honor of serving their wonderful city.

Joo Dee lay down on her mattress in the dormitory and watched the other Joo Dees flit by, wishing she had something to call them each, but it didn't matter. It didn't seem like there was much to distinguish them.

Still, it would have been nice to make friends.

~*~

Eight years later, Shangyin walked the tunnels under Lake Laogai and opened the door to the Joo Dee dormitory, forgotten and ignored in the end of the war. The women who blinked back at her, empty eyed and smiling, saw her stolen Dai Li uniform and her stolen Dai Li posture. "Lian," she read from her list, her long, long, list of women for her to return their names and their voices to, one by one.

One woman's head shook at the name, and Shangyin pointed at her. "Joo Dee, come with me."

The woman, unfed, unwashed, and dehydrated, followed.



Author's Note: The story of how Shangyin reclaims her own name and memories can be found in a longfic titled Xenolith, which will be posted after I have finished it.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #59, Escape.

Summary: He's betraying his entire culture.  She doesn't know what she's doing.

The Rising New Moon

Yue touched the betrothal necklace hanging from her throat.  "I don't know how to thank you."

The old waterbending master scowled in the darkness.  "For starters, you can give me back that necklace."

She pulled off her mitten.  Her fingers found the knot and pulled it free, and as she handed him the necklace, he clasped her hand.  "Good bye, Master Pakku."

"You remember the waterbending form I showed you?" he asked voice harsh with the same kind of resentful guilt her one time betrothed had shown her every time he showed her the one and only waterbending move he had consented to teach her, a wave to push her boat along.

She nodded.  "I'll be okay."

"You're sure you remember how to use the line and tackle?"  She nodded to him again.  "And the net?  And the spears?  If you break one, can you repair it?"

"Don't worry, Master Pakku," she told him, stepping onto her boat.  "Really, I'm not your problem anymore.  I can take care of myself."

He gave her one last, disbelieving look and waved goodbye.  "Good luck, girl."

Yue whirled her arms, and her boat drifted away from the dock.  "Thank you," she said again.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #57, Mercy.

Summary: Bending hasn't done him much good.

Even Out the Playing Field

"Listen you little punk," the girl spat, grabbing his arm.  "You're going to give me back my money right now."

Skoochy was a punk.  It wasn't like he didn't know it.  It's all anybody from off the streets had ever called him.  It's what they called anybody who didn't back down from getting what they knew they deserved.  "I'm sorry, but I don't have your money," he drawled.  "If I did, I'd be living in a sweet little apartment somewhere with my mommy and daddy."

With a growl, she unzipped her backpack and thrust her hand in, down past the university textbooks and the leaflets.  "You're an earthbender, right kid?" she said calmly.  "I saw you playing with your friends."

"Yeah, you caught me."  He rolled his eyes.  "What, you going to call the cops on me for putting holes in the sidewalk?"

She pulled her newly gloved hand out and shoved her electrified palm into his face.  "You make me sick kid," she hissed over the crackle of electricity.  "Lying, stealing, bet it's only a few years before you join up with a triad."  She dropped him as he sank down to his knees to vomit on the sidewalk.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #56, Celebrate.

Summary: Zuko has already turned misery into an artform.

Turn of the Sun

"Go away, Uncle."

The cabin door creaked shut.  "Nephew, the crew's getting worried."

Zuko doubted that.  He doubted the crew had even noticed.  It wasn't like it was unusual for him to spend all his time in his room, whiling away the monotonous miserable days stuck on this floating ruin of his.  "Somehow I think they'll get over it."

"It would do them good to have something to celebrate," his uncle pointed out, putting his arm around his nephew.  "You are not the only one on this ship who is far from home."

There were so many things to say to that, tumbling over and over, around themselves in Zuko's mind.  Yes, he wanted to say, wasn't it a shame he couldn't be a different, better prince.  "I'm not coming out."

"Then I'll stay here with you."  He rubbed his nephew's shoulder with his thumb.  "Happy fourteenth birthday, Prince Zuko."

Written for avatar_500 prompt #54, Blue.

Summary: Her rigid precision may be all she has left, or like mother like daughter.

Control

Ursa's fire is blue.  She holds it steady in her palm.  Azulon used to watch her when she practiced, that smug, speculative look on his face.  She used to raise orange flames and slowly, carefully raise their temperature until they burned yellow, then white, then bright, clean blue.  She used to cool them down until they glowed dark cherry-rose red.  Sometimes, she would hold one blue flame and one red, one for each hand, just to prove her control.

She used to think she would need that control for the day she entered the navy, for the day she became captain, then admiral, for the days she would fight the war, and the days she would fight Agni Kais.  She imagined she would raise her flames, clear, fierce orange, and use the control she had learned changing their temperature to strike for her enemy's heart.

She looks away from Ozai as they stand before the fire sage.  He leads them to the royal hearth fire, and they hold out their hands.  His fire pours out of him soft and orange, the color of the fire the sage points to.  It joins with the living fire lit by some distant ancestor of his.

And Ursa has forgotten how to make fire that color.

It's the strength of her fire that makes the Firelord overlook her tainted blood.  Her strange, strange blue fire.

The flames change to orange as soon as they leave her hand, blending in with the others and disappearing.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #53, Rules.

Summary: Their life together has become bounded by them, and Mai is still figuring out how to reach for Zuko through them.

The Unspoken Ones

There were rules to sleeping with the Firelord, customs, traditions, nods towards discretion, a thousand and one things they had never had to think about before when he was just a prince.  A prince who was never going to take the throne, they never talked about it, never, but Azula...  It didn't matter.  There were rules now.  There were secret passageways, and chaperones, and a tangle of betrothals broken both times Zuko had left that had to be remade and renegotiated.

There had always been rules to sleeping with Zuko, things to back away from, things that hurt too much to look at.  Things that needed to be lanced or skewered.  Things that were the remnants of Azula's friendship.  Sometimes, she couldn't see through all that to what was theirs, and what they were free to do and be.

There were rules to being a couple, any couple, and it was when the rules began to contradict each other and twist on the page that Mai wanted to throw them away and stare mutely at the wall until it was over.

Just so long, Mai decided, as there was room for Zuko and Mai in the spaces between the rules.

Written for avatar_500 prompt #51, Door.

Summary: She isn't there for herself.

Solid Walls

One of her guards rushed forward to bend the door door open, and Yue stepped though, her skirt sweeping the floor, refined, traditional, and perfect.  She was a princess, a living symbol, wearing a mask that every chief's daughter had worn since the day the palace rose from the ice.

And there was nowhere to get away from it.  Against the walls of her chambers were heavy tapestries, empty porcelain vases from the Earth Kingdom, multi colored woven baskets from the Fire Nation, sculptures from her homeland.  It was as grand as any princess's chambers in the Fire Nation, any royal wife's suite in Ba Sing Se.  The Northern Water Tribe could have a princess, and dress her in fine fur robes and give her rooms like these to dwell in.  How grand and sophisticated they must be.

Her hair is white, her people said to themselves when they saw her.  The moon spirit has blessed her.  How many other nations have their princess blessed by the spirits?  How lucky we are to have her.

And when her guards sealed the door to her chambers for the night, leaving a blank wall, Yue felt her own unused, untaught waterbending answer.

Summary: Ty Lee begins Avatar Zuko's airbending training.  Takes place in the same universe as "Banner".

Author's Note: Wow, I actually wrote a drabble just because.  I haven't written like that for a while...  Anyway, this arose out of a conversation with weirdlet in which we both agreed *SPOILER FOR LEGEND OF KORRA (highlight to read)* that the way Korra's first airbending lesson went was the exact same way Zuko's would have gone were he the Avatar.



( The Spinning Gates (Spoilers for Legend of Korra, chapter two) )

Written for avatar_500 prompt #48, Finish.

Summary: There was a time before the Avatar, and before people knew what the Avatar was.


One Circle Closed

The lakes sank lower with each year, disappearing into the empty dust.  Fewer benders were born each year, and the people who had once lived on the backs of lion-turtles instead of rafts, and bent other people's bending were barely even memories.

No one had seen a spirit in dreams in generations.  The spirits had deserted them.  Only the blood of their greatest bender could bring them back, they whispered.

She was old.  Her children were dead, and her grandchildren were grown.  She put her own head onto the block, but when they raised the sword, her eyes glowed white.

~*~

When raiders came from the islands, his mother grabbed him and his brothers and sister and ran with them into the hills.  Fire burst out of the raiders hands and feet, catching in the thatched house roofs, and he watched it from safety, but when the fire came out of his hands, and the earth trembled with his footsteps, he ran down the hill to fight with the men of his village, and when his eyes burned white, and the voice of an old woman came out of his throat along with his own, no one stood in his way.

~*~

The dragons came out to meet her on the day she was born.  They sniffed her, their whiskers tickling her cheeks.  When they left her again, her parents breathed a sigh of relief.

As her belly grew round and full with her first child, the girl the dragons had blessed drew water from the well.  She pulled her hand up...

And the water followed.  She screamed, the water clinging to her, and she ran through the village as the old Sun warriors spoke of the boy who had driven them away from the Earth shores with earth and fire together.

~*~

As word traveled throughout the world that High Priestess of Fire with her glowing eyes and three voices had died, a woman gave birth alone, far from her clan, in a sky bison saddle.  She took the baby home and he cried into the wind.

His aunt and grandfather said he was the greatest airbender they had ever seen, but it was the day he mimicked the earthbenders at a festival and he earth moved that they realized just how powerful he really was.

"You know," his mother said, "He was born the night the three voiced Fire priestess died."

Written for avatar_500 prompt #46, Hold.

Summary: Song watches the colonists leave, and watches the Earth Kingdom soldiers return.


Stitching Together

The needle and thread slid, catching, and then tugging free of the impediment.  The stitches formed a crooked, sloping line.  "Stop squirming," she said, laying her hand down on his head for a moment before she picked the needle back up. 

"I'm sorry," he grumbled, "but it hurts, and you keep sticking your stupid needle into it."

She stitched another neat X on he skin of his stomach.  "If you didn't want me doing this, maybe you should have ducked out of the way of his spear."  The needle jabbed into him again.  "Or maybe you shouldn't have gotten into a fight to start with."

Out of the corner of her eye, Song could see her mother rubbing aloe-mint paste thickly over the burns on the Earth Kingdom spearman's chest.  Sometimes, she wondered if the colonists who streamed through her village on their way back to the coast would ever leave their shores and go back to the Fire Nation, which rumor said had no room for them anymore.

She sank the needle into his flesh again, and he yelped like a child.  "Careful!"

"I told you to stop squirming."  She pulled the thread hard.  "You're lucky it was a glancing blow.  He could have killed you."

"I didn't do anything wrong," he pleaded.  "I have six daughters, and that soldier of yours was saying we should get less food than the other families because my wife's dead!  They would starve!"

Song ran her needle under the string and pulled the new knot tight.  This was what the Fire Nation had done to the Earth Kingdom, humiliated them, killed them, beat them, starved them, starved their children.  It couldn't last.  "Be careful," she told him instead of what she thought.  "Take it easy for a few days, and that should hold."

Written for round three, Holidays, of the wc_women_fest, a prompting fest focusing on the women characters of White Collar.


( Diana - drew the short straw when it came to planning the office holiday party this year. (350 words) )

( Sara - She and her parents put up a front, but the holidays are all wrong without her sister. (500 words) )

( Elizabeth - first Christmas with Neal around, what do you get someone who seems to have everything and nothing at the same time? (350 words) )

( Alex - Ring out the old, ring in the new (250 words) )

( Diana/Christie - First holiday together (250 words) )

Written for avatar_500 prompt #43, Never.

Summary: Sokka is Katara's older brother.

New Worlds

She was two, and the ice climbed up her legs with every step she took.  She was four, and the snow parted around her when she spun around.  She was six and the waves under their canoe sank into valleys and rose into mountains.

She was eight and their mother...  Their mother was dead.

She was ten and nothing moved.  She was ten and their father was gone.

She was twelve, and nothing moved.

On her thirteenth birthday, she pointed at his watchtower, and told him it was stupid, and it fell down.  Sokka started screaming.  He couldn't stop.  He danced around, grabbed her around the neck and planted a kiss on her cheek.

He sat on the steps sometimes, while she trained with Sourpants-Pakku, and watched her remake the world.

Their dad told him he was supposed to protect her, but how could he when she didn't need it?