It is time to balance my meme karma, since I've been abusing both
suzukiblu and
banditjoeykuba's awesomeness lately.
So I will be writing anything Avatar, Transformers: Deadzone, or Transformers: Animated in the comments. Including any AU I've babbled at you about. Or any AU you can think of. Or anything involving my OCs. (I will only write other people's OCs with their
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Longshot nods and watches the Earth Kingdom girl in Fire Nation reds practice her archery.
***
"He's a terrorist," Jae Hwa mutters to Nikal.
Nikal shrugs, because she likes Jae Hwa but she does not much care for the Fire Nation as a whole.
"He's hurt people. Innocents, people who weren't even fighting!"
"So has the Fire Nation," Nikal points out, quite sensibly she feels.
The Earth Kingdom girl glares at her, and Nikal goes back to practicing with her new bow. The last one had gotten broken when she and Tikaani escaped from that Fire Nation ship.
***
The Northern Air Temple is painfully high in the clouds for Tikaani, but the air is bracingly cold, which is good. Her cousin is here to learn to airbend from the Avatar, and she is learning, which is better than good.
She spends much of her days with Katara, the two of them working to make the Temple more friendly to the Water Tribes. Teo's people, kind as they are, are too much Earth Kingdom to understand why the two girls work so hard to make cellars for storing meat. After all, the women protest to the Water Tribe girls, if there is no meat to eat, then they can eat potatoes and beans.
Tikaani and Katara ignore them, because winter is coming on fast, and they won't get a decent amount of fish and game laid in if they don't work hard.
Tikaani keeps an eye on Nikal while she works, though, because her little cousin is entirely too trusting, and the Avatar's gathered airbenders are entirely too strange.
The man in the orange robes scares her, as does his wife in her sandy robes with the orange veil. The silent boy with the bow and the hard eyes does not, but he and his wild girl friend make her wary. The two Fire Nation soldiers Tikaani has decided she can deal with. The other two, the ones who are there with the Earth Kingdom girl, she is not so sure about yet.
Then there is Nima and her lover, who will never need dealing with because they are too wrapped up in each other. And the little girl who reads the clouds is not a threat. Besides, she is all alone, and Tikaani finds herself mothering Meng more often than not.
All things considered, Tikaani is less worried about Nikal getting hurt by any of them, than she is by Nikal getting hurt in the crossfire when the smoldering tension-hate between the Firefolk and Earthfolk finally explodes.
Watching over her younger cousin is what puts her right in the middle of the first fight.
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He could live without the sandbenders. Neither of whom actually bend sand, but he's not sure what else to call them, and if he asks, they'll bite off his head and piss down his neck.
Yeah, Migao could live very happily without the sandbenders.
He does like Izo and Hayato Hawk-Eye. It's good to have someone else to talk about army-life with, and their little girl is just adorable. He's kind of certain he's seen her face before, but he's seen a lot of people's faces over the years.
Shen dragged the other two Fire soldiers off two days ago, heading down the mountainside to visit a village with actual beer. Sifu Aang doesn't really approve of beer and wine, and the Mechanist's people hadn't yet made a good distillery.
Migao asked them to bring him back some, because he couldn't very well wander off from his airbending lessons.
Right now, he's keeping an eye on Jae Hwa and practicing his breathing. She and the little Water Tribe airbender, Nikal, are practicing their archery. They're both good, and Jae Hwa would already qualify for an archery posting in the army with her skill. Nikal seems to have a harder time of it, but he can't tell if it's because she hasn't practiced enough or her airbending is messing up her shots.
If she keeps missing, he's going to suggest she stop trying to airbend her arrows until she's got the basic skills down. Migao has seen her cousin nail a bird on the wing with her bow, and Izo can put an arrow through a man's throat at four hundred paces. Skill can take a person a long, long way.
The silent Earth Kingdom boy steps up to the line beside Jae Hwa, and Migao tenses to spring into action before he consciously realizes it.
***
He says nothing as he shoots, and Jae Hwa does her best to ignore him. But her shots aren't quite hitting where she means for them to, and she scowls. That's not right, she's gotten her airbending too good for her shots to go astray in Nikal's winds.
Then it clicks, and she whirls on the Earth Kingdom boy with a growl. Her bow is in her hands, an arrow on the string, and when he turns towards her with his bow at full-draw, she can't help put pull hers back as well.
They stand frozen for a moment, eyes locked, and she sees the exact moment he decides to actually release his arrow.
"Hai!" Someone calls out, and air slashes through both their bow strings, cutting them.
Then Tikaani grabs Jae Hwa by her ear, and the Earth Kingdom boy by his, and they both howl as she twists. "Idiots!"
Jae Hwa struggles, but Tikaani is strong from years of hunting and hauling, and she just gets her ear twisted even harder for her troubles.
"You are both idiots," the Water Tribe girl declares, "And we'll see what the Avatar has to say about your idiocy."
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