fic: my soul will cast the backwards view [aang, zuko, azula, toph]
Title: my soul will cast the backwards view
Author: albumsontheside
Characters: Aang, Zuko, Azula, Toph
Timeline: pre-series, with the exception of Toph, which is post-series. Not AU.
Word Count: ~1100
Summary: Four vignettes, four revelations, four lessons learned. Title is from Wordsworth.
aang
"This Council declares you a Master of Airbending." The Elders-all twelve of them, stiff and official-face him, expressions as blank as the walls. The room is dark, darker than his dreams. "Are you prepared to receive this honour?"
He glances to the side, quickly, without turning his head-the sharpened, wooden needles shining conspiratorially like traitors, the dye, rich and blue like the veins in his hands. He knows what will come next, and he almost fears it. (He will always wish that he hadn't looked.)
"Yes," he whispers, almost without sound. He is nine years old.
The two most junior Elders, the ones on either end of the ring, rise, blindfold him, hold his arms firm against the stone table. He is dimly aware of the others leaving their seats, mixing the paint, the faint pulse of the needle against unblemished skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he will always be glad that it is not Gyatso whose face he sees.
zuko
He spends the first week after the Agni Kai in a daze, half-delirious, waiting for his father to deign to forgive him even as Iroh-Uncle Iroh, Prince no longer-makes the preparations for the rest of his worthless life (because the Avatar isn't alive, no matter what the old sages say) and the long silences hang heavily in the halls. (He never thanks him for it; another thing left unsaid.)
Nobody visits him, and, instinctively, he knows not to ask.
It is only on board the ship, in the flickering light of his cabin and away from his home, that he looks at himself as a child for the final time, pulls the tie-embroidered with gold, from a different lifetime-from his carefully styled hair. With the cloth still covering what remains of his eye, he can still picture the unburned skin beneath, whole and unblemished, in a way that he knows he will never be able to again.
(The scrape of the razor is almost soothing against his scalp, welcoming, like a caress. And he blinks his eyes dry even as his soft, dark hair falls limply around his feet because this, the moment, the childhood carefully falling beneath the blade, isn't his, any more than his title was. It belongs to someone else, some other prince-a prince who has the love of his powerful, mercurial, father.)
If Iroh-General Iroh, and sharper than ever-notices the redness of his eyes, or the faint tremors in his hands, he makes no mention of it. He swallows, looks away, and says, "You look so much like-but he was older." (He should have been the one to take his childhood, but that, too, is forgotten on the floor.)
There remains one thing left to destroy. He closes his eyes, grits his teeth, and lifts the bandage.
azula
The turtleducks teach her to smile at the Agni Kai.
She doesn't mean to do it, not yet (not like later, when she means everything she does with dizzying, painful clarity, or what passes as clarity to herself, if to none other). It is an expression of everything-of that traitor Iroh's letter and the paltry doll and her brother, weaker than a newborn and still mother's favourite-that builds in her fingertips like acid, corrodes her judgment, feeds on her anger-
The lighting electrifies the water in the fountain opposite her, a reflection of death itself. The little turtleducklings-newly hatched, and Zuzu's favourites-wail a swansong that is endless, limitless, their webbed feet floating in the water like twigs, the smell of death intoxicating, overwhelming, terrifying-the enraged mother rising, charging towards her-
my own mother thought I was a monster
-and falling gracelessly into death, even as she lowers her shaking fingers in shock, gazing mutely at the pool, and the carnage within it. (A freak accident, I have no clue what happened, I wasn't even there. And her mother's bitter, tortured eyes.)
The next brood of turtleducklings almost anticipate her attacks. They flee from her like cowards, like dreams, fearfully squawking, and come to her brother, her weak, useless brother, as if they were trained to, eating from his fingers while he grins with delight and her friends and her mother look on with pride. (Such gentleness with which he handles them. Tell me, Ozai-did you ever see such a thing?)
(All she had wanted to do was feed them bread-they like bread, don't they? This is one skill, it seems, which she cannot steal from her pathetic, pathetic brother-
And she was right, of course. But it still hurt.)
toph
It is only after it all-after the war and the coronation and the endless, endless madness-that Toph Bei Fong gathers the courage to visit her parents.
There is something about the house (the way it is set back on the hill like a bruise, the way the doors are all locked and the windows sealed tight, the way in which the blinds have eyes, watching her) that frightens her, that stills her step even as she approaches the gate, lip quivering slightly in anticipation. This is her home, rightfully hers, and she shouldn't be afraid.
Toph Bei Fong is never afraid.
She can tell from the tremulous, quavering footsteps on the tiles-those same tiles that foiled her escapes, more often than not-that it is the old servant-the one with the married daughter in Ba Sing Se-that is answering the door. She hears, more than feels, the crack of its opening. There is a pause.
The woman's sharp inhale is silent, almost inaudible. "The mistress-" she suddenly becomes aware of her bare feet and tangled hair and too-rough clothes and realises that maybe, maybe she should have listened to what the others had said-"is not accepting visitors today."
"I am not a visitor." Her voice, pinched with nerves, is childishly high.
Her mother has changed (or maybe is is only she who has changed, and her mother is still the same). She stands opposte her with refined, cold precision, back ramrod straight, hands folded into perfect tessellations of themselves. "Toph."
She swallows. "Mother."
"Why are you here?" Her mother's voice is dispassionate, calm. (She almost misses the overly affectionate, suffocating gestures of months past, and suddenly realises what she has lost.) "You are no longer a daughter of this house." (And this, this she has always known.)
"I know."
The careful, measured snap of the door-and please could that pause have truly expressed regret-conveys it all. She kneels on the stair, forgotten like the past.
The more fool them. They didn't deserve her.
Author: albumsontheside
Characters: Aang, Zuko, Azula, Toph
Timeline: pre-series, with the exception of Toph, which is post-series. Not AU.
Word Count: ~1100
Summary: Four vignettes, four revelations, four lessons learned. Title is from Wordsworth.
aang
"This Council declares you a Master of Airbending." The Elders-all twelve of them, stiff and official-face him, expressions as blank as the walls. The room is dark, darker than his dreams. "Are you prepared to receive this honour?"
He glances to the side, quickly, without turning his head-the sharpened, wooden needles shining conspiratorially like traitors, the dye, rich and blue like the veins in his hands. He knows what will come next, and he almost fears it. (He will always wish that he hadn't looked.)
"Yes," he whispers, almost without sound. He is nine years old.
The two most junior Elders, the ones on either end of the ring, rise, blindfold him, hold his arms firm against the stone table. He is dimly aware of the others leaving their seats, mixing the paint, the faint pulse of the needle against unblemished skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he will always be glad that it is not Gyatso whose face he sees.
zuko
He spends the first week after the Agni Kai in a daze, half-delirious, waiting for his father to deign to forgive him even as Iroh-Uncle Iroh, Prince no longer-makes the preparations for the rest of his worthless life (because the Avatar isn't alive, no matter what the old sages say) and the long silences hang heavily in the halls. (He never thanks him for it; another thing left unsaid.)
Nobody visits him, and, instinctively, he knows not to ask.
It is only on board the ship, in the flickering light of his cabin and away from his home, that he looks at himself as a child for the final time, pulls the tie-embroidered with gold, from a different lifetime-from his carefully styled hair. With the cloth still covering what remains of his eye, he can still picture the unburned skin beneath, whole and unblemished, in a way that he knows he will never be able to again.
(The scrape of the razor is almost soothing against his scalp, welcoming, like a caress. And he blinks his eyes dry even as his soft, dark hair falls limply around his feet because this, the moment, the childhood carefully falling beneath the blade, isn't his, any more than his title was. It belongs to someone else, some other prince-a prince who has the love of his powerful, mercurial, father.)
If Iroh-General Iroh, and sharper than ever-notices the redness of his eyes, or the faint tremors in his hands, he makes no mention of it. He swallows, looks away, and says, "You look so much like-but he was older." (He should have been the one to take his childhood, but that, too, is forgotten on the floor.)
There remains one thing left to destroy. He closes his eyes, grits his teeth, and lifts the bandage.
azula
The turtleducks teach her to smile at the Agni Kai.
She doesn't mean to do it, not yet (not like later, when she means everything she does with dizzying, painful clarity, or what passes as clarity to herself, if to none other). It is an expression of everything-of that traitor Iroh's letter and the paltry doll and her brother, weaker than a newborn and still mother's favourite-that builds in her fingertips like acid, corrodes her judgment, feeds on her anger-
The lighting electrifies the water in the fountain opposite her, a reflection of death itself. The little turtleducklings-newly hatched, and Zuzu's favourites-wail a swansong that is endless, limitless, their webbed feet floating in the water like twigs, the smell of death intoxicating, overwhelming, terrifying-the enraged mother rising, charging towards her-
my own mother thought I was a monster
-and falling gracelessly into death, even as she lowers her shaking fingers in shock, gazing mutely at the pool, and the carnage within it. (A freak accident, I have no clue what happened, I wasn't even there. And her mother's bitter, tortured eyes.)
The next brood of turtleducklings almost anticipate her attacks. They flee from her like cowards, like dreams, fearfully squawking, and come to her brother, her weak, useless brother, as if they were trained to, eating from his fingers while he grins with delight and her friends and her mother look on with pride. (Such gentleness with which he handles them. Tell me, Ozai-did you ever see such a thing?)
(All she had wanted to do was feed them bread-they like bread, don't they? This is one skill, it seems, which she cannot steal from her pathetic, pathetic brother-
And she was right, of course. But it still hurt.)
toph
It is only after it all-after the war and the coronation and the endless, endless madness-that Toph Bei Fong gathers the courage to visit her parents.
There is something about the house (the way it is set back on the hill like a bruise, the way the doors are all locked and the windows sealed tight, the way in which the blinds have eyes, watching her) that frightens her, that stills her step even as she approaches the gate, lip quivering slightly in anticipation. This is her home, rightfully hers, and she shouldn't be afraid.
Toph Bei Fong is never afraid.
She can tell from the tremulous, quavering footsteps on the tiles-those same tiles that foiled her escapes, more often than not-that it is the old servant-the one with the married daughter in Ba Sing Se-that is answering the door. She hears, more than feels, the crack of its opening. There is a pause.
The woman's sharp inhale is silent, almost inaudible. "The mistress-" she suddenly becomes aware of her bare feet and tangled hair and too-rough clothes and realises that maybe, maybe she should have listened to what the others had said-"is not accepting visitors today."
"I am not a visitor." Her voice, pinched with nerves, is childishly high.
Her mother has changed (or maybe is is only she who has changed, and her mother is still the same). She stands opposte her with refined, cold precision, back ramrod straight, hands folded into perfect tessellations of themselves. "Toph."
She swallows. "Mother."
"Why are you here?" Her mother's voice is dispassionate, calm. (She almost misses the overly affectionate, suffocating gestures of months past, and suddenly realises what she has lost.) "You are no longer a daughter of this house." (And this, this she has always known.)
"I know."
The careful, measured snap of the door-and please could that pause have truly expressed regret-conveys it all. She kneels on the stair, forgotten like the past.
The more fool them. They didn't deserve her.