#countenance‚ suki.
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Steel in Her Veins, Chapter: Twenty-Four
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Characters: Fem!Reader x Roronoa Zoro
Chapter Twenty-Four: You Want to Come Over and Touch Me, Too?
Swallowing hard, you face Law’s burning gaze with a pretence of hot-headedness.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you respond, narrowing your brown eyes into a feline glare.
What with Bepo’s word against yours, you’re aware that lying would be an incredibly weak attempt at brushing off Law’s accusation; regardless, with a sense of overcoming pressure washing over you, you’re willing to say anything but admit to a confession.
As expected, Law scoffs at you hugely. He pulls his arms into a tighter cross. “Really? You’re trying out that tactic with me?”
And for the next few moments, you’re locked in a combative, narrow-eyed staring contest with one another.
Leave it alone, your eyes say as they slope further into more threatening slits.
Law’s eyebrow’s twitch bemusedly. I don’t think so, they counter.
CLANG!
The resounding crash of metal against metal reverberates through the crow’s nest like a war cry, prompting you to whirl around, your senses honing in on the source of the disruption. There stands Zoro, towering like a behemoth, his grip on the weights loosened deliberately to create the cacophony.
Your eyebrow arches with scepticism, a silent question hanging in the air. Zoro's response? A nonchalant shrug that screams anything but nonchalance, accompanied by a sardonic grunt that could rival the roar of a disgruntled bear.
"Oops," Zoro deadpans, the word dripping with sarcasm so thick you could cut it with one of his swords.
Rolling your eyes at the dramatic gesture, you turn back to Law, your arm quickly thrown out in his face.
“Pretend to examine my arm and I’ll talk.”
As Law's inked fingers grasp at your skin, you can't help but flinch slightly at his cold touch, albeit his handling is soft and gentle. But instead of merely feigning his examination, as you had half-expected, it becomes evident that Law is taking his task quite seriously. His demeanour shifts from bemusement to intense focus, his brow furrowing as he meticulously examines your arm.
You swallow, your throat suddenly feeling like it’s swelled up to twice its size. “What I’m about to say stays between us and Bepo, understood?”
Law pauses his examination, his gaze lifting from your arm to meet your eyes. There's a spark of curiosity across his countenance as he gives you a singular nod.
"Understood," he replies evenly, his voice low and hushed. "But firstly, why are you hiding yourself from your own crew?”
You pick up the Uchiko ball that softly drapes itself over the Enma. Like a lover holding onto its source of dear respite, it reluctantly rolls away into your fingertips – fingertips that twirl with such effortless precision, you could mistake them for a horologist’s.
You sigh, frowning at the powder ball - as though this little tool has been your main source of trouble from the very start.
“Because, if word gets out about my identity, then I’m a danger to all of those who I care for. If I tell the crew, there’s a chance it could accidentally be spread to others. That not only some mysterious force wants me, but also that a former Wano hotshot, related to Oden, has left the country and has a 'free snatching for all!' sign written on her head.”
Law’s dark eyes are lowered as he wipes your arm with an antiseptic, a needle laying idly in one of his medical kits. “So, people are after you.”
You nod, now touching the Enma by her hilt. Newly leathered and greased, she’s ready to go back to her owner. You dab the ball on her sharp edge, powder releasing across its shimmering surface.
“I have no idea what all these fuckers want from me. Random outlaws, the CP-0 and now…creatures that I never knew existed until...” You choke out the last part heavily, biting on your lower lip hard to stop yourself from tearing up. “That’s how…Suki was taken.”
Law snaps his head up to you. “Kozuki Sukiyaki? By who?”
You furiously shake your head, feeling the burn in your other hand slice through you as you experience the pain of losing your Gramps all over again. “Something…It swallowed him whole like some fucking jelly. It sucked the life out of everything it touched. I-I can’t get it out of my head.”
Law stares at you gravely, his cold fingers tightening over your wrist almost imperceptibly. His tone is serious now – almost demanding – as he proceeds to question you through gritted teeth.
“What did it look like?”
You look back down at him, something clicking in place for you, too. Law must know something about it - must have experienced something similar.
You answer with only one heavy word, the tip of your tongue burning in resentment for the shadowed being. You breathe it out, choking on its taste, its gel-like macabre invading your vision once more.
“Eyeballs.”
Law's expression shifts incredibly into a sort of contained fury. His eyes narrow slightly, a flicker of understanding crossing his features.
"Eyeballs," he repeats, his voice barely above a whisper. The air lays thick as the shadowed body itself – translucent and unbreathable - as he processes your words, his eyes holding a type of withered rage within them.
CLANG!
The sharp clang of metal reverberates through the crow’s nest yet again, cutting through the heavy silence like a blade slicing through cloth. Startled, you and Law both turn towards the source of the disturbance, your gazes locking onto Zoro, who stands amidst the weightlifting equipment, his expression unreadable but his body language speaking volumes.
"What now?" you mutter under your breath, irritation lacing your words as you eye the swordsman, who seems determined to disrupt your conversation with Law.
With a casual shrug that belies the underlying tension, Zoro meets your gaze head-on, his demeanour challenging. It's as if he's daring you to confront him, to question his motives for disrupting your discussion.
You exchange a quick glance with Law, who remains stoically observant, his gaze flickering between you and Zoro with a hint of intrigue.
With a grumbling sigh, you turn back to Law, silently urging him to continue the conversation despite the Bull-Head’s intrusion; there are matters that need addressing, and you refuse to let Zoro's antics derail your focus.
Law's gaze remains fixed on Zoro for a moment longer before he turns his attention back to you, his expression guarded. For a moment, there's silence between the two of you, the weight of your confession hanging heavy in the air.
Then, without a word, Law begins to open a freshly packaged needle.
"I've encountered them before," he finally admits, his voice low and tinged with bitterness. "Penguin - one of my crewmates… he was taken. Before your Captain rammed into us, we were trying to find him.”
You feel your heart thrumming on the tip of your tongue. “Why him?”
“I don’t know yet. I think they mistook him for me, as ridiculous as that sounds,” he says between gritted teeth. He nudges his head to your skin. “Did this happen after Kozuki-ya was taken?”
You give a terse nod.
“Then that’s one problem crossed out; the trauma of Eyeballs has triggered the transformation. But what I’m more curious about is whether your transformation would have happened regardless. Is this inherited or was it done by an external factor?” he mutters the last sentence more to himself than anything.
He runs his inked fingers across your arm, tracing the blackened and iridescent blue veins of your skin ever so lightly, ever so softly, that your stomach uncontrollably drops in response.
CLANG! TWANG! CLANG! CRASH!
Your frustration bubbles to the surface as you whirl around again, expecting to find Zoro once more amidst the weightlifting equipment.
Sure enough, there he stands, his imposing figure casting a shadow over the room as he eyes you and Law with an unreadable expression. But this time, there's a subtle shift in his demeanour, a tension that thrums beneath the surface as his gaze locks onto Law's hand gently caressing your arm.
You raise your eyebrows at Zoro, your eyes completely dead-panned.
“You want to come over here and touch me, too?” you call out.
Zoro's expression flickers with a mixture of surprise and annoyance at your blunt remark. He opens his mouth to respond, but no words come out, his usual retort lost in the face of your bold challenge.
Meanwhile, there's a small smirk on Law’s mouth as he watches the events unfold like some sort of referee.
And before Bull-Head finally finds his voice, you brazenly interrupt him with a sarcastic smile and a dramatic flick of a switch.
The unused walls that partition the floor of the gym and the workshop now groan from its wake, slowly rising to its now-welcomed intrusion. With the last few glares that you receive from the samurai, you dramatically wave back at him with a devious cock to your head.
As the mechanical walls shudder in its succession, you turn back to Law with a satisfied smirk. In response, Law watches you with amusement twinkling in his eyes, clearly entertained by your bold maneuver to ensure privacy for your conversation.
And finally, the rumbling stops, the barriers are in its full splendour, and you can now go back to business.
"Well, that takes care of that," you remark, crossing your arms and leaning against one of the now-closed walls. "Now, where were we?"
Law flicks up a needle in his hand. “You okay if I take some of your blood with me?”
“You creep me out, Trafalgar,” you mutter, giving him a heavy side-eye. Alas, Law stares at you with a pointed look, waiting for you to give your actual consent; in reply, you smile at him a little, thrusting your hand out. “Go for it, doc.”
As the needle gently finds its way into your skin, you silently watch Law draw your blood with a sense of ease and nonchalance, as if he’s done this a million times – good, you think to yourself. You were a little worried that he was lying about his profession for a second.
Law decides to suddenly break the silence whilst idly watching your blood seep into the vial's reservoir.
“I hope you know that we’ve been to Wano. Your crew have met people you’ve probably not seen for a decade.”
Your heart stammers incredibly hard in your chest from his sudden comment, the realisation of his words slamming into you like a ton of bricks. You have not heard about Wano since you left - nor did you ever want to. But the fact that your crew has now seen and met the people that you have not even…
It scares you.
Because - what do they know?
Because - what has happened since you were gone?
But - should you care? You've revoked your title and all that comes with it to receive a legal grant to leave the country. You are basically a stranger to your home, now – a home you absolutely despised, if that soothes any discomfort that lays within your chest. But you can’t lie that you miss the peace. And the people. Well, some of them, at least.
Law looks at you suspiciously, realising that maybe you haven't known about this particular fact until now. He flickers his focus back to the needle in his hand. “I heavily advise you to read through one of their logbooks.”
You swallow, tilting your head to the side. “I don’t want to.”
“You have to,” he responds instantly, a firmness lingering in his tone. “Trust me.”
You pretend to ignore his insistence by turning to the Enma. With a bitten-back lip, you thoughtfully polish the Enma with your other hand, gently puffing the ball on the different areas of her body.
Law takes notice of the sword in your grasp whilst he gently removes the needle from your arm . He slightly purses his lips, pondering amidst the awkward silence on whether it’s a good idea to bring that matter up or not.
Finally, he sighs. He points to the Enma that lays in your hand.
“I can’t believe I’m asking you this, swordsmith, but where do you think Zoro-ya got that from?”
Surprised, you look up at him – and for the first time in the conversation, your voice doesn't come out so self-assured. You furrow your eyebrows.
“Well, we don’t really have that kind of friendship. I-I just assumed someone illegally smuggled it out of Wano, and he found it somewhere.”
“Well,” Law says as he shifts himself off from the mahogany stool. He sweeps off his equipment from the table. “Maybe you should ask.”
You raise an eyebrow at him. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I’m…going to see Mugiwara-ya. To form…another alliance.” He chokes out the last word with a withered sigh, irritation colouring his face like you’ve never seen before. He looks down at you, his jaw clenched. “It seems that we both have a common objective to reach. It would be easier for Tony-ya and I to work together on your arm, too - I would like to document it for future purposes.”
“Hang on - what about Kikoku? Our deal?” You splutter out, vindictively narrowing your eyes at him.
He offers you a rare smile. “Keep it. I’ll come back in a few hours, anyway.”
And as he beelines to the barrier’s door, you can’t help but voice out one last lingering thought.
“Can I ask you one last question?” You call out.
Law silently turns around, leaning himself against the wall. A silent ‘go ahead,' if anything.
You breathe in deeply. “What was my tell? The one that revealed my identity?”
And immediately, Law's lips find its way into a devious smirk as he meets your gaze, a glint of amusement dancing in his eyes. He pauses for a moment, considering his response, before finally answering.
"Let's just say, it was what you said - and also how you said it," he replies, his smirk widening ever so slightly.
And with that enigmatic statement hanging in the air, Law takes his leave, striding confidently out of the room and – quite intentionally – leaving the door between the gym and the workshop hanging wide open. You watch him go, his departure leaving you with more questions than answers.
As you ponder over Law's words, Enma laying loosely within your fingertips, your thoughts are instantly interrupted by the thrum of demanding footsteps.
Turning towards the noise, your eyes lock with his, his imposing figure drawing closer with each step. His wet green hair glistens in the light, and his gaze is sharp as it meets yours.
Zoro's approach is slow and deliberate, his movements fluid and purposeful like a predator stalking its prey. With each step, his presence looms larger, casting a shadow over the room that seems to swallow everything in its path.
With a raise of your eyebrow, you watch him take his place in front of you, leaning his side against the workshop table. He runs his glistening, calloused hands through a damp cloth, his darkening grey eye never leaving yours. You stare up at the lion, the predator that's now silently observing you, as his rumbling voice departs from the tip of his tongue.
“You’re telling me everything,” he lowly demands, sprawling himself on the mahogany stool.
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95
I spot a typo in Postcards From The Edge and try not to let it ruin the book. “Well they’ve got another think [sic] coming!” it says. Perhaps it’s just this ancient edition, and they weeded that out later when they gave it a less interesting book jacket. Something about a typo in a BOOK, though. It’s like a typo in the Bible
There are weather warnings for extreme heat on Sunday and Monday. I don’t think the British know quite what to do with 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I check to see which department stores are open at the weekend. I need that corporate air conditioning. Older women have already begun carrying umbrellas around. The heat has somehow driven the yard men away, though one sat in his Audi for 3 hours with the engine on yesterday, FaceTiming his children, smoking a joint. The drug dealer’s new puppy takes her time finding an adequate place to urinate - a small patch of weeds near an empty vegetable oil barrel. The pigeons seem upset that my chimney is no longer accessible as a place of congregation. It’s for your own good, I tell them when I walk outside. Someone has left their expensive Range Rover unlocked with the windows down and I take this to be an act of trust in me as a yard resident. I worry the pigeons will go in and begin to build a nest on the heated seats
After work I bike slowly to the DHL depot to collect my replacement global entry card, originally sent to my uncle and aunt’s address in LA, then mailed by my aunt to the gallery, which is closed. It is a perfect late afternoon ride home, through the city of London, past carefully conserved brick rubble from bombed buildings next to shiny glass towers named things like “One Smithfields”, “One New Change”, and simply “One London”
I look at the news and it lists candidates for Boris Johnson’s replacement. Who the fuck are these people? I think, wondering why I know who Jeff Sessions and Marco Rubio are but not who is about to lead my home country. And actually I know why, it’s because “Penny Mordaunt” isn’t an answer to any NYT crossword clue. Leadership in the U.K. since I came of age has felt very slapdash. Resignations of two prime ministers have made their successors feel rushed. They all feel like stepparents - wheeled in posthaste to keep the illusion of a family alive. I do like, however, that we have been led by two women, one a possible sociopath and the other possibly autistic. The US can’t countenance a woman of any kind running things, even now
N pleads with me to watch Boogie Nights and instead I watch a film YouTube recommended me “Love, Rosie”. It stars Lily Collins with a patchy British accent, as a young girl with dreams of hotel management, but who falls pregnant and loses the love of her life to a mentally ill chef in Boston, then to Suki Waterhouse. Her child is 13 when they finally get together near the sea
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re:union (kataang week 2021) DAY SEVEN
prompt: the sea and the sky
re:union
chapter seven: reunions
rating: T
words: 2529
summary: "He had fought hard for this unity. Had spent countless hours in courtrooms and offices arguing with dignitaries and representatives about the benefits of a United Republic. He had spent long nights drafting up documents and looking over contracts. He had dreamed of finally seeing this day, finally seeing this unity. All he could see tonight though, was a yellow flower drifting around the crowded room on an intricately braided head of ochre hair."
read it on ao3
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chapter seven: reunions
By the time Aang had handled Councilman Zhu’s dumpling crisis, he had lost track of Katara.
“She went to get changed for the feast,” a familiar, though deeper than he remembered, voice sounded from behind him.
“Sokka!”
“Hey buddy! It’s good to see you.”
They squeezed each other in a bone-crushing hug. The first one, Aang realized, he had gotten since his return. Aang held on a little harder at the thought.
“Where’s Suki?”
“Getting ready with the rest of the warriors. They are playing a special part in the performance tonight.”
“Wow! I can’t wait to see that!”
“Heh—yeah, me too.” Sokka’s voice went somewhere dreamy. “But, uh, I think it’ll be hard to watch with your head buried in my shoulder like this…”
“Oh right! Sorry… just happy to see you.”
“I missed you too buddy.” Sokka squeezed Aang’s shoulder reassuringly. “Now, you should go get ready! Can’t have the guest of honor stinking up the place tonight.”
“Guest of honor…” Aang grumbled, rolling his eyes in exasperation at Zhu’s exuberance. Still, he broke away from Sokka, giving him a nod as he made his way towards the room’s egress.
“Oh, and Aang?” called Sokka from near the food tables where he was stealing an hor’s d'oeuvre from under a cloche. “She’s not seeing anybody, in case you were wondering.”
Aang stopped still, his ears burned, his head swam. He hadn’t realized how much the question was plaguing him until he had heard it vocalized. She’s still single. There’s still time. He had let her go once, had regretted it every day since. She’s still single. He had no idea if she still wanted him the way he wanted her. But she’s still single. He resolved to try and change that fact by the end of the night.
He opened his mouth to speak but only a low whine came out. He cleared his throat but ended up coughing around the words as he forced them out. “I—is that… is that so?”
“It is.” Sokka snorted.
“That’s uh… thanks Sokka!” Aang shouted in salutation as he rushed out the door, needing to hide his burning blush and, as everyone had insisted, finally get cleaned up.
⬭
He wore a new set of robes. The pants dyed a dark amber with northern saffron. The belt and sash a sunny terra-cotta color that complimented the blue of his tattoos.
He surveyed his face in the mirror, taking in the scruff along his jawline, the tan around his temples, the laugh lines near his lips. He hadn’t spent much time looking at himself over the past few years, hadn’t had a mirror at any of the temples. The only time he would look at his reflection was when shaving his head, and even then, the refraction of the water made it difficult to examine his countenance with any detail.
Aang had never much minded the way that he looked--hadn’t had much use for vanity when living with the monks, hadn’t had much time for insecurity when running from the fire nation, hadn’t had much need for self-consciousness when being loved by Katara--he’d always thought his face was friendly enough, his body was strong enough. Something about looking at himself now though, fully a man, strong and steady and serene in a way that he’d never seen himself before, made his chest swell with confidence.
“I look good, huh buddy?” He directed the question to Momo, who had joined him in his room after an afternoon spent swooping around Cranefish City in search, no doubt, of sweets from strangers.
In reply, the lemur flew over to perch on his shoulder, scratching through the stubble on Aang’s chin with a squawk.
“You really think she’ll like it?” He scratched Momo between the ears and produced a plum from the pocket of his pants.
Momo took the fruit eagerly between his paws and greedily gobbled it down.
“Aw buddy, you flatter me.”
“Well babe,” a feminine voice dripping with thinly veiled amusement sounded from behind him, “it looks like we’ve officially lost him.”
“You’d think so, but he’s been talking to the lemur like that for as long as I’ve known him.”
“So what you’re telling me is, he has always been insane?”
“Pretty much.”
Aang’s face was beet red (he had lost count, at this point, as to how many times this had happened today) as he spun on his heel to face the Firelord and Firelady, who were standing in his doorway in their formal robes and appraising him with mirth-filled expressions.
“Uh, hey guys… how, uh… how long have you been standing there?”
“Oh, long enough, hot stuff.” Mai shot him a wry smile with a raised eyebrow before turning and pecking her husband on the cheek quickly as she took her leave. “I’m going to go make sure the kids are ready. We leave in ten, boys.”
Once Mai was out of earshot, Zuko burst into laughter and walked over to throw an arm around Aang. “Anything you want to talk about there, Aang?”
“Yeah! Why is it that I don’t see any of you for three whole years, and the first thing anyone does is tease me.”
“That’s not true! The first thing I did was put you on babysitting duty.”
“You’re not funny, Zuko.”
“Hey! Now who’s teasing whom?”
Aang scowled. Zuko, trying to school his face into a slightly more serious expression, straightened up and stalked a few paces across the small room.
“I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice because Uncle isn’t here to do it for me.” Zuko pantomimed stroking his beard and affected a strong accent that, ultimately, sounded nothing like Iroh. “Follow your heart.”
“Follow my heart? That’s it? No tea metaphors? No floral imagery? You make a pretty rotten Iroh, Zuko.”
“Hey, I tried.” Zuko shrugged. “I don’t know, man. You’re still in love with Katara, right?”
Aang flushed but nodded his head, eyes fixed on the floor.
“Are you going to do something about it?”
Aang met Zuko’s eyes determinedly and nodded again.
“Good. You’d better.”
“Thanks Zuko.”
“Any time. By the way? I agree with Momo, the beard really suits you.” At that, Zuko strode out of the room, chuckling softly to himself.
⬭
“So, Sugar Queen,” Toph plopped herself on Katara’s bed with a huff, swinging her bare feet up to rest on the adjacent wall so she could still feel what was happening. “You seemed pretty cozy with our Prodigal Son back there. Locked that down yet?”
“Toph!” Katara spluttered, pulling her paintbrush away from her lips.
“That’s a no, then?”
“Wha--no, not a… he just got back! And I don’t even know if… it’s none of your business, anyway.”
“Right, right. So you guys haven’t talked about your feelings, like, at all, yet? What the heck was all that flirting on the beach then?”
“What flirting? We were just hanging out. As friends! Being friendly! We were friends before we were ever anything else, Toph. You know that!”
“Uh huh, uh huh. Good point, Katara. Your definition of ‘friendly’ has always been a little bit off when it comes to Aang…”
“Toph! I will kick you out.”
“No, you won’t. Want to know why?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“You know me so well, Sweetness. And you aren’t going to kick me out because I know you very well and if I’m not here in, oh, seven minutes when you inevitably start second guessing yourself, to give you one of my patented Toph Beifong pep talks, you are going to freak out.”
Katara grumbled something crass under her breath and scowled at Toph’s reflection in the mirror, but ultimately, she knew her friend was right, so she obliged the company while she finished putting on her makeup.
Katara rarely wore makeup. It hadn’t really been a custom among the women in the Southern Water Tribe growing up, and during the war there hadn’t been time to worry over such trivialities. Afterwards, though, she had been the victim of many a makeover by Ty Lee. Had been the guest at many formal galas that required a bit of dressing up. Had been gifted a set of Kyoshi warrior paints by Suki. Had spent an afternoon wandering around the market in Caldera hunting down the exact right shade of lipstick with Mai and learning everything that she could possibly hope to know about knife maintenance.
Aang had always gotten incredibly flustered around her when she wore makeup. That was, perhaps, her favorite part of the process.
It had been years since she had put any makeup on her face. Her face was different now. Her eyes crinkled a bit at the corners when she smiled, her cheeks were less plump, more defined, her lips were fuller—perhaps the lipstick made her lips look too full? Perhaps it wasn’t the same color that she had used that one night in Omashu when Aang had ended up wearing more of it than she had? Perhaps she should wear something pinker? Redder? What had Mai said about skin undertones?
“You look fine.”
“You really think so, Toph?”
“No idea.” Toph deadpanned. “But I’m sure that even if you look like an armadillo-hog, Aang will still forget his own name when he sees you. That is your goal with the facepaint, right?”
“Uh…”
“Of course it is, don’t try to lie to me, Sweetness. Listen, I know two things: that boy’s heartbeat has always only ever been impacted by you, and a lot of other men have also had hammering heartbeats when they talk to you. Wanna know what that tells me? You ain’t ugly. In fact, I assume you’re pretty hot. So, chin up, shoulders back, let’s go get you your man back.”
Katara spluttered and blushed. “Oh… uh, okay.”
“You don’t sound confident yet. You are still in love with him, right?”
“Yes.” She whispered.
“Obviously. Then get your pretty little butt out of here and go do something about it. Chop chop, girly!” Toph, still laying on Katara’s bed, started snapping at her while she squared her shoulders in the mirror and gave herself one more once over, nodding at her reflection and resolving to talk to Aang as soon as she had the chance.
“Right. Okay. I can do this. Thank you, Toph.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Eh, yeah… I told Yugi to meet me here so we can head over together. Or wait… was it Satoru? Toklo? I don’t know, some guy is picking me up. Can’t show up to a stuffy formal function without someone to talk to all the boring people for me, now can I?”
“You do know all of your friends are going to be there tonight, right?”
“I said what I said.”
Katara rolled her eyes as she hurried past Toph and prepared to leave. “Whatever, just lock up when you leave, okay? Mrs. Shao is out tonight so I’m the last one in the house.”
⬭
The ballroom was lavishly decorated. The colors of all four nations draped around the room in every detail. Tapestries hung on the walls with the new seal of Republic City, flanked on either side by the insignias of the four nations. The tables were lined with dishes from across the world. The floral arrangements featured regional blooms from all over. In a ballroom in a government building in a sleepy corner of the Earth Kingdom continent, the entire world was united in one beautiful display.
He had fought hard for this unity. Had spent countless hours in courtrooms and offices arguing with dignitaries and representatives about the benefits of a United Republic. He had spent long nights drafting up documents and looking over contracts. He had dreamed of finally seeing this day, finally seeing this unity. All he could see tonight though, was a yellow flower drifting around the crowded room on an intricately braided head of ochre hair.
From his seat onstage next to Zuko, he watched her make her way around the room hugging and smiling and laughing and chatting. Her sleeveless blue dress was modern but carried traditional nods to her water tribe roots. Her lips were a dark cherry red. Her hair was braided. He had braided it. A yellow flower sat at her crown and winked sunshine at him whenever she turned her head. She was beautiful. Of course, he already knew that. But she was beautiful.
“Aang? Hello… Aang??”
“Huh, what?” Aang was drawn from his stupor when Zuko nudged him with his elbow.
“You’re up.”
“Oh.”
Zhu introduced him. He somehow made a speech. There was roaring applause. Her eyes were blue, her lips were red, the flower was yellow. She was blushing.
He took his seat next to Zuko. Her eyes were blue . There were performances. Her lips were red . Suki shot finger guns at him in greeting as she and her warriors took the stage. The flower was yellow. Music started up and the gathered crowd dispersed to make way for dancing. She was blushing.
“Excuse me.” He rushed off-stage and into the crowd, chasing a glimpse of yellow in ochre, a swish of blue chiffon. She was pushing her way through the crowd, too. Her eyes were blue. “Katara, I--”
“Dance with me?”
She was offering him a hand. The tsungi horn rang out a familiar song. He took it. “Of course.”
They knew this dance by muscle memory. It was as familiar as their own names, as each other’s name. He flew around her in swirls. She swam around him on waves. They were the sea and the sky and there could not be one without the other. He lifted her, she spun around him. He dipped her, she glowed. She was the sun and he was the moon. She illuminated his sky. He compelled her tides.
The music ended. They were breathing heavy, faces inches apart, hearts still hammering the now silent drum beat.
“Can we go somewhere?”
⬭
The sound of the party flooded the streets of Republic City. Everyone seemed in good spirits, bustling about in a dance as they went about their evening errands. The cicada-crickets sang along to the Tsungi horn. The air was hot, heavy with humidity. They watched the waves from a rooftop. Their hands were intertwined.
Out across the bay, the sea and the sky collided in a canvas of colors. The green and yellow and red and orange of twilight reflected on the water’s dusky blue blue blue. The colors blurred together, obscuring the horizon line, obscuring the separation between their two elements. Out here, there was no sea, no sky. No air, no water. No Aang, no Katara. Just them. Just together. Just finally.
They made promises to each other. They held on. They did not let go.
“Sweetie?”
“Hmm?”
“I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
He had to lean every so slightly down to kiss her.
Her hands in his hands.
Blue. Grey.
Sea. Sky.
Their city had a new name.
They were here.
They were home.
⬭
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's done! It's done!
So sorry for the delay in posting this! I could've squeezed it out yesterday but didn't feel like doing so would wrap up all the things the way that I wanted to so I needed to take a bit more time on it and, obviously, this chapter grew to be quite a bit larger than the others.
I have had SO MUCH FUN participating in Kataang week this year and hope to do it again next year maybe? Also I /might/ have a little storm brewing for Maiko week so... be on the lookout for that at some point?
The love and support that I've gotten for this fic this week? OH MY GOD like wow it's been so lovely! Thank you all for reading.
And a million thanks to @foxy-knowledgeseeker for being an absolute angel and beta-ing this sucker for me. I'm gonna apologize for my choas just once more. (Sorry! Thank you!)
Bwah! Okay, time for a nap <3
@kataang-week
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
#kataang week 2021#kataang#ao3#foxford writes words#avatar the last airbender#atla#katara#aang#zuko#sokka#mai#toph#momo#the sea and the sky#re:union
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“You are, I think, an evening star, of all the stars, the fairest”
Title is a Sappho quote
Yueki one-shot
---
Yue ran her hands through her hair. It had grown since the end of the war, trailing down just below her waist in silver waves, like light cascading off the edge of a crescent moon. Her hands were delicate and soft from years of silk and fur mittens and high quality moisturizers, contrasting with Suki’s rough, callused hands. Suki had told her once that she used to be insecure about her hands, which were larger than average and blistered easily before she became a Kyoshi Warrior and built up a tolerance. Yue thought that Suki’s hands were beautiful. They spoke of resilience and courage. Yue’s spoke of nothing but her sheltered, spoiled childhood.
“Yue?” Suki sidled up to her, resting her hand on Yue’s shoulder. “You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?”
Yue nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I can’t look at it Suki,” she whispered. “it just reminds me of my failure.”
“Hey, you didn’t fail!” Suki protested, gently moving Yue to face her. “You helped save the moon spirit. When Sokka told me the story-”
“But I didn’t.” Yue’s voice was always small and soft, but now it just sounded hurt. “That was all them. I- I’m weak, I can’t bend, I can’t even fight like you.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“I should’ve sacrificed myself, it was my job.”
Suki opened and closed her mouth several times before answering. “You wish you would’ve died? Yue that’s ridiculous.”
“I wish I could’ve done something,” Yue sighed, twirling her hair between her fingers mournfully. “The moon spirit gave me this gift, and I couldn’t do anything in return. Now every time I look in the mirror it’s just... a reminder that I’m weak.”
“Yue, stop that. You’re not weak. If you were weak would you have been able to defy your entire tribe to be free? Would you have been able to travel the world being chased by the fire nation and not given up?”
“I cried. A lot.”
“So did I!” Suki laughed. “We all cried a lot, except maybe Zuko, but that’s because he’s represses his emotions.”
Yue giggled. “Thanks Suki, you always know what to say.”
Suki lifted her hand as if to bring it to Yue’s face, but hesitated, letting it fall back at her side. She smiled lightly and wrapped Yue in an embrace.
Suki smelled like dirt and sea salt, and despite her muscled physique, her embrace was gentle. It felt like home. Yue let herself melt into the other girl’s arms, breathing in shakily and resisting the urge to inhale her scent until she could carry it with her for the rest of the day. Yue hadn’t got a lot of physical affection growing up, her parents had never been huggers, and she hadn’t really had opportunities for friends. But Suki hugged her a lot, and every time Yue would wonder if she’d ever feel more loved, because it seemed impossible. She was the first to pull away, she always was, because she was afraid that if she held on any longer, she’d never be able to let go.
Suki checked Yue’s cheeks for tears, her eyes scanning the smaller girl’s face with an expression that frustrated Yue so much, because she could never figure out what it meant. It was the same expression Sokka used to look at her with, but... but there was no way Suki liked her like that. They were best friends and Yue could accept that they would never be anything more.
The idea came to her out of seemingly nowhere, although in hindsight, it’d probably been growing in the back of her mind for a while. She grabbed Suki’s hands and looked at her with an excited, almost mischievous countenance that she didn’t take on very often.
Suki raised an eyebrow. “Dude, you’re scaring me. What?”
“Let’s dye my hair!” Yue said, grinning blindingly. She could tell that Suki was about to try and be rational, so she continued. “Come on, I know you don’t actually want to persuade me out of it. I want to be impulsive for once. We can use that stuff Sokka made! It’ll take a few months to wash out, but once it does my hair will be back to normal, so it won’t damage anything.” She bit her lip anxiously, her eyes gleaming with freedom that was still new to her.
“Yea, ok,” Suki chuckled. She broke out into a joyous grin and shook Yue’s shoulders a little roughly. “Yea! You’re gonna look so cool, what color do you want?”
“Pink!”
“That was... fast.”
Yue shrugged. “I guess this isn’t an entirely new idea. But...” she trailed off tentatively. “I want to do a color that’s not associated with any nation. Something that’s just for me.”
Suki smirked at her. “I thought pink was Ty Lee’s thing.”
“Ty Lee can’t own a color,” Yue replied, sticking her nose in the air.
“Touché.”
---
“Have you ever done this before?” Yue asked as she settled into the rickety chair in the corner of Suki’s room. They’d been staying on Kyoshi Island for a few weeks, along with Sokka and Zuko (Yue made a note to get Suki in on her plans to get those two idiots together) and it was... really nice.
Suki was silent for a moment and Yue swiveled in her seat to see the taller girls smiling guiltily. She raised her hands in defeat. “Fine, no, I haven’t. But it can’t be that hard right?”
Yue raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You better not ruin my hair.”
“Can’t make any promises.”
“Suki!”
Suki dipped her hands into the glass jar Sokka had given to them. It was apparently made of all organic materials, but cactus juice was technically organic, so that didn’t exactly speak to how safe it was. Suki told Yue to sit up taller and warned her that she might get dye on her tunic.
“Won’t that just be part of the adventure?” Yue asked in response.
“That’s it, you’ve been possessed.”
“Just put the pink stuff on my hair weirdo.”
“You’re the weirdo,” Suki muttered, already running her pink-stained hands through Yue’s hair.
This was a terrible idea, Yue decided. Not because she didn’t want to color her hair, but because Suki was running her hands gently through her long hair and humming softly and Yue was sure that her heartbeat could be heard miles away.
It was just a couple hours before dinner, so the sun had begun to dip gently below the horizon, kissing Yue’s dark skin in a fascinating contrast to her snow-white hair. Her cheeks were colored gold and dusted with pink and Suki thought she looked like a rainbow. Suki moved her lips silently as she found a rhythm in dying Yue’s hair. Soft whispers of the song she was mouthing escaped ever so often and she wished that she could see if Yue was smiling or not. Suki loved Yue’s smile, her real smile. The one that shone through when they sat beside the fire exchanging stories and jokes, or when they woke up early enough to watch the sunrise. Suki thought that Yue looked beautiful underneath the sun. Her hair would be tinted amber and her eyes would glow in a drastically different way to how they darkened when she looked at the moon. Maybe Yue had been blessed by the moon spirit, but Suki thought she looked like the sun.
“Suki?” Yue turned her head slightly to where Suki could glimpse her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. “You stopped.”
Suki shook herself from her reverie and chuckled nervously, her skin heating up and glowing crimson. “Uh sorry, I was just...” What was she doing? Her heart ached with longing and really, Yue had been impulsive, why couldn’t she? Never one for timing, Suki whispered timidly, still facing the back of Yue’s head. “Yue? Can I tell you something?”
Yue’s breath hitched ever so slightly and Suki felt her shoulders tense. She hadn’t even realized her had was on her shoulder. So much for not ruining her tunic. It felt like hours of time moving slow as molasses before Yue finally answered. “Of course.”
“I-” Suki’s words caught in her throat and she groaned in frustration. What had come over her? She hadn’t been nervous at all when she was with Sokka before! “YueIreallylikeyoulikeasmorethanafriend,” she rushed, immediately stepping back and cursing herself beneath her breath.
But Yue didn’t say anything. Suki forced herself across the room to face her. “Please say something.”
Yue’s lips turned up slightly and she turned to look up at Suki. Her face was painted with sunlight and her hair was half pink and everything felt so indescribably perfect for a moment. “I- I like you too Suki.”
Suki decided she had never grinned larger in her life. She stopped wringing her hands anxiously. “Can I kiss you?”
She’d never seen Yue smile this large either, nor nod this vigorously.
Suki practically launched herself to the other girl, grasping her cheeks and smiling into the kiss. Yue’s hands were wrapped around her neck and her lips tasted like strawberries and she smelled like lavender. Kissing Yue was like dancing with the sun. It was new and almost scary, but so soft. And they fit together like puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces stained bright pink and wrapped in a blanket of gold.
When they finally pulled apart for air, Yue was giggling and buried her face in the crook of Suki’s neck, muttering against her skin. “I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that.” She lifted her head and Suki marveled at her lips, pearly lipgloss faded and smudged, cheeks flushed pink and-
Suki slapped her hand over her mouth and laughed. “Oh no, I made your cheeks all pink.”
Yue snickered. “Well now you’ve got pink all over your face, so I suppose we’re even.”
The sun was gone now and the moon hung in the window. Yue rested her forehead against Suki’s and breathed in dirt and sea salt. Maybe she could learn not to hate the moon, for its light washed over the room and made Suki’s eyes sparkle and highlighted her skin silver. The moon wasn’t her failure, it was love. It was patience and love and fierce protection. But maybe her hair being pink would help her remember that. She wasn’t the moon, she was Yue. Her own person, who loved Suki so much she could burst. And Suki was the steadiness of the earth and the courage of the sun and the joy of the wildflowers.
Yue didn’t care that her face was pink, or that they were surely going to be answering a lot of questions at dinner. All she needed to care about was that Suki’s breath was warm against her face and her hands, rough and callused, brushed like feathers along the back of her neck and through the un-dyed portion of her hair. This, she decided was freedom.
#AHHH I LOVE THEM#yue#suki#yueki#yueki fic#yueki fanfic#atla#Avatar The Last Airbender#avatar#atla fanfic#atla fic#yue atla#suki atla#yueki oneshot#atla one shot#willow writes
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forever young. forever you.
Day 1: Reunion
Rated: T
Summary: Lu Ten has a son. Zuko no longer had a claim and disappears without a trace. When things become restless in the former Fire Nation colonies and Katara is requested to aid the White Lotus in a strike against the Ozai Society four years later, never would the waterbender anticipate who she would find during her stay. Yet this was no time for a happy reunion. Zuko is dying and Katara realizes it's too late to save him.
A/N: a seven part piece for zutara week.
Also posted on: AO3
@zutaraweek
***
Lu Ten has a son.
The day the boy had come carried in the arms of a relative and a confession carefully written on parchment by his deceased mother, the tides had shifted. Iroh, filled with utter joy, now had a piece of his son in the form of a four year old boy and Zuko no longer had a claim.
It was only natural that the rightful heir take his place. The Earth Kingdom woman who had stolen the heart of a soldier boy gave birth to a firebender. Iroh was thrust back in the world of Fire Nation politics, now Lord regnant until his grandson came of age. There was no mistaking how pleased many were to see the once banished prince removed from power. In fact, Zuko whole-heartedly agreed, graciously stepping down without a single objection.
The former Fire Lord who had risked his title and livelihood was thrust our of court. With a war criminal father, a legally insane sister and a treacherous mother, what was left for him but a string of failures and bad blood running through his veins? The world was quick to discard his accomplishments in favor of this unknown boy not even three month into Zuko’s reign.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right.” Aang says quietly to himself, his worry apparent on his face. It does not fail to reach his companions’ ears.
“There must be a way for you to continue your reign.” Katara muses. “It can’t just end here. What you did, you’re uncle turning down his rights and proclaiming you heir in his place, just like that, it’s over? You earned this.”
“Hate to break it to you, Sugarqueen, but blood outranks merit.” Toph informed her with her feet propped up on the arm of Zuko’s lounge chair, a pinky buried in her ear. “No matter how good or bad a person is, as long as they carry the right gene, the position of power is handed down on a silver platter.”
“I say he got a pass.” Sokka added his input. “Dodging a bullet like that? Now it’s somebody else’s problem. Besides, the nation’s in good hands, the kid comes from Iroh’s line of tea-loving cookiness.”
“I swear, you can be so insensitive.” Katara scolded, shooting daggers at her brother. Turning to Zuko, she softens. “If you talk to your uncle, I’m sure he can work things out with the council.”
Zuko doesn’t look at the others. He peers into the distance, the palace vast and large and stretched out so far, that a concern twists in the others guts as they notice his concentration stone dead on the sea beyond it.
“Zuko, buddy?” Sokka breaks his concentration.
“Hm? Did you guys say something?”
The Gaang glance at one another. They expected an outburst, a display of disappointment or even anger- which they thought was completely justified. Instead, for the first time ever, Zuko expresses indifference; completely unreadable to the people who know him best.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right.” Aang repeats.
Katara dismisses it. They were all worried, of course, but that’s all that it was, just worry. Temporary. Spirits, how she would come to regret this, for none of them could have ever predicted this would be the last time they would see Zuko.
They couldn’t stay. There were people who needed them. There were wounds heal, homes to rebuild. A jagged scar slashed upon the world that required years of patching; trust was fragile like glass. Glass wasn’t so easy to keep together when the spider cracks ran deep.
Aang was the first to leave, his Avatar duties calling him once again. Suki was next. Toph stayed to comfort the Fire Lord with the little time she had spared before reuniting with her parents; without her, Iroh would not have so easily been able to weed out those who opposed his claim and sought to harm his grandson. But at night, he shut himself away; the former Dragon of the West lost another son. It became apparent when eight months of his whereabouts were officially unknown.
The water tribe siblings were last, their stay becoming less and less necessary. Zuko wasn’t coming back and Iroh denied company a month within the former Fire Lord’s disappearance, only showing his face to young Koji.
‘Let him grieve in his own way’ Toph had told Katara before she left. ‘Over staying our welcome will not help him and we all know once Sparky sets his mind on something, there’s no changing it.’
‘How can he just...leave? Without a trace, without a word? Especially to his Uncle?’
Toph shrugged, ‘I think Twinkletoes was onto something when he said this didn’t feel right’
Katara’s brows lifted. ‘I’m pretty sure he was referring to Koji’s sudden appearance.’ Katara retorted.
Toph shook her head, sighing before throwing a sack over her shoulder and planting a bare foot on the metal plank leading to the ship taking her home. ‘Even you couldn’t have missed it, Sugarqueen; Sparky wasn’t just not himself, it was like...he was prepared for all this to go down.”
Katara scoffed. ‘There’s no way he could have foreseen Lu Ten having a son.’
‘No;’ Toph muttered, ‘No, Sparky wouldn’t have kept this from us, but he’s holding back something. People don’t just disappear like that without a word.” The earthbender snapped her fingers. ‘Not even the ever dramatic firepants.’
Katara looks back to that time, a year ago. People just don’t disappear like that, the nineteen year old waterbender repeated to herself. But what could make Zuko, a persistent and loyal man to his friends and country, vanish?
“There’s a disturbance in the West. The colonies have become restless and there’s rumors of an organization on the rise of executing a vicious plan against the crown prince.” Aang points to the sky with his staff. He doesn’t look at her. He hasn’t looked at her in a year.
Katara nods, a grim countenance taking over her face. One year ago, her lip would have trembled and her heart would grip. “Is that where you’re headed?”
“No.” Aang replied flatly. "In fact, Piandao himself had requested both our assistance."
He definitely hates me, Katara surmised. She sighs, blue eyes flickering over to the now teenage Avatar. His face had slimmed down from his round features, his stature tall and lean. He had grown into a young man widely recognized for his accomplishments in defeating Ozai and his vision in bringing the world harmony, a beacon and home for all walks of the four nations.
That’s why Katara was here, aiding him in decisions such as selecting the city council, inaugurating policy and trade, and reviewing applications for small and large businesses eager to establish their wealth in the newly developed city.
“It won’t be easy to break up an organization ring like the Ozai Society.” Aang glances over at Katara briefly. “The fact that they have bases in different locations among both the Fire Nation and the colonies makes it all the more difficult.”
“Then striking at once would be the only solution.” Katara added. “I knew there were people who conspired against Iroh and Koji but I can’t believe the Ozai Society strengthened since-” She swallows the rest of her words.
“The White Lotus has kept me up to date. They have several groups positioned at each location, some placing spies among the ranks. Unfortunately, my focus remains here with the unrest with the benders and the non-benders and I’m afraid my absence will only escalate things. I would love to oversee it personally-
“-but since the Ozai Society has yet to take action, your presence might hasten their plans.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll go.” Katara offered.
“Actually, I was thinking-”
“I’ll go.” She insisted. Aang frowns much to her dislike. He didn’t even want her in Republic City. The only reason he made way was due to her forcefulness. That’s when they were together and that’s when things between them became complicated. Katara was not a sideliner and she was not going to wait for her boyfriend to seek her when he was good and ready to come around. At first, she moved here to be closer to him, or so she thought; in reality, she came here for herself.
“It’s dangerous.” Aang warned her.
“And if you knew me, you’d know I can be too.” Katara turns on her heels, curling her fingers in her long, chocolate hair out of nervous habit. This was them now, no longer Aang and the Avatar’s girl. No longer the people they thought they were to each other but the reality of their separate lives. “I’ll leave at first light.”
Former Lieutenant Jee was the first to greet her when her airship docked. He had not aged a day. Katara bows, then extends a hand in greeting. Instead, the older gentleman pulls her in for a hug. She laughs, returning it in kind.
Jee informs her that the White Lotus has reserved a room for her at one of their secret locations, disguised as a seedy bar tucked away between a rundown general store and a bakery. It’s late afternoon when they arrive, patrons hardly occupy the dining area. A young boy eagerly takes Katara’s belongings after being tipped generously by Jee. He departs, stating that he will be back for her come morning to meet Master Piandao to go over strategy.
There’s a flight of stairs leading to the second floor where a line of rooms are rented. The boy places her belongings at her bedside, informing Katara that dinner will be served at sundown. She uses this time to unpack, pondering how Master Piandao and the others had been. Sokka would be jealous when he learns Katara will be working with him, imagining the recently made Chieftain's dramatic reaction in front of Suki and their newborn twins. The waterbender chuckles to herself, lying down in bed.
Waking from a quick nap leaves her hungry. Katara washes her face from the basin in her washroom then makes her way downstairs. The place is now at full capacity; loud with rumbustious guests and drunken regulars.
The waterbender worries little, having encountered this on many occasions during her travels around the world, even trying an ale or two.
She maneuvers between tables so she could reach the bar stand where she recognizes the owner as one of the Lotus members; a short, white haired woman well into her sixties, with the smile of an angel and the mouth of a sailor.
Katara leans over the counter top, waving to the barkeeper. The older woman nods to the waterbender an acknowledgement while handing a tray of food to her clumsy granddaughter. A loud crack and a strangled cry behind Katara provokes her to snap her head at the owner of that humiliating scream. She’s horrified to find an open hand reaching for her rear and a gloved, larger one bending it back in at an ungodly angle.
Katara gaze locked on the stranger clothed in all black with two dao swords strapped to his back, his face covered save his eyes, which were curtained by his shaggy, dark hair. She gasped at the sight of amber meeting her stare and the hint of marred, pink tinted skin.
Before she could process the stranger, or the pervert writhing for dear life, she’s brought back with a snap and a high-pitched scream. He’s not in front of her anymore, weaving through the crowded room for the door.
#zutara#zutara week#zutara week 2020#zuko x katara#zuko#katara#fanfiction#zutara fanfiction#ao3#day 1#reunion
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29. “Come over here and make me.” please! Thank you so much!
I’m gonna be honest. This one has absolutely no point except for shameless fluff. Plus, I really just wanted to write Zuko and Katara interacting in a more lighthearted and carefree way.
Set in post season 3 at the Ember Island beachhouse. Let’s just say the Gaang took a much needed vacation after the war (and the k@taang kiss/m@iko reunion never happened lol).
——imstillonmobilesopretendthisisalinebreakagainthx——
It’s an obnoxiously hot day.
The whole group has dispersed across the beach property in an attempt to distract themselves from the beating sun. Katara can hear Toph and Sokka arguing about who gets the last moonpeach somewhere inside the house, and the last time she checked, Aang was sprawled out on the porch with one arm sluggishly bending the air around him to manufacture a breeze.
As for Katara, she’s forgone most of her outer layers of clothing and decides that a swim at the beach is just what she needs.
She crosses paths with Suki on her way down to the shore. The older girl has also stripped to just her bindings, and her fair skin is tinted pink from the sun. Her metal fans, tied together at their handles, are slung over one shoulder.
“Hey, do you know where Sokka is?”
Katara nods and points to the house, too overheated to do anything else. Suki hums in thanks and continues up the hill.
When Katara reaches the beachfront, she can’t help but blink. Zuko’s prone, shirtless body glistens with sweat, his dao swords sprawled on the sand beside him.
“I thought you were taking a nap.”
One golden eye slides open to regard her before shutting again. “I asked Suki to spar. Wanted to see if swords or fans would come out on top.”
Katara grunts as she flops down next to him. She digs her toes into the sand and shields her eyes from the glare of the sun off the ocean waves.
“So?”
“Hm?”
“Which one came out on top?”
“Oh. Neither. It was pretty much a draw.” He exhales and a flickering flame escapes his lips. “Plus, it was too hot to keep it up.”
They sit like that for awhile, the sound of the waves and the parakeet-gulls only serving to emphasize the lazy mood.
But all too soon, Katara begins to feel antsy. Her hair keeps sticking to her sweat-slicked skin, and a thin coat of sand covers most of her body. She looks to her side where Zuko remains spread-eagled on the floor, his sharp features the perfect picture of relaxation.
A strong urge to ruin his peaceful countenance overcomes her.
With a flick of her wrist, a small jet of ocean water hits him on the cheek. She watches him scrunch up his aristocratic nose before he merely turns his face away from her. Another wave of her hand and he can’t help but splutter as a larger jet splashes him again.
He wipes a hand over his face and shoots her a glare.
“Quit it.”
Something playful glints in her eyes and she just splashes him again, this time on his bare chest.
“I’m serious, Katara.” His voice is a low growl, but it lacks his usual bite.
She stands up, a grin beginning to curl her chapped lips.
“Oh, you’re serious. I’m really scared now.”
She starts walking backwards towards the shoreline, flipping her thick hair over her shoulder. He rolls his eyes and lets his head thump back down onto the sand. But Katara can see the tension coiling in his muscles, like they’re preparing to spring, and she knows that she’s got him.
So, she lets a tall wall of water crash over his body.
Finally, he sits up, dark hair plastered to his face and spitting out salt water. By now, she’s already calf-deep in the ocean, her knees bent in anticipation.
Zuko shoots her a dark look. “I said, cut it out.”
“Come over here and make me.”
She won’t lie and say that the way he sizes her up in that moment doesn’t make her stomach flip.
And suddenly, he’s on his feet and charging at her, fists encased in flickering flames.
She’s a little surprised that he immediately goes for a close-combat spar, but mentally shrugs. Less effort this way.
They block and strike and try their damn best to get one over on the other, but the fight remains at a stalemate. Zuko punches out with one fist, but Katara quickly catches it in a block of ice. He swings with his other arm before that too is frozen.
Katara smirks and prepares to deliver the final blow, but Zuko inhales and ducks underwater before she gets the chance.
Her eyes narrow, searching the water for his shadow, but the reflection of the sun off the waves keeps her from locating him. And right as she resolves to go in after him, a strong arm wraps around her stomach and tugs her under.
She yelps and gets a mouthful of seawater before she pushes against the ocean floor and half-kicks, half-bends them both back to the surface.
They burst to the top, Zuko’s arm still caging her back to his front. She coughs and lamely tries to shove her elbow into his head, but she’s laughing too hard and her limbs have all but turned to jello from the exercise.
She hears his chuckle by her ear and twists to catch a glimpse of his rare smile before it disappears.
His bad eye is closed against the water droplets slipping down his forehead, but the other is alight with mirth, and his cheeks are flushed from the exerted effort of their spar.
She laughs again, the tip of her pink tongue pinched between her teeth, and raises her free hand to poke him on the nose.
“Okay, okay, I forfeit.” She almost regrets it when he releases her to float a few feet away. “But you gotta admit that it feels nice to get in the water.”
He scoffs and a little spew of fire carries on his breath until it fizzles out an inch or two away from her face. She sticks her tongue out at him.
“Yeah, whatever. I was already tired from sparring with Suki, and now I’m exhausted.” He relaxes in the water, turning to float on his back.
“Aw, is poor baby Zuko all tuckered out?”
“Yes. Yes, he is. In fact, I think I’m too tired to keep swimming. I’ll just go ahead and blurbaghab—“
A startled laugh escapes her when he lets himself sink underneath the waves, garbling the last of his words. She rolls her eyes and freezes a thick sheet of ice underneath him, effectively lifting his body back up to the surface.
He spreads out on his makeshift raft and rolls his head to the side to look at her, his cheeks puffed out. Zuko purses his lips and water streams out from his mouth, hitting her square on her nose. She ducks under the spray and hoists herself onto the block next to him.
“Gross, you Drama Queen.”
He snorts, and watches her wiggle across the ice into a comfortable position. He has a smug grin on his pale pink lips, a hint of teeth flashing at her. And with his shaggy hair poking out at all angles from the sticky saltwater, and the sun illuminating all the different shades of gold and brown in his irises, it suddenly hits her how boyishly handsome he really is.
Her stomach clenches from more than just the cold ice against her skin. She quickly hides her face in the crook of her elbow, and misses the soft look that he gives her.
Zuko closes his eyes, face turning back towards the still oppressively-hot sun, and let’s himself unwind.
They wake up two hours later when Aang and Sokka sneak under their ice-raft and flip them back into the water.
Needless to say, their evening does not remain peaceful for long.
#okay the end was kinda shitty i apologize#but i didnt know how else to conclude it lol#anywaaaaaays#more shameless fluff#zutara#katara#zuko#drabble prompt#my zutara stuff#gaang#forevamsoo
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my weary heart has come to rest in yours (i found my way home) — 1/1
Summary: "I don't get it," Katara purses her lips, befuddlement clear in the furrow of her brows as she turns to him. "You'd think the Fire Nation would know such an important detail about their own prince."
The Gaang wonders why the Fire Nation doesn't seem to know much about Zuko, like maybe where his scar should be? It opens up a lot of questions that they want answered. Zuko, on the other hand, just wants to sleep.
Rating: General Audiences
Words: 5.7k
Warnings: unbeta’d, zuko-centric, post-ember island players, pre-sozin's comet, zuko gets a hug (as he deserves), non-canon compliant (more like canon adjacent lol), ember island
AN: working title: obligatory the gaang finds out about zuko's scar fic // alt title: a pocket of happiness for my children
title from: Ride Home by Ben&Ben
Also on: ff.net | AO3
Other writing
The atmosphere amongst the occupants of the beach house is sullen and cross following their night out in the theater.
It isn’t lost on them that the edifice they have come to know as their solace belongs to the very monster man who brought upon their 'deaths'. The certainty that it had all been a fictionalized retelling was not enough to temper even the echo of the crowd’s rabid enthusiasm as they cheered the demise of the Avatar and his friends, nor erase the visceral image of the thespian Fire Lord standing before his adoring subjects—triumphant in his accomplishment of world domination.
They step through the threshold of the tyrant’s once home. The air grows thicker in acerbity.
Zuko wants to snark at them, I told you they’d butcher it. If he had been the person he was even a month ago perhaps he would have, but the words wither in his throat. The scene of him engulfed in Azula’s flames, however fake or fantasized, sears across his mind on relentless repeat so that it is more selfish entreaty than consideration that has him abstaining from permeating the burdensome silence with his signature brand of pessimism—realism.
Dinner is an equally stilted affair, the only sound to be heard is the clob of chopsticks against wooden bowls and the crackling of the campfire solemnly harmonizing with the occasional sigh of dejection.
This, however, does not last too long.
He supposes he should have seen it coming. This is the boy who offered his friendship at the slightest show of goodness from him. The Avatar is as buoyant in his movements as his element. Though Zuko has come to learn when it comes to his disposition, it is more alacrity than air that has him flitting from one emotion to another, ensuring he never dallies in his worries for too long.
So when Aang bellows, "That's it!" as he discards his bowl with a careless flick, the remains of his uneaten congee spilling carelessly across the cobblestones of the courtyard, Zuko doesn't so much as blink at his latest antics.
He is more surprised at Sokka's indignant huff seeing as it is the first sound he's made in the past two hours (which is subsequently also the quietest he's ever witnessed the other boy to be in all the time he's known him) since they've arrived.
"I would have eaten that," Sokka mutters irately.
(It is fitting however, that this should be the commentary to break his speechless strike.)
"I mean, what's the big deal? It was just a stupid play!” Aang exclaims emphatically, his voice cracking in his vehemence. “If anything, we should be laughing our butts off—that writer obviously didn't know what he was talking about!"
"Speak for yourself, Twinkletoes," Toph chuckles. "I happened to enjoy my portrayal. It was wrong, sure, but what did you expect from a patchwork of second-hand accounts combined with your regular sprinkling of Fire Nation propaganda? It was dumb, but that was the point. You all know the truth, don't you? Quit being such wet blankets about it already."
After having heard a similar iteration from Toph earlier, Zuko finds no offense from the jibe. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the rest of his companions, save Aang—though even his propensity for optimism appears ready to float away on the next gust of wind.
"At least you were in the play," Suki offers, good-naturedly, if not a bit feebly.
"I think I'd rather just not be in it altogether, if it means I'd have to be depicted like—" Katara shudders before grumbling, as if there truly are no words for that disaster of a parody, "...that."
Zuko wholeheartedly seconds her sentiments.
"Toph's right though!" Aang blusters on, and it all seems rather void but he admires the kid's pluck. "In fact, I think we should all take this opportunity to look back on our adventures—"
Zuko groans. Frankly, he doesn't want to think too much about what it said about him that the Avatar's evasion tactics had relied mostly on improvisation and sheer, dumb luck than calculated military strategy and cunning.
"Or maybe we should just not."
"But Zuko," Aang turns big, round, pleading eyes at him. "Aren't you at least a little curious about what really happened? Not even Toph's heard about half of what we were up to before she joined up with us!"
"You were idiots then, and you're only just a little bit now," Toph snarks. "What else is there to know?"
"Toph," warns Katara just as Sokka sputters, "Hey!"
"It might be good for morale," Suki suggests gently. "I know I could use a pick-me-up."
Zuko gets along with Suki—at least, as well as he is able to get along with anyone. Still, he can't help but shoot her a betrayed glance following her pronouncement. Zuko just wants to sleep, but he should have known better. The minute he starts wanting things is usually the moment they float out of reach.
Suki smiles back unrepentantly, so he sighs in resignation and straps himself down for a long night of reliving his failures (again) and listening to their tales.
"I am a pretty gifted storyteller," Sokka puffs his chest then starts stroking oddly at his face, particularly the area at the sides of his mouth.
Okay? he ponders with a large heaping of confusion.
"That's the spirit, Sokka!" Aang exclaims, but before Sokka can thank him much less get a word in, Aang launches into the story of how the Water Tribe siblings actually found him. Unsurprisingly, it involves less tears—"By which Sokka means no tears!"—and an infuriated Katara and that, he can believe.
Zuko doesn't anticipate being spoken to for the rest of the night. At best, he is a mere purveyor of their communal fire. At worst, an engaged and enthusiastic reaction to the boys' avid narration will be expected of him. And as socially inept as he may be, he has enough tact to refrain from volunteering his side of the events. Even with the amends he's made, he hardly thinks it would encourage rapport to rhapsodize about a time they had been on separate sides at all, no matter how early it had been in their acquaintance. Zuko would (very much) like to retire at some point in the evening without having to worry about suffocating in his sleep.
(He hasn't had that concern for two weeks now, it was practically a new record.)
So imagine his surprise when the focus shifts to him. Toph, much to his mortification, recounts his outburst at being told by a child decked out in derisory Avatar robes (that had to be illegal, right?) that the scar on his 'Prince Zuko costume' was on the wrong side.
"I don't get it," Katara purses her lips, befuddlement clear in the furrow of her brows as she turns to him. "You'd think the Fire Nation would know such an important detail about their own prince."
"Yeah, Sparky." Toph stomps over from the opposite side of their circle to plop down beside him with all the grace of a landslide. "I didn't even know you had a scar until tonight!" She pokes aimlessly at his right cheek. "What gives?"
He stares at her agog before realizing she has no way of deciphering his countenance. So, he responds by addressing Katara's comment instead.
"I don't see why they would," he shrugs. "I'm sure by the time they heard, if they heard about it at all, I had long been banished."
"I'm confused," Aang rubs his head contemplatively. "If you're banished, what's with all the wanted posters? I thought being banished meant you had to stay away, but then they also want to imprison you? You're their prince, it doesn't make sense!"
"Come to think of it," Suki muses, "Why were you banished in the first place?"
"Hold up," Sokka did that thing where he stroked the sides of his face again—seriously, what was up with that?—"I've always wondered, how come you were branded a traitor way before you even joined us? Reading your poster wasn't exactly at the top of our to-do list."
Katara interjects with, "And what were you doing so far out in the South Pole that day we found Aang, anyway?" while Toph reminds him, "Plus, that still doesn't explain why your people don't seem to know anything about you or your scar."
A headache begins forming at his temples from the barrage of questions. He sighs in vexation before regarding Katara.
"Isn't it obvious? What did you think I was doing? I wasn't exactly sailing around for a vacation destination." Then lowly, somberly, at Toph, "And they haven't been my people," he rubs subconsciously at his marred flesh—mind flitting to that war room—always, always there—and to a whole division of loyal soldiers that in the end, he arrogantly assumed he could defend yet ultimately failed to protect. "Not for a long time."
There is silence in the wake of his disclosure, punctuated by the crackle of the tinder as it is disturbed by the gale gusting in from the beach, and an unnameable terseness that fills the air.
"Why—" he's not sure why he whispers, but it feels appropriate given their stricken expressions. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
Suki ultimately is the one to brave breaking the taut stillness, staring at him with purpose.
"Zuko, when—who—" she stutters with what he speculates is an uncharacteristic timidity. That is until she gathers herself with a deep breath, the query crystallizing on her exhalation.
"How did you get your scar?"
It occurs to him, belatedly, that he may have said too much.
"I don't see how it matters," he retorts, hoping the curtness in his delivery puts an end to this inquisition.
But Zuko never did have much luck getting what he wanted.
(No, he broods with a bitterness he wishes he didn't harbor so much, Azula made sure of that.)
"We don't want to upset you—"
"So don't."
Undeterred, Katara finishes in tonalities as soothing as the morning tide, "But it helps to talk about things that might have hurt you."
Around him, the pressure builds. A deadly gas awaiting a fuse.
"Oh, 'it helps,' does it?" he snarls, rage thrumming like wildfire in his veins—igniting his body, and detonating through his next words. "And who exactly does it help, huh? You sure it's my best interests you have at heart? Or—I know! You wanna know my weaknesses, keep the big, bad fire bender on a leash!" He throws his head back, some facsimile of a laugh escaping his lips. "Unless, of course, you're just saying that to satisfy your insatiable need to mother everyone."
Boom.
"Please, I haven't had a mother in years," and he hates it, he hates how it is his voice now that breaks and his body wilts as the violent cloud of his fury dissipates—all the rancorous contention leaking out of him. "I don't need your ridicule or your pity. I've been fine on my own."
And this is the moment he loses everything, he is convinced. Because this is what Zuko does, and what he is best at. His fingers are but sieves from which good things slip. All of him is a razor blade destined to pierce any that would dare come close. He is downfall personified, he is a plague.
This is how it should be, he reasons, cut him now as they would a festering infection.
(As his father, his sister, his mother, would.)
For broken things beget broken things, and they deserve better than to have him bring ruin upon them all.
But then a hand—hands—ground him, keep him rooted, keep him still.
"Well then," Sokka avers, with his special brand of genial but no less poignant solemnity. "It's a good thing we aren't in the business of dishing out pity. Isn't that right, gang?" He clasps his right shoulder, the gesture teeming with meaning though Zuko is the last person to decode it.
"Ridicule, on the other hand…" Toph snickers. Katara sends her an affronted glare before realizing the futility of such an action. She sighs her discontent instead, before returning her attention to him.
"And you're not anymore," Katara says with an earnestness that confounds Zuko to discover is directed at him. "On your own, that is."
"I don't understand," and truly he doesn't. He knows it is not their way to spill blood (barring Katara's commimation during his early days in the Western Air Temple, which was more than fair), but this is the first he's lost his temper in front of them for no valid reason. His choleric speech had their bonfire flaring with every harsh and erratic breath he expelled, sure signs of his waning control. "Aren't you going to kick me out? At least put me in chains!"
Katara's hand joins Sokka's on his opposite side as she approaches him from behind. He has to crane his neck to ascertain her aghast mien. "For what? For being angry? For talking out of turn?"
(It always boils down to this, doesn't it? Agni, why couldn't he ever just keep his mouth shut for once in his miserable life?)
"I'm sorry," he mumbles, because he is and he doesn't know what the right thing to do or say is.
"I know," Katara smiles, but there is something desolate in the curl of her lips. "You always are," she sighs. "I'm sorry, too."
Her thumb brushes back and forth across the nape of his neck and he would have started at the unfamiliar touch if her apology hadn't already caught him off guard. In truth, this entire night has been an anomaly with how quickly they all have made his head spin in the last few minutes alone.
"You're sorry?" he gapes, genuine bafflement coloring his articulation. "Why?"
"For pushing you to talk about what I should have known was a sensitive topic." It's her turn to squeeze his shoulder. "I really am sorry."
"There's nothing to forgive," he stammers, for there honestly isn't. He's still trying to get over the fact he received an apology, let alone that anyone sought a dispension of forgiveness. From him.
"Katara's maternal instincts and overbearing need to talk about one's feelings can be annoying. Believe me, I know."
"Gee. Thanks, Toph," Katara deadpans.
"But she's right," Toph's roughened hands encircle his left forearm. Compared to the siblings, her grip is near painful, as if to dig in her point. "Bottling it up, burying your emotions… it'll only hurt you more."
"But it doesn't hurt," he insists, stubbornly ignoring the waver in his importunity as his palm spans the breadth of his ragged scar. "It doesn't."
"We're not talking about the hurt there," Katara grazes cool fingers from his back to his front, before placing it prostrate and precise. "We're talking about the one here."
Right atop his heart.
"The monks have a saying," Aang has since nestled on his knees in front of Zuko. Without him noticing, their entire circle has gotten closer so that he is at the center—warm bodies surrounding him from all sides, little planets orbiting the sun.
"Holding onto anger is a lot like holding onto hot coals that you mean to throw at someone else. In the end, you're the one who gets burned."
"What do you want from me?" he questions wearily though he knows the answer.
"Nothing," Katara assuages. "Nothing you aren't willing to give."
"And we know you're a fire bender, buddy, but don't you think a fire shared is a village warmed?" Sokka grins encouragingly before sobering. "Maybe you don't want to, but I think you may need this. You've got all this—this—pent-up frustration inside you. I can't believe we never noticed it before, it's practically oozing out of you! Like pus from a boil!"
Zuko grimaces. "Thanks, Sokka."
Unfazed, he goes on. "Don't tell me you've had someone to talk about this with. I can't imagine you and Azula sitting round a campfire having a heart-to-heart."
You'd be surprised, Zuko thinks, if that night of confessions at the beachside counted at all.
"There's still so much we don't know about you," Aang adds. "We just want to understand."
"But, why?" he blurts, frustration mounting again like a forest fire. He is desperate to fathom their persistence, to decipher the motives behind their inexplicably lambent eyes, their magnanimous looks and their delicate tones.
"Because we're your friends, Zuko," Suki murmurs while everyone makes their approval known one way or another. "Sharing burdens is kinda what we do."
Oh, he thinks dumbly, Oh.
"It doesn't make for a pleasant bedtime story," he states with an almost believable clinical detachment, steadfastly ignoring the pounding of his heart at her proclamation of friendship. "And it's heavy. This is a load I wouldn't wish on anyone."
"All the better," Katara chirps, settling with her knees aside behind him, "that there's five of us then, right?"
Perhaps it is the security found amongst the shadows of the eventide that loosens his tongue. Perhaps it is that Zuko is just too exhausted, figuring that the fastest way to reach his bed is to simply not argue. It might even be the contentment that Aang and Sokka's adage brings him, the closest taste of home he's had since his separation from the person whom he now knows, without question, he loves most in this world. Or maybe it is simply time , here, on this island, the ghost of dual timbres wisened with age—and it can help you understand yourselves—ringing in his ears. And so beneath a collective scrutiny of ingrained amity and determined tolerance and encouragement and just… goodness.
He begins his tale.
He speaks until his already hoarse voice grows even hoarser, the words clumsy and stilted on his tongue, unused as he is to telling his story—along with the extensive range of sensations that come with it, and the illimitable memories it incites within him, some sentimental while others he would rather forget altogether.
He speaks of a mother's love lending him both strength and weakness, of how it should have been enough yet still could never outweigh his longing for the love of a father who scorns him, of a sister he adored until she, too, eventually saw him as nothing more than a hindrance, then an enemy. He speaks of an uncle whose favor brought him places he knew he ought to be but secretly did not think he deserved, of advice dispensed wisely and discarded carelessly, of a compassion that flamed so bright within him a King saw it as too untamable to remain, and so he snuffed it out with a fiery hand to his face. He spoke of lonely years with nothing but sky and sea and the musings of an old man over tea as his only company, of a path he knew deep down had been aimless yet it was all he could hold on to because it was a reminder that he was still real.
"Three years," Suki mouths, devastation written so plainly upon her profile Zuko couldn't bear to look at her. "He had you chasing a ghost for three years."
"So… so what you said… about losing your honor?" Katara mutters wetly, and if that isn't evidence enough of her sorrow then surely, the unceasingly dampening spots between his shoulder blades are.
He winces at the flashback her inquest incites, shaking his head in internal, forlorn reproach. His shame galvanizes him enough to want to explicate his reasonings out loud, for if there is absolution to be found in his ramblings then all the more reason to try.
"For so long, I fooled myself into believing that finding the Avatar meant regaining my honor. It never occurred to me until recently that honor wasn't something that could be taken away from you. It's something you earn for yourself," he sighs despondently. "Some days though, it wasn't even about honor—I just wanted to go home. But more than anything, my father led me to believe that if I captured you then I would finally, finally have his approval—his love," he shakes his head before releasing a hollow chuckle. "What a stupid thought."
"No, no it wasn't stupid!" Toph exclaims. "It's a parent's job to love their kid. And even then it's not supposed to be conditional!"
"I can't believe he would—that he'd bur—" Aang cuts himself off with a jerk, as if the word, burn, is a most foul curse that would be invoked at the slightest whisp. Zuko doesn't dissuade him. There was a time when he felt the same way, too.
"His own son," Aang finishes dazedly, his face a river of tears, a torrent with no signs of abating.
"I'm sorry," Zuko tries again, a little alarmed now at the frequency of watery displays before him. "I didn't mean to make you sad. Oh," in his panic, he thumbs impetuously at the stray droplets coursing down the arch of Toph's cheeks. In this light, she looks exactly her age, so young and slight, yet so contrary to what he knows of the mighty and unflappable earth bender. A pang goes through his chest that he could ever be cause for her melancholy, for any of theirs. "Please don't cry."
"You first," Toph replies, inconceivably subdued and gentle as she reaches up to frame his face. Zuko holds his breath when he assumes she will palm at his scar, which she does. But there is no judgement there, only indubitable acceptance, and comfort, as she brushes roughly at the tears he didn't even know he's shed.
"Oh," he repeats, not for the first, and certainly not for the last, time tonight.
Suki sniffs. "He doesn’t deserve you."
Sokka abruptly declares in hard intonations, "I'm gonna kill him—"
Before he can completely swear his intent, the water in the fountain behind them solidifies into menacingly pointy shards while the earth underneath them trembles dangerously.
"Get in line," Katara hisses darkly at the same time Toph grunts, "Not if I get to him first!"
Sokka's eyes are red-rimmed and gleaming. Still, he announces with a fair amount of acid in his inflection, "I know how you feel about this Aang, but you better hold me back when the time comes cause if I get my hands on that crazy, stupid, son-of-a—"
Zuko lurches forward to cover Aang's ears.
"Sokka!"
It seems the contact is all the incentive Aang needs to throw his arms around Zuko. The fire bender isn't expecting the extra ninety pounds and for all four, gangly limbs to wrap around him like a pentapus so he has no choice but to fall back to accommodate the extra weight, his head landing on Katara's lap as Aang does his utmost to actually meld himself onto his body.
"Slothdog pile?" Toph asks unnecessarily and with a gargantuan amount of glee that the shift in mood gives him whiplash. "No way I'm not getting in on this!"
Toph burrows her head onto his hip, knocking Aang's leg aside as she commandeers Zuko's own left leg like a body pillow. It appears to be all the permission everyone else has been seeking as well, for like dominoes they begin falling into place around him. Katara tucks his head a little more securely on her thigh before leaning her upper body against the lip of the fountain at her back while Suki lists against Sokka who leans his head onto Zuko's right shoulder.
"What—what's happening right now?" he doesn't want to appear too scandalized but he is at a loss for what to do with his limbs, outstretched as they are on either side of him. The Royal family didn't do touch, much less hug. The gesture became even more scarce when his mother… when she was gone, and though his uncle was a lot more free with his affections, it still hadn't warranted familiarity. His muscles contract at the overwhelming amount of contact.
"I wouldn't think too hard." Above him, there are traces of moisture on her visage but Katara chuckles, fond and ebullient now, much to his relief. "Just go with the flow."
"Says the water bender to the fire bender," he bites back weakly, which only fuels Katara's amusement.
Aang fastens his hold around the prince's torso, and he tenses even more.
"You know your dad's wrong, right, Zuko?"
"About what?" he quips sarcastically, but is surprised by the ardency in their antiphon.
"About everything," Aang counters fiercely. "Like, yeah, you chased us all over the world but you never aimed to kill!"
With his lineage it feels like a low bar but he nods his acknowledgement and his gratitude.
"You didn't save me from the pirates, but you kept them from… touching me," her tone is as algid as the glaciers of her homeland, but the rattle of Katara's bones is so prominent that he shakes along with her. "It could have gone a lot worse."
"I wouldn't do you that dishonor," he whispers brokenly, sick at the scenarios he can so acutely guess is conquering her imagination, it's own horrific play dancing along her features.
"I know," she reciprocates, just as gravely, "I know that now."
"You kept your promise. You could have come back, razed our village—"
"And mine," Suki joins Sokka.
"But you didn't."
He frowns. "Those days, my word was the only currency I had that was worth trading."
He doesn't like how they make it—him—sound. Every decent deed he had fulfilled in pursuit of the Avatar was done so as a courtesy mostly to himself. If he was to regain his honor, he had to act with as much honor as his, admittedly dastardly-to-begin-with, mission could provide. Now, Zuko isn't exactly an authority—even on his good days—on altruism but he could at least recognize that in those moments, any clemency administered had been the right thing to do.
"Anyone would have done the same," he defends faintly, then immediately wishes he could take it back when Katara growls.
"No, Zuko," she clenches quivering fingers around the ubiquitous pendant adorning her neck. "No, they wouldn't."
"It's more than that, though," Aang asserts imploringly. "It's just you. It's so obvious, how did we ever not see it before now? It's who you are," he takes a deep breath, the wisdom of a thousand others before him laying siege in his every movement, every syllable. "And who you are is the most honorable guy we know."
He does a double-take.
"You… you really think that?" He shakes his head in frantic incredulity, blood roaring like a storm through his veins. "All of you?"
He looks at each of them in bewilderment—lingers especially on Aang, at the roundness of his cheeks that should be testament to his naiveté yet so contrary to the maturity shadowing his bearing—as if he can divine their rationale through sight alone. He doubts them, and it makes him feel older than sixteen, his cynicism a pallium shackled to his shoulders. But there is a chorus of devout agreeance, Aang's hope a living, tangible thing that he gives to Zuko freely. He fumbles. He doesn't trust the fervor with which it sets him aglow (metaphorically and physically, it would seem, as Sokka comments mildly, "Wow, you're like a heated blanket with how warm you are. Hey, why didn't we think of doing this before?"), but Zuko—even with his infinite skepticism—cannot find it in his fractured heart to reject it.
"Zuko?" Aang prompts, raising his head so he can catch his eye, gray and gold colliding in an affable display of security. "You believe us, don't you?"
"Yeah," Zuko reassures, albeit timorously. He takes a bracing, meditative breath before releasing it, sinking into the downy cosset of their affections as he turns his head to Katara's stomach, lowers his arms to clutch Suki and Sokka closer, bundles Aang on his chest with his heated breath, and secures Toph to his side with a hand to her back. Then, stronger, "Yeah, I guess I do."
When he decided to share his tumultuous past, he thought that he might shatter and they would rejoice at the gravity of his turmoil. But he should have known better than to assume his friends—and how marvelous a notion, to think that he of all people would have a group he is honored to name as such his own—will let him. He knows Suki had called themselves so earlier, but he doesn't quite believe it. Not until now.
"We won't let him touch you again."
It is said through a yawn as one by one, they nod off, until only Zuko and Katara are left to drift close to the edge of lethargy. She strokes tenderly at his hair, so reminiscent of his mother that he feels a familiar burning in his eyes and a lump at the back of his throat once more, all from the simple motion—or so he tells himself.
"Sleep, Zuko," she sweeps away the strands at his forehead before impressing upon it a tender kiss. "No one will hurt you. Not anymore, not ever."
Zuko can take care of himself. The way he's brought up, he's had to. Beyond that, they are at the very front lines of a war—any day, any second, could mean the last for them and they would have no way of knowing until it is upon them, so Katara's asseveration should not have brought him the relief it did. If anything, he should have denied it with the same dose of pessimism realism he approaches most everything in his life.
But perhaps, just this once, he will allow himself the privilege of their refuge. He will allow himself to believe in the vehemency of their promise.
I just wanted to go home, he had said. And this is not a place he pictured himself ever being in, trivialized to a mere furnace, yet strangely he finds he does not mind it (not that he would ever divulge this forthright), not even a little bit. The struggle and strife of his history, of his present, are unchanged, but an effervescence envelops him in spite of the five bodies weighing him down.
Maybe even because of them.
He closes his eyes when Katara has another go at running her fingers through his hair. He can almost conjure the ghost of his mother's smile when she used to employ the same tactics to lull him to slumber. He thinks of his uncle, mistifying and genteel and terrifying and loving all at once, sitting vigil at his bedside when fever and delirium took him during those early days of recovery, and long after then, whether or not he admitted to his desire for him to stay. He compares this house and everything it represents—a relic to his family's happiness—to this strangely colorful and caring mismatch of a rugged group that someway, somehow, just manages to fit perfectly into his arms. He tightens his embrace, and it suddenly hits him.
He supposes home was something he could carry with him all along.
"Sleep," Katara hums.
And so he does.
-//////-
Later, much later, when the power from the comet has receded to the faintest of throbs, and his sister is sedated and heavily guarded while his father is in chains at the bottom of the most isolated prison in the Fire Nation, their fates to be decided in the coming weeks by a tribunal composed of the remaining leaders from all nations—when he retires to his room in lieu of that of the Fire Lord's (despite the mantle and all it entails, both the sordid and the noble, falling solely onto his shoulders), and he sports yet another scar, a burn, that he will bear just as proudly as the first and more fiercely than even his eminent title, for there was no higher honor than protecting a friend—when his uncle has resumed his seat, snoring soundly and deservedly on an armchair at the side of his vast four-poster, always at his side as if they had never parted for even one second, and he is sandwiched between his two most favorite twelve-year olds in the world, Toph as unmindful of his injury as one would expect her to be when she plants her sleep-dead body right atop his chest, and Aang entirely all too much, curled into a ball that hardly breaches his space, apart from his head as he dozes lightly on his shoulder—when Sokka and Suki are passed out at the foot of his bed, his leg a pillow for their weary heads and their bodies as tangled onto each other despite Sokka's own bandaged leg (like the kindred souls he knows them to be, like magnets helpless against each other's pull), and Katara has expelled the last of her curative waters on him, much to his insistence that he doesn't need it any longer, before she sinks into the only unoccupied space above him on his bed—when they lie there in the first quiet they've achieved since they all adjourned here, their heads touching and their breathing in sync—he opens his eyes.
"You did it, Zuko," Katara's voice is a susurrant trill tinged with exaltation and pride. "You're home."
As he does then, he does again now, and tightens his hold—a hand to steady Aang's lolling head, another at Toph's back to still her fitful body, his leg pushing to burrow the blanket further into Suki's side, and the fireplace flaring with his breath to heat the figures he cannot reach. The difference in this embrace, however, is in the absence of doubt and the lack of fear, replaced with all the affluence of his adoration—unhindered and abounding.
"Yeah."
It is his turn to press a kiss onto her forehead, lips moving tired but no less grateful and indulgent.
Cradled in the warmth of everyone he loves and cares about, he is quite inclined to agree.
"I am home."
-//////-
AN: "Holding on to anger is like grasping on hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets hurt." —Buddha
i feel like you aren't part of the atla fandom and the zuko nation until you crank out one of these lmao. listen, listen, the beach gets cold at night so i just always picture these kids a pile of tired, sleeping limbs at the end of every day and all huddling into the only free source of heat, no fire required. let me live in this world.
come say hi to me!
#atla#atla fanfiction#the gaang#zuko#zuko fanfiction#honestly this is v self-indulgent fluff#the gaang deserves all the love & downtime#cuz they are just chiLDREN#zuko gets a much deserved hug#zuko + the gaang#altho honestly i think my water tribe sibling bias is showing lol#also zuko has a lot of repressed big brother instincts#so let him be a big brother!!#let him hug it out!!#i will die on this hill#yes i will#swishandflickwit ff
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katara was never going to get used to being the diplomatic type— the ceremonial water tribe robes felt too formal, the moon pendant that Suki had so carefully placed within dark tresses lightly tugged on them. the only thing that made it better was entering into the large meeting room and seeing so many familiar faces that gazed towards her as she entered: announced as “chieftess of the southern water tribe”. //TAKE THIS
@oceantempered || random interactions!
This was new to her. Completely out of her element as much as the fire lord himself had been during those months in Ba Sing Se—what felt so long ago. Her entire world had shifted in much of the same way, OPPOSITE like the flipside of a coin, but just as jarring and a challenge to fit the shoes set out for her. And yet, even so, even before the chieftess crossed the threshold into a room eager for her arrival, Zuko knew she’d handle it as gracefully as if she had never been anything else.
DESTINED for the role, maybe, without realizing or drawing attention to it until necessity rose.
She walked with dignity, adorned in extravagant robes and jewelry he, while admitting complemented her, could nevertheless tell weren’t anywhere close to the style he knew made Katara… KATARA. Obvious as the vacant seat yearning to be filled was, Zuko still waited to capture her eye, and thereafter jerk his head toward that spot beside him: welcoming, encouraging, all with an honest SMILE fashioning his lips.
“Doing okay so far?” In a hushed tone, having angled his head toward her when she joined his side, he uttered the concern: no less FRIENDLY than his countenance. Then, a glance over that SPARKLING pendant and the robes to match, “You look nice.”
#oceantempered#☼🗶|| answered#catch me screaming and hyperventilating at writing with you again#wOW WOWOWOW WOW i missed you#thank you so much for sending this in fdjhgndfjhoga
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Congratulations Suki! You have been accepted for the role of The Pallbearer with the faceclaim Anya Taylor Joy. Please be sure to check out the accepted applicants checklist! Also be sure send us a link to your blog within the next twenty-four hours. Welcome to St. Augustine!
OUT OF CHARACTER
Name/alias: Suki
Age (18+) : 20
Gender/Preferred pronouns: she/her
Timezone: gmt +1
IN CHARACTER
Desired Skeleton: The Pallbearer
Character Name: Alix Deschamps
Age (18+): 20
Gender/Pronouns: cis female, she/her
Hometown: Basel, Suisse
Major: Double majoring in Performance and Literature
Desired Faceclaim: Anya Taylor Joy
Character blurb:
On principle, Alix will not detain your attention; lest a peal of space breaks through the crowd like a clap of thunder - and there she shall stand, the nervous twitchy gaze of an outsider thrust into the company of those who know them by proxy , and not out of genuine interest. Lithe limbs of a dancer trapped in the shell of an academic; a Burberry winter coat, its traditional plaid lining visible when she turns her head. The impossible blond of her hair will be slicked to a peak at her crown, adorned with a velvet ribbon. She’s fiddling with the buttons of her coat, willing the coat she chose (forsaking heat for fashion) to ensnare a semblance of heat, to warm her bones. Alix weaves between mingling bodies, a beloved leather bag being unzipped to allow a sleek leather clad hand to reach inside. No longer inhabiting the nervous expression of seconds before, her countenance is marked with an look of ambiguity; one could describe it as curious, while another would glimpse the submission to glee. You will count her as afflicted by both - now pulled off to the side to fiddle within her bag, she has become a mark for all eyes. Allowed free reign to observe her now, your gaze seeks her own. Her eyes are rich gifts of nature - conveying more force, both of feeling and character, than most are allotted. The blooming semblance of beauty that arrests her features were predicated solely on the emergence of strength, accomplished grace. Your eye shall be transfixed upon her, if only to undo her perplexing contradictions; a ghostly figure, who through her gaze, is transformed into a figure of great interest. When her eye meets yours at last - with a sharp pull her bag has zipped shut, and the sought after lip balm is retrieved - it will not convey the warmth of her honeyed locks or the blushed apples of her cheeks. Violence is so casually thrown from eyes, which are normally described as being in good company with those of a doe.
Developed Head Canons:
Family [¼] : Her mother, Maura Wells, found love in the romantic Basel, which shuns the rich of Geneva, whilst welcoming fully the charm of Switzerland. Alix’s identity has been a harmony, a productive European medley - french at home, with summers away in England, to refine a crisp accent to humor that of her two cousins. Perfection cannot exist, and a year ago, Alix would have happily waxed on the topic of her family’s issues. Yet through the veil of grief, cloaking every aspect of her life now, her childhood presents itself as a cross-section of light and ease. She sought the approval of her parents through dance and literature, as if to perfectly compliment her cousin. As children, puppets to purport their parents greatness, Fredrick would play to accompany her movements; through youth and adolescence, this memory would serve as a point of contention and embarrassment. It would become a symbol of all that was lost in the wake of his death. Fredrick’s ordeal - a long, winding road to the eventual discovery of his body - splintered the family. The Wells (and Deschamps) corralled their love into a beacon of love and support, fulfilling speedily the expectation of a grieving family. But each member was torn clean in two, the tragedy of his death wreaking havoc on them all; through Alix, it took the form of rebirth, and reinvention. Her decision to transfer was neither derided nor questioned - merely accepted, as a natural progression. There is no spoken word, no written rite, which instructs or consents; but with each step Alix takes towards revenge, she does so with the strength of her family, jaded through grief to reject moral-ism, in order to receive the justice denied by the elites they had thought their own.
Music [2/4] : Feelings of the heart could not be translated, speaking through a language of their own; one Alix had never known to exist before. Only through chorus, of triumphant melody, could she make sense of the sensations which sought dominion over her spirit. But before music served as savior, it had been loyal friend and companion - from early snatches of memory (half-real, half realized through elaboration) singing with her family around a piano, the clan galvanized by Freddie’s harmonic talent. And as little feet were slid into hugs of silk, and taught to balance the world on the tips of her toes, music was a master to be bent to; she surrendered to its call, pushing, pulling, contorting to serve its wishes. Alix finds no greater call to nostalgia then through music - how many vinyls has she hidden away, or songs deleted from a library, to avoid confrontation with the malignant beast of grief? Freddie’s ghost haunts her through every avenue, but finds no greater power then through the Lord of Song. Before his death devastated music, it healed the ache of teenage pains of the heart - infatuations, sticky romances in the backs of cars, real love that played out to a painful climax. When doubt over her actions begin to creep in (for as much as she desires unflinching revenge, decisive actions stir feelings of guilt in her breast, crying for her to consider what Freddie would have preached) nothing galvanizing her vengeful spirit into action then a barrage of songs, that stir her love for her cousin, and inflict the perfect medley of pain and anger - for both, are required for a quest of vengeance.
Freddie [¾]: Impossibly good - how often she would use this phrase to denote Freddie’s being to passerbys, who lingered to offer condolences whilst being aware they could not partake in the aching grief of those who shared his blood, or held his heart. Even as children, where lawlessness and inexperience often breeds the worst in most, Freddie strove to being kind to all those around him. Alix, shrouded in shyness, doted on him in response to the sweetness he bestowed upon her. As awkward teens, he would rope her into sly activities that she otherwise would not have been privy to. She revered him, no matter how much she desired to hate him; though Alix is characterized often as his perfect counterpart, she lacked his charm and effervescence. Nice was her only descriptor, while it was one of many Freddie’s known attributes. They kept in loose contact when university began, but neither had the time nor desire to maintain the closeness of their teen years; family would always bind them, should they desire a stronger connection once more. This commitment to casual contact serves as a point of guilt for Alix now; if only she had been the one to put forth effort. His disappearance shattered her shy world, leaving her in limbo ‘til the discovery of his corpse threw her downwards; a fiery return to Earth. She would rather have his return, and forfeit the formidable character she has become. But barring at act of benevolence from God, Alix commits herself to vindication, in the name of the cousin she so ardently adored and loved. Her grief, becomes sacred.
Personality [4/4]: Alix’s character before her cousins death is a blur, even in her own mind - she mourns the death of a girl, who at the least, bore no ill-will towards those around her and easily gave way to apologies to avoid conflict. Shy, though in the face of those she fancied, flirtatious; loving to her family, and those who entered her secluded world. Hard-working, bright, gifted - three traits shared with her dear Freddie. Much of this girl remains in the wake of tragedy, but hardened traits that have no desire to be amiable or attractive, have taken root. Cunning and manipulative - Alix learns to mold herself to fit whatever designs are placed upon her, to better suit her own aims. Her intelligence is bent to undermine those around her, and lay plans of devious nature. Alix speaks freely now, undeterred by social norms and practices; she is neither rude nor abrasive, but no longer allows convention rule over her life. In homage to Freddie, she seeks to be good - protector of the weak and picked on, allied with those who refuse to bow to any King. Curious and invigorated - Alix has never had such motivation in her life, and awakes each morning invigorated. Romantic - she could never abandon her love of romance, nor any other type of connection with another soul; relationships are superfluous to revenge, yet she cannot deny the attraction that has begun to bloom.
Writing Sample:
She thought she had loved him when he had disappeared; she loved him now in another degree - he was far more her own. Alix’s head lulled to the side of her pillow, blinking slowly to bring a room in darkness to life. She shunned sleep to deny his ghost dominion over her dreams; his visits, which she had once relished, became indescribable torture. The sky hangs full and dark - clouds casting themselves into strange forms, arches and broad radiations. From her position in her bed, swath in silken sheets and mounds of blankets, she beseech the wind to shift to the west. How it shrieked out loud, a dastardly scream into the night sky, abandoned by star and moon alike. Her lithe fingers caressed the soft velvet of her pillow case, in hazy dream picturing it to be the softness of his hand. The hour fell between that of joy and pain - the witching hour, feared and pronounced by all, a token of benevolence from dark powers. With shallow breaths, filling her darkened bedroom with wheezy noise, she awaited his appearance - eyes as wide as the moon, unnaturally widened in mobilizing anticipation.
It was his goodness, his silent, strong and effective goodness, that overpowered her - the assurance lifted her sleepless interest, breaking upon her like a light from heaven. His fond, tender look shook her indescribably. In the midst of all she was fixed across her bed, swath like a child in a crib - a messy halo adorned Alix’s head, the golden light of her hair matched by his heavenly figure. In dream he spoke to her - his voice modulated, so that it mixed harmoniously with silver whisper, the gush the musical sign, in which the light breeze intoned their whisper. “Where have you been, Alix? What is your mystery?” His figure would not stay; though his light reflected across succeeding clouds, bequeathing them cheer to illuminate a time in need of ray in retrospect.
“Why do you refuse to speak in plain words, Freddie? My brain is not adept for riddles when fully awake - in dream, I cannot match you. Please, speak to me - your kin.” Tears dampen the pillow her head has become married to, frozen in awe, and fear that direct engagement shall banish his figure at a faster rate. In such inadequate language her feelings struggled for expression; speech, brittle and un-malleable, dissolved or shriveled from effort. He watched her still, raising a hand to stroke her hair - it passed her lips in passing. Alix defied herself and grasped it clumsily, holding to close to pay tribute.
To offer him homage, was joy and duty - to bequeath them both peace in vengeance, was much the same.
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Nampō Roku, Book 3 (1): the Origin of the 4.5-mat Room¹.
1) With respect to the 4.5-mat sitting room², it was created³ by Shukō. Because this was the shin-no-zashiki [眞座敷]⁴, tori-no-ko paper⁵ was pasted [onto the walls] to lighten [the interior of the room], and cryptomeria boards without frames⁶ were used for the ceiling. Small wooden shingles were used to cover the gablet-roof, and it had a one-ken [一間]⁷ toko. His treasured bokuseki by Engo [圜悟]⁸ was hung up, and he honored [his guests] by using the daisu [when he served them tea]⁹. Sometime later, [Shukō] cut a ro [in the floor], and the kyū-dai [弓臺] was arranged together with it.
In general, though objects of the sort that were [customarily] arranged in the shoin were [also] placed out [in this setting], their total number was reduced: [for example,] in the toko, a pair of pictorial scrolls¹¹ were hung -- or, naturally, just a single painted scroll could also be hung up. In front of this a small table [was set up], on which was an incense burner and a [pair of] hanaire¹². Or possibly a small flower-vase in which one variety of flower has been stood¹⁴. Or else writing paper and an ink stone, or a tanzaku-bako [短冊箱]¹⁵, or a [small] reading desk¹⁶. Or perhaps a bon-san [盆山]¹⁷, a ha-cha-tsubo [葉茶壺]¹⁸, or other things like that. Only things of this sort were displayed [in Shukō's room].
With the advent of Jōō, the yojō-han was modified here and there by removing the [wallpaper] to reveal the mud-plaster of the walls, while he also replaced the wooden pillars [that support the walls] with bamboo. He removed the koshi-ita [腰板]¹⁹ from the shōji, and replaced the black-lacquered sill at the bottom of the toko with one painted either with thin-lacquer, or he left [the sill] unpainted²⁰. This is said to be the sō-no-zashiki [草の座敷]²¹.
[Jō]ō²²did not display the daisu in that kind of room. When he felt like displaying the kyū-dai [弓臺], then the kakemono and the objects displayed [in the room] were similar to the things that Shukō had used. [But] when he [used] the fukuro-dana, [he displayed] a bokuseki in the toko; and except for the hanaire, nothing else was placed there.
Later [still], Sōeki²³ began to use a ko-yashiki that had a thatched roof²⁴ on every occasion²⁵. This was a manifestation of his practice of wabi²⁶.
Jōō's [yojō-han] zashiki, as a result [of this development], was [thenceforth] considered to exist somewhere between the shoin and the ko-zashiki. For this reason, when using the fukuro-dana, a certain flexibility is permitted²⁷.
In the above enumeration of the various objects displayed by Shukō, with respect to the piece of furniture [referred to as a] joku [卓], if something like a small flower-vase with a flower standing in it is excluded, any number of other things might be placed [on it]²⁸.
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¹This section, which is clearly spurious, does little more than reiterate details taken from Kanamori Sōwa's largely fictitious “history” of chanoyu*. The language of the entry is typical of the Edo period.
It is not really clear (from the surviving documents of his period) what Jōō and the chajin of his generation actually believed -- though the cha-kai [茶會], as it existed then (and now†), was a creation of Jōō (albeit based on the format of the Shino family's incense gatherings, which they referred to as kō-kai [香會]); and the intimate knowledge of this fact would surely have colored their perception of chanoyu’s earlier history.
The details of the 4.5-mat room, as described in this entry, had already been fixed much earlier than Shukō's period, since a room of this size had been considered appropriate for a man's personal living space according to the tenets of buke-zukuri [武家造]‡, the style of architecture favored by the military class, from which the shoin-zukuri [書院造] style (featuring shoin rooms with details such as are described here) had been evolving since the late Kamakura period**.
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*Sōwa, a daimyō with a scholarly bent and an interest in chanoyu (he had studied tea with Sen no Dōan), was commissioned to write this history by the Tokugawa bakufu, with the express purpose being to Japanize chanoyu, in order to create the precedent necessary to facilitate the bakufu’s sale of Hideyoshi’s collection of meibutsu tea utensils (and thereby raise the cash necessary to pay off the Tokugawa family’s war-debts).
As long as chanoyu was generally perceived to be an imported foreign (Korean) taste, the market for tea utensils was distinctly limited to the (mostly ethnic Korean) curio collectors (whose ranks had been thinned considerably as a result of Hideyoshi’s decimation of Sakai and Hakata in 1595, as punishment for their opposition to his failed invasion of the continent).
†Today the equivalent of Jōō's cha-kai is known by the name of chaji [茶事]. The reader is cautioned to keep this fact in mind, and not confuse Jōō's and Rikyū's usage with the modern chakai [茶会].
‡According to the twelfth century Hōjō Ki [方丈記]. The so-called hōjō [方丈], which means a room one jō square (one jō is 10 shaku long: rooms of this dimension predated the time when the floor came to be completely covered with tatami mats), was approximately the same size as a 4.5-mat room.
**While the word shoin [書院] is usually translated as “study,” its function was much more encompassing: the nobleman used the shoin not only as his personal sitting room (making it rather like a den), but he also slept, ate, washed, and dressed there, as well as using the room for the reception of intimate guests. The tokonoma in this room functioned as a jō-dan [上段] (the built-in equivalent of the mi-chōdai [御帳臺], or nobleman's “seat of estate”) on occasions when this sort of formality was needed when receiving persons of differing rank (the toko-gamachi allowed reed or gauze curtains to be suspended from it, to obscure the nobleman’s countenance from those whose rank did not permitted them to look directly at him).
²Yojō-han zashiki ha [四疊半座敷ハ].
The word zashiki [座敷] means a “sitting room.”
³Sakuji [作事] means to build, construct. According to this entry, Shukō was the first to build such a room (though this is patently false -- since, even in the context of chanoyu, Yoshimasa used a room of this sort for serving tea before Shukō even arrived in Japan from Korea).
⁴Shin-no-zashiki [眞座敷]: perhaps the interpretation of this expression as meaning “most formal [style of] sitting room” is called for by the context.
⁵Tori-no-ko kami [鳥子紙] is a kind of paper with one side finished to a hard texture resembling the surface of a chicken egg.
⁶Fuchi-nashi tenjō [ふちなし天井]. In the earlier period, the ceiling was constructed in such a way that it appeared to consist of a series of small panels surrounded by frames (this is usually called a coffered ceiling in English, and a classical Japanese example with elaborate gilding and painting is shown below, on the left).
The term fuchi-nashi tenjō [縁無し天井] means that the frames were eliminated: the ceiling now consisted of a series of flat boards, laid side by side (this style of ceiling, sometimes called kagami-tenjō [鏡天井], is shown above, on the right).
In the early days, the uniform surface invited the painting of clouds and dragons and other heavenly figures, usually in black ink; but by the Momoyama period, colors and gilding were also added. The example shown above is found in the Sūtra Hall of the Kiyomizu temple in Kyōto.
⁷Ikken [一間] means six feet. This was a tokonoma with what was essentially a full-sized tatami mat covering the floor.
⁸Engo no bokuseki [圓悟の墨跡].
This refers to the bokuseki that is known as the Nagare Engo [流れ圜悟] today*. This scroll is said to have been the first bokuseki ever used for chanoyu.
The scroll was written by the Chinese Chán (Zen) monk Yuán-wù Kèqín [圜悟克勤; 1063 ~ 1135], the editor of the Bìyán Lù [碧 巖 錄] (Heki-gan Roku; the Blue-cliff Records).
As has been mentioned before in this blog, this document was not intended to be used as a scroll, but was actually part of Yuán-wù’s lecture notes (he traveled around China giving lectures on the cases in the Bìyán Lù, and this is a fragment of the text of one of his lectures, which one of the attendees probably kept as a souvenir of the occasion.
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*This is the scroll that tradition holds was given to Shukō by Ikkyū Sōjun.
⁹In fact, Shukō appears to have used a sort of o-chanoyu-dana (perhaps missing a suspended upper shelf) to hold the utensils, rather than a daisu, as shown on the left in the sketch (below).
When his room, the Shukō-an [珠光庵] (in the Shōmyō-ji [稱名寺], in Nara), was reconstructed (the reconstruction is shown in the sketch on the right), this board-floored area was assumed to be the tokonoma (and so it was moved beyond the end of the guests’ mat, and enlarged to the size of the Sen families’ preferred toko for the small room, in keeping with the teaching of suki [数奇] -- which states that the guests must be provided with at least one full mat for their use), and an extra mat for making tea (featuring a daime-gamae situated at the end of an ordinary maru-jō, and so somewhat resembling the original version of the Tai-an) was added to what had originally been a two-mat residential cell. This board seems to have become (quite mistakenly) the precedent for the ita-doko [板床].
¹⁰Kyū-dai [弓臺]: this is an abbreviated reference to the kyū-dai daisu [及第臺子], shown below.
This tana, which was originaly made for use as a writing desk on the continent, has a ten-ita that is the same size as that of the large shin-daisu (measuring 1-shaku 4-sun by 2-shaku 9-sun 5-bu); however, because the ji-ita is smaller (in fact, it is the same size as the small shin-daisu, and measures 1-shaku 3-sun by 2-shaku 7-sun 5-bu), it could not be used with the furo (since the legs would prevent the host from raising or lowering the kan on the kimen-buro when necessary*).
Traditionally it is said that Jōō was the first person to use the ro, though the earliest documents seem to be rather confused on this point. It is possible that a hole was cut in a square board that replaced part of the floor, into which an iron ro-dan† was lowered to hold the fire, and this practice may have predated the appearance of Jōō by several decades.
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*In the early period, chanoyu was generally performed to serve tea to a single guest (who was technically taking the place of the Buddha, so that the tea would not be wasted). When this person was a nobleman, the kan were raised (so they lean against the neck of the furo) when he was present in the room, but lowered (so that they depend below the kan-tsuki).
†Or, more likely, an old cooking pot with the sides above the flange broken off. This seems to have already been in use on the continent by the more wabi of tea men, so it is possible that the practice arrived in Japan during the second half of the fifteenth century.
If so, then it may be that Jōō, rather than introducing the use of a sunken fire, may have been the first to use a mud-plastered cooking hearth of the sort found in the farmhouse kitchen.
¹¹Ni-fuku-tsui [二幅對] refers to a pair of scrolls that were intended to be displayed together. Sometimes they represented a larger work that had been cut in half (since narrower scrolls were much easier to preserve than excessively large ones), and sometimes separate works (sometimes by different artists) that came to be used together in order to evoke a scene*. Scrolls intended for this purpose were prepared with identical mountings.
In addition to pairs of paintings, the number of scrolls in a set sometimes exceeded five, or even eight. It is in light of this that Shukō's restriction to a pair becomes important.
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*Traditionally, one scroll should be a landscape, while the other should feature human subjects (generally representations of the Buddha, or esteemed monks) -- the idea being to figuratively locate the people in the landscape.
The scene was originally supposed to suggest a vision of the Buddha Amitābha's Western Paradise.
¹²Mae ni ha joku ni kōro, hanaire [前にハ卓に香爐、花入].
The incense burner was placed in the middle of the small table, with either a hanaire on each side, or (at night) a hanaire and a small candlestick. The idea was to reinforce the idea of a vision of the Western Paradise, where the air is said to be perfumed. The flower arrangements bring the scenery of the scroll paintings into the foreground.
¹³Arui ha ko-kabin ni isshoku-rikka [あるひハ小花瓶に一色立華].
A ko-kabin [小花瓶] is the kind of flower container that Rikyū described (in his kaiki) as a hoso-guchi [細口].
Isshoku-rikka [一色立華] means a single type of flower is stood upright in the hanaire.
¹⁴Ko-kabin ni isshoku rikka [小花瓶に一色立華].
The meaning of this phrase, in this context, is unclear.
Ko-kabin [小花瓶] would seem to refer to a small bronze hanaire, one that is large enough to hold just a single flower. Rikyū's famous Tsuru-no-hito-koe [鶴ノ一聲] (shown below) is an example of the kind of vase referred to as a “ko-kabin” in classical works such as Nōami's Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki [君臺観左右帳記].
The expression isshoku [一色], which literally means “one color,” was also used to mean one variety or type (out of two, or more, possibilities*).
However, while the name rikka [立華] usually refers to a highly stylized floral arrangement (intended to recreate a landscape in miniature), it would be physically impossible to arrange more than a single stem in a ko-kabin (at least if the word is being used in its classical sense); nor would it seem possible to create a rikka using only one variety of flower†.
While this is not the sort of mistake that Jōō (or Rikyū) would likely have made, it appears that whomever was responsible for adding this section to Jōō’s text was not so well informed. Thus, while I have interpreted the statement to mean that a single variety (isshoku [一色]) of flower (ka [華]) is stood (ritsu [立]) in the ko-kabin, this reading should be considered tentative.
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*In Book One of the Nampō Roku, the expression is used, relative to flowers, to mean one of the two possibilities -- which were the flowers of herbaceous plants, and the flowers of woody plants. Precisely how it is being used here -- and whether the usage is the same as previously or not -- is debatable.
†These highly mannered arrangements generally use some sort of long-lasting woody plant material to define the basic structure of the arrangement, which is then “filled in” with various other flowers. In the shoin setting, where the arrangement was often kept in the tokonoma for a considerable period of time, the woody material remains, while the herbaceous flowers are changed when they begin to wilt.
¹⁵A tanzaku-bako [短冊箱] was a special lacquered box in which a collection of tanzaku [短冊] (elongated pieces of paper on which poems were written) was kept. Some of the tanzaku may have already been used, while others were unused.
The tanzaku featuring poems were generally selected because they were appropriate to the occasion, and intended to inspire the guests to use the unused tanzaku for their own compositions.
¹⁶A bundai [文臺] was a small table (about the height of ones lap when seated on the floor) on which a book (or open scroll) was rested while reading it. A bundai could also be used when writing (in a situation where there was not a built-in writing desk available for this purpose).
¹⁷A bon-san [盆山] is a small stone naturally shaped like a mountain, arranged in a tray of rather fine white gravel, with the gravel shaped to resemble a beach and sand-dunes in front of the stone, and the waves of the distant ocean behind (according to a poem by Ashikaga Yoshimasa that is preserved in several of Rikyū's densho).
The bon-san known as Zan-setsu [殘雪], which was one of Yoshimasa’s personal treasures. The stone is shown resting on a Korean sawari [四分一] tray. (Sawari is a variety of bronze containing a certain proportion of silver. The purpose of the silver was to keep the bronze from oxidizing, so it would remain a pale golden color.)
¹⁸Ha-cha-tsubo [葉茶壺]: a large jar in which the dried leaves that will (eventually) be ground into matcha are stored.
¹⁹Koshi-ita [腰板] refers to a wooden panel at the bottom of a shōji (anywhere between 6-sun and 1-shaku or more high), that prevents a person sitting beside it from accidentally damaging the paper with their feet. By removing the koshi-ita, Jōō let more light into the room at floor level.
²⁰Toko no nuri-buchi wo, usu-nuri, mata ha shira-ki ni shi [床のぬりぶちを、うすぬり、又ハ白木にし].
Originally the sill of the toko was lacquered with shin-nuri (since only the homes of important persons featured a tokonoma*). Jōō modified this by either painting the sill with thin lacquer (usu-nuri [薄塗り]†), or by leaving the sill unpainted (shira-ki [白木]‡).
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*The original purpose of the tokonoma was to serve as a sort of jō-dan [上段], a place where the man of rank could sit when receiving people of a lower station than himself.
†There are two possible meanings for this:
- the black lacquer itself is thin, meaning that the variations in height of the grain can be perceived after the lacquer flattens (this is referred to as kaki-awase nuri [掻き合わせ塗り] today);
- or, the amount of iron powder (which colors the lacquer black) is limited or eliminated (resulting in something resembling tame-nuri [溜め塗り], which is technically a mixture of shin-nuri and Shunkei-nuri; or the honey-colored Shunkei-nuri [春慶塗り] by itself) -- here the lacquer itself is thinly colored, so the grain of the underlying wood-grain can be perceived through the lacquer (as if under glass).
In documents from the period, both the Hora-dana [洞棚] (on the left: it is painted with black kaki-awase-nuri) and the Jōō-dana [紹鷗棚] (on the right: this tana is painted with Shunkei-nuri) are described as being painted with usu-nuri.
‡Shira-ki specifically means wood with the bark removed. The word does not deal with whether the wood was squared, had the four faces shaved, or left in the round.
²¹Sō-no-zashiki [草の座敷]: in contrast to the shin-no-zashiki [眞座敷] (see footnote 4, above), the sō-no-zashiki would be an “informal” room.
²²Ō [鷗] is an abbreviation of Jōō's [紹鷗] name.
²³The name Sōeki [宗易], of course, refers to Rikyū. Sōeki was his Buddhist name; which, according to the custom of the day, he used as his professional name.
²⁴Kusabuki no ko-yashiki [草茨の小屋敷].
Kusabuki [草茨] seems to be cognate with the more commonly used (today) kusabuki [草葺], meaning a thatched roof.
A ko-yashiki [小屋敷] is a detached tearoom erected (usually on the far side of the garden) as a free-standing building.
²⁵Sen ni shi [專にし].
Sen ni shi [專にし] means exclusively, only. In other words, the author of this essay is arguing that, from a certain point in time*, Rikyū used only rooms of this sort.
The difficulty with this assertion is that Rikyū's surviving rooms -- and certainly the Jissō-an (which was Rikyū's “small room” for most of his life†) all appear to have been roofed with small wooden shingles (in the manner that this essay ascribes to Jōō) -- apparently to give the building a feeling of lightness and impermanence (such thin pieces of wood would begin to rot, and have to be replaced every few years).
Furuta Sōshitsu (Oribe) is the one who preferred his small rooms to have deeply thatched roofs (in the manner of the farmhouses in the snowy provinces), and a delight for this style of ko-yashiki spread from him to the machi-shū who gathered around Imai Sōkyū, and so to Sen no Sōtan (whose father Shōan was at least a nominal member of Sōkyū’s group).
Rikyū, meanwhile, appears to have considered this kind of roof to look oppressive and suffocating (according to his writings).
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*Presumably when he embarked on his public life as a teacher of chanoyu. The oldest surviving (and apparently earliest) of his densho, the Nambō-ate no densho [南坊宛の傳書], suggests that this was around 1573.
†The two-mat rooms seem to have appeared around the time that Rikyū entered Hideyoshi's service -- perhaps because Hideyoshi objected to the daime rooms (the Jissō-an is a two-mat daime) because the sode-kabe (which was entire from floor to ceiling in Rikyū's room -- the fenestration at the bottom of the wall was introduced later, by Oribe) made it difficult for the guests to see clearly what the host was doing.
It certainly could never be argued that Rikyū’s chanoyu became more wabi after he entered Hideyoshi’s employ than before.
²⁶Wabi wo itasareshi yue [わびを致されし故].
Literally, “[because] he was doing wabi.”
²⁷Sukoshi-sukoshi yuru-shite [少〻ゆるして].
That is, on the one hand, the feeling can be rather formal; while on the other, a temae where the fukuro-dana is used can also seem quite wabi -- depending on the utensils used, and the way they are arranged.
It was for this reason that the fukuro-dana could be used in the 4.5-mat room (where its purpose was to display the utensils*), yet also tucked away into the kamae at the head of the daime in the small room† (where its purpose was to make things easier for the host‡).
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*This is why, in the shoin, the guests are expected to open the ji-fukuro and also inspect whatever the host may have placed therein. It is thus the complete opposite of the dōko (even though its purpose is similar) -- which exists purely for the host's convenience (the dōko must never be opened by the guests so that they may peek inside).
†The original small rooms (Jōō’s Yamazato-no-iori [山里ノ庵], shown below and on the left, and Rikyū’s Jissō-an [實相庵], below, right) were both 2-mat daime structures.
These first two rooms were followed by the ichi-jō-han [一疊半] (where the ro was moved within the kamae, making the second of the “guests’ mats” no longer necessary: this room is shown below) -- a setting with which Rikyū very quickly became disenchanted (though it remained popular with certain of the machi-shū into the early Edo period).
This prompted him to remove the sode-kabe and restore the utensil mat to a maru-jō [丸疊] (a full-sized mat) -- resulting in the 2-mat room with mukō-ro that he used for the rest of his life.
All of the other variants of the small room appeared later.
‡In other words, so that he did not have to make several trips back and forth between the temae-za and the katte.
The original sode-kabe (the "sleeve-wall" that encloses the daime-gamae) was complete from floor to ceiling, thus anything within the kamae was, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the guests. The things within the kamae were placed there simply so that the host did not have to bring them out one by one after the guests had taken their seats.
The kamae was finally superseded by the dōko (in the case of Rikyū's small rooms, perhaps beginning during the second half of 1587).
²⁸It seems that the person responsible for inserting this entry into Jōō’s text (who does not seem to have been Tachibana Jitsuzan) neglected to copy it out in full, and came back later to add what had been missed.
That is why I decided to separate this statement from the rest of the text of this section.
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yoi big bang preview
over the last couple of months, i’ve been working together with @halcyian (who is wonderful, and you should check her out) for the @yurionicebigbang ! since posting time is coming soon, here’s a quick preview of what we’ve got in store.
The air is thick and noxious, but as men and women alike choke on the ash and cloying sulfur that dyes the snow an ugly black, and skies a stormy grey, Viktor lets the wind whip his hair into a frenzy. It’s so much shorter now, and even though years have passed since he cut his hair upon taking the mantle of a warrior from his father, Viktor’s hand strays to the shorn ends.
The war horn bellows, low and menacing, like a hot knife cleaving through tension and still air. Holding out a hand to halt the men and women behind him, Viktor lets water pour from beneath the ice, swirling around him in a ribbon. It’s an old friend, the water, and as the whip curls around his hand, barely touching him, Viktor lets out a breath.
The scent of sulfur and ash is stronger now, and the ice seems to shudder the closer the firebenders come.
The water whip ices over around Viktor, forming jagged points and serrated edges. A little closer, he signals. Moments away.
This is true: the Fire Nation has been at war with the Water Tribe for centuries. No one can remember why, not even the son of the man who began the war, nor his grandson. But the war continues on, despite that fact that the drive for war is long gone, and all that remains is weariness and a never ending cycle of hate and sorrow. Women and men have their loved ones sent home to them in urns, in pieces, or not at all, if there is nothing left to send home. Mothers mourn sons, fathers their daughters.
This is true: Viktor Nikiforov was raised for war. A clan of warriors, and a duty to protect the Northern Water Tribe come hell or high water, passed on from father to son, to the son of the son.
This is true: He is fourteen the first time he fells a man with his sword. The blood runs more red than anything Viktor has ever seen, red enough to rival the color of the flames the firebenders wield. He is sixteen when his father dies at the hands of a Fire Nation general. As Viktor wraps his father’s furs around him, not even an hour after the man’s death, he thinks, at least the man went down with him.
This is true: On his twentieth year, the war ends with the death of the Fire Lord.
Water blossoms, delicate and glistening, where there should be fire, in between Yuuri’s cupped palms, and horror burgeons in his chest. Mari lets out a strangled cry, and the fire bouncing from her fingertips goes out with an ozone-scented pop.
The ball of water bursts, but not a single droplet wets the cotton of Yuuri’s robes. It scatters around him, past his ears, dripping through the cracks of his fingers, and soaking into the stone of the practice hall.
It’s wet. Moisture clings to his fingers, drips from his hair - and this, while nothing new, feels impossibly foreign. Yuuri had always known that he would be a firebender - like Mari and Father, Grandfather and Great-Grandmother Suki. But this, this isn’t fire. Heat isn’t curling above his palm, licking, smooth and sandpaper-like, just as Mari claims it feels. The water is cold, freezing the nerves in his fingertips, turning them red with the chill.
This is a dream.
Yuuri pinches himself. It smarts, and the parting marks are red and raised when he draws his hands away from his arm. It’s not a dream.
He meets Mari’s eyes, and wonders if she’s scared of him now, because they’re children of the Fire Nation; worse still, they are the prince and princess of it, and they know, more so than anyone, how dangerous waterbenders are. It was an accident! He wants to say. I didn’t want it to be like this. I didn’t ask for this.
Mari’s eyes are wide; watery and terrified - she remembers all too well the incident that killed General Nishigori, and orphaned Takeshi in the process.
Don’t scream. Please don’t scream.
But Mari is only twelve, and Yuuri is only eight, and they are still children. She isn’t disciplined, hasn’t yet been molded into a proper Heir, and Yuuri knows that she, more than he, is scared.
Mari lets out a bloodcurdling shriek, and Yuuri curls his body into itself, hiding his wet hands as the sound of footsteps clattering across cobbled floors creeps closer and closer.
This is true: Katsuki Yuuri, while a prince in birthright, is the spare to his sister’s Heir. He was not raised to burn as bright as she, did not speak loudly amongst men twice his age, and in truth, rarely spoke at all. He was a shadow in his sister’s light, although his parents had hopes that he, in turn, would come to shine as bright as she.
This is true: When he is eight, Yuuri bends for the first time, surrounded by cobblestone floors and rich, crimson walls. His sister is nearby, and she is excited. His parents linger in the throne room, distracted and thinking of their children. They all expect fire.
This is true: Yuuri is the disappointment; the failure to his sister’s success. When his family expects fire, Yuuri, instead, gives them water.
This is true: At eight years old, Katsuki Yuuri dons a veil, and hides himself behind layers of silk, cotton and cloth, and begins to live a lie for his kingdom and people. When his people want fire and approachable warmth, they will look for his sister.
This is true: The Fire Lord has two children; the eldest a daughter, bright and tenacious, the embodiment of flame, who burns brighter than a dying star - and the younger a son, quiet and mysterious, with a countenance colder than the ice from far North. No siblings have ever been quite so different, but they are the children of the Fire Lord, even if, it may seem as if one does not quite belong.
The firebenders are upon them. Behind him, beside him, on the ground, burnt and dying - Viktor’s comrades are all around him, fighting for their tribe and their freedom. He grits his teeth and pushes harder against the soldier advancing on him. Viktor cannot let the Fire Nation take the Northern Water Tribe. She is brilliant under the sunlight though, and Viktor catches a glimpse of her curling spires as they glitter silver beneath the sun. A place like this deserves to be protected, Viktor thinks. The people who can love and call this place home deserve to live.
The soldier goes down with two of her comrades in a heap, a shard of ice protruding from her stomach. The other two are just unconscious, knocked out from the impact of their helmeted heads colliding with the ice. The soldier’s blood spider webs through cracks in the ice, fading to a pink as it crawls away. Viktor tears himself away from her prone, cooling body and pushes forwards.
The general must be nearby. The heat grows stronger and stronger the further into the crowd Viktor gets, and he grits his teeth as a bolt of ruby flames whistles past his ear, singeing hair as it goes. It hits someone, and Viktor can hear a panicked, pained cry echo through the battlefield.
He slams his elbow into the face of a nearby firebender and keeps running, carving a path through the battlefield. Closer, closer - the heat grows ever more unbearable, ribbons of flames spinning around a man, molten tongues reaching out to burn and devour any waterbenders that are trying to get close.
Viktor reaches for the sword sheathed across his back - a family heirloom, passed onto him on his father’s deathbed - and unsheathing it, lets the midday sun dance along the carefully polished blade.
The general turns to look at him - he cannot be older than Viktor, and that, in and of itself, is jarring. His skin is cacao dark, so unlike the other firebenders Viktor has seen, and his eyes glitter from behind the shorn fringe of his bangs. The ribbon-like flames flick around him, challenging, mocking. The air smells of ozone, and it feels as if the world has slowed.
Viktor has never been one to back down from a challenge. His lip curls, and with a flick of the wrist, he brandishes his water whip in response.
(if the general looks apprehensive - well. it’s just a trick of the light, nothing more, nothing less.)
Yuuri stands, silent as always as Phichit enters the room, decked out in his armor as a General. They’re deploying him off to the front lines, right at Nikiforov’s damn feet, and Yuuri can only remember one occasion where he has felt fear as strong as this.
He hates it.
They’ve both grown older while hearing of Anatoly Nikiforov’s only son; how deadly he is, how he leaves no survivors, how his heart must surely be as cold as the ice he commands, and now, to know that Phichit is being dropped right at that man’s door is terrifying.
Yuuri cups Phichit’s face with a careful hand. The other is hidden behind within the voluminous sleeves of a xuanduan, and Yuuri watches, careful, gauging to see if Phichit shies away from the chill of his hands.
Phichit blinks, carefully pulling Yuuri’s hands into his own, and rubbing them together. “They’ve gotten colder,” he murmurs, quiet. “Are you -”
“I don’t know,” Yuuri responds, tired and soft. “I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about me, Phichit. You’ve got to worry about yourself.”
Phichit smiles, but it’s a paltry imitation of the real thing. “I am,” he promises. “But I’ll always worry about you, Yuuri.”
Yuuri stares down at his hand, and at Phichit’s own clasped around it, and for what is certainly not the first time, wishes that he could bend fire too.
“Stay safe,” he says instead, and reaches up to cup Phichit’s face once more. “Stay alive.”
“I’ll do my best.”
It’s not good enough, but it will have to do. They don’t have the time - nor the luxury - for a tearful farewell.
They’re locked in a deadly dance when the missive comes. The general, face tight with pain barks out for his soldiers to halt as a falcon swoops through the air, tawny wings spread wide enough to block out what little sunlight filters through the clouds of smog. The flames sputter out and die around the general, and trembling, he holds his arm up, as the falcon dives down to land upon the leather gauntlet that covers his arm.
“Thank you,” Viktor hears the general murmur to the falcon, as he slides the rolled missive out from the scarlet red pouch tied around the falcon’s neck. The glint of gold in the pattern of flames is telling - this is a royal missive. Something has changed in the capital, and though the Fire Lord would undoubtedly know that the missive would not reach the general and his troops for a week at the least, this is important enough to send over turbulent seas and bitter cold.
Viktor lowers his sword slowly, and watches as his clansmen do the same.
“Lower your weapons,” the general says, lifting his helmet from his face with an unsteady hand. He’s so young, and Viktor blinks a few times, uncertain if battle fatigue is distorting his vision. There is still some roundness to the general’s cheeks - the kind that only baby fat can leave - and his straight, pitch black fringe sticks to his forehead. “We will fight you and your no more.” He looks at Viktor, and down to Viktor’s sword. A flicker of something runs through his eyes, and he inclines in head in acknowledgment.
“The Fire Lord is dead! Long live Lord Toshiya!” He yells, this time, to his men. Despite the tremors that wrack his body, and the blood dripping from wounds that Viktor has inflicted, he seems jubilant, his face lit and glowing.
Stunned to silence, Viktor turns, and watches as all around, Fire Nation soldiers drop their weapons, and pull of their helmets. A resounding cheer shakes the ice, and men and women are cheering alongside their general.
Confused as he is, Viktor feels something in his chest loosen. Panting, Mila comes to a stop beside him, fur-lined hood around her shoulders, and her blood red hair a bright beacon against the neverending white. “This...this could be a trap, Vitya,” she murmurs, but her spear is no longer bared, but rather, slack against her side, grip loose.
Viktor stares out at the cheering Fire Nation soldiers, and then back to his clansmen. He takes in the confusion rippling and roiling across the battlefield, and looks once more at the barely-mature face of the Fire Nation general.
“No,” he says, softly. “No, I don’t think this is.”
Rain is falling in Caldera. Though his father’s coronation is today, Yuuri doesn’t know if he can handle staying in the ballroom, mingling with prodding courtesans, and power-hungry politicians. Let Mari handle them, he thinks, staring up at the stormy sky.
The garden smells of flowers, the dew opening up every blossom. The scents, combined are dizzying, but Yuuri pays them no heed - his mind is elsewhere.
Yuuri stares up at the sky. He wonders if the falcon has reached the Northern Water Tribe front yet, and if Phichit has finally been able to lay down his weapons and celebrate the end of the war with his men. He wonders, if, perhaps Nikiforov had gotten to Phichit before the missive.
Yuuri’s fingers tighten in the silk sleeves of his xuanduan, the sleeves wider and heavier than the everyday one he wears. The chrysanthemums and dragonflies patterned across the spring green silk wrinkle as he grips the silk tight enough to rip it.
That has not happened, he promises himself. It won’t.
The rain falls in an arc around Yuuri, not a single droplet falling onto the delicate silk, or on his hair or skin. Yuuri can bend water around him with little thought, but he wonders, if he believes hard enough that Phichit will come home unharmed. They are fighting on both ends, and Yuuri hopes that Phichit will not regret what he has done to keep himself alive. Yuuri knows that he will not.
Come home safe, he prays, staring up into the clouds. Come back safe.
“What are you doing?” Yuuri turns around at the sound of footsteps against wet pavement, to see Mari making her way through the rain, a parasol held above her head.
The sleeves of her daxiushan are rolled up, tucked into her bodice so not to get the rich silk wet, and she’s left the traditional shoes behind for leather boots. “You’re going to get sick if you stay out in the rain this long, Yuuri,” Mari grumbles, stepping over felled foliage, and skirting around the large bushes of chrysanthemums that Mother is so fond of.
Yuuri spreads his arms out, and watches as the rain flees from him, not a droplet landing to wet his hair, or wrinkle the fine silk of his clothing. “You were saying?” He asks, dull and quiet.
Mari lets out a sigh - she is all too used to his moods. “Come inside, Yuuri.” She holds her parasol over his head as well, and watches as the rain begins to skirt around the both of them. “Mother wants to know where you’ve been - the ceremony is about to begin.”
Yuuri nods, and reaches up, pulling the veil down over his face. “Alright. Let’s go, then.”
His sister stays there for a moment longer, before taking Yuuri’s hand, and walking them both in, parasol held steady above their heads all the while. Yuuri stares down at where their hands intertwine, and tries not to think about how warm Mari’s hand is against the chill of his own.
#yoi big bang#yuri!!! on ice#my writing#yuuri katsuki#viktor nikiforov#mari katsuki#phichit chulanont#mila babicheva#oh boy is this thing a beast
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