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?