#and the world is yelling / pick a side / pick a tribe

[firewoodfigs]

wdym i should be sleeping i’m writing songs at midnight 😭 (lyrics in the tags heehee no prizes for guessing who it’s about) (i am so normal about this stupid ass crybaby and this stupid ass ship)

[zukkaart]

For the ships prompts 5 and 14

Y'all are being Tyzula WHORES today (I love you anyway)

Couple #5: Ty Lee x Azula

Prompt #14: “You’re hurting me!”

For the prompt game!

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An untold meeting with the gaang, the Spring before Sozin’s comet

The three young women peered over a rock, the Avatar and his little group were seemingly setting up camp for the night.

“Alright ladies here’s the plan,” Azula side eyed them both as she spoke, “It seems like they each have tasks, we’ll wait for them to split up, then pick them off one by one,” The two women nodded in acknowledgment.

“Mai, take the water bending peasant, Ty Lee, you take the boy. The avatar is mine” With that, they parted ways.

~~~

Ty Lee crept along the tree line- staying silent and patiently waiting for the avatar and girl to leave.

“Okay, I’ll find something for us to eat, Aang do you want to get fire wood?”

“Sure thing Katara!” The Avatar zoomed off in to the woods, seemingly lifted by nothing. Ty Lee had never seen an air bender before- well- almost no one had nowadays. She was mesmerized.

Soon after the bender (Katara?) left as well. Finally.

Planting her signature dazzling smile she all but waltzed in to their camp. No need to be stealthy when her charms worked just as well.

“Hey cutie, long time no see,” She leaned over him where he knelt- laying out his sleeping bag,

“Aaah!” He yelled and turned around, reaching for that weird weapon he kept strapped across his back. She did always wonder what it was, it looked like someone attempted to make a sword, but did it very wrong.

Ty Lee danced around him casually as he tried to pin her down.

“You never told me your name cutie,” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, he wiped it off but didn’t look entirely appalled. She noted that,

“It’s Sokka, water tribe”

“Well Sokka water tribe. I’m Ty Lee” she cartwheeled a safe distance away from him. “Nice to meet you”

“I wish I could say the same, what are you doing here? I thought you were after that pony tailed freak,”

“Oh we are,” She folded her arms behind her casually, Sokka held his…knife? In a defensive position, “But the avatar is an even better prize”

“We?”

“You think I’m here alone? I’m just the distraction silly!” Realization passed across the dark boys face, he turned on his heel to take off in the direction that the avatar left, but Ty Lee stepped in front of him. “I don’t think so Sokka,”

With a few quick jabs she disabled his dominant leg, he collapsed to one knee.

“Sorry about that gorgeous, I can’t have you interrupting her highness, can’t we just sit and chat?”

“In your dreams circus freak,”

“Yes,” She replied with a giggle, “since we’re here, why don’t you tell me what that is?”

“What what is?” He glanced at the blade still in his hand, “You mean boomerang?” She saw a thought pass across his features, and before she knew it- he threw it towards her. She simply side stepped and it missed her.

“Well that’s not terribly effective, is it? I expected more from the Southern Water Tribe” She taunted. What a ridiculous weapon. “But dont worry, you’ll get your leg back in a few hours. We’ll be long gone by then, but hey, if you’re ever in the Fire Nation look me up,” She winked

“Ty Lee!” Azula’s voice came from the edge of the woods. She ran up to her as smooth as ever. “The Avatar got away, I couldn’t follow him without setting this whole forest on fire, Zuko is too close- we can’t risk tipping him off,”

“Okay Azula!” But just as she turned to leave, the world went black

~~~

Azula watched in horror as that weapon the boy was so fond of came seemingly out of nowhere and slammed right in to Ty Lee’s back. She crumpled, blood quickly beginning to run down her back.

“Ty Lee!” Azula rushed forward and caught her before she could hit the ground, pressing their fronts together, The smaller girls head lolled on to her shoulder.

“Sokka!” The water tribe girl came rushing from the tree line, seemingly to her brother’s aid, but froze in her tracks when she took in the scene before her.

“Sokka, what did you do?” Katara had yet to fully grasp the reality of war, she of course wasn’t dumb enough to think they had never caused any casualties, but she did her best to avoid it when possible, and Sokka always made a point to shield her from the direct kills. So seeing this… she didn’t know how to react in any way other than her nature.

Katara took a hesitant step forward, reaching out a hand. “Azula I can help, please let me,”

“Get away from her!” Azula snarled, tears beginning to flow freely down her face. “Ty Lee, Ty Lee wake up!” She began to shout desperately. She reached for the thing sticking out of her back.

“Azula don’t!” Katara moved closer, something like genuine concern splayed across her face. “If you just rip that out you could hurt her more, even sever her spine. You could kill her,”

“She’s already dead!” Azula screamed, slowly losing grip on her rational thoughts,

“No. She isn’t, but she will be if you don’t let me help you,” Azula could do nothing but hold her friend tighter as Katara hesitantly inched forward. She brought water to her palms. Azula braced for an attack, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of Ty Lee.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Katara said, finally kneeling in front of her. The water tribe boy hadn’t moved behind them, she wasn’t unaware of him but she was too distracted to ponder too much why he wasn’t attacking. She took the small mercy from Agni as the water benders hands began to glow.

“What are you doing?!” Azula yanked her away, the water splashed around them,

“I’m healing her, please don’t move. You could make it a lot worse.” Azula was hesitant, but she would take any chance for her friend right now. Katara then grabbed the object in one hand, glowing water in the other. She slowly edged it out as she supposedly “healed” her as she went. Azula did her best to keep her breathing steady, which was surprisingly easy due to her training.

The object was finally removed, and a couple of moment later Katara stood and quickly backed away. “There, she’ll be fine,” Azula didn’t have to be told twice as she scooped the still unconscious Ty Lee in to her arms and sprinted back off in to the woods without even a word.

Once she deemed them a safe distance she fell back on to her knees, tears beginning to wane just slightly. She was still hopelessly worried, but she took solace in the fact that at least there wasn’t a weapon sticking out of her and the bleeding had stopped.

Still, she held Ty Lee in to her chest as tightly as she could, and began rocking back and forth and muttering, “please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please-“

“Azula?” Came a broken voice, the princess sucked in a sharp breath.

“Ty Lee? What is it? What do you need?”

“You’re hurting me”

Azula noticed her crushing grip and half-laughed half-sobbed in relief as she loosened her grip.

“For Agni’s sake Ty Lee I thought you were dead!” Once she was sure the little acrobat wasn’t in fact dead- her worry was quickly replaced with anger and frustration.

“What? Why? Were you… crying?” Ty Lee reached up from where she still laid in Azula’s arms to brush her wet cheek with the back of her hand.

“Yes you idiot! I thought I lost you!” Ty Lee should have been startled at Azula’s anger- but she was used to her concern coming out as aggression.

“Hey, I’m okay. I’m right here. I don’t know what happened- but I’m okay,” The next thing she knew- the princesses lips were on hers. She pulled away for a moment, “Now I’m really confused, what is happening right now?”

Azula huffed and rolled her eyes, “Just shut up,” Were Azula’s only words before her lips crashed on to hers once more

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eeek! This one was definitely short and sweet but I kind of love it. I hope you do too!

Xoxo

[hyacinths-in-a-storm]

Dragon Scales and Late Night Runs

Tyzula Week: Day 3 Medieval AU/Dragons

You can read it here on archive of our own as well

A/N: Holy shit I'm late

When Azula was a child, she would pick up her dragon, Lightning, and scream into her scales. Several years later when her dragon was far too big for her to hold, Azula would still bury her face in her side and scream. The only difference was that this time Lightning wouldn’t even stir, simply readjusting herself so that Azula was more comfortable.

“Thought I’d find you here.” her brother’s voice rang out as he jumped over her dragon to settle down next to her,

“What the hell are you doing here?” was her response,

“Kiyi wanted me to make sure you weren’t planning on running away.” he replied,

“She knows me too well.” Azula lamented,

“Mhm, now why are you sitting here like you’re the main character in a tragedy?” Zuko asked,

“Wild fucking guess.” she spits, and Zuko sighs rubbing his forehead,

“Look I know it isn’t ideal but at least dad is kind of taking your interests to heart, it could’ve been worse. At least it’s not a boy.” Zuko reasons,

“I’m getting married to a stranger! To some non-bender girl I’ve never seen before!” she yelled,

“I know it’s not ideal but-” Zuko started,

“I mean how come you get to marry the water tribe ambassador you want, but I have to marry some nobody from the middle of nowhere!” she hissed,

“There’s nothing we can do about it now ‘Zula. The marriage is approved, you two are to be married in two months.” Lightning stirred slightly noticing Azula’s distress,

“What’s even the reason for marrying her? She’s not even a bender.”

“She’s the daughter of some kind of high-ranking official, I think he’s our ambassador for Air Nomads or something?” Zuko sighs, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder.

“It can’t be that bad. At least Dad says you can still travel the world, you just have to do it with a complete stranger that you have to call a wife at your side.” he said brightly, Azula glared at him,

“I feel so comforted Zuzu, thank you so much.” he got back on his feet,

“Come on let’s race, maybe that’ll make you feel better.” Azula stared at him warily, but obliged him, settling herself on Lightning’s back, but even as her dragon took flight, soaring far above any and all landmarks, she couldn’t help but feel a sinking feeling in her stomach.

~

The servants were quiet, noticing the princess’s sour mood. They washed and combed her hair, touched up her makeup, and helped her with her armor. All the while, she barely acknowledged their existence. Princess Azula was not kind or welcoming by any means, but even this was a new extreme. A single wayward noise was met with a harsh reprimand.

Someone knocked on the door,

“Come in.” the princess ordered, the door opened to reveal the prince, who looked as somber as his sister,

“Your fiancée is here, you have five minutes before dad tears down the walls trying to drag you out.” was all he said, the princess didn’t respond to her brother, only adjusted her armor and stood up, nodding at the servants, the only acknowledgment she had given them the entire night, and walked out.

~

“You look like someone killed your dragon.” Zuko commented,

“I just want this damn night to be over with.” she responded, flickers of blue flame escaping her mouth as she exhaled,

“Just go in, exchange pleasantries, and say you have the most terrible headache, and that you’re so sorry that you have to leave.” Zuko put a hand on her back, “Good luck.” and with that he shoved her forward.

Azula cursed, flames jumping to her hands. She straightened herself, and to her relief no one seemed to notice. She weighed her options, she could either do exactly as Zuko said, or she could skip it and go straight to the leaving the party part of the plan. She was an adult after all, she did have a certain autonomy that she didn’t have when she was a kid. The function was taking place in the courtyard, meaning if she skirted around the edge of the crowd she could disappear into the gardens.

The choice was made before she could blink and she was out and among the gardens faster than anyone could ask her where she was going. She sighed in relief as she sat down by the turtle-duck pond. A single turtle-duck swam up to her, quacking indignantly when it realized she didn't have any food for it.

“What does Zuzu and mother see in you? All you do is go around being noisy and asking for food.” she told the turtle-duck who nipped at her fingers in response,

“Ow! You little rascal-” she contemplated singing it’s feathers, but before she could reach a verdict, she became acutely aware of a presence that wasn’t her own, she looked behind her to see a shadow looming over her,

“Agni strike me!” she cursed, nearly falling backwards into the pond. The turtle-duck squawked indignantly flitting back into the safe reach of its pond,

“Sorry did I startle you?” the shadow said, stepping away from her, Azula had to take several calming breaths before she could answer,

“What are you doing here?” she asked, ignoring the question,

“Got bored of the party.” she answered nonchalantly, she offered her a hand up, Azula took it brushing herself off. Now that she was standing face to face with the girl, she could see her a little better. They were standing close enough to the party that the light framed her soft features. Her heart was beating violently in her chest, and it had nothing to do with the fact that this woman had just scared her within an inch of her life.

“What are you doing here?” the girl asked,

“Same reason as you.” Azula mumbled,

“This party seems kind of pointless right? I mean why all this grandeur? I’m fairly sure I could meet my fiancée over a nice cup of tea, it would be more intimate than having your first meeting orchestrated by your parents.” she continued,

“I’m meeting my fiancée tonight as well.” Azula replied, looking questioningly at the girl,

“Princess Azula, I presume?” she asked,

“In the flesh.” Azula feels a little bad that she didn’t even ask for her fiancée’s name, fortunately for her, she introduces herself,

“I’m Ty Lee.” she offers her hand, Azula takes it, noticing the calluses on her hands, she had heard her fiancée was a talented acrobat and this confirmed it,

“I ended up doing the one thing I set out not to do tonight.” she murmured,

“Not meeting me?” Ty Lee asked, tilting her head, she didn’t look the slightest bit offended. “Same here, I’m not keen on getting married to an absolute and utter stranger.”

“That makes two of us, Lady Ty Lee.” Azula responded,

“Well at least you aren’t boring Princess Azula, I would hate to be married to someone boring.”

“I am the princess of the Fire Nation. I don’t think I’m allowed to be boring, there’s probably some sort of law forbidding me from doing so.” Azula lamented, “Besides I’m fairly sure it’s physically impossible. A member of the royal family? Being normal? With normal interests? Impossible, there’s too much mental illness in our family for that.”

“And funny too, maybe this marriage won’t be all that bad after all.” Ty Lee said, laughing, and anything Azula wanted to say immediately shriveled and died in her throat as she was struck with how beautiful the sound was. She made a sound in agreement, ignoring the fluttering in her stomach. Suddenly an idea crossed her mind, she took Ty Lee’s hand in hers again,

“I know something that’s more interesting than a party, do you want to come with me?” she asked, excited for the first time since she heard about the engagement, Ty Lee nodded, intrigued,

Ten minutes of sneaking around and a little breaking and entering later, they were in the dragon’s keep. Lightning was a night owl- or rather a night dragon and noticed the footsteps immediately, perking her head up. Ty Lee was in awe,

“Wow, wow a dragon. I’ve only seen them in story books.” she said reaching a tentative hand, but looked at Azula first for confirmation,

“Go ahead, Lightning’s a sweetheart, and loves any attention she can get. She won’t burn your hand off.” Ty Lee reached, scratching the spot behind the dragon’s ear. Lightning purred enjoying the sensation, Ty Lee laughed at the feeling,

“I always wanted to ride a dragon before. They always looked so majestic to me, especially in the air.” she commented, feeling the blue scales under her fingers,

“Maybe one day I can take you flying, we’ll be traveling around a lot for royal duties together, and dragons are one of the fastest ways to get around.” at this remark Ty Lee’s jaw tightened almost an imperceptible amount,

“Right, right the wedding.” a pause, “Princess Azula I have a question, if you’re willing to answer.” Azula nodded,

“Why did your parents force you into this marriage?” she paused petting Lightning’s scales for a second, shocked by the question.

“Well I suppose because I’m of marrying age and my dad wants to get rid of me.” she responded, “What about you?” Ty Lee answers after a beat,

“My parents caught me with a girl, they gave me an ultimatum, marry the princess, or be disowned and kicked out. Go big or go home right?” she glowered, "Except if I didn’t go big I wouldn’t have a home to go back to.”

“Lady Ty Lee- I’m so sorry.” for all of Azula’s grumbling and irritation, she never thought of how the other person might feel, and that they might be just as irritated and mad if not more, “Did you love her?” Ty Lee looked at her questioningly,

“The girl you were caught with, did you love her?” Ty Lee took a deep breath and Azula realized that she was being a bit too forward with someone who just admitted that she was forced to marry her on the pain of a certain death, “I’m sorry if I’m intruding on your privacy-”

“Not really,” she interrupted, “Less than a month after I told her about my engagement, she announced she was pregnant.”

“That sounds horrible.” Azula told her honestly, “She was seeing someone behind your back?”

“Yep, the cook’s son or something, she would come visit me before going down to the kitchens to sleep with him.” Azula admired how nonchalant, even preppy she sounded about the whole situation, “Doesn’t matter now, she was terrible for my aura anyways, it was always all over the place when she was around.”

Azula nodded, assuming that whatever it meant, that it wasn’t good.

“I have to admit Princess Azula, meeting you in person was far better than listening to all the rumors through the grapevines.” Ty Lee told her,

“Rumors, what rumors?” Azula wasn’t aware there was gossip about her,

“Small things, you know such as you slept with the ambassador from the Water Tribe-”

“That was my brother!” Azula protested,

“Another rumor is that you challenged a general to an Agni Kai at the age of 14.”

“He was making fun of my family, I had to, our honor was on the line.”

“Did you win?”

“Of course.” Azula scoffed, Ty Lee shook her head, trying not to laugh,

“Princess Azula, you are far more entertaining than I ever thought, perhaps being married to you won’t be all that terrible.” Azula smiled slightly,

“That makes the two of us Lady Ty Lee.”

A/N: Failproof flirting technique: show a girl your dragon

[skwxang1437]

꧁𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒

┌─────────────────────────┐

ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʀᴇꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ, ɢᴏ ᴛᴏ ᴍʏ ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ ᴀᴄᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍʏ ʀᴜɴɴɪɴɢ ᴍᴀɴ ᴀɴɪᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ʀᴜɴ! ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴀɴ xᴏᴄ ʙᴏᴏᴋ.

└─────────────────────────┘

│𝙍𝙪𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙫7𝙨 𝙢𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙨𝙚𝙯𝙢𝙞𝙧'𝙨 𝙗𝙞𝙜 𝙗��𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣?│

Character: Liu, kuga, Popo, lonkey, miyo, Pala, rema, spin, alto, kuku, makhan, Shan, Sezmir, Zayd, Jin (Gai will not be here since he had left, sorry Gai stans)

Timeline: takes place after season one, this is not canon, it's just a oneshot that is separated from the main story. This oneshot doesn't have detective frank to ruin the moment nor the running men will be thrown in the old city.

━━━𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 battle of ulcus, the world was finally at peace, when the running man contestants beats the creator himself before he could obliterate the world myand create a new race.

Not only did they came out alive, or are proclaimed heroes by everyone. They also discovered that their fellow teammate and friend was ulcus' daughter who was brought to this world by the creator himself, also one of the reasons why ulcus went on a rampage.

Of course they couldn't believe Sezmir was actually their god's daughter, since it was unexpected, but that doesn't stop them to see her for who she is, and not just the creation or daughter of ulcus, which she is grateful cause she doesn't want to be treated differently.

Gai left, saying he has to report the incident to his tribe's chief, so he went on with his brothers. But he did promise that he'll come back soon to see them, which was a relieve.

"Over here!" Liu said, calling the robot's who were carrying rubbles as they helped the players fix the tree city to its normal place. He gestures where the robots would put the debris and rubbles, while they follow his orders. The bug place both his hands on his hips, seeing all of them helping each other to rebuild the city.

Shan went to his side and puts a hand on his shoulder, "Well done Liu, soon enough the city will be rebuild in no time." Shan said as she looks over the scene, Liu nods and smiles at her words, the older bug left his side to help the others.

He was about to turn around and pick up more troubles, but stopped when he hears footsteps nearing. He looks towards his side, seeing Sezmir holding rocks, with a few behind her floating with gold color, probably cause of her powers. "It seems like the world is back at peace." She said, while Liu smiles, while also staring at the fox a little longer and admiring her beauty.

"Yeah." He replied with a dreamy sigh, the girl turned her attention towards him making him flinch, she gives him a smile before continuing carrying the rocks. Liu's gaze follows her, he raised his hand to touch his cheeks, feeling it warm. His ears perks up, when he heard his sister chuckling not far from him, "Sis!"

Sezmir saw popo struggling to lift a bug rock, "C'mon why won't it budge!" She hears him yell in frustration. Another thing, Popo was bought back to his original self, thanks to Pala who created the medicine and Sezmir helping him with her powers to make the antidote faster. She sighs before walking towards the frustrated penguin.

"Want some help?" The penguin looks behind, to see the girl he had a crush on walking towards him and offering help, "Yes please!" He said, he watched as Sezmir used her powers to make some of the rocks levitate, she gestures her hand, making the rocks fly to the side.

Popo's eyes sparkled as he watched the fox using her powers, he admire her face or look, her personality and her kindness. He's really grateful for her help, or else he would've been stuck trying to carry rocks.

"Hey Sezmir! Would you mind helping me carry those?" A voice said, revealing lonkey who points at the rocks not far from them, Popo irks when the prince interrupted his moment, lonkey looks back to see his best friend giving him a glare. The giraffe pulled down his eye and sticks out his tongue at the shorter one.

This adds more fuel to Popo, "Lonkey!" He started throwing cards at the prince, making him panic and run away while Popo chased after him, "You're gonna pay!"

Sezmir ignores the two while carrying the rocks where lonkey points out, she hums without a care in the world, while carrying the rocks. She stops when she heard a scream, she looks back to see lonkey looking fried on the ground with Popo laughing proudly, she sweats at the scene.

"Idiots." Miyo said as she walks beside the fox, the other girl gave her nervous smile while turning her attention back at the two who were doing shenanigans.

Sezmir felt a weight on her left shoulder, she looks at the left to see spin leaning his arms at her, "Hey." He said with a wink, "Hi." The fox greets back. Miyo side eyed the two, she narrowed her eyes at the closeness of the two, she huffs and looks away in jealousy.

"Sezmir!"

They all stopped when they heard unfamiliar voices, they turn their heads towards who yelled it and saw two unfamiliar people, that they didn't meet or see. "Who the heck are they?" Kuga asked, "No idea." Shan replied.

Spin pulled back when the two figures suddenly appears in front of him and Sezmir, the white haired one engulfs the orange headed girl in a hug, "You're okay!" He yells while squeezing the poor girl.

The female fox winces at the tight hug, she pats the stranger's back, "Yeah I'm fine, but please let go, I can't breath." She struggled, the person didn't listen and kept hugging her. The other stranger had enough and smacked the white haired man, hard enough to let go of Sezmir and almost make him fall, "Ouch! Hey!"

"Idiot, she said she can't breath, not just that you're embarrassing yourself Infront of people." The black haired fox said, "But that doesn't mean you have to hit me that hard!" The one who hugged Sezmir shouts, they both continue to bicker. Meanwhile the others just watch them while sweating.

Sezmir who was in the middle of the two strangers, was quiet, she had an irk mark in her forehead, while her smile twitches, "You two..." The two stopped when they felt the aura of the girl, making them flinch. Even the others got scared at the change of aura.

She stomps white haired man's foot making him wince and hold his foot, while she delivers a punch at the black haired man's head, making him yelp and hold his head in pain. Sezmir sighs seeing the two calm down.

"Who are they?" Rema asked while standing beside the fox, she turn her attention towards the gray cat and gives her a smile, "Oh forgot to introduce you. Guys this is my brothers Jin and Zayd! The white haired one is Jin while the black haired is Zayd." The female fox introduced, while the other two foxes were still wincing and holding the parts of their body where their sister hits them.

The two brothers gave them a wave, Jin looks around the people before his eyes landed on a familiar bug who was trying avoid eye contact, "You!" He points, while Liu flinches, "Me?" He points at himself, "Yeah you! I know you still remember me!"

Sezmir sweat while Zayd facepalmed, seeing how Jin reacting, "I still haven't forget what you did." Jin starts walking towards Liu, making the younger lad panic. But he was stopped by his two siblings, "Idiot that's a kid!" Zayd yelled, "Don't hurt him Jin! He didn't do anything!" Sezmir added.

"what happened?" Lonkey asked, "Well it was las—" Liu was cut off, "NO DONT YOU DARE!" Zayd and Sezmir yelled at the same time, making them look at the siblings surprised, "Now that's make me even more curious." Lonkey exclaimed.

"C'mon Liu, we wanna know!" Popo insisted, the bug looks towards the siblings, seeing them shaking their heads at him, indicating to not tell. "Well..."

Half of the cast laughs at the story Liu made, Jin was sulking in the background, with Sezmir trying to comfort him, while Zayd was letting out a sigh, tired of this bullshit. Liu looks at the female fox asking for forgiveness, she just smiles at him.

"You three are still the same as ever." The three foxes snapped their heads towards where the voice comes from, and see makhan, walking towards them, he smiles at them, "Hello—"

"Old man!"

The old tiger's smile was replaced by a scowl when he heard that nickname, "I take back what I said, you headaches." He snarled, the white fox smiled at him, "You're actually here! I thought you'd be dead by now because of your age." Makhan irks at Jin's words, "Yeah, I thought your corpse must be decomposing somewhere." Zayd added, making the master even more and more irk.

"YOU LITTLE RASCALS!"

That day was full of laughter and joy, because now that peace is here, all tribes can live in harmony without going to war. And the ahem ahem—suitors— get to know more about sezmir's brothers.

The said orange fox smiles at the scene in front of her, seeing the people she cares about enjoying their time.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

ᴺᴼᵀᴱ: ᴰᴱᶜᴵᴰᴱᴰ ᵀᴼ ᴹᴬᴷᴱ ᵀᴴᴵˢ ᵂᴴᴵᴸᴱ ᵂᴿᴵᵀᴵᴺᴳ ˢᴱᴬˢᴼᴺ 2. ᴹᴵᴳᴴᵀ ᴹᴬᴷᴱ ᴹᴼᴿᴱ ˢᶜᴱᴺᴱᴿᴵᴼˢ ᴬᴺᴰ ᴼᴺᴱˢᴴᴼᵀˢ ᴬᴮᴼᵁᵀ ᵀᴴᴵˢ ᶠᴵᶜ.

┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄

[alphawolfcraft]

__Hello fellow readers before you read this is have a few things to say. If you don't like Adam Taurus this fanfic is not for you. For this is centered around him. This is also a redemption fic you will be reading Adams journey of him becoming a better person. __

-Redemption-

In the world of Remnant. Zaferis was one of the many, few faunus that lived in a nomadic tribe. That traveled in the land where the grim thrived and the hunters and huntresses were few and far between. There sister tribe ,Daekrahm. Was a tribe mostly made up if children, elderly, and thous who could not quell there negative emotions because out there if you could not control you emotions. you would comdem your brothers and sister to death. By bringing grim upon you.

so their sister tribe had settle, safely. close to humanity. Not so close that a human full of hate could walk in and hurt their young but close enough were hunters would regularly paroling the area, keeping the grim away from the weak. So Daekrahm became the meeting ground for the two divided tribes and every five years they would meet for a month and celebrate the competition of a migration cycle. It was also the month were trials would take place. These trials were made for young faunus that wanted to join the nomadic tribe.

They where test of survival, control, and insurance. If you failed theses trails you would never be allowed to travel with the tribe because out there, were the grim lived, life was difficult and hard. Every year they would lose one or two members to the simples things, an infection, Starvation, or them simply losing there way. It was not place for someone who could not control themselves. But the celebration of there convergence was still a few days away. All of them had to wait. To quell there excitement for a day or two.

For now Zaferis had to focus on the task at hand. Hunting. Quill was not to far from him. A few feet down the river she was under the cover of shrubs. waiting patiently. Just like how Zaferis had tough her. Thank fully they did not have to cross the river. Since the wind was blowing down hill from the river. they could safely wait where they where.

From were Zaferis had sat him self. He could hear nothing but peaceful silence of nature, unlike. . . The mine's. They where never silent. There was always some sort of sound echoing of the uneven surfaces. Whether that be the sound of metal Picks hitting unstable material or gasping breaths for the already thin air. A click snapped Zaferis out of this thought. Quill as it turns out had absentmindedly flexed her quills. Making them click as they fell back down apon her head.

"Quill" Zaferis warned the porcupine faunus. She in turned gave a grumpy huff from were she was siting.

"Nothing has shown up! It had been hours!" She grumbeled.

"If you yell like that there will be nothing" Zaferis huffed. His eyes went back to scanning the forest line, ignoring Quills grown. Though she made no nice after that. Leaving the forest to continue is soft lullaby.

Movement from the bushes snapped Zaferis in to action. Silently he grad his bow and knocked an arrow from his quiver. He watched intensely as the bushes shivered and shook from what ever creacher was moving through it. Slowly and carefully a deer poked a head out. He did not fire. Something else did.

As soon as the chances of food had presented its self it was gone in a blind panic, Leaping away from the cuncusive bang. That echoed across the forest floor. Sighing Zaferis carefully un-knocked the arrow and placed it in to his quiver. Quill was at his side like she never left it.

"The shots aren't stopping" she odserved. Her quills were stand on end, forming a Mohawke on top of her slim face. "Why are they doing that?"

"There are still grim here" Zaferis reminded her. Her opservashion was right. The sounds of fighting had yet to cease. They had actually goten worst, Zaferis noted "Not a many as in the wild lands but there still here" Quill shuffled nervisly next to him, looking from the nice to him and back again.

"Are we going to help them?" She timidly asked.

"We're not monsters," Zaferis stated. She was off like a loaded spring, as soon as Zaferis said thoughts words and up the stream towards the distant sounds of fighting. A zing of fear stabbed itself into Zaferis's chest with such sudden, swiftness. It made him fumble to follow after her.

They followed the sounds of fighting, for who knows how long. It could have been minutes or seconds for all he knew it could have been an hour but what he did know, was that the longer they followed the sounds the louder they became. They followed the steam up to a roaring waterfall. Above them, the sounds of fighting suddenly stopped like a script in a game.

Quill looked nervously from Zaferis up the ridge above them. Did they defeat the grim? Are they dead? Or are they just injured? If that's the case Quill and he would never be able to reach them in time. The climb up to the ridge would take too long. it was not long before Zaferis's eyes caught something falling from the ridge. It looked vaguely human but with the mist, it was hard to tell. Well, whatever it was, it hit the cliff hard. Even with the crescendoing roar of the waterfall, he heard the crack as it hit the rock and disappear into the watery fog. Without a second thought, his body moved. Striping all the heavy gear he dove into the ice, cold water. He did not even hear the shocked, cry from his disciple.

the current was thankfully slow and not hard to fight, as he swam upstream toward the rocks. the visibility was low he noted vaguely, as he searched the rocks for whatever had fallen. when he did the water had turned bright red around them. he push past the rocks and scrambled to carry their head above water. a strained cough reassured him that they were still breathing. Quill was passing back and forth at the bank where Zaferis left her. as soon as she notest him she cust dropping to her knees and rummaging around in her backpack. as soon as Zaferis reached the river bank she help him pull the stranger out of the river and amenity put presser on the wound on his stomach. as she did that Zaferis was putting on his dry gear to try and protect himself from the cold weather. his lips were already getting a little blue from his little dip.

"He was stabbed" Quill murmured, "why would why is he stabbed?" Zaferis turned toward her after all his dry gear was on and knelt next to her.

"Let me see" he mutters softly. Quill removed her hands away from the still bleeding wound as Zaferis replace hers. He did his best to asses the wound whilst keeping pressure on in. She was right the wound was not big enough for it to be a claw and two clean cut to be anything else. The wound was not beep, a few inches at lest, in to the flesh. The only risk was that the faunus's small intestine mite have been perst.

"Help me patch him up" She did as she was asked and helped Zaferis patch the bull faunus up. It was not their best work but it was meant to be temporary. Till they reached camp and have sammy look after him. Zaferis lifted the unconscious man on to his shoulders in a fireman carry. Hopefully this would not agitate their all ready sloppy patch-up Job.

"Ready?" He asked Quill

"Ready when ever you are" she responded. With a nodded Zaferis stated to jog.

----*----

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. This is obviously not they end. there will be other parts to this but I hop you enjoyed it. More will being coming soon. (I hope)

[nityarawal]

July 13, 2023

Writing Backwards

Filling Up My Journals

Singing Songs

Knowing Truth

In The Woods

At The Base

Of Tahquitz

Why'd Officer Enoche

Rape My Sister

After Missing Persons

Kill Her Old Man

Institutionalize Her

And Her Mother

Why'd He Violate 

Her On A Plea Bargain

Officer Enoch

Why'd He Rape My

Triple A Guy

Daniel Crabtree

Subcontracted By

Idyllwild Garage

To Steal My

Lexus

Officer Daniel

Godsnick

Why'd You Snicker On 

Me

Why'd You Sneak Into

Idyology

And Snake Into Our Restaurant

Banging My Boss

Snickering

For A Burger

Bribe

Officer Milton

You Want To Be In

My Songs

An Officer With A Glock

A Bad Guy With A Gun

Rehabilitated

Soap Opera

With A Good Ending

No Thanks To You

For The Injuries You've

Done

Not A Surfing Madonna

For You

You Can't Watch

My Miracle

De-Bugging

For You Are A Spy

That Lied

Double Agent

Caught

Lori Lies Dead

God Knows Where

A Clark Viviano

"W" Word

A Clark- Viviano Catastrophe

Now A Court

Apostrophe

What Happened

To Her

A Dead Sharkbait

Brand

Your Anna Nicole

Smith Of Courts

No More

Marilyn

Blowing Up Her

Dress

In Palm Springs

P.S.

Wants More

How Many Baes

Unleashed On The World

Just An Experiment

Of Heart Faces

Peeps Love Our

Widows Peaks

Until We're Too Old

Peeps Love Our

Moonshine

And Foreheads

Until They Litter

Them With Bugs

#FreeBritney 

Shaved Her Head

What Any Good

Mamma Would Do

With Louse Of Courts

#FramingBritney 

Tried To Whistleblow 

On Lice Of Courts

Bloodsucking

Can You Blame Sweet

Britney

Writers

Or Amber Heard

Risking Their Lives

On Defamation

To Save Word

Can You Blame

The Actresses

Fighting Gag Orders

The Models

Singers

Who Risked Their Lives

Bugged Up With

Spirochetes

Heroin Addicted

Or Reigning In The

Goat

For A Vegans Family

Life

#FreeBritney Slapped

By Gay Man 

7 feet tall

Can You Blame

The Goddesses

Hollywood Queen's

For Their Morning

Coffees

Intermittently 

Fasting

Teaching All How

To Survive

On Goop They Said

Cleanse

Manual Self Massage

Why The Dr's

Say Don't Pick At It

Criticize Her

Skin Experts

Hard To Be A Gwynny

With A DJ's Voice

Hard To Be Her Brother

A Viking

Built For Strife

A Sculptor

Hard To Be An

Actors Son

Hard To Be A Bastard's

Son

Hard To Be A Rockstar's

Son

Oh Lord Don't Witch

Hunt My Tribe

Hard To Be A Beatle

Bug

Emitting Lymes Skins

Hard To Be A 70's 

Child

Hard To Be The Darlings

Cottled From Birth

One Minute Your Fabulous

Next You're Not

Your Parents Taught T.M.

One Minute You're 

A Princess's Daughter

But By 

The Revolution

Tries

To Do Us All In

45 Years Of

Sin

Plagiarism Of Poets

1979 - All We Can Do

Is Sing

Build Homes

California Side

Quietly

Artists

All We Can Do Is

Build Homes

Doctoring Ourselves

All We Can Do

Is Build

A Colony

For Camp California's

Zoo

And Yell

Sing Harmony

Into Being

-Peace (Free Living Song)

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

[kataangiscanon]

Kataang week 2022 Admiration (physical features, strengths, etc.)

For @kataang-week Day 1: Admiration!

Hello beautiful people.  (This is my FIRST Fan-fiction, so please be nice. I really hope you guys like it.)

Katara went in search of her husband. Her five-month-pregnant tummy makes her steps hefty. She was walking barefoot down the corridor of the air temple. Her heated, swollen feet felt fantastic on the cold marble floor.

“Where is he?" She wondered as she looked about. She caught a glimpse of an air acolyte walking down the corridor holding scrolls, she was just about to enter the dining hall when Katara yelled for her.

"Excuse me,” 

Yuni, an air acolyte, turned and grinned at the Avatar's wife as she approached. “Yes, master katara. Do you need anything?”

The difficult years between the air acolytes and the water bender were now behind them. They were aware of the connection between the Avatar and the water tribe beauty and they were aware of how much the Waterbender meant to the Avatar.

Looking at the scrolls in her hands, Katara inquired, "Yes, have you seen Aang?" her left hand was on her stomach, adjusting her robes and using her right hand to move the hair behind her eye.

“Yes, Master katara.” Yuni replied “Avatar Aang is in the training area.” smiling at her, indicating the temple's opposing side. She smiled as she asked Katara, 

"Shall I go fetch him for you?" Yuni asked while glancing at katara’s swollen belly.

"Oh no, thank you. I'll be fine.” Katara replied with a smile. 

“All right, See you.” Yuni smiled before running to the other side of the corridor. 

Katara watched her go, then descended the stairs and began making her way to the training area. She smiled softly when Aang came into her line of view. Fireblast from his hands as he practices. She sat down on the side where she could see him.

Katara stared at his back as he practiced. Shooting Firebending, jumping, and kicking in the air. Katara’s eyes roamed down his body, traveling from his face down to his muscles. A soft smile played on her lips. Seeing him bend the element that he didn’t want to learn, with so much grace and confidence made katara so proud of him.  He has come a long way. she thought to herself. 

Aang’s strength always astounds her. His quick reflexes made him a strong competitor. Aside from him being the avatar his raw power always amazed katara. His bending was on a different level. Having all the cosmic power at his command he still never chooses violence. His pure heart and kind soul were the reason why she was so in love with him.   

Aside from his strength, he was easy on the eyes as well. The goofy small kid was a handsome hunk now. Taller in their group, with deep stormy grey eyes and a goofy smile. Musical laugh and lean body. A deep voice in which he declares his love for her sends her into a different world.   

And oh his Avatar look was just on a different level. That can shut people in seconds. You know when the look comes, there is no going back. Deep down that was becoming a big turn-on for katara.   

This powerful man is mine.” she smiled to herself. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe.    

Aang was naturally gifted. He was good at everything. Bending, fighting, dancing, peacemaker, you name it. People looked up to him. And he was always so humble about it. Helping people in need was his first priority. He gave up so much in order to give people hope and the support they needed. 

“Daddy is incredible. Isn’t he?” she whispered to her baby. 

Suddenly, Katara heard giggling. Interrupting her train of thoughts. Her smile dropped as she looked behind her and saw three acolytes standing a few feet away from her admiring her husband as well. She heard one of them saying “he is so dreamy.” the girls giggled behind their hands. 

A strong blast of fire made her jump slightly and turned again to see Aang finishing his practice. 

Aang wasn't aware of Katara's gaze because he was immersed in his own world. Stopping to pick a bottle to sip from. When Katara heard a gasp from behind her, she spun around to face the girls again and saw them staring at her in shock. She waved to them while grinning. They bowed deeply to her and dashed into the main temple building.

Looking down at the ground, Katara grinned while shaking her head. Aang turned and jumped when he saw her sitting there. 

"Oh, sweetie. You scared me ” He walked over to her smiling and asked, "How long have you been here?"

With a flirtatious smile, Katara answered, "Long enough to see my husband being sexy." She sat up a little and adjusted her legs, rubbing her hands over the growing baby. Aang looked surprised but walked to her with a flirty grin.

“Oh is that so?” he asked.  

“Yes,” she replied with a nod.  

“Then I am glad you had fun.” He came and sat down next to her, kissing her on the forehead tenderly while placing his hand on her growing tummy. Katara closed her eyes in the bliss of the kiss. Aang pulled back and smiled at her expression. 

Katara opened her eyes as he brushed her hair away from her face and caressed her cheek softly with his finger.  

“You are amazing sweetie,” katara said softly looking deeply into his eyes. Making Aang smile wider. 

“Really. What is so amazing about me?” Aang asked turning his head to a side and taking her hand in his.  

“Everything.” katara replied. “Your eyes, nose, lips, face, and body.” katara added with a smile. She ran her hand down his face to his jaw and down to his abs. Making Aang chuckle. 

“You have no idea how amazing you are katara. Everything about you makes me crazy.” Aang replies bringing her hand closer to his lips. “You are so beautiful.”  

“You know what I love most about you sweetie,” Katara said as she places her hand on his bare chest.

“My abs?” Aang says quickly. Making katara laugh and slap his shoulder. 

“Well That too, but I was talking about your kind soul and pure heart,” she replied. Katara looked down at her growing belly. “I want our baby to be like you. A good human being.” Katara said caressing her abdomen. With Aang’s hand joining in, he bends down to place a kiss on her tummy.   

“And, I want our baby to be like you too sweetie. Amazing, strong, beautiful, kind, and passionate.” Aang replied to her, rubbing her belly.    

“I love you both, so much,” Aang said with a smile pulling her in for a kiss. 

”We love you too, sweetie,” katara said softly before pressing her lips to his.  

They both melted into the passionate kiss. Caressing the other with love. The kiss was an indication of how deep their love was for each other. Both their hands joined on top of their unborn child, a product of their love.

They broke the kiss. And smiled at each other. Aang brought her closer to him, his arms going around her, placing a kiss on her hairline. Katara leaned on his shoulder.  

“Aang?” katara said softly after a while.

“Yes, sweetie” Aang replied lovingly. Rubbing her arm.  

“I am hungry.” katara tells him making him laugh. She pulled back from the hug.  

“Okay then, let's get you both inside” Aang replied. Pulling her up with him. 

 “I really want to train with you again.” katara told him as they both walked towards the temple.  

“And you will soon,” Aang replied, giving her hand a gentle squeeze and kiss on her temple. 

“I am jealous of your six packs,” katara said pulling back, making Aang laugh loudly and pulling her towards him to kiss her head firmly.

“love you too sweetie.”   

[dreamsequencer]

The thing about Zuko was that he just didn't know when to quit.

Sokka felt like maybe someone had told him, a long time ago, to pick his battles, and Zuko had picked all of them.

It was like his fight or flight instinct didn't exist. It was just fight. All the time. Constantly. And it was on overdrive.

That was what was going through Sokka's head as he watched the scene unfolding in front of him.

Zuko was yelling at a general who was three, maybe four times his age. And he was pissed.

"I am telling you to withdraw all troops from the Earth Kingdom! I am telling you to do that and you are telling me no, is that right? Am I misinterpreting the situation or are you telling me no?"

"I am telling you no, that's right."

"Oh, really? Because the last time I checked, I'm the one in charge!"

"I am a Fire Nation general!"

"And I am the Fire Lord!"

"You are a child! Tell me, what does a child know of war?"

"WE ARE NO LONGER AT WAR!" Zuko roared - and yes, roared is exactly the word Sokka would choose - and the torches that lined the walls flared with his anger.

The general actually, physically took a step back, and he looked genuinely afraid. Sokka could hardly blame him.

Zuko had told Sokka a few days ago that he was working on controlling his anger.

Right now, it appeared as if any attempts to control his anger had gone right the fuck out the window.

"Fire Lord Zuko, I did not mean-"

"Oh, I know what you meant. I know very well what you meant," Zuko said in a low, almost growling voice, and somehow it was even more terrifying than him yelling. "You think I'm too young. That I don't know what I'm talking about. Is that right?" He didn't wait for the man to respond. "You think I know nothing of war, but in the past three years I've come to know war. I've gotten to know war on an incredibly intimate level. What is war to you?"

The man said nothing, as if waiting for Zuko's permission to speak.

"Go ahead. Answer me. What is war to you? I'm asking you a question. What do you think war is?"

"Well, war is... it's a conflict between two nations."

"Wrong."

"It's a series of battles."

"Wrong!"

"It's-"

"I'm gonna cut you off right there because whatever you're gonna say, it's wrong!" Zuko slammed his fist down on the table. "War is death. War is-"

"Well, yes, people die in every war, but that's just the price we-"

"Do not. Fucking. Interrupt me," Zuko growled. "This war? The one I'm trying to end? This war is the genocide of a people who couldn't fight back. This war is the decimation of one tribe and the forced isolation of another. It's imperialism. It's the erasure of entire cultures. It's a series of not battles, but massacres."

It was at this point that Sokka realized Zuko had the general cornered, had him backed up against the wall.

"This war has lasted for 100 years and now I'm saying that it's over. That we are no longer going to spread death and destruction across the world, because that is what we are doing. What do I know of war? I know a 12-year-old boy who's the last of his kind. I know a 14-year-old girl whose mother died to protect her. I know a girl who's far too good at fighting for her age. I know a little blind girl who nearly died trying to take down our airship fleet. And I know a boy who had to become the head of his family far too soon. Who had his childhood stolen from him when his father had to leave him to fight in our war. A boy my age. If I am too young to be Fire Lord, then he is certainly too young to be a soldier! Do not try to tell me what war is when you've only ever had a cushy, high-ranking position on the winning side! Don't try to tell me what war is until you've been on the front lines fighting what you know is a hopeless battle! Don't try to tell me what war is until you've seen what it's done to the children. You say I am only a child, and you're right. You say I'm too young to know anything of war? I am. I am too young! And that's the problem! Someone my age shouldn't have to experience war the way I have, so it ends here! Today! You are going to have all of our troops withdrawn from the Earth Kingdom, and from wherever the fuck else they might be, or I am going to have you thrown in a prison cell and let you rot."

The general nodded. "Yes, Fire Lord Zuko. It will be done."

"Good."

The general left, and Zuko sank into his chair, his energy spent. "I know you've been watching us, Sokka."

Sokka came out of his (admittedly terrible) hiding place behind a plant. "You alright?"

Zuko sighed. "That's the problem. I don't know how it feels to be alright. That's the true cost of this war. No one alive now has ever experienced peace."

-------------

A/N: okay so this was supposed to be a short, funny piece about Zuko losing his shit at a general but then it turned into a rant about the effects of war, so... yeah, sorry about that.

[hereforthezutarastuff]

hi, daintycabinet here again, not signed in tho cuz i'm lazy <3 thank you for the post, my single favorite moment ever is Katara melting at 'Zuko's' baby picture and I feel like it's not talked about enough so thank you again for that wholesome compilation. i did fumble my wording in the last ask tho, cause I was actually referring to a Top 5 Zuko Moments request OvO'

Ahh! Sorry this took a bit to answer, and thank you for sending! I’m a Katara stan first, so I needed time to collect moments outside of Zuko’s relationships to others (so no lightning catching or standing up to his father today) that really stood out to me. 😭 I had a feeling I misunderstood your original question, but let’s blame the confusing rules of the English language instead lol

1. Zuko is goal-oriented, determined, and a fighter

-This whole sequence gave me chills, and it says a lot about Zuko. He’s smart enough to follow seals into the Northern Water Tribe and dumb enough to yell at them to shut up. This moment is the climax, and we see him fighting odds, determined in the face of adversity, and really only thinking about his goal. Not his safety, not his escape plan, only capturing the avatar. You gotta admire that kind of bullheadedness tbh.

2. Zuko is dry, brave, and honorable

-I know. Out of all the moments from Zuko Alone, I pick this one? But yeah. This one. Zuko had no idea who that kid was but covered for him anyway. Not only that, he did it with a dry sense of humor and no fear of these soldiers that he turned his back to. He has seen worse than them. Though we saw him moments earlier close to collapsing from hunger and exhaustion, he took the brunt of their ire because he knew the kid didn’t deserve it.

3. Zuko is hotheaded, dramatic, and emotionally deep

-I love that post that’s like “Zuko does One Good Thing and falls into a coma.” I also love the analysis of this episode that delves into the cultural significance of Zuko’s illness. Really though, he didn’t need to throw that ladle or chuck the bucket, but he did. Because he has a temper. Aaand because he feels A Lot, likely as a result of trying to compartmentalize for so long. He has such a deep capacity to care about his own morals, ideology, and the world that it renders him catatonic. 

4. Zuko is honest, proud, and dynamic

-You know that temper I just talked about? Yeah, it’s still there but curbed after his life lessons trip. We see him almost flare up when his pride takes a hit after being teased, but he controls himself because he doesn’t want rage to be a motivator anymore. Anger is a protector—and I think anger would always play a role in his life as an indication of what is just—but Zuko is dynamic in that he changed how he would use his anger. His character arc is legendary, and here’s a small moment where we see the fruits of his labor. Side note, he cannot lie. In situations where lies are necessary or preferred, he often responds with a question. Anytime he tries to lie in a convincing way, Zuko fails miserably. I feel like he’s accepted that about himself as he admits he’s dancing with Aang.

5. Zuko is dutiful, loyal, and an idealist

-Iroh said it best. “An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor.” 

[firewoodfigs]

autumn air / a carnival fair / blurring with time like the heat of a glare / like a child's peace, so rare

summer rain / scabbing old pains / you cut through the night like dawn / and bled into a brand new day / that couldn't linger, and the world / is yelling --

pick a side / pick a tribe / if everything's easy as black and white / there'd be no need for lying eyes // but what is right? and what is wise? / if everything's easy as black and white / there'd be no need for lying eyes

(leaving all that aside / i think i might still choose you / every single time)

and i hope you forgive me / for cursing our lives / fools like me can't help but be / misled, blindsided by love

two faced as a coin / too fazed to be alone / after knowing a warm bed and another aching soul / a place to call home / that i turned over like stone / and did i pull the rug out from under your feet? / did i leave you alone crying on the street? / if so, please don't forgive me / for cursing our lives / men like me don't deserve your hand in mine

(and if you would have me back / i would take it all back / if i could) (no take-backs, it’s touch-move)

[ladylynse]

Dimensional Displacement [FFN | AO3]: Danny has a love-hate relationship with the Fenton Booo-merang. This time, it didn’t do him any favours. This time, it knocked him through a portal—and from what he can glean from the Water Tribe siblings he meets, odds are, there’s a reason for that.

-|-

For @geronimo-alonzi as a thank you for donating to my ko-fi. (Yes, they won my fic giveaway, but I finished this one first.) Loosely based on this three sentence fic.

-|-

Danny had been clobbered in the head by the Fenton Booo-merang more often than he’d like to admit, let alone count, but this was the first time it had knocked him through a portal.

That wouldn’t have been a particularly bad thing if the portal hadn’t immediately closed behind him.

One minute, he’d been minding his own business in the Ghost Zone, coming back from a visit with Frostbite that Jazz must have forgotten about if she’d sent the Booo-merang after him. (Sam was stuck with her parents at some fancy dinner party thing somewhere and Tucker was working on designing a computer game for his comp sci assignment, a class neither Sam nor Danny was in, so it had to have been Jazz.)

The next minute, Danny was…. He didn’t even know where he was. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He’d caught the Booo-merang before either he or it had hit the ground, but once he’d righted himself to look around, there was no familiar skyline or something equally useful to him. There were only trees and rocks and dirt roads as far as the eye could see, even from a considerable distance up in the air.

Well.

That wasn’t quite fair. He could see a silver river cutting through the trees in a path roughly parallel to the road, but in terms of helpful things, he was coming up empty.

He didn’t even know which direction he’d need to fly to get to a city. It was too light out to see any distant glow of city lights against the scattered clouds, and all he could smell when he breathed in was fresh air and pine needles and something else—moss? The general mix that was pretty much mulch on the forest floor?—that was decidedly natural, not the signs of human activity he’d been hoping for. Sure, following the road or even the river would get him somewhere sooner or later, but what was he supposed to do, pick a random direction or go eenie meenie minie moe?

Danny did another loop above the trees, looking for some sign of anything, and came up with nothing.

“Come on!” Danny yelled at the patch of blue sky where the portal had closed. He spun in a circle, the Booo-merang clutched tightly in his fist, but it didn’t pull in any direction, and he didn’t catch so much as a glimmer of the familiar green of the Ghost Zone. “Just open up again already!” It was as effective as he’d expected it to be, which was not at all, but screaming out his frustrations made him feel a bit better. “Now! Please?”

Unsurprisingly, the portal didn’t listen.

Out of appealing options, Danny threw the Booo-merang. Logically, he knew it wasn’t the Infi-Map. Logically, he knew that the universe did not often do what was convenient for him, even if he sometimes got incredibly lucky in a fight. Logically, he knew that the chances of the Booo-merang deciding to reprogram itself to find portals just because it had done it this one time (likely coincidentally) were slim to none.

Illogically, he didn’t expect the stupid thing to circle around and hit him in the back of the head again.

Danny cursed and landed to retrieve the fallen Booo-mang from the roadway, muttering under his breath about how much he’d like to just dismantle the thing and hide the pieces. He wouldn’t, of course. It worked too well to risk Sam, Tucker, and Jazz losing the ability to find him if they really needed to. It had been dicey enough the few times his parents had decided to try to ‘fix’ it, only for disaster (Vlad) to strike in the meantime.

That didn’t mean Danny couldn’t fantasize about bashing it against a rock, though. There were plenty of those around.

“That’s a weird looking boomerang,” someone said from behind him, and Danny nearly jumped into the air right there.

He didn’t, mostly because he was getting used to Sam and Tucker trying to surprise him, but it was a near thing.

He wasn’t used to people sneaking up on him. His ghost sense was reliable, Dash made more noise walking around than even Jack Fenton, and, well, most of the people who hunted him couldn’t be subtle if they tried, especially since a good chunk of them liked hearing their own voice. He’d only ever really had to worry about Jazz, and self-preservation in the face of tickle attacks had given him the ability to be extra sensitive to her presence whenever she was in a certain mood.

The two who’d caught him by surprise now must have come from the trees on the other side of the road, and he hoped that meant they hadn’t seen him do anything particularly ghostly. Granted, neither of them was screaming, so he should be safe. They didn’t look terrified, either. Wary, maybe, but not scared.

Danny guessed that they were both somewhere around his age. Siblings, by the looks of them, but probably not twins even if they’d both decided to leave the house wearing oddly styled blue clothes today, at least compared to the usual jeans and T-shirt combo Danny was used to seeing. Unless he wasn’t anywhere near the States anymore? Or unless he’d been flung through to a different time. But the boy had spoken English, and it hadn’t sounded funny to Danny’s ears, no lilt of a foreign accent or strange phrasing that he associated with Shakespeare or something.

The girl was his height, the boy a bit taller, and they were both staring at him.

They probably thought he was the one who was dressed strangely.

The boy pointed. “Your boomerang,” he repeated. “It looks weird.”

The girl elbowed him in the gut—none too gently, judging by his immediate wheeze—and hissed, “Sokka!”

Yeah, those two were definitely siblings. And even if the girl wasn’t older, she definitely had the annoying (and annoyed) sister tone down pat. Danny had heard (and been on the receiving end of) the same from similar exchanges with Jazz more than once.

“Sokka’s going to apologize, right, Sokka?”

The boy frowned and then threw up his hands. “Right. I apologize for saying your boomerang looks weird. It looks interesting.”

The girl stepped on his foot, and he yelped. “What was that for?”

“You know what that was for!”

“It’s fine,” Danny said. He still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Maybe the portal had dumped him out in the middle of some historical re-enactment thing. Granted, there should really be more people around if that were the case—or at least hidden cameras. He was better at spotting them now. Vlad and his creepy spy tendencies aside, Danny had gotten good at noticing (and avoiding) cameras so he didn’t let his secret get caught on tape. (There were a surprising number of places in Amity Park not under video surveillance, or at least not under real video surveillance even if they had fake cameras out; he could practically transform in the middle of the street sometimes.)

Still, nothing about this felt staged. It didn’t even feel like one of his enemy’s tricks, some giant setup that was meant to trap him or whatever. That’s not to say Danny was wholly convinced this meeting, whatever it was, was merely chance—he didn’t particularly trust Clockwork not to arrange things as he saw fit without warning anyone—but it didn’t feel overly contrived, either. There was just….

Something felt off, and he couldn’t explain what it was.

“It’s fine,” Danny repeated, since the two were looking at him dubiously, but the familiar phrase felt strange on his tongue, almost like—

Wait.

“Okay, this is going to sound like a weird question, but where are we?”

The boy, Sokka, blinked. “Did you hit your head or something? We’re in the Earth Kingdom. Or, wait, do you mean where in the Earth Kingdom? Look, if you need new supplies, there’s not much in the last few villages, but we’re about a day from—”

The girl elbowed him again, and he fell silent. Danny could see the growing suspicion on her face for what it was, could see suspicion settling on the boy’s face as well, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d asked the wrong question or because he’d asked something at all. He’d been paying attention this time, watching Sokka’s lips, and Danny didn’t have to be a good lip reader to know that he hadn’t been saying the words Danny had heard.

Well.

More accurately, he hadn’t been saying them in English.

And Danny, in answering, had somehow not been speaking English.

That was not, as far as Danny was aware, something Clockwork could do to him.

He didn’t know a ghost who had power over language, though, unless the Ghostwriter had something else up his sleeve and this mess was it. Nocturne would be able to pull anything in a dream, but Danny couldn’t see why he’d bother including something that would be an obvious tell like this, so it shouldn’t be him even if he had decided to come back. More likely, it was someone he hadn’t fought before, someone who had targeted him, seen an opportunity when the Booo-merang had hit him and seized upon it to throw him…here.

Wherever here was.

The Earth Kingdom, apparently.

“Um.” The girl still looked like she expected him to start fighting, and her stance…. Danny didn’t recognize it, but he did know that she looked ready to move at any moment. Her brother had taken her cue and, while Danny hadn’t been paying attention, pulled out a boomerang of his own. That couldn’t be good. “Look. I know how this sounds.” How he sounded, more like. If he had some accent he couldn’t hear because he wasn’t speaking their language properly, whatever it was, this had to be a setup after all.

Someone had sent him here to be dealt with. By this world, this dimension or construct or whatever it was, if not necessarily by these two people.

Granted, Danny wasn’t sure why someone would go to the trouble of letting him understand and be understood in the first place if that were the case, since he could get in just as much trouble without speaking the native language.

Surely he wasn’t actually supposed to help someone here, right? This wasn’t even his world. Or the Ghost Zone. Whatever was going on here was most definitely not his business.

Except now he was in the middle of it, so if there was something going on, it would be beneficial to find out what it was sooner rather than later.

This wasn’t some Jumanji kind of thing where he’d been tossed into a game and had to do whatever it was to get out again, was it? It didn’t feel like the time he’d gone into Doomed, but that had been intentional, and this….

Okay, no, he didn’t have enough information to speculate, which meant he needed to get some information out of these two in order to get somewhere. “I just…. I was kidnapped and dumped here for some reason, and I’m trying to find my way home.” That was close enough to the truth that it shouldn’t raise any red flags. Hopefully. “My name is Danny.” Introducing himself as Phantom, even in ghost mode, wasn’t something he wanted to do when he had no idea how these people felt about ghosts. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d ever see him as Fenton. He just needed to stick to the ground and pretend to be a normal human being, which he could most definitely do—at least when the sun was bright enough that his slight glow was basically nonexistent. He doubted it would be terribly noticeable even under the cover of trees.

“Danny,” the girl repeated, not relaxing her stance. “That’s an unusual name.”

Sokka just cocked his head at Danny. “Why would anyone kidnap you?”

It was spoken like it was an innocent, thoughtless question, something that could be brushed away with a laugh, but Danny could read an underlying tension in each of their faces. Sokka was waiting on his answer, and so was his sister. Danny’s response might very well determine what happened next.

Consequently, Danny didn’t miss the fact that Sokka didn’t offer up any potential explanations that he could jump on.

Another lie wasn’t going to do him any favours, not when he knew so little. “I don’t know.” He could guess, but he didn’t know. From the looks of it, though, these two wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Chances were good they wouldn’t be particularly satisfied with his suspicions, either, which was that someone wanted him out of the way for whatever they were planning—or maybe that someone had decided they wanted to have a little fun with him at his expense, if world domination wasn’t on the table. “My parents are inventors. Maybe that’s why?”

“That doesn’t explain why whoever took you would leave you here,” Sokka pointed out, and Danny wished these two weren’t so smart. “If you were taken because you were valuable, you wouldn’t have been left behind unguarded.”

“So maybe they kidnapped the wrong person and realized that I wasn’t who they wanted?”

Sokka exchanged glances with his sister before murmuring, “We can ask Toph. I mean, it’s possible they found us, but if he is really a Fire Nation plant picked solely for his eye colour, they’d have at least dyed his hair and given him some normal clothes.”

Danny decided not to ask who the heck picked people for something based on eye colour and not skill or merit or experience or something normal like that. Aside from derailing the conversation from anything potentially useful, Danny was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t realized he’d been overheard, and it wouldn’t be in Danny’s best interests to let them know how good his hearing was.

Still, he took the opportunity to tuck away the Booo-merang before they could ask any questions about it that he wasn’t up to answering. Maybe it would make him seem like less of a threat if they didn’t think he was ready to use it as a weapon—not that he knew how to use a boomerang as a weapon, but he was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t pulled his out to see which of them could throw it farther or throw it properly—and maybe then they’d trust him enough to answer his questions. Hopefully. He was perfectly willing to meet this Toph if it meant figuring out where he was and how to get home, especially since it would be easy enough for him to cut and run later.

The movement was enough to draw the attention of the siblings, though, and both pairs of eyebrows rose. Had they not expected him to make what he hoped would be taken as a gesture of trust or were they wondering how the heck he’d gotten it into his pocket? Maybe they thought he was trying to hide it, which wouldn’t help matters at all. Then again, if they thought that he thought it had been a subtle move, then maybe—

No.

He had to stop doing this. He didn’t know enough about these two to try to guess their thoughts, let alone what actions they might take against him.

Danny shifted on his feet, glad they hadn’t jumped to attacking and that they weren’t even asking questions about the Booo-merang, since practically anything about it would be difficult to answer. At least they hadn’t seen him flying. Even for people familiar with ghosts, unknown ones tended to be cause for concern until their threat level was assessed, and Danny didn’t want to invite trouble and immediately find out what this world had that messed with ghosts. Sure, he wanted to know what could hurt him here, but finding out while it wasn’t actively being used against him was infinitely preferable.

“Where did you say you were from?” the girl asked after a beat, even though they all knew he’d never said anything about that.

“Nowhere you would know,” he hedged, which was true enough.

“We travel a lot,” the girl said, and her brother snorted.

“What Katara means is, try us. If we can help you get back to your family, what do you have to lose?” Sokka offered Danny a grin, and his stance had visibly relaxed, even if he hadn’t put his boomerang away. It might be just for show, especially since he still had a weapon out, but at least the girl hadn’t drawn any knives or something like that. “Look, from one guy to another, you don’t need to make up some crazy story if you’re a runaway or something like that. We’re basically runaways.”

“We’re running towards something, not away from it.”

“We were almost runaways.” To Danny, Sokka added, “Gran caught us, but she let us go.”

Katara rolled her eyes, and Danny looked between the two of them as Sokka continued talking. It was obvious that they’d changed tack for some reason, no doubt trying to get him to trust them, but the blatant switch made him uneasy. Did they not realize how obvious that was or was this just their usual dynamic?

“I’m from Amity,” Danny eventually interrupted. He knew from the way that they were looking at him that neither of them had forgotten he had yet to answer the question. He’d already told them they wouldn’t know the place, so technically he could’ve said Amity Park, but for all he knew, these two had been sent to get information out of him, and the less he told a potential enemy, the better.

Come to think of it, maybe he shouldn’t have told them his real name, and maybe he should’ve just made up a village name rather than dropping heavy hints about his hometown.

“Which is near—?”

Danny ignored Sokka’s prompt. He didn’t even have a good enough idea of the geography of this place to make that up, especially when there was a chance they knew the area, runaways or no. “Do you know where I could get some water? I haven’t found any since I woke up.” That wasn’t true, but they wouldn’t know that unless they were getting some more intel about him from someone unseen.

The siblings looked at each other again, and then Katara faced him and said, “We’re headed to the river. Come with us. You can get your water, and we can share our catch if we get anything.”

“Wait, I didn’t agree to share my meat!” Sokka exclaimed. Katara’s only answer was a dirty look, but it was enough to have Sokka subsiding into grumbles.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Danny said, which also strictly wasn’t true, but he knew he didn’t need to eat much.

“You might be hungry by the time we’re finished,” Katara said over Sokka’s griping.

Danny hesitated, trying to figure out how weird it would be if he made up some excuse not to go with them. What were the chances that this was a trap when he’d brought up the river—or at least water—before they had? It wasn’t that he thought they’d be able to take him out if it came to that, even if Jazz had more experience fighting normally than he did, since he typically relied a lot on his powers when he could.

These two might be better fighters than him—there were almost certainly better hunters, given how silently they could walk—but he’d always have something like intangibility in his back pocket if it came to it, and they wouldn’t. Still, when it came down to it, he wasn’t used to fighting humans. What if he didn’t pull his punches enough and seriously hurt one of them?

“You can tell us about Amity,” Katara added. “We’ve never been there.”

Danny really hoped that was true and that there wasn’t a place in this world called Amity that they knew well. Still, when they started walking, spreading out so he was always in sight and they never had their backs to him, even when they hit the trees on the other side of the road, he kept pace with them. “It’s pretty much like you’d expect.” Except for the ghosts. At least his ghost sense hadn’t gone off here. Yet. “This is probably the farthest I’ve ever travelled from home.” He couldn’t get much farther away than a completely different dimension that (probably) wasn’t as connected to his world as it was to the Ghost Zone, anyway—unless he counted when he’d time travelled, but he wasn’t about to bring that up.

Katara opened her mouth to ask another question, maybe to press him for details, so Danny cut her off. “What about you two?”

They looked at each other again. How many times were they going to do that? Hadn’t they already decided how far to trust him? Danny knew it wasn’t very far, but they’d clearly decided he wasn’t going to straight up attack them at this precise moment, so even if they didn’t tell him the whole truth—

Sokka gestured at their clothes. “We’re Water Tribe.”

He said it like it was obvious, like Danny should’ve known already, but of course it explained absolutely nothing.

“Southern Water Tribe,” Katara added unhelpfully, despite Sokka’s frown. “We wanted to see the world, and now we are.”

As cover stories went, it was better than Danny’s. Barely. “Right,” he said, wondering again why he’d been dumped in the path of these two. “It’s a nice world to see.”

Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say, because they were both looking at him like they’d expected him to say anything but that. “What?”

“There’s a war on, you’re supposedly kidnapped and dropped off somewhere in occupied territory without any of the proper paperwork, and the best you can come up with is it’s a nice world to see?” Sokka turned his incredulous look from Danny to Katara. “He cannot be Fire Nation. This kid is more sheltered than Toph was supposed to be.”

Danny, who had stumbled at the word war, kept walking and hoped they hadn’t noticed. If they had, maybe they’d think he’d tripped over a tree root or fallen branch or hole or something. They weren’t following a trail, so that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, right?

“It’s all right,” Katara said as she reached out to touch his arm, and, okay, from that gentle tone, which was a complete change from anything earlier, it must mean she had noticed, knew he hadn’t tripped over anything in the terrain, and—from how she was looking at him now—thought it wasn’t surprise that had tripped Danny up, either. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to be a little naïve until you have a chance to leave home for the first time, but unless you’re got a camp around here, you’re not prepared at all.”

Sokka finally put his boomerang away and smirked at Danny. “We at least left home with supplies.”

��Did you have to run without any warning?” Katara asked, giving her brother a pointed look.

“Oh, uh, kinda.” Danny winced, knowing that had to sound like a lie. “I…I didn’t really plan on leaving when I did. This just…happened.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow, but Katara said, “You don’t have to worry. We’re the last people who would turn you in to the Fire Nation.”

Right. So the Fire Nation were the bad guys, at least according to the Water Tribe and, if he was putting things together correctly, the Earth Kingdom, where they were. Meaning the Fire Nation had invaded the Earth Kingdom if this was occupied territory. Danny thought about asking why these two had come into occupied territory themselves and then decided he didn’t want to risk getting into a discussion that would show off how little he knew. If they had decided he was a runaway who knew practically nothing about the world, well, that worked in his favour.

“Thanks.” Danny wasn’t sure what else to say. “Why are you helping me, though? Won’t that put you in danger?” That had to be a fair question in this situation.

“We can’t help everyone,” Katara said quietly, “but we can help some people, even if it’s just a tiny bit. Sometimes, that has to be enough.”

Danny really didn’t know what to say to that, because she certainly wouldn’t understand if he said he knew the feeling, so he smiled weakly in thanks and let the conversation drop.

They were still watching him, but they were more subtle about it now, and it didn’t look like they were watching him more closely than they were watching everything else.

Being downgraded from a threat was a win, though. Danny hoped he didn’t do anything to mess it up.

“There’s no shame in being a refugee,” Sokka said after a moment. “Being from a richer family might’ve bought you an isolated childhood, but it wouldn’t guarantee your safety.”

“We won’t try to hold you for ransom if you tell us where you’re really from,” added Katara.

Danny glanced at her. “I said I was from Amity.”

“I could say I have a platypus bear as a pet,” Sokka interjected. “That doesn’t make it true.”

“We know what it’s like, thinking you understand the way things are and then realizing how little you know,” Katara said quietly. “It can be overwhelming.”

“And it would explain why you’re in your nightclothes,” Sokka said. He’d come in range of Katara’s fist, but he danced out of the way as she swung in his direction. He hadn’t even needed to look at her to know it was coming. “You didn’t know enough to keep your valuables hidden and got robbed your first night on your own, didn’t you?”

“I—” Danny knew it was an excuse for his ignorance being handed to him on a silver platter, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up with a lie like that when he knew so little. “These aren’t my pajamas,” he said instead. Let them believe what they wanted to believe; that would make his life easier. Even if it blew up in his face somehow, he could truthfully say he’d never said they were right.

They might be suspicious that he hadn’t outright denied it, but then again, he’d already told them something a lot closer to the truth.

“Uh huh.” Sokka glanced at Katara again, and she gave a slight shake her head that Danny didn’t understand.

“Let’s get you some food and water first,” Katara said. “Then we can see about finding you other supplies.”

Danny decided not to point out that they’d already told him it was slim pickings for supplies around here. Not that he had the money to pay for anything, but Sokka had already guessed that. Besides, they thought he was running around in his pjs.

Judging by the sour look on Sokka’s face, he’d evidently translated his sister’s words to mean that she wanted to give him some of their supplies, something Sokka clearly wasn’t sure he approved of.

Katara must have had similar thoughts on Sokka’s expression, since she murmured, “It’s this or bring him with us, and you know what’s safer.”

Katara might not have minded that Danny could overhear her last words, but Sokka closed the distance between them, pulling his sister farther away from Danny before hissing, “It’s not the only option, and you know it. We can’t afford to give away any of our supplies, and just because Toph can make sure he’s not coming in with the intention of stabbing us in the back, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t blab to anyone once he figures out who we’re travelling with. You know as well as I do that that wouldn’t take very long.”

“He’s just kid.”

“Technically, like Aang keeps reminding us, we’re just kids. Who very much cannot afford to so much as drop him off in the next village. Show him the river and teach him how to catch and cook his meals? Fine. Picking him up as a stray when he’s not bringing anything to the table? Not fine.”

“He’s lost.”

“So? He’s not hurt. He’s already in a better position than some refugees. He’ll survive until he can walk to the nearest settlement. Then he can try to get help from people who can actually give it.”

Katara bit her lip and slowed to a stop. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

Danny very much wanted to know the answer to that—what had Katara figured out?—but he tried not to react so they didn’t know he’d been listening in. He deliberately turned away and stared around the trees instead, a mix of deciduous and evergreen. He couldn’t pick out any specific types of trees—nothing distinctive like oak leaves that he could see—and, as far as he could tell, the woods were utterly devoid of critters. He had no idea if that was because this world wasn’t real or if it was simply because all the animals in the region had had warning of their coming and hidden accordingly.

Danny knew his disinterest wouldn’t be very convincing, but if he was lucky, they’d think he’d given up on trying to eavesdrop.

“There’s something…off about him. Not necessarily something wrong, but something different. I can’t…. When he asked about water, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t hiding any on him or nearby in case it was a trap, and— He didn’t feel the same as you or me. I can’t explain it. Toph might have a better idea than I do. Or…or Aang.” The last word was a barely audible whisper.

“You think this might be a spirit thing?” Sokka’s response was closer to a suppressed shriek than anything else, and Danny winced.

“I think he might be spirit touched,” Katara answered, and Sokka’s sharp inhalation was painfully audible. “I wasn’t good enough back then to notice anything about Yue, but—”

“Fine.” Sokka’s voice had gone flat. “I don’t want to shun someone and accidentally anger the spirits. I’ll teach him to fish. You go back and interrupt advanced earthbending practice and pick a meeting place, but make sure everyone’s packed in case this doesn’t go the way you think it’ll go.”

“I know to be careful.”

“We all know to be careful. Some of us just need more reminding than others.”

Katara didn’t say anything else, but she must have nodded or done something similar because Danny heard Sokka stalk back over to him. “Katara’s going back to talk to the rest of our group about what we might be able to spare,” he said as Danny turned back to face him, “and I’ll show you how to fish in the meantime. If you don’t catch anything, I’ll give you one of mine.”

Danny wasn’t about to admit that he’d overheard their entire conversation, so he smiled and said, “That sounds great, thanks.” It didn’t stop the uneasiness from settling in his gut, though. Sure, now he knew these people believed in ghosts, and Sokka’s response made it clear he didn’t want to get on their bad side, but Danny had no idea what being spirit touched meant. He didn’t know if that was seen as a good thing or a bad thing.

More to the point, if it was a bad thing, he didn’t know if these people had something suitable with which to attack spirit touched people, since if they did, chances were good that it would work on him.

He was not lucky enough to get a free pass here.

Still, the odds were good that he’d be able to escape if they did attack since he’d know to be on watch for something, and he wasn’t about to turn down an offer of food. He had no idea when a portal would open and he’d be able to go home. Until then, the best he could do was survive.

He’d survived this much, and his life had hardly been a walk in the park since the accident, let alone before. He wasn’t about to let some ghost fling him into an unknown world and succeed in taking him down. He needed to get out of this to kick their butt and prove to them that they couldn’t get rid of him that easily.

Assuming this wasn’t all a series of genuine coincidences and not the result of the careful manipulation of events.

Danny didn’t want to think about that, though.

He had a much better chance of getting home if there was someone he could beat, and he was going to get home.

Somehow.

(see more fics)

[fire-lady-ilah]

More good dad! Ozai AU? Even if you didn’t ask for it, you’re getting it and I’m picking up right where I left off. This is my reminder that, while Ozai is a good and non-abusive dad and husband in this, he is still very much an imperialist and a cruel person in general.

Parts [1] and [2] if you’d like. This is part 3. Here’s part [4]

The siblings venture into the capital, although they make it known that no one should inform their parents that they are nearby. The moment they step off the ship, Captain Jee sends a letter to the Fire Lady. He was loyal to the Prince and Princess above all, but he did not feel like being executed or exiled that day when Lady Ursa inevitably finds out.

In a large house just outside Caldera City, Lord Ukano lives with his wife, Michi, his daughter and heir, Mai, and his newborn son Tom-Tom. The Dragon Emperor and the Blue Spirit sneak into the bedroom of the heiress and steal her away.

In that I mean, Mai leaps at the opportunity to escape her home with her best friends, who she’s seen wearing the same theatre masks dozens of times, and follows willingly. It takes an hour longer than the siblings had expected, if only because Mai has far more knives than they had truly expected and they get caught up in the palace kitchens stealing Azula’s favourite mochi and some bags of fire flakes.

Then they are caught by Fire Lady Ursa, who is gathering a late night cup of cocoa after a nice night with her husband, not that her children need to know that part. Her children, who are wearing her theatre masks that had very recently gone missing from her collection, stare at her innocently. Her daughter carries two entire boxes she knows are full of mochi. Her son carries the fire flake bag they use for festivals. Her one day daughter-in-law is making a cup of cocoa and the Fire Lady calmly requests one for herself from the girl.

That night, the fire Prince and Princess sleep in their own rooms, with Lady Mai in one of the many available. In the morning, they take breakfast with the Fire Lord and Lady, discussing trivial matters of politics and domestic affairs.

Mai leaves on the request of the Fire Lord, bringing everything they took from her home and the palace (along with what Ursa and Ozai insisted they take) to the ship with the help of some soldiers.

Azula and Zuko sit with their parents. Ursa gives them each two potent bottles of poison. Ozai’s voice has a worry that only his family knows how to detect through the facade of boredom as he inquires how their firebending and blades practice has been, as to the state of their weaponry. They try to soothe their parents worries with assurances: their practice has been going well in both bending and blades, Azula has achieved perfection in lightningbending and Zuko has achieved lightning, their blades are sharp and well maintained, they weren’t harmed when the temple blew up—

It slips through Zuko’s lips. He was never the actor like his mother and sister. For their part, his parents do not react overly beyond a flickering of the flame and a long sip of tea.

“Your mission has changed.”

Ozai is smart. Everything he does is to serve his goals the best they can. In canon, the premier of those goals is to gain more power for himself. In this world, that goal is to secure the ideal outcome for his family. (Of course, his second goal is as much power as possible. But it is only considered after his first goal).

Allying themselves with the Avatar, at least in appearances, will secure the best outcome for his children. And he has no doubt that his brother (so weak after the death of his son. And yet, Ozai cannot find it within him to scorn him overly. He knows that were he to be left childless, he would break. It is merely that Ozai would break in an explosion, whereas Iroh’s flame fizzled into embers.) would eagerly help his children betray him. Even if it was just in appearances.

His children are loyal and dutiful. They protest, but only out of a desire to maintain that loyalty. He wishes the Avatar had remained hidden, at least until they were both adults. They are prodigal, yes, but they are just siblings.

“You have our permission to reveal your mother’s ancestry. Use it wisely.”

The children know their lineage for at least five generations on each side. That, of course, is in addition to their knowledge of every Fire Lord that has reigned since the unification of the Fire Nation. They are well aware that their Grandmother Rina (who feeds them chocolate and tells them stories whenever she visits) ‘s father was Avatar Roku. Just as they knew of the friendship between Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku.

It is necessary for the people of their nation to hear pretty lies. It is not their responsibility to worry about the nuance and complexity of life. It is one of their responsibilities as Angi’s heirs in the mortal world. To worry of such things is a burden they should not have to bear. It is necessary for the people to believe the Avatar hated the Fire Lord.

The siblings don’t know everything, of course. They are just children after all. But they understand the nuance, the conflicting beliefs. They were told the truth (and carefully kept from necessary propaganda before then) when they were old enough to look critically at the situation. It was their duty to bring the Fire Nation’s good to the other nations, to liberate their populations, the siblings decided.

The Avatar is just a child, but he seemed able to connect with his past lives. And he had pointedly not hurt them, at least as Avatar Roku.

If nothing else, they have the Dragon Emperor and Blue Spirit on their side.

“Zhao has asked for permission to launch an invasion on the Northern Water Tribe. He is a fool, but he claims he has knowledge that will ensure his victory. Tomorrow, I will send him a letter approving his asinine idea. You will stop him— kill him, if you must— and use that act of perceived treason to ally yourselves with the Avatar.”

Ozai wants power, but he is no fool. The invasion is risky at best. He cannot find it within himself to care for the tens of thousands that would doubtlessly die in it, the Northern Water Tribe had the advantage in multiple ways. It would serve its purpose to get his children at the Avatar’s side.

The tone lightens after his orders and Ozai steps back from his role as Father Lord into just being a father. He teases his son on his interactions with his betrothed. He teases his daughter and asks if she would be visiting the circus soon, taking note of how she had learned to prevent a blush but not the squeak in her voice. They are not infallible, they are children.

As they see their children for the last time in the foreseeable future, the Fire Lord and Lady both think as to how much they will miss them. Ursa blinks back tears as she hugs them both, smiling as they react identically, burying their faces into her chest to hide them and breathing in the scent of fire lily perfume.

Ozai is not usually physically affectionate with his children. He had never received it from his father and was much more competent in other ways. That being said, no one commented on the kiss he pressed to the top of Zuko’s head (still shorter than him by quite a bit. Sometimes he acted so adult, but he was so clearly still a child) before repeating the action with Azula.

“I am so proud of you. Both of you.”

I’m just now realizing Blue Spirit is supposed to be after the whole Roku thing. Oh well.

For appearances’ sake, the siblings and Mai continue to chase the Avatar. Zhao attacks the Avatar while he trains under the Deserter. Princess Azula ensures the forest doesn’t burn while Prince Zuko uses all the bottled up anger at both Zhao himself and Azulon (really, what is with grown men trying to kill 11/12 year olds?) to yell at Zhao for acting so recklessly.

And if, perhaps, he manages to endear himself to others by knocking Zhao’s feet out from under him, all the better.

The Avatar and his friends escape and the siblings celebrate another success as Zhao nurses his bruised ass and ego.

(“Hey, did the Deserter look like that dude in Master Piandao’s painting in his main hall to you?”

“Admiral Jeong Jeong and Master Piandao were married, Zuko. Obviously that was him.”)

Zhao attempts to order their crew away from them, citing his rank as admiral as above prince and princess.

Azula’s sharp tongue reminds Admiral Zhao that Zuko is not only a prince, but the Crown Prince, and thus he is equal in rank to Zhao. As was their uncle a general, retired or not.

Behind the royalty of the ship stands Captain Jee, his eyes locked with Zhao’s. His eyes promise mutiny even if he were to somehow take them. His eyes swear loyalty to the Crown Prince, to his sister, above all else.

Zhao turns to leave.

“Of course, that is not to say we will not join your invasion.” Zuko sounds like his father sometimes, and never more than when his voice holds a hint of smug satisfaction. “Merely, do not presume to think you can order us in any way. We out rank you, and our crew is the best our Nation has to offer.”

Their ship joins, at least in appearance, Zhao’s fleet. That being said, they obey no orders from the Admiral and only allow his “inspections” of the ship and their crew once. For all intents and purposes, they are just there to observe.

And observe they do. The siblings watch the way Zhao treats his subordinates and twin righteous flames burns in their chests. The truth of being raised by a loving father means that Zuko and Azula are both rather sheltered in comparison to their canon selves. They are raised on ideals of honour and the divine responsibility of a monarch, rather than on the truths of war and practicality of rule. It only results in a hotter fire and more questions as to if Sozin’s way was truly the one to follow.

They still have absolute faith in their father. After all, he is the one that raised them, that taught them of honour and the ideals of a monarch. He is the one that sheltered them. He is the one that suggested they befriend the Avatar to keep them safe.

On the ship, only three people know the entire plan. The first two are the siblings, of course. The third is Captain Jee. He is the one that will keep their ship away from the invasion itself so there is no risk of their crew being harmed in the doomed attack. He is the one that will direct the ship to the colonies once the siblings are with the Avatar. Captain Jee has no qualms about technically commuting treason.

Mai knows some of the plan. In that, Mai knows exactly what Zuko and Azula tell her and then what she observes. She sees the way they stick together, now more than ever. Sees the way that Azula trains her non-lethal lightning (because even she, a nonbender, knows it’s far harder to bend lightning that doesn’t kill than that that does). She hears the way they drop the title of Fire Lord when speaking of their royal great grandfather. She catches whispers about Fire Lord Roku. About the Avatar.

Mai, in a way, knows more than the siblings themselves. She knows that they are genuinely sympathetic toward the Avatar in a way that they don’t yet realize. She begins to keep all her knives on her person, along with an easily grab-able bag for travelling in her room. There was no way she’d be letting her best friends turn traitor without her. This is the most exciting thing she’s done in years.

Iroh knows less than he believes. Oh, he gets the dropped title just as well as Mai, but he does not know the intricacies of Zuko and Azula the way Mai does. He sees Azula’s practice and writes it off as her ever-present search for perfection. He catches the tail end of a conversation between siblings and does not stop to consider who exactly “great grandfather” may be referring to. It would be unthinkable for his brother to tell the children of their heritage.

Despite this, Iroh also knows more than most. He knows from conversation exactly what Zhao intends to do in the Northern Water Tribe and it turns his blood to boil.

They reach the Northern Water Tribe. The siblings sneak off the ship in an emergency boat. Mai enters at the last moment and neither send her away.

Iroh has already left the ship, though he is currently in one last meeting with Zhao in an attempt to convince him not to continue with his plan. He will not check back with his niece and nephew, believing them to be safe on the ship.

In the Northern Water Tribe, the three Fire Nation teens remain tucked into the shadows. They, unfortunately, have no idea where the Avatar is and wander through the city. However, they reach the Avatar’s friends before Zhao does.

(“Is he... alive?”

“He’s just meditating.”)

It goes far better than they could have expected. The siblings’ act of releasing Sokka and Katara from Zhao’s bindings results in a part of water tribe siblings being quite willing to hear them out. Princess Yue gives them an odd look but remains quiet.

Zhao shows up. Iroh shows up. Azula and Zuko denounce him (though they cannot bring themselves to denounce their father, even though they know they should). Zhao declares them all traitors, a koi fish in a bag in his hand.

A bolt of lightning hits Zhao straight in the back. Both he and the koi fish fall into the pool of water. He does not emerge.

Azula’s face is carefully blank, even as she watches the water. She cannot stop to consider whether it is her or the water that just killed the admiral, or if he was even dead at all. She could not even see his body in its depths. She used non-lethal strength.

Despite Princess Yue’s backing, the Northern Water Tribe wants to take the siblings prisoner (hostage, everyone knows). After all, everyone knows of the devotion they show to the Fire Lord and vice versa. If nothing else, they would be excellent bargaining pieces in a more formal treaty.

They had not factored this into their plan. Admittedly, they had not factored the Northern Water Tribe into their plan at all.

The three Fire Nation teens are thrown into a prison cell. A rather comfortable prison cell, but still a prison cell. Iroh is taken somewhere else.

Within five hours, they sit on the back of a flying bison, Sokka handing them food he had smuggled out of the meal as Katara was smuggling them out of prison.

(“We tried to get your Uncle too,” the Avatar says in a remorseful tone, “but we couldn’t find him.”

“Uncle will be fine.” Azula declares, her mind set only on the future as she tries not to think about the way Zhao sunk beneath the still surface of the pond.

Zuko nods in agreement and clutches her hand in a comforting way.)

The Gaang now consists of six people:

Aang, a twelve year old Avatar with a mastery in air and a decent proficiency in water. He looks at the Fire Nation teens and sees his friend Kuzon, sees a time from before the war when an Air Nomad could wander freely through the Fire Nation. He attempts to use Fire Nation slang with them but it’s a century old and results in only laughter.

Katara, a master waterbender and healer (a concept that intrigues Azula to no end, although she tries to keep her questions polite). She tends to have a short temper when it comes to matters of the Fire Nation, but even she can be coaxed into trying a few sweets that Zuko has stored in his bag.

Sokka, a hunter and warrior who may or may not be engaged to the NWT princess (Zuko says he is, Azula says he isn’t). Azula laments that her jokes are even worse than Zuko’s, to which Mai agrees. It is that comment that leads Sokka and Zuko to start bonding, having nothing better to do on the bison’s back than exchange bad jokes.

Crown Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, who Sokka would insist is walking Fire Nation propaganda as he goes on at least one rant about Fire Nation culture and technology a day. Who surprisingly helps Katara with the cooking because it was one of the things Fire Lady Ursa carried over from before she was Fire Lady and taught to her children.

Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, who has a sharp tongue and a sharper pair of twin daggers that she seems to enjoy threatening her brother with for any inconvenience, even though they both just laugh at it. (Katara and Sokka have to be assured by them both that they truly love each other and that threatening each other with weapons carried over from the theatre scrolls they used to act out as children).

Lady Mai talks the least, seemingly content just to talk to Zuko and Azula. Aang makes it his mission to get her to warm up to him and spends a good portion of his time trying to talk to her. He succeeds when he brings up air ball, of all things. Mai’s parents had discouraged her from sport, believing it to be unfitting of a young lady just as they had discouraged her interest in knives until Zuko and Azula had ganged up on them. Partially for that reason, Mai enjoyed sports quite a bit, a shock to even Zuko (though Azula knew). After that, she talks mainly to Zuko, Azula, and Aang.

Captain Jee guides his ship to the Fire Nation colonies, unable to confirm that his Prince and Princess were okay. He hadn’t expected the worry he feels now, but he knows he will be awaiting a letter at Yu Dao if they are safe.

Prince Iroh is startled to discover that, while meeting with Master Pakku, the Avatar, his friends, his nephew and niece, and Mai had all disappeared.

As had his ship.

[maddiwrites]

Secrets of the Shore (Chapter 1)

Pairing: Pogues x reader, eventually JJ x reader.

Summary: This is just my rewrite of the show Outer Banks with my own twist by adding another main character which also happens to be John B’s twin sister. 

Note: Hey guys! Thank you so much for the support of my last couple of fics. All your messages have been so kind and so sweet! I’ve made a rewrite of the show with a new character that eventually falls in love with her best friend. I’m gonna be posting a new chapter three times a week. Let me know what you guys think!

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: None

Chapter 2 

"That's what, a three-story fall to the deck?" John B tip toes across the middle of the roof as he sips out of the can of beer in his hand.

I lean to my right, pressing against JJ's shoulder as we sit on a construction slack used to hold construction workers as they work on the siding of the home. Scaffolding, I think it's called. I narrow my eyes at my brother, counting down the seconds until he falls.

"I give you about a one-in-three chance of survival," Pope jokes from the deck below us.

John B shrugs. He licks his finger and holds it up in the air as if he's feeling which way the wind is blowing. "Hm. Should I do it?"

"Yeah, jump." Pope holds up a power drill and points it at John B like it's a gun. "I'll shoot you on the way down."

"You'll shoot me?"

"Yep." Pope closes one eye and pretends to shoot it. "Pow!"

I roll my eyes and look forward again, letting the beer slip down my throat like a refreshing glass of water. The warm North Carolina air presses soothingly against my freshly tan skin and I bask in the sunlight. Its days like these that I like the most. Days where none of my best friends have work, we're drinking causally, and joking with one another. Even if it's on a construction site in the middle of Figure Eight. But the idea of getting caught just gives me an adrenaline rush.

"They're gonna have Japanese toilets with towel warmers," Kie says as she walks out of the unfinished house.

"Of course. Why wouldn't they?" JJ says next to me with a shrug like it's not the craziest thing that a Kook would own.

"This used to be a turtle habitat, but who cares about the turtles, I guess."

"I can't have cold towels."

Kie looks up at John B, shielding her eyes with the back of her hand. "Can you please not kill yourself?"

"Don't spill the beer. I'm not giving you another one," JJ says.

As if on cue, John B's foot slips. Luckily he catches himself, but his beer, however, drops to it's death on the deck below. As John B steadies himself I release the breath I didn't even know I was holding. I take another greedy gulp of my warm beer to steady the nerves in my chest.

"Whoa! Oh, shit," John B curses.

"Of course you did," JJ rolls his eyes playfully. "Smooth."

"A plus, really." I glare up at my brother, feeling his mischievous smirk right back at me.

"Dumbass," Kie mutters under her breath. She looks up at me as if waiting for me to say something, but I only giggle to myself. John B can be clumsy but he's not going to accidentally kill himself.

"Hey!" I hear another voice shout behind us towards the street and front of the house. A voice that doesn't belong to any of my friends or my brother.

"Hey, uh, security's here," Pope says.

Immediately knowing what that means, I jump to my feet with the help of JJ right after he slugs the rest of his beer. A delirious grin dances along my lips as I hop down to the main deck.

"Let's wrap it up!"

"Boys are early today."

"Humpty Dumpty, let's roll!"

My legs take off after my friends through the house. Adrenaline rushes through my veins and straight to my head like a power high. I can't even feel my legs as they jump over wooden slacks and construction tools. The high from running from the police is better than any drug JJ can get his hands on, even the good stuff.

"Gary is that you?" JJ plays along before accidentally running into him, making him slip on his feet before running the other way. I grab his wrist and pull him closer to me to catch up. "Gary, good to see you man!"

I laugh as my feet land on the freshly cut grass in the front yard. "You're asking for it."

"JJ!" The obese cop chases after us, recognizing my best friend's face instantly. I'm not surprised, not even a little bit. JJ had his fair share of run-ins with the law.

"They're going out front!" I hear another cop shout. I can barley hear through the wind rushing through my ears.

We run into a tall white painted fence that blocks us from our car, better known as the Twinkie. Hopping fences is something I've learned to become better at after doing it so many times. However, I can't say the same about Pope. He's always struggled.

I swing my legs over the fence and land with a small 'oomf.' I look over my shoulder for my slow-poke friend and see him falling over the fence, landing on his side. I laugh as I pick him up by the shoulders.

JJ is waiting for us, clapping his hands like a coach on the sidelines at a football game because his players aren't running fast enough. But there's a smile on his face. "Get up, Pope, fatso's coming!"

"Hey!" The guard shouts behind me. He's halfway up the other side of the fence, but he doesn't have the strength to pull himself over completely. "Come here you little pricks!"

I hear the familiar honk coming from the van John B and I learned to drive in. My brother and Kie are waiting for us in the front seats of the Volkswagen van that would look better in the 70s than the 2020's but I love it. It fits our friend group perfectly. Plus I'd choose this car over any fancy Mercedes Tourons usually drive. The only time I've ever been in one of them is when I snuck off with a golf player from Georgia after a boneyard party. It was luxurious of course, but nothing like the Twinkie.

"Bus is leaving!" John B says as we get closer.

"Come on!" Kie yells at us from the passenger seat, banging the flat of her palm against the door.

I dive through the back first, landing on my elbows and rolling over. Pope and JJ follow less than a second later.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Gary calls after us as John B steps on the gas.

JJ leans out of the sliding side door that's still wide open. I lay on my back watching him as I try to catch my breath. His smile is contagious. For a boy who's been through hell and back, he smiles a lot, and I love every second of it.

He holds out his beer can as if he's offering it to the cop who's still trying to catch us...if he can catch up to it. "Check out Gary, gunnin' for a raise. Come on, Gary!"

"Wait. Slow down. Hey! You little pricks! Hey!"

"You're gonna give him a heart attack!" Kie tries to scold him but she can't fight the smile on her lips either as she watches from the side rearview mirror.

"You're so close! You can do it. There you go. They don't pay you enough bro."

"JJ, stop. Stop!" Kie says through her laughter.

I love Kie. She always tries to keep the peace between her friends and the world itself. Always the girl who raises money for charities that protect this Earth and save animals and solve world hunger. She's going to change the world someday. Her and Pope. Maybe if they can tolerate each other, they'll do it side by side.

JJ slumps back into the van with a toothy grin. He sits next to me and pulls me up so I'm sitting up straight. He dangles his arm around my shoulder and I lean further into his side. If I could choose one position to be in for the rest of my life it would be this one.

But I'd never admit that.

"Oh, come on. That sort of initiative is just begging to be punished," JJ says.

I hum in response and lean back into the seat behind me and stare out the window. A view of passing vibrant green leaves takes over the window as John B drives. The scene comforts me. Summer is my favorite season. No school. Just work and friends and the Outer Banks. Paradise on Earth, some may call it.

It's the sort of place where you either have two jobs or two houses. Two tribes, one island. We're currently driving through Figure Eight, the rich side of the island. Home of the Kooks. So, guess where we don't live.

As John B drives further South, the houses get smaller and smaller, feeling more like home. This is the South side. Or as we like to call it, the Cut. Home of the working class who make a living bussing tables, washing yachts, running charters. The natural habitat of...drumroll, please...the Pogues. That's us. Pogues, pogies, the throwaway fish. Lowest members of the food chain.

I know... a little harsh, don't you think?

So, the downside of the Pogue life is we're ignored and neglected. But the upside of the Pogue life? We're ignored and neglected, which means we do whatever we want, whenever we want.

The second John B parks the car, the boys are gathering all their fishing gear and we set off to our next destination. The marina.

"Nice haul, dude. Look at that!" JJ teases my brother when he reels in what I think is the smallest fish I've ever seen. If it was orange, I would have thought it was my old pet goldfish from when I was six. "Been all bait for, like, three weeks."

John B pulls the fish off his hook and tosses it in JJ's direction. JJ flinches back, knocking into me and almost throwing me into the water below. That was probably my fault, though. I shouldn't be sitting on an open ledge, dangling my legs twenty feet above the water.

"Watch it, idiot!" I smack JJ upside the head after letting go of the death grip I had on his bicep when I was about to fall to my death. Well...I'd probably survive, but it would hurt like hell.

"It's not my fault you chose the most dangerous seat!" JJ retaliates.

Yeah, that's JJ. John B's best friend since the third grade, which subsequently makes him my best friend since the third grade too. He's about as local as they come. Latest in a long line of fishing, drinking, smuggling, vendetta-holding salt-lifers who made their living off the water. Second best surfer I know. First being me of course. Mild kleptomaniac and a future tax cheat.

"Yeah, Mar, you should really get down from there," Kie says, walking over to me to help me down. I decide not to put up a fight. If I'm going to break my leg, I'm gonna do it in a surfing accident or something cool, not by falling off the dock.

Kiara. Or Kie as we call her. When not saving turtles or listening to Bob Marley, or getting a dolphin tattoo, she hangs out with us. I'm not really sure why though. She's a rich kid, actually. Her family owns the Wreck, this Outer Banks institution. Total cash down with the tourists and my current job. You know, I'm not really sure how her parents feel about us. But they like me enough to bring them money towards their restaurant. I bring in a lot of regulars. Advertising is kind of my thing. I'm pretty sure all my friends, even my brother, have a thing for her.

Kie hands me a water bottle and lays her legs across my lap. She lies down on the wooden bench and bathes in the sunlight the day still has to offer. Kie is my best friend. Best secret holder known to man, for the most part.

"I think she needs a leash," Pope adds, making me pass him a glare.

"The only thing useful about a leash is how I can strangle you with it," I say.

"Kinky," JJ says and winks at me. "That's my girl."

John B slaps JJ upside the back of his head.

I'm lucky my sunburnt skin is hiding the blush that creeps along my cheeks.

Pope glares at both JJ and I which only makes my growing smirk widen.

Pope...the brains of the operation...finalist for the Lucas T. Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship. And the smartest person I know. Little bit of a weirdo. His father's this legendary character, Heyward. Anything you wanted on the island, Heyward could get for you. Now, I'm not sure Heyward knew what to make of his oddball son, but it didn't matter. He was a Pogue, just like the rest of us.

"Trust me, if a leash was that easy, I would have tried a long time ago," John B mutters with a hint of a smile.

John Booker Routledge. My insufferable twin brother. Pain in my ass. Number one partner in crime. I hate him but I love him. Pretty much like any sibling relationship. We live in an old fish shack on the marsh. The Chateau as my dad use to call it. My dad disappeared at sea nine months ago looking for a shipwreck. I mean seriously, who disappears at sea these days? I miss him a lot. He may have been a little neglectful, but he took care of us the best that he could. My mom, however? She split when I was three. Last I heard she was in Colorado. At least I think it was Colorado. Honestly who knows and who cares.

Since my dad vanished, my Uncle T is supposedly my legal guardian. At the moment, he's in Mississippi, building houses which means it's just me right now, on my own, hangin' out with my brother and my friends.

Three months after my dad went missing, he was officially presumed dead. John B is more of an optimist than I am. He refuses to sign the paper and until he sees a dead body, he's not giving up. I back John B's decision, but I'm more realistic about what happened to my dad. The ocean, although my favorite place to be, is also one of the scariest.

My dad is probably dead and I will never get the closure that I want. So I'm dealing with it the best way I can, although I'm pretty sure everyone is a little worried about me, especially Kie now that John B is starting to follow in my footsteps by exhibiting reckless behavior.

But I'm getting better now. Day by Day. At least I wasn't acting like I did when my dad first left us.

                                                     ~ ~ ~

I woke up with a slap to my ankle and my head buried deep into my pillow. I groan from the abrupt living alarm clock that's now pacing my room and throwing clothes from my closet at me. It only makes me squeeze my eyes tighter in hopes for at least five more minutes of sleep.

"Seriously, Mar, we need to go. We're late." John B rips my blanket off my body, leaving me exposed in just my pajama boxer shorts and a tank top. The sudden chill sends goosebumps up my arms and legs.

"Go without me." I push myself up on my elbows and grab the clothes he threw at me. I knew meeting the social worker alone wasn't an option. Even if one of us goes to this stupid meeting, it will prove to the social worker that we're not being responsible enough to keep DCS off our backs. As far as they know, Uncle T is still living with us and keeping us safe.

"You have five minutes." John B ignores me and leaves my room, slamming my door shut.

I roll my eyes and tumble out of my soft bed. I slip on my jeans shorts and a white t shirt that I tie in a knot to make it a crop top. Underneath it I have on my plain black bikini, knowing that I will be surfing the second we get home. The News has been reporting a storm for weeks that's suppose to hit tonight. Vicious waves and crazy winds sends a thrill through my body.

We arrive to the social worker's office only two minutes late. I thought that was a sign of responsibility, but the social worker only looks at us with distaste as we sit in the two chairs in front of her desk.

"John, Marleigh, it's come to our attention that you two are unemancipated minors living on your own." Her hair is pulled back into a tight low bun and her glasses are perched on the tip of her nose. Her suit looks way too tight for comfort, like it's squeezing the life out of her.

John B scoffs and leans back into his seat as if we have nothing to worry about, but I know his heart is beating just as wildly as mine. "No....no." The social worker raises one brow in suspicion and glances in my direction to either confirm or deny what John B is saying. John B sees this and answers for me. "No."

I just shrug as a response, which only makes the social worker more weary. She leans into her desk and folds her hands on top of our folders that are piled in the middle. "I need honesty to help you. That's what we want, right?"

"Yeah. I'm being honest."

"Okay, then when is the last time you spoke to your uncle?"

John B looks down at his watch and purses his lips. "Uh...thirty-four minutes ago."

"When's the last time you saw him?"

"Two hours and...forty-three minutes ago?"

I hold myself back from rolling my eyes. It's clear on the social worker's face that she's not buying into any of John B's lies.

She sighs and turns to look at me. "We're gonna come out there tomorrow to talk to your uncle. If he's not there, we're gonna move forward with foster care." Foster care. The words make me dig my nails into the wood of the arms of the chair I'm in. The last place I ever wanna be is in foster care. I want to stay here on the island with my brother and our friends. Not with some random family who couldn't care less about us in a place I'm not familiar with. "I want to assure you, we're gonna find you a safe and loving home."

She says it like she's offering us a better life, one that we would want, one that sounds like the better option but it isn't. I ignore the worried look John B sends my way and watch the seconds go by on the clock above the door. We basically have twenty-four hours to find Uncle T or someone to be pretend to be him.

                                                  ~ ~ ~

The winds begin picking up early in the afternoon, the rain hitting by 5. On my way home from working at the Wreck, I watch people board up the windows of their stores and homes. All John B and I can do is hope that our little shack won't blow away by morning.

Unfortunately for Pope, he's at our house when John B catches me leaving the house with my board. When he tells me to stop, I'm prepared to put up a fight. I've been looking forward to surfing in this storm all day - something I can use to push the DCS lady out of my head and the promise she made that sounded more like a threat.

"You think you were gonna go out without me?" John B smirks and leads the way to the beach.

Pope follows behind us like a lost puppy, basically talking to himself as he tries to convince us that this is a bad idea. We stop at the edge of the beach. It's almost impossible to see the ocean through the wind and the rain.

"Those aren't surfable waves, bro," Pope says, squinting through the rain that splatters our faces wet.

"Says who?" I say, passing him a devious smirk and make a run for it towards the ocean.

I paddle past the choppy waves, letting the water knock me around like a feather in the wind. When I see a decent looking wave to ride, I prop myself up on my feet and stand. I lean into my board. The warmth that's taken over my body outruns the cold water I fall into when the waves crash over me. My body tumbles under the water and my board bumps against me. I try to swim back up to the surface but the current is strong. I don't know where I am and I can't see under the water. My nose burns when water rushes up my nostrils. I squeeze my eyes tight and just swim upwards in hope of reaching air. Maybe this was a bad idea, but the thrill is still keeping me excited.

I finally reach the surface after what feels like years. John B and Pope's screams are dull against the whistling wind. I hop back on my board and give the two guys a thumbs up and a wicked smile. Pope looks like he's about ready to have a heart attack and John B breathes out a sigh of relief as he paddles closer to me.

"You alright?" He asks me.

"Fine," I yell against the wind.

John B nods. He looks like he's about to say something else, but something over my shoulder catches his attention. I turn myself around, intrigued at what's he's seeing other than the water, clouds, and a bunch of rain. Then I see it. A boat that barely looks afloat, so far out that it looks like a speck against the rain.

"We should probably go," I say. I don't want John B's mind to run to what might have happened to Dad out there. Maybe he was caught by a storm like this, maybe his boat went overboard and his body is out there floating with the fishes. I don't know. The last thing I need him to do right now is speculate. Even if the same thoughts are running through my head, John B thinks he's still alive. These thoughts will keep him up all night. He doesn't move, however. "John B let's go."

                                                  ~ ~ ~

JJ is already laying on the pull out bed in my living room when I get out of the shower. JJ crashes here most days of the week. He'd much rather be here than with his drunk abusive dad. Our friends don't know the extent of how shitty his relationship really is with his dad. But I do. I found out when I was thirteen. JJ snuck through my bedroom window after a tough night with his dad. His face and torso were covered in bruises. It took everything in me not to burst out in tears right then and there. But for some reason, he trusted me of all people with his biggest secret. I cleaned him up and let him sleep in my bed with me. Every once in a while we repeat the process. Sometimes he's not even hurt, he just shows up. And I let him in because I like having him there.

I fall onto the mattress next to him and prop my head up on my hand, leaning on my elbow. I run my fingers through his hair, feeling satisfied and bubbly when he moans in response.

"When did you get here?" I ask him.

"You were in the shower. Don't worry I didn't peak, but I was tempted," He says into his pillow.

I use the same hand I had woven in his hair and punch his shoulder playfully, making him fall on his back. His lips turn up in a grin.

I lay there for a second, looking up at the ceiling. My eyes feel heavy, the events of the day officially taking over my body. I peek an eye over at JJ who's watching me carefully as if I might break under his fingertips.

"What?" I grin to myself, thankful for the darkness so he couldn't see the blush on my cheeks. Again.

"You all right?" He asks, pushing my hair out of my face so he can look straight into my eyes.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

JJ hesitates, like he's trying to pick the right words to say. I watch him closely, studying every mark and crevice on his face. Beautiful and clear like always. Even when it's covered in bruises and blemishes, he's handsome. I could look at him all day.

"You hate storms," He says.

"I can sleep through anything," I tell him. "And I don't hate storms. They make for...eventful surfing days."

His face drops to a more serious one. "You know what I mean."

I do. Storms have never really frightened me. Not really. But ever since my dad disappeared nine months ago, I worried that he would get caught in a storm like this, that by morning there would be a knock on my door from an officer who would tell me that a dead body has washed up on shore and they ID'd him as my father. The image leaves me with nightmares on nights like tonight.

JJ's the only one who knows this.

I don't like talking about it. Like JJ, we have this in common. So instead of telling him I'm fine and him not believing me, I pull the blanket at the edge of the mattress over our bodies and tuck myself into his side, laying my head on his shoulder. A position so intimate for just us "friends." I hope he can't feel my heart pounding beneath my skin, against his side. I let my body soften against his, feeling sleep take over me. I fall into a dreamless sleep next to JJ, hoping that the storm will be gone by the time we wake up.

[lovebecomeshim]

hello! your zutara posting today has finally motivated me to ask this question because I came to atla very late(last year, to be specific) and I Love It Very Much but am 1000% out of the loop as far as why what remains of fandom (at least that I've seen among my friends) is so very strongly zutara. I'm not opposed to it per se I just don't really know what has driven it to apparently be such a popular ship? can you help me understand and maybe convert me a little bit?

Hey!! Your ICON! :D I can try but I’m not sure how coherent I’ll be; however I AM sure someone a lot more competent will be willing to add to this. Either way, I’m glad you asked because my plan was to drag down as many people as possible with me.

*smacks the hood of zutara* this baby can fit so much mutual love and support!

This got so long, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to put it under a cut on mobile and it already got deleted once so I’m scared to mess with it lol. Moving on.

I’m gonna start this with a disclaimer that im on mobile so formatting is tricky and I’m also really new to atla in that I only completed my first watch through in like 2019??? So some of my info is all just based on what I’ve picked up from Discourse 👀 so anyway the sparknotes version: zutara was wildly popular from the beginning. To the point where the atla crew internally disagreed on which ship should be endgame. (Ex. Bryke [showrunners] asked the writers to rewrite The Southern Raiders to make Zuko seem less ideal for Katara than Aang [which failed, depending on who you ask]; the animation team purposefully created a visual parrallel between Oma and Shu in the Cave of Two Lovers and Zuko and Katara in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se in the Crossroads of Destiny; etc.)

The ship was popular enough that Bryke actually chose to display zk fanart at a con for the sole purpose of mocking the fans, but that’s neither here nor there. The entire episode Ember Island Players, while a love letter to/parody of the whole show, was an opportunity to address zutara’s viability as a canon pairing (while, again, mocking zutaras for romanticizing that catacombs scene). Point is! It’s always been popular but with it not being endgame, there’s got to be something that’s given it staying power.

And that’s honestly got to do with three things: their dynamic, thematic cohesion, and potential.

(You know what... you know what, it’s four things. The fourth is they’re so aesthetically pleasing together and individually. Like, they’re just good looking people [specifically when they’re grown but they’re also cute kids] and that absolutely doesn’t hurt) (but it’s not the Point, it’s just nice to point out sometimes)

The dynamic is hard to get into without also looking at the canon pairings, but I think I can do that without unnecessary bashing. It’s just that part of the magic of zutara is really highlighted by what they give to each other that their other relationships don’t.

First off, it’s classic enemies to (would be) lovers. The absolute truest form of it. It’s not too different from how CS started out: a rogue antagonist with a job to do—but no personal vendetta against the future love interest—who is deeply and emotionally invested in his personal storyline (revenge/redemption) with little regard for how it effects other people after his entire life and genuine good nature are marred by suffering, and a fierce warrior girl with a strong moral compass and her own personal investment in stopping him (protect her family and save the world doing it). Obviously frustration and animosity grew between them by the nature of them being on opposing sides, but that just lends itself to the sweetness of their later reconciliation.

The thing is that while they’re wildly different on the surface (he’s a hot-headed prince of a fascist regime who is trying to capture the Avatar to please his father; she’s a nurturing daughter of the chief who is trying to protect and train the Avatar in order to topple his father’s throne) they find out that they have so much more in common both in their experiences and their personalities.

(What follows is an excessive use of the word “both” and I’m sorry about that)(I can edit it. I can do that. That IS an option............)

They both have an innate sense of justice that they are determined to see done (zuko, at the war meeting, sticking up for the Earth Kingdom kid when the guards torment his family, choosing not to steal from the pregnant couple despite his circumstances, abiding by his word to leave the SWT should Aang come willingly, etc.; katara, literally.... at any point). They both have pretty one-track minds at accomplishing certain goals once they’ve put their mind to it, regardless of a lack of support in that endeavor (it goes without saying I guess, but zuko’s entire hunt; katara’s determination to get the earth benders to fight back, her determination to absolutely destroy Pakku until he agrees to teach her, etc.). They both lost their mothers at young ages. Their worlds are war-torn and traumatizing to them both, if in different ways, but that ultimately forces them to grow up too quickly to be wholly independent individuals. They both have issues with their fathers (for WILDLY different reasons, but). They both hold extreme prejudices that they need to learn to overcome (which ties into thematic cohesion)(bit like Lizzie and Darcy in that way but magnified by a million). They’re both extremely emotional and empathetic—which can and often does result in loud outbursts. Katara’s a bit better adjusted and can temper her anger for longer than S1 Zuko can, but they both feel that anger deeply and have no compunctions expressing it (Katara is, usually, more justified, particularly in S1. Again, S1 Zuko is severely maladjusted but at the point when they could’ve feasibly become a couple, he’s so much better off with the way he carries himself). They both struggle with feelings of inferiority in their bending abilities when confronted with prodigal benders like Aang and Azula, but have the work ethic required to double down and become two of the most powerful benders in the three remaining nations. This is a little more minor but it is a parrallel that appeals to some shippers that they both have these alter egos in the Painted Lady (notably fire nation coded) and the Blue Spirit (water tribe coded) that are pretty different from who they are day-to-day and are useful in accomplishing a purpose that they as themselves cannot.

(I’m.... I just realized that this could potentially get very long. Should I have made a slide show with bullet points??????)

Anyway, similar. I know there’s more but there’s literally so much to love about zutara that I’ll drive myself a little crazy trying to compile all the ways they’re similar. (Just gonna say that at this exact moment I went back to add more similarities.... so okay then)

Once they’ve reconciled, we see how all of these things only lend themselves to a deeper intimacy together than they share with literally anyone else. There’s a steady partnership that positions them as the mom/dad of the gaang, while also providing the support necessary to allow the other to not have to carry so much responsibility. A lot of zutaras will point out how zuko is actually depicted doing the more domestic chores that are normally relegated to Katara once he joins the gaang, since the others in the group are two 12-year-olds and sokka. The one that sticks out the most is how he makes tea for the group and then serves them, while Katara is able to just relax with her friends around the fire. Fanon expands upon this a lot to Zuko helping with the laundry or the cooking or whatever else needs doing since he, as a once-refugee, is used to doing his own domestic tasks. Before Zuko joined, Katara was the one mothering everyone, sewing for them, cooking for them, etc. She’s always tending to the needs of the group, and that includes emotionally. She does the emotional labor for the gaang 99% of the time, but when she’s the one falling apart, she’s usually doing it alone and without the comfort that she normally provides for others. Until Zuko. And that’s before they’re even friends.

Which is WHY people romanticize the catacombs of Ba Sing Se so much. Katara is verbally attacking Zuko out of her own righteous anger but also her own prejudice when Zuko, surprisingly, chooses to be vulnerable with her. He’s been on a journey that’s opened his eyes a bit, but he’s never actively chosen to expose the rawest parts of his past to anyone. But for some reason he chooses to do that with Katara of all people. While she’s yelling at him. He sees her humanity, and for once can look past his prejudice and empathize with her. And this time, when she breaks down, she gets to be comforted. Katara normally talks about her mother when she’s trying to explain to someone else that she sees and understands they’re pain, as a form of comfort to them. Here, Zuko uses the exact same tactic. He sees her and he understands. And for zuko? He’s not being shut down. He’s allowed to articulate his pain regarding his mother without being ignored and made to internalize it, and he’s allowed to process how he feels about his scar out loud without being told that he deserved it. And then he lets her touch his scar, something we’ve seen him actively avoid before. He’s completely open to her and she’s completely open to him and all it took was one five minute conversation. She was about to use the little bit of Spirit water that she had, that she was saving for something Important, to heal the scar that still daily causes him pain just because they had, somehow, connected.

Plus there’s the whole parallel to the star-crossed lovers forbidden from one another, a war divides their people—

And then zuko messes up, he regresses, he gets what he wants and he HATES it. And the sense of justice he had as a child has been restored to him against his will and he can’t think of anything he wants to do more than the Right Thing, so he joins team avatar. Before he does that though, we get to see his relationship with Mai, which is where comparison really comes in. And what we see is Zuko, fresh off of his encounter with Katara in the catacombs, trying to be emotionally honest with Mai... and getting shut down and dismissed. Which is just how Mai is and it’s fine, but not for Zuko. Still, he keeps trying, and he keeps getting ignored or scoffed at or yelled at. Which is really a larger symbol for how he doesn’t fit in his old life anymore, but again that’s about thematic cohesion. He tries to articulate his anxieties about returning home, he tries to make romantic gestures, he tries to explain how morally conflicted he’s feeling—and Mai diverts to some kind of physical affection to shut him up and a parting comment that is pretty much always, in essence, “I don’t wanna talk about this.” So they don’t. On the other hand, once zuko and Katara are friends, we see him again emotionally distraught and caught up in his anxieties about facing Iroh, and it’s Katara who comes to him and listens to him and comforts and encourages him.

Similarly, we have Aang clamming up and getting uncomfortable whenever Katara shows any negative emotion, usually resulting in him making excuses or running away. Or, in the case of the Southern Raiders, lecturing her on how she needs to just let go of her anger about her mother’s murder. People have talked this episode to death and usually better than I ever could, so imma... keep it brief. There’s a serious disconnect between Aang and Katara in his ability to empathize with Katara and her needs that has her tamping down her vulnerability and amping up her anger. He tells her that he was able to forgive his people’s genocide and appa’s kidnapping (petnapping? Theft??), which is blatantly not true but also not an entirely equal parrallel to Katara’s situation, and continues making these little remarks throughout the episode. But it’s Zuko that Katara opens up to. It’s with him that she’s able to talk about the most traumatic day of her life, and it’s with him that she’s able to get the closure she needs, cementing their bond as friends and partners. This disagreement between Aang and Katara is then... never resolved. They just never bring it up and hear what the other is saying.

There’s a fic called The Portraits of Ember Island that has a line that so completely sums up the heart of the matter for why people love their dynamic. For context, zuko has woken up early to help Katara with the cooking and they spend the whole time just letting one another talk, and zuko stops to ask why she always just lets him talk. And so she stops to ask why he’s always helping, and it goes as follows:

There’s just... so much mutual support! Trust! Intimacy!! And it just continues like that from the Southern Raiders on, listening to each other, advising each other, watching each other’s backs! And then! Literally saving each other’s lives!! I will never be over the last Agni kai. Not ever. Zuko may have been willing to jump in front of lightning for anyone, but he actually did it for Katara. And in a show, that’s the thing that really matters. It’s a fulfilled trope usually exclusively applied to romantic pairings, and it ended up applying to Zuko and Katara. And then she ran out into the middle of a fight with tunnel vision just to get to him.

Also!! Also Zuko pushing Katara out of the way of the falling rocks at the Western Air Temple!! And Katara catching him as he fell from the war balloon that he fought Azula on!! Before they’re even getting along, they’re the ones reaching for each other. They come to this place of equal ground, as partners, who watch each other’s backs, call each other out but still listen attentively and understand, and provide the support that the other has been sorely lacking up until they knew each other (whether that be from lack of effort or lack of understanding from others, or an unwillingness to accept it for themselves).

Then, trailing along under the surface of this, we see the themes of the show totally embodied by Zuko and Katara as individuals and in their relationship to one another. There’s a YouTuber, sneezyreviews, who has a, like, 2-hour explanation on why she not only loves zutara but also believes that their endgame would’ve actually elevated the writing of atla to new levels particularly because of thematic cohesion and resolved character arcs. It’s the zutara dissertation I never knew I needed, and it’s funny and eloquent and effective, so I’m just going to sum up her section on thematic cohesion to the best of my abilities and then link it for whenever you have the time. And I HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you want a full understanding of what makes zutara so great and gives it such longevity.

Guru pathik has a line that goes something like this: separation is an illusion; things that seem different are just two parts of the same whole. Iroh also tells Zuko something similar: balance and strength are achieved when the different nations come together and influence one another and celebrate what makes them each unique. And this lesson is a massive central arc that both Zuko and Katara go through, moving past a black-and-white, good guys-vs-bad guys, us-vs-them mentality and into a greyer, more nuanced view of the world. Zuko sees the fire nation from an entirely new perspective and while he still loves and hopes for his nations future, he surrenders his blind loyalty to them in exchange for an unflinching loyalty to peace and love. Katara too had to come to terms with the fact that cruel people exist in the earth kingdom and water tribes, while some fire nation citizens are just regular, kind people who also need and deserve to have someone speak on their behalf. And this is honed in directly on how they view each other. They grow in their individual journeys to be open to the humanity in the other and then, once they’ve found that, they’re able to grow more in compassion for others in a beautiful feedback loop. And this is all matched in the symbolism repeatedly and intentionally associated with them in canon: sun and moon, fire and water, yin and yang, Oma and Shu who found love despite their warring nations. Their individual arcs are completed in each other and complement the themes of atla beautifully.

The canon pairs... just don’t. Which, again, is fine. But the very things that give atla longevity and popularity are anchored in zutara. Kat@ang doesn’t accomplish this. They’re... nice. Sweet. Especially when you erase a good portion of their interactions in S3. It could’ve been just a sweet love story. (Personally, the dynamic between toph and aang accomplish the same thing that zutara does, with complementary personalities that fulfill the theme of opposites blending in harmony) M@iko, on the other hand, is less sweet but I think wasn’t even supposed to last. Zuko’s relationship with Mai seems to represent his relationship with his old life as a whole. He can’t be emotionally vulnerable, he’s goaded into abusing his privileges, his agency and opinions aren’t respected. They just don’t have common ground with which to discuss anything that matters, so they don’t. As far as themes, the relationship doesn’t fit with atla. It’s zuko returning to and sticking with what is (on the surface) like him, what’s expected. Fire nation with fire nation. Fluid water bender with the flexible air bender. Like with like, separated from what is different and challenging and complementary.

And all of these things combined of course lead to the potential for the ship. I don’t know how familiar you are with the post-atla canon but... well, miss “I will never turn my back on people who need me”, miss “I don’t want to heal! I want to fight!” ends up living quietly in the SWT as a designated healer who turns a blind eye to the water tribe civil war happening right outside her front door. Which can be fine! People change! Some people just wanna stay inside. I just wanna stay inside! But the potential future for zutara is so much more satisfying, with Katara becoming the most unconventional Fire Lady the uppity old cads who are stuck on the old ways have ever seen. Fanon has her serving as a voice for the other nations within a kingdom at the point of its biggest political upheaval, as a confidante to Zuko who can actually help him while he’s trying to figure out how to move forward and make reparations. They have the opportunity, together, to accomplish what they both have set on their hearts to fight for: positive change that lends itself to harmony and balance. And the steambabies! A popular headcanon is that their firstborn daughter, the crown princess, is actually a waterbender, which causes such an uproar among the people who are adamantly clinging to the old ways. It’s just a future full of potential to be forces for good together, full of trust, intimacy, joy. The exact era of peace and love and balance that zuko announces that he intends to ring in with the start of his reign as Fire Lord is, again, magnified by the very personal zutara relationship. And we love to see it.

tl;dr zutara isn’t for everyone. Some people just don’t vibe with it. Some are nostalgic. Some love the canon they grew up with. Some have been disappointed for years. Some just see themselves in other characters and want their happiness instead. Whatever the reason, that’s fine. But for me, I love the way these two, from the moment they give each other a fair chance, are able to lower their walls and prejudices to see the other for the kindred spirits they are. They see each other’s humanity, and their response is to pour out love and support and compassion. I love that they’re a power couple in battle. I love the symbolism and, honestly, soulmatism that colors their every interaction. I love that they embody the whole storyline of atla in their relationship and how it develops, which is notably why their seasonal arcs always culminate in each finale with how they relate to one another. I love that zuko adopting a waterbending move is what actually saves his life and then katara’s. I love the chemistry! And I love the future they could’ve had, instead of the ones they were given.

So, in conclusion: I just think they’re neat and I hope you do too, at least a little bit. Even if it’s just respectfully from a disinterested distance cause you do you. And now here is the video I mentioned. I’m sorry this post got so long and then I gave you an even longer homework assignment, but I can’t recommend it enough. She says it all better than I can.

[fandom-blackhole]

Okay you have no idea how excited I was to see that you're open for requests! I love your Mando stories so could I please request my big boi Paz? I'd love to witness you do magic with prompts : 14 (bodyguard AU) and either 49 (fake marriage)/63 (mistaken for couple)/80 (green-eyed epiphany) *can you tell I couldn't decide* *I'm a Libra* *I do apologize*

Im honored that you love my mando fics and that you got excited about me opening requests 🥺💕Also, as a Sagittarius sun and moon, I relate on not being able to make decisions 😔, but I have a great idea for:

14. Bodyguard AU 

63. Mistaken for Couple

80. Green-Eyed Epiphany  

Pairing: Paz Vizsla x GN!Reader

Words: roughly 2k, woops

Send me some AUs/Tropes??

Note: So I just wanted to start this off with what I'm thinking about this mash-up, like whats going on and the situation. A little backstory/world building, if you will. So, im seeing this as after the tribe on Nervarro scatters after the fight with Grogu, Din, and the Stormtroopers. Paz is by himself and in need of work for credits, to both support himself and save up for when/if he is reunited with his tribe he can help rebuild and contribute. That leads him to a small midrim planet that is pretty divided. You are the head of the government, but there is a group of people who keep trying to kill you and harm your supporters because they want the "true ruler" to be in your place. Said "ruler" is part of a bloodline of radical tyrants that had been controlling the planet until around the same time the empire fell, their downfall resulting from being too involved with the empire. SO, the head of your defense team brings in Paz to protect you, because not only is he a big scary dude covered in big weaponry and armor, but also because you keep insisting that all the soldiers and guards should be protecting the people not you, so bringing in Paz was his little loophole. Now on to the story!

You were not happy with this arrangement, and you had told the head of your guard just as much. You didn't need a protector, it only showed your rivals that you were scared of what they were capable of, that they had the possibility to win this war they were waging. The man- the mandalorian that had been hired was unfazed by your indifference towards him, always just trailing silently behind you look just as menacing as mandalorians were said to be. It was easy to tell that he knew his way around a variety of weapons, it was easy to tell that he had been through battles and suffered their consequences. And it was easy to tell that this job seemed to be a bit boring for him. He didn't have any excitement, most days the mandalorian was stuck following you throughout the capital building, attending meetings that he could care less about, standing guard to your study as you paced around in thought. Nothing much happened, but as time went on and the war worsened and the threat of your rivals loomed over your head you started to notice that the mandalorian would do little things that shaved a little of your stress away, or would brighten you day if only a little. Little treats would show up on your desk, or cups of teas or caf just the way you liked them, walks through the garden would result in a vase of flowers- handpicked and cut with a sharp knife at an angle, delicately- placed in your room. The first time you broke down in front of him, the stress of loosing nearly an entire village not far from where you were to the grievous ways of your enemies broke you to the point of sobbing hysterically and the mandalorian surprised you with his gentleness, as he softly grabbed your arms and made you look up at him, his blue helmet staring down at you as he said, "You will get past this...you...you are a good leader, you care for your people more than yourself, and in the end, that is what will have you coming out on top."

After that night, something changed between the two of you. Instead of following behind you silently, you started walking beside the mandalorian, in meetings instead of letting him stand silently behind you, you started asking his opinions on the battles or if he had any suggestions to help combat. The two of you got closer, and you weren't sure when, but eventually you found yourself calling the mandalorian a friend, and you liked to believe he thought of you as one as well, he at least trusted you enough that he told you his name, which you only used in the private of your quarters or study during your late night talks. When you started to show signs of the stress becoming too much, or that you were nearing another breakdown, he would gently lead you away from whatever you had been doing. More times than not he lead you to the gardens and sat you down as he would tell you stories of his childhood or of his people and culture. One evening, he went as far as to set up a little spot for you to relax and eat a little snack with tea, to give you time away from everything, to give you a break from holding your home on your shoulders. It had been nice, and it helped you clear your thoughts, the gesture had you smiling fully for the first time in months, and it was one that was not quick to fade. As thanks, you had asked Paz what you could do, to which he only replied, "Seeing you smile is enough." So you did, you smiled at him and gently reached out and placed a kiss on the cheek of his helmet.

The smile Paz had gifted you stayed for a few days, your people noticed the happiness and it it seemed to affect all of them, each person growing their own little smiles. Melancholy still hung in the air, but you felt like you had the energy and will power to deal with it now. But as all good things must end, this happiness was ripped from you, when the head of your guard rushed into a meeting with the delegates of the planet, his face was crumpled in worry and he whispered apologies as he reluctantly handed over a letter addressed to you. Your heart pounding, you opened the letter only to freeze at the sight of a photo taken of the moment that had only radiated happiness until now, staring down you only saw yourself pressed close to Paz’s form with lips pressed against his helmet. The moment now felt tainted, and you felt sick to your stomach, the happiness that was shown in the picture gone, only replaced with pure terror. Glancing at the man stood before you, he took the picture and flipped it before handing it back with a somber look. On the back, in deep red ink and scratchy handwriting read:

Now, do you really think courting a mandalorian is going to protect you from your death by my hands? Ill make sure to kill him in front of you so you have to watch as he falls.

Yours loving,

The True King

You hadn't even realized you were shaking, nor breathing heavily, until a gloved had reached into very and took the note away from you. You watched as Paz looked the note over before passing it back to your head guard. He told him something, but you could not hear as your eyes started ringing. Gently Paz helped you stand, before leading you away from the meeting. You didn't care where he was taking you, at that moment you couldn't think straight, couldn't get past the thought of, how did they get so close to take a photo without anyone noticing?

After the letter had been delivered Paz took care to never leave your side, he became more overbearing and involved with planning your schedule. No longer were you allowed in the gardens, or outside for that matter, for the time being, Paz only really allowed you to go to your quarters, your study, and the meeting room. You didn't fight him, too tired from the lasting conflicts and worry over what would happen next. A month went by, and everything quieted, the attacks stopped, and it almost felt like your enemy had gone into hiding. You didn't relax though, the note still whispering in the back of your head. Paz found himself often sleeping in the chair beside your bed, after too many nights of having been awoken to you yelling out his name and finding you rushing to his room to reassure yourself that he was safe.

Then it happened. You knew the quiet was only leading to something, but you weren't prepared to be a woke in the middle of the night to Paz scream to you. It had been the first night you had been able to fall asleep and stay asleep without nightmares of Paz’s death, but you were only thrown into a different nightmare as your eyes few open and you saw Paz fighting off an attacker. You yelled for you to run, and as you hesitated he only growled your name and told you to go, so with a heavy heart you did, you ran. All around the capital you could seem fires burning and hear your guards fighting with silhouettes your tired eyes could not make out in the low light of night. You did not know where to go, only letting your feet carry you, only stopping when you were out of breath. Looking around, you found yourself in the garden, feet from where you gave Paz the soft kiss, the memory still churning out a small amount of happiness, but quickly turned sour once more when the grinning face of the man you loathed most in the world stood from the bench hidden in the shadows.

"My dear, I was hoping you'd come here. I know you are especially fond of the gardens, most certainly this area."

"What do you want Alun? Why wouldn't you stop this fighting? People, my people, our people are suffering!"

He scoffed and turned to look at the city burning around you both. "The people deserve what they are getting for forgetting their true leaders. And you for forgetting what you once were."

"Stop this. You are doing nothing but destroying the planet!"

Alun turned to look at you, small smile curling onto his hate filled face. Slowly he reached out and placed the rose he had picked behind your ear, the thorns pricking your skin, one digging in enough to make a drop of blood run down your ear.

"When I have control again, and we are again together, things will go back to the way they were. I promise you, love. You just need to stop fighting me."

Disgust formed on your face as you stepped back, "We may have been engaged before you fell, but I never loved you. I was forced into that position by you and your father, and I do not regret being apart of how he and you fell from grace. I will never stop fighting you."

"Oh, but I love you, and I will have you, my love."

"Not if I have any say," a voice growled from behind you. Whipping around, relief flooded you at the sight of Paz marching towards where you stood. He was covered in blood from fighting, but seemed like he was uninjured himself much to your relief. But he seemed angry, livid almost as he pushed you behind him, standing toe-to-toe with Alun. "If you want them, you will have to get through me, and I will not stop fighting until my dying breath for them," Paz’s words settled into your chest, warmth flowing through you as the next few second moved in slow motion. Paz reached out, before Alun even had a chance to grab for his weapon. Paz lifted him like a rag doll to his height, making direct eye contact, before growling out, "because I love them, and you will never have them."

And with that said, Paz simply slammed his forehead into Alun's forcefully knocking him unconscious, then carelessly dropping him to the ground where he laid unmoving buise already forming on his forehead. Paz then turned to you and reached for you, but you simply flung yourself onto him. "You're okay, i was so worried, I didn't want to leave you, I was so scared that something would happen and that Id...."

"That you'd, what cyare," Paz whispered as he held you close, arms wrapped around you as if he'd let go and you'd disappear. Looking up and into his helmet's visor you were quiet for a moment, before speaking up softly, "I love you too... I thought I'd never get to tell you that I loved you."

Gently, Paz pressed his forehead against your own, before whispering, "You don't have to worry. I'll always be around to protect you. And," a teasing note coming out in his voice making you smile, "You can tell me how much you love me anytime you want. As long as you don't have anymore previous fiancés out there professing their love to you. I don't think I could hold back from ripping off their heads like I did just now."

Giggling you shook your head, "No more love professions, I promise. Only yours matter."

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Paz Tags: @bunny-fairy @elinedjarin @shellyc9 @blackmarketmummy @djarin-junk

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[bloodpacks-archive]

atonement

word count: 1.7k

warnings: self-doubt baybee

you don’t get a summary just read it i promise you’ll love it (maybe who knows not me) also i love this new reader so- yeah<3

anyway, point is! i’m back and would LOVE some requests for avatar!! i’m hoping to write for bolin, mako, and zuko so :))) please

In the dead of night, Zuko can hear the quiet chirps of various animals by his balcony. When he was younger, the night was filled with dread. He’d wonder if his father would come in, sure to yell at him over something else he’d found wrong in Zuko’s work, or if Azula would quietly work her way past his door, smirk on her face and deceit in her eyes. Now, he lies awake in his bed with only his thoughts to keep him awake. God, do they keep him awake.

Next to him, she’s softly asleep. Sheets pool around her waist, bending and twisting around her. It reminds him of the river he’d first met her by, when she’d heard him approaching and let the water she’d been playing with lightly splash beside her. The way the sheets fall—satin soft upon her skin—she almost doesn’t seem real, like every inch of her has been formed by moonlight itself.

He supposes that’s fitting. With how the moon and waterbenders work and all.

She turns then in her sleep, facing towards him now. The moonlight trickling in kisses parts of her exposed torso, and then up her arms as she moves them, choosing to wrap them delicately around Zuko.

There is no denying it, she’s everything that’s good in the world. Laughter like a melody, eyes like the pretty night sky, hands soft and cool against his skin.

Nights like these are the ones where he wonders if he truly deserves her.

He tries not to let it get to him. Tries not to think about what he’s done to Aang, or Katara, or Sokka, or Toph. Or hell, Iroh. But every time he looks into their eyes, no matter how long it’s been, he feels that pang of guilt, feels the weight of every word he’s said, every ember he ever sent their way.

But her water—her delicate touch—he’s only ever seen it used as a force of good. Raised in the Northern Water Tribe, she’d only ever been taught to heal. She’d picked up ways to fight, purely through watching the men of the tribe from afar—she’s smart like that—but there’s only so far you can go without a proper teacher.

There was one night, in the depths of Ba Sing Se, near the Jasmine Dragon, that she’d sat with him on the ledge of the bridge. She bent the water up and around his fingers, letting it intertwine with his hands. She said she wanted him to know what it was like to feel the water pass over him gently. Now, whenever he sat by the pond in the palace courtyard, he’d let his hand rest over the water, just so he could feel like she was there.

Zuko’s done nothing in his life to deserve as much tranquility as he feels when she lets her water rest on his skin. Nothing to deserve the way her cool hands run up and down his skin as she falls asleep. There’s nothing he could’ve done to deserve this—in this life or the next.

She stirs then, moving so her head can rest on his chest. Her hand moves to lay over his heart, and then he feels her sigh.

“Still not sleeping?” She whispers. Her voice offers a warmth he’s never felt before, sweet like the pastries Sokka raves about so often.

“How can I when there’s an angel sleeping next to me?” His words sit in the air for a moment, and he feels the way heat creeps up his neck as he laughs at himself. “Sorry, that was bad.”

“You’ll get it next time,” She replies, her smile dripping into her voice. She moves again, propping her head up on his chest so she can look at him.

Even in the dark, he can tell how completely undeserving he is of her. Her fingers still move back and forth, tracing little patterns onto his skin, and her eyes are trained on him—head tilted and expression curious.

He wonders if he’s a good person on nights like these, wonders if he can ever truly atone for the so many wrongs he’s committed in his life. When she’s sleeping next to him, such angelic and otherworldly beauty about her—such witty intellect and sweet kindness—he knows he’ll never be the good person he strives to be. He’ll never be as good as she is to him.

Her hand comes up to the right side of his face, her thumb just below his good eye, fingers cupping his jaw.

“What are you thinking about, Zuko?” Her voice is low, barely more than a whisper, but raspy and barely there, all the same.

The words are caught in his throat as he looks at her. Part of him wonders if she even knows the true extent of his atrocities. Sure, he’s told her just about everything, but there’s no other explanation for how someone so undoubtedly good could let herself fall like this.

His voice cracks over the words as he tries to speak, so he sighs, leaning his head back against the pillow before he tries again.

His voice still cracks, and he’s quieter than he intended, but he’s afraid that if he’s any louder-

Well, he doesn’t want to think about that.

“What if I’m still a bad person? Or if I go back to how I used to be?” The silence falls between them again. He looks away from her, biting the inside of his cheeks. “It’s happened before.”

“Zuko, no,” She begins. Her hand had fallen from his face to his neck, and now she moves once more, making him sit up so she can sit in his lap facing him.

Of course, he complies. He can’t imagine ever saying no to her.

“There is not a single part of you that could make me believe you’re the same person now that you were when you were sixteen.” Her hand moves down to his chest, where his scar sits. Most of the time, it’s covered, but tonight it was warm, and the air moving from the balcony made him want to sleep without his shirt and so-

So her fingers are running their cool touch over the scarred flesh. It doesn’t hurt, but at the memory, he winces.

“The sixteen year-old Zuko—the one before this scar, the one before the dragons and the one before Ba Sing Se—he never would’ve asked a question like that. Bad people don’t wonder if they’re bad people, they just are.”

Zuko brings one of his hands down to hers, letting them both cover the scar. His other hand rests delicately on her waist, holding the sheets around her as she sits up.

“Do you think I can ever make up for everything I did?” Zuko asks.

Her head tilts, and her hands fall down him, finally coming to a stop on his own hips. And, without much of a warning, she wraps her arms around him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. As she moves in, he wraps his arms around her, careful to still hold onto the sheets he has wrapped around her—she’s always run a little colder than he does.

Her whispers are warm, her honeyed breath against his ear.

“I don’t know.” Zuko’s heart drops, and he pulls her tighter, closing his eyes as he buries his face into the crook of her neck.

If he doesn’t, he fears he’ll cry.

“But I also don’t know if it’s about atonement. What you did in your past—that’s already happened. There are people who may never trust the Fire Nation ever again, but you’re rebuilding. I think that, for now, it’s about reinvention and rebirth. Not everything you do is going to be perfect, you’re going to question yourself and your motives every second, and you’re going to wonder if you’ll ever make it up.

“But Zuko, you’ll never make it up to everyone. And you’ve already made it up to the people who matter. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Iroh—they all know who you are. You’re the best person with the biggest heart and you care. God, do you care.”

“And you?” He whispers.

She pulls away, humming a question as her eyebrows furrow.

“Have I made it up to you?”

Her laughter is breathless, nothing more than rushed air and for a moment, he wonders if he said something funny.

But then her hands come up to his face again, thumbs against his cheekbones, her right hand careful against his scar.

“You have done nothing but prove to me that you are the kindest, most deserving person on this Earth. Zuko you-“

She pauses, pursing her lips and looking up to the ceiling for a moment. He notices how moonlight reflects off of the tears brimming her eyes.

“You’ve done more than made it up to me. There is not a single thing you haven’t atoned for, and there’s not a single moment when I’ve questioned your benevolence.”

And now tears are brimming his eyes, so he goes to looks down, letting her hands fall to his shoulders now. She moves close again, lips close to his ear.

“I love you,” She whispers, voice coarse and rough but entirely there. She pauses to press her lips to his cheekbone. “With my entire life, body, and soul, I love you.”

With those words, he moves, kissing her sweetly. One of his hands rests on her neck and jaw, fingers intertwining with her hair.

Between breaths, he whispers confessions. Most of them about how much he loves her, others about how every aspect of her leaves him wishing that his time spent here were endless.

But he always returns with the same thought.

I love you,

with my body, heart, and soul, I love you.

I love you as long as your water flows and my embers burn.

I love you as long as the air continues to kiss the surface of the Earth.

I’ll love you for as long as time allows.

In this one, and in the next.