Comment-Fic Collection
Some of them are links to previously reposted stuff, most are stuff I just never bothered to dig out of the comments.
Also, god, Suzuki and I talk about eating turtleducks a lot.
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Iroh and Ozai, season 3, implied past Iroh/Ozai
He came in the dead of night, when the stars kept him from sleeping and his nightmares stalked him in wakefulness. He had to know.
No guards accompanied him, and the guards in the prison fled when he ordered them out. Cowards. They would never hold his brother.
Tension crackled like heat-lightning when he stepped into the cell, and it was only then that Ozai realized he was angry. So was Iroh, and the fire between them was hot, stifling, utterly without light.
The keys had half-melted by the time he forced them into the lock of the inner cell, and so Ozai sliced the cell open with fire. The metal door crashed to the stone in a cacophony, but no footsteps pounded up to investigate.
Cowards, all. When Iroh decided to stop playing games, there was nothing that would keep him in this tower.
His brother looked at him from where he sat, eyes hard, and the air was heavy with unignited lightning. Filthy and bedraggled, he might be, but he was still Dragon of the West. Only a fool could not see that.
Ozai stepped forward and forward again, then knelt. One knee dug into his brother's thigh as he leaned in to whisper in Iroh's ear, hiding his words from any listener behind the veil of his hair. "Did you touch him?"
Iroh rumbled darkly, the vibrations more felt in his chest than the sound heard. "That you would even think-"
"I remember what you and I did so long ago, brother," Ozai twisted the last word like a knife in a wound, feeling a shiver of pleasure at the way Iroh stiffened. "Answer my question."
"I never did such a thing," Iroh said at last, voice heavy.
It was a relief, an unbearable relief, to banish his fears and nightmares so simply. The lightning in the room was not so imminent now, the heat not so oppressive. Ozai rose and turned away.
"Why did you change, Ozai?"
He paused, looked back over his shoulder at his brother. He could not name the emotions on Iroh's face. He did not think he could name his own emotions. But he remembered the conquering general, the man who took delight in spreading the Fire Nation's rule. He remembered the Earth Kingdom's fear, and that Iroh had earned every ounce of it.
"Why did you change, Iroh?"
---
Mai/Song
Mai strokes her brush through chestnut-colored hair and her lips curve in a smile at Song's luxurious sigh. A hundred long and slow strokes, and then she brushes the Earth woman's hair back to braid.
Zuko is gone for the night and the rest of the week. Daimyo Osamu offered his hospitality, and the Firelord could not refuse.
So the Firelady and the Firelord's concubine were left to amuse themselves.
Mai finds Song very amusing. She is soft and sweet with knowing hands and a clever mouth. She pricks with her needles, and it is a delicious sight to see Song's fine fingers stroking the needletip around Mai's nipples.
Those needles are laid out on Mai's thigh now as she does up Song's hair.
( Aleratar: Iroh vs. Ozai )
( Aleratar: Iroh/Song )
---
Feral airbenders as Aang's students; problems therein
When everything goes to hell, when Shen and Migao are trying to kill Tashi and Ketu, or when Longshot and Jae are trying to kill each other, or when Smellerbee is trying to kill Jae and Tikaani is slapping her down, or when Ketu and Hayoto are trying to kill each other again....
Well, when everything goes to hell, Nima is the one they trust to calm everyone down. Not Aang, who is their sifu but who doesn't understand them (because he wants Air Nomads, and they are all children of the war - they will fight and fight to their last breath). Not Katara, who understands too well and so stands aside.
But Nima, who is Water and Earth, whose lover is Fire, whose voice is the Wind itself, Nima tames them all. She has been daughter and wife and mother, Earth and Water and Fire, and she has no words but she has songs and buffetting winds.
---
Zuko and Ozai, post-series
Smaller fingers threaded with his own- still just a boy, still too much a boy- burning like brands. Pushing against him, but his back is against the wall, and he will not yield. Not to this boy, his son.
Never.
Zuko is pressed chest-to-chest with him, mouth-to-mouth so they breathe each other's breaths. Steam-hot and mist-cold.
An intake of breath, hands tightening against his, and ice stabs through Ozai.
His eyes half-lid as he shakes, cold, so damn cold, where is his firebird-soul now?
Cold.
All his efforts cannot raise a fire to warm him.
Exhale. "Where is she, Father?"
He is ice.
Hate, raw and black and warm, uncurls in him. He stops breathing, denying breath to his son, denying life and warmth and fire-source.
To keep stealing his breath, Zuko must stop breathing as well. But he is a boy still.
Zuko draws breath first, and warmth floods Ozai. He waits three more counts before doing the same.
He is ashes, but he is not dead, never dead, and he will never yield.
---
Evil!Zuko AU, eight years post-series
Amid everything else, no one realized Prince Zuko was not in his cell.
If they had, though, the Avatar's followers would have wasted time looking in the wrong direction for the kidnapped heir-apparent of the Fire Nation.
In the six years since his son's birth, Zuko had been content to let him live with Mai and the Firelord in the Palace. His lover brought their son to visit more often than not, and Zuko thought that was quite good enough. He didn't need to poison his son with too much father-love, not like Uncle and his own father had done to him. His son would not be torn between two destinies.
When word reached him that his son had disappeared, Zuko escaped from the Boiling Rock.
No one noticed he had gone.
He was much better than he had been as a teenager.
---
Post-series, Ozai living with Iroh, thunderstorm
It was storming in Ba Sing Se, the rain coming down in sheets, and the sky night-dark. Miserable, miserable day, and Iroh balked at the idea of opening the Jasmine Dragon. Instead, he stayed home and caught up on letters he owed to various friends and relations.
Midmorning, he went to check on Ozai.
The shutters were open in his brother's rooms, and Ozai sat on the windowsill. His hair was soaked, his skin slick with rain, and he turned only briefly to glance at Iroh when he opened the door. Then his attention turned back towards the storm, and he always looked towards the lightning just before it struck.
Iroh sighed. "Ozai. You are going to get sick."
Ozai turned to look at him again, expression empty. "I'm already dead. What does it matter?"
( Zuko vs. turtleduck )
---
Song and jewelry
Both of Song's grandmothers left jewelry to their children. Her mother never wore it, and Song never wore it. Jewelry was money when they had no coins and nothing else to trade. It was not for wearing. It attracted attention, and it gave soldiers a weapon.
She sat now and clipped jade earrings on her ears. Tight-lipped, she studied herself in the mirror, looking at the beautiful combs already in her hair. The earrings pinched her lobes, but at least she had never been pierced. She wouldn't have to wear some of the jewelry then. Mother could keep it.
She reached into the jewelry box and drew out a necklace. Her hands were shaking, she noticed. And so pale.
She dropped the necklace over her head and tried not to think of walls crashing down.
She drew out another strand and another, until she had eight necklaces around her neck and over her fine, fine clothes. Eight was an auspicious number in the Earth Kingdom.
Song smoothed her skirts, then reached for the arm bangles. Four on each arm, as well as the thick embroidered cloth of her formal hanbok, felt so heavy. As heavy as her heart, and as heavy as her mother's tears had been these last few days.
Her wedding day was supposed to be happy, she thought.
She blinked rapidly to hold back tears, then stood. Her legs held her, and she swallowed around the lump in her throat. There was hope in the world. Hadn't she told Lee that just two weeks ago? The Avatar had returned.
She walked out onto the porch of the house, and the amber-eyed man in the red armor smiled to see her. He took her arm gallantly, tipped her face up gently with his burning-hot hand, kissed her as soft as a lily-petal. He was a noble of the Fire Nation, not his father's heir but still bound to inherit something. He wanted her to be his wife; how could she refuse such an offer?
There was still hope in the world, she told herself as he led her away to formalize the marriage in the Fire Nation custom. If worst came to worst, she would become a widow.
Her arm-bangles clinked together, and the necklaces were heavy around her throat.
Why did it feel like all light had gone out of the world?
Also, god, Suzuki and I talk about eating turtleducks a lot.
---
Iroh and Ozai, season 3, implied past Iroh/Ozai
He came in the dead of night, when the stars kept him from sleeping and his nightmares stalked him in wakefulness. He had to know.
No guards accompanied him, and the guards in the prison fled when he ordered them out. Cowards. They would never hold his brother.
Tension crackled like heat-lightning when he stepped into the cell, and it was only then that Ozai realized he was angry. So was Iroh, and the fire between them was hot, stifling, utterly without light.
The keys had half-melted by the time he forced them into the lock of the inner cell, and so Ozai sliced the cell open with fire. The metal door crashed to the stone in a cacophony, but no footsteps pounded up to investigate.
Cowards, all. When Iroh decided to stop playing games, there was nothing that would keep him in this tower.
His brother looked at him from where he sat, eyes hard, and the air was heavy with unignited lightning. Filthy and bedraggled, he might be, but he was still Dragon of the West. Only a fool could not see that.
Ozai stepped forward and forward again, then knelt. One knee dug into his brother's thigh as he leaned in to whisper in Iroh's ear, hiding his words from any listener behind the veil of his hair. "Did you touch him?"
Iroh rumbled darkly, the vibrations more felt in his chest than the sound heard. "That you would even think-"
"I remember what you and I did so long ago, brother," Ozai twisted the last word like a knife in a wound, feeling a shiver of pleasure at the way Iroh stiffened. "Answer my question."
"I never did such a thing," Iroh said at last, voice heavy.
It was a relief, an unbearable relief, to banish his fears and nightmares so simply. The lightning in the room was not so imminent now, the heat not so oppressive. Ozai rose and turned away.
"Why did you change, Ozai?"
He paused, looked back over his shoulder at his brother. He could not name the emotions on Iroh's face. He did not think he could name his own emotions. But he remembered the conquering general, the man who took delight in spreading the Fire Nation's rule. He remembered the Earth Kingdom's fear, and that Iroh had earned every ounce of it.
"Why did you change, Iroh?"
---
Mai/Song
Mai strokes her brush through chestnut-colored hair and her lips curve in a smile at Song's luxurious sigh. A hundred long and slow strokes, and then she brushes the Earth woman's hair back to braid.
Zuko is gone for the night and the rest of the week. Daimyo Osamu offered his hospitality, and the Firelord could not refuse.
So the Firelady and the Firelord's concubine were left to amuse themselves.
Mai finds Song very amusing. She is soft and sweet with knowing hands and a clever mouth. She pricks with her needles, and it is a delicious sight to see Song's fine fingers stroking the needletip around Mai's nipples.
Those needles are laid out on Mai's thigh now as she does up Song's hair.
( Aleratar: Iroh vs. Ozai )
( Aleratar: Iroh/Song )
---
Feral airbenders as Aang's students; problems therein
When everything goes to hell, when Shen and Migao are trying to kill Tashi and Ketu, or when Longshot and Jae are trying to kill each other, or when Smellerbee is trying to kill Jae and Tikaani is slapping her down, or when Ketu and Hayoto are trying to kill each other again....
Well, when everything goes to hell, Nima is the one they trust to calm everyone down. Not Aang, who is their sifu but who doesn't understand them (because he wants Air Nomads, and they are all children of the war - they will fight and fight to their last breath). Not Katara, who understands too well and so stands aside.
But Nima, who is Water and Earth, whose lover is Fire, whose voice is the Wind itself, Nima tames them all. She has been daughter and wife and mother, Earth and Water and Fire, and she has no words but she has songs and buffetting winds.
---
Zuko and Ozai, post-series
Smaller fingers threaded with his own- still just a boy, still too much a boy- burning like brands. Pushing against him, but his back is against the wall, and he will not yield. Not to this boy, his son.
Never.
Zuko is pressed chest-to-chest with him, mouth-to-mouth so they breathe each other's breaths. Steam-hot and mist-cold.
An intake of breath, hands tightening against his, and ice stabs through Ozai.
His eyes half-lid as he shakes, cold, so damn cold, where is his firebird-soul now?
Cold.
All his efforts cannot raise a fire to warm him.
Exhale. "Where is she, Father?"
He is ice.
Hate, raw and black and warm, uncurls in him. He stops breathing, denying breath to his son, denying life and warmth and fire-source.
To keep stealing his breath, Zuko must stop breathing as well. But he is a boy still.
Zuko draws breath first, and warmth floods Ozai. He waits three more counts before doing the same.
He is ashes, but he is not dead, never dead, and he will never yield.
---
Evil!Zuko AU, eight years post-series
Amid everything else, no one realized Prince Zuko was not in his cell.
If they had, though, the Avatar's followers would have wasted time looking in the wrong direction for the kidnapped heir-apparent of the Fire Nation.
In the six years since his son's birth, Zuko had been content to let him live with Mai and the Firelord in the Palace. His lover brought their son to visit more often than not, and Zuko thought that was quite good enough. He didn't need to poison his son with too much father-love, not like Uncle and his own father had done to him. His son would not be torn between two destinies.
When word reached him that his son had disappeared, Zuko escaped from the Boiling Rock.
No one noticed he had gone.
He was much better than he had been as a teenager.
---
Post-series, Ozai living with Iroh, thunderstorm
It was storming in Ba Sing Se, the rain coming down in sheets, and the sky night-dark. Miserable, miserable day, and Iroh balked at the idea of opening the Jasmine Dragon. Instead, he stayed home and caught up on letters he owed to various friends and relations.
Midmorning, he went to check on Ozai.
The shutters were open in his brother's rooms, and Ozai sat on the windowsill. His hair was soaked, his skin slick with rain, and he turned only briefly to glance at Iroh when he opened the door. Then his attention turned back towards the storm, and he always looked towards the lightning just before it struck.
Iroh sighed. "Ozai. You are going to get sick."
Ozai turned to look at him again, expression empty. "I'm already dead. What does it matter?"
( Zuko vs. turtleduck )
---
Song and jewelry
Both of Song's grandmothers left jewelry to their children. Her mother never wore it, and Song never wore it. Jewelry was money when they had no coins and nothing else to trade. It was not for wearing. It attracted attention, and it gave soldiers a weapon.
She sat now and clipped jade earrings on her ears. Tight-lipped, she studied herself in the mirror, looking at the beautiful combs already in her hair. The earrings pinched her lobes, but at least she had never been pierced. She wouldn't have to wear some of the jewelry then. Mother could keep it.
She reached into the jewelry box and drew out a necklace. Her hands were shaking, she noticed. And so pale.
She dropped the necklace over her head and tried not to think of walls crashing down.
She drew out another strand and another, until she had eight necklaces around her neck and over her fine, fine clothes. Eight was an auspicious number in the Earth Kingdom.
Song smoothed her skirts, then reached for the arm bangles. Four on each arm, as well as the thick embroidered cloth of her formal hanbok, felt so heavy. As heavy as her heart, and as heavy as her mother's tears had been these last few days.
Her wedding day was supposed to be happy, she thought.
She blinked rapidly to hold back tears, then stood. Her legs held her, and she swallowed around the lump in her throat. There was hope in the world. Hadn't she told Lee that just two weeks ago? The Avatar had returned.
She walked out onto the porch of the house, and the amber-eyed man in the red armor smiled to see her. He took her arm gallantly, tipped her face up gently with his burning-hot hand, kissed her as soft as a lily-petal. He was a noble of the Fire Nation, not his father's heir but still bound to inherit something. He wanted her to be his wife; how could she refuse such an offer?
There was still hope in the world, she told herself as he led her away to formalize the marriage in the Fire Nation custom. If worst came to worst, she would become a widow.
Her arm-bangles clinked together, and the necklaces were heavy around her throat.
Why did it feel like all light had gone out of the world?