#Kill a Dragon

[movieposters1]

[super-nova5045]

and just when you think you’re at your absolute lowest a blonde motherfucker comes along and makes everything so much worse

[muffinlance]

Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?

"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"

"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--

But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.

He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"

He didn't meet her eyes.

She narrowed hers. "Which set?"

"The one I'm bad at."

She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."

He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.

"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."

It was the most obvious manipulation ever.

Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.

"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.

He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.

Azula kept her eyes narrowed.

"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"

As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.

"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.

Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--

"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.

Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.

By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"

Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.

---

Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.

The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.

Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.

He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.

---

The sages named Iroh as regent.

They named Zuko as Fire Lord.

"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"

He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.

"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.

The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.

"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."

"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"

War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.

---

The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.

"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.

He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.

"I'm, uh. Right here?"

She didn't bother to dignify that.

He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.

He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.

"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"

She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."

"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."

Azula listened. It was a very Dum-Dum story.

[thevaelguard]

You're arranged married to one of the DA LIs, spin the wheel for who!!

[ajastu]

[Rook voice] maybe if you had some friends you'd calm down 🙄

[ruushes]

all you really need to make a good first impression on the ceo's grandson is for him to have suffered a year of solitary confinement

[allyriadayne]

JACE CALLING THE DRAGONSEEDS MONGRELS. i cheered. yes, jace! that's exactly what you think you are! you are a mongrel, nothing definable, ugly and with only a measly claim to your royal heritage. if they can claim dragons what are we? IT'S JUST SO GOOD that he specifically mentions rhaenyra's "silver haired" bastards when he refers to the dragonseeds....well yeah! what happens when aegon and viserys grow up looking every bit targaryen and rhaenyra dies? what happens to jace? YOU ARE MY HEIR. does she know? does she even know? her perplexed face!!! rhaenyra's like "why would jace bring this now?" it's both wonderful and awful that she fully doesn't see jace as a bastard but just as her son. jace didn't know what to say either....they are trying to communicate for the first time in their LIVES but can't say a single word about it. did the conqueror's dream foretell that? kill me kill me kill me

[rookanisstuff]

Rook got her dance

[warden-anders]

i do love that the first thing lucanis does when he arrives is make a grocery list. then he cleans the kitchen, sets the table, and starts the kitchen fire. then he goes to the market and gets everyone a personalized Little Treat. then he gets his Own little treat in the form of a coffee. then he just stuffs himself into an actual cupboard and broods. he just hangs out there. in the dark. im obsessed with him. this man was imprisoned for the past year with nothing but a literal demon for company and his first instinct is to care for and feed the party. his second instinct is to be emo. iconic behavior.

[persephinae]

Edit: so hey! Turning off reblogs because I'm tired of reading about people who have no idea how narration and narrative framing works and claim that he's "spoiling" the story. He's a noir hack author, this is his bread and butter. Go read some books or Shakespeare, where you know, they have the Chorus and Narration telling you what happens in the story.

Thanks for ruining my sensible chuckle fandom

[vampcaprisun]

caterina: i have made the Perfect Assassin

rook: you fucked up a perfectly good househusband is what you did. look at him. he’s got anxiety

[yellenabelova]

You couldn't handle this. Mm, you'd be surprised.

Agatha All Along (2024) The 100 (2014 - 2020) House Of The Dragon (2022 - ) Killing Eve (2018 - 2022) Jennifer's Body (2009) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2003) Black Sails (2014 - 2017) Lucifer (2016 - 2021) Once Upon a Time (2011 - 2018)

[notebooks-and-laptops]

People saying that Davrin and Lucianis hate one another and are mean in banter and people saying Neve is too mean to you if you chose Treviso Wouldnt last an hour in the asylum where they raised me:

[paperbagedhead]

[guy-in-law]

[miaiminnis]

and the old dalish curse means something new to me: take me as well, o fen’harel, like my hand and vallaslin 🐺🌿🌊