Fuck It. AtLAland Secret Santa Gifts
They are in the comments. There are a lot of them. Because I wrote a fuckton for this.
suzukiblu was my giftee. dark_puck and spyridona are my buddies. neldluva, crystaldrake, and banditjoeykuba are also my people. chameleon_pete and takatohedgehog got random things written for them for various reasons.
suzukiblu was my giftee. dark_puck and spyridona are my buddies. neldluva, crystaldrake, and banditjoeykuba are also my people. chameleon_pete and takatohedgehog got random things written for them for various reasons.
'Verse: Thunder God
Characters: Torako/Kouji
***
There was a woman.
There were a lot of women in the Fire Nation court. This one didn't look especially different from all of the others. She dressed in skimpy red silks that flashed her scars and ivory-pale skin, she wore her dark hair in mimicry of Lady Mai's style. She carried a fan, though, and she fanned herself as she sat in the shade, lips slightly parted in the heat.
Kouji found his face heating up as he followed the path of a drop of sweat from her hairline down to her jaw.
Her fan fluttered, paused, and he realized he'd stood still too long.
"Hello," she called as her fan resumed its motion, revealing tantalizing glimpses of a smile.
He gulped and bowed. "H-hi."
She delivered a bow in turn, exactly the appropriate amount for a noblewoman to give to a commoner of rank. Her voice was kind, though, when she spoke, rather than merely polite. "How are you doing today?"
"I'm doing w-well, my l-lady. And you?"
"Well enough in this heat. I really do envy firebenders sometimes. They never seem to feel it." Her fan fluttered, the motion catching his eye and drawing it down from her face. He blushed harder and his gaze snapped up. Then realization hit him, and his eyes drifted down again.
She wore a high collar. Her stomach was bared by her top, but her breasts were covered. Accented, certainly, especially with the bronze tiger-stripes. But covered. Most of the unmarried women her age didn't do that, and the married ones wouldn't be baring their stomachs.
His eyes flicked back up to hers, and he realized with a start that they were grey.
"Y-yeah. My brother is th-that way," he said, mouth going dry. There wasn't anything unusual about grey eyes. A lot of people in the Fire Nation had them, though not as many as had the more typical amber and gold.
His eyes were grey.
The edge of her fan touched lightly against the tip of her nose for a moment, then resumed the deceptively lazy motion that kept catching his eye. "You have a brother? Lucky. All I've had are sisters."
"I have o-one of those too. M-my twin." Worry briefly twinged in Kouji, and he instinctively checked that part of him that knew where Yui was. Far, far away to the east - Earth Kingdom then. But she wasn't hurt, so everything ought to be all right.
It wasn't as if he could do anything if she wasn't. But she was a woman in her twenties, and more than competent. She didn't need him to save her. (She'd saved him, more often than not.)
The woman tilted her head slightly. "Is she well?"
He wondered a bit why she was talking to him so casually. He was a colonist peasant, whether or not he was Firelord Zuko's personal secretary, whether or not he was in bed with the Firelord like the rumors all had him. She was definitely a noble-woman, nearly as pure an example of classical Fire Nation nobility as Lady Mai or the Firelord's family.
Her fan fluttered, and the flash of her mouth made his blood heat.
"Yes," he said. "Sh-she stays w-with our brother."
"That's good. Families should stay together," she said with a touch of wistfulness in her voice.
He can't help but remember the night Ichiro was arrested. All the fire, blue and red, and Ichiro's snarl, and the soldiers' armor turned bloody by the lurid light- "Sometimes."
She lowered her fan, an expression of concern on her face.
He stiffened, mind racing as he realized she must be worried because of the way he'd said that. He didn't want to explain it, couldn't explain it. It still hurt too much, even years later. "I-it's nothing t-to worry about now. It's done and over w-with now."
She nodded. "That's good. With the Comet or with the new Firelord?"
He really didn't want to explain it. It would take too long to tell and get too personal. But he owed her some sort of answer, and he realized he could give her one without going into details. "...It's a bit complicated. The w-worst of it was handled before the Comet. The rest with Firelord Zuko."
"I wish I could say the same."
He blinked. "Oh?"
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Ozai tried to kill her father. Politely, circumspectly, but Kouji had learned enough of Fire Nation politics to know a murder attempt when he heard one. But- He'd met the Phoenix King. Once. Once was enough, more than enough. Even burnt out, Ozai seemed the type to take it to Agni Kai as was his right. Her father must have been a very powerful daimyo for him to do what he did.
(Some part of him wished being separated from his father would have hurt half so much as the telltales suggested it did to her.)
Ozai tried to kill her father, and Azula left him to rot in the Earth Kingdom. Slag, and the woman spoke almost calmly about everything.
Zuko was a good Firelord. He'd fixed everything Azula had broken, even if she was the one who'd sided with the Avatar and he'd sided with his father. Well, that just proved again that the Avatar had been wrong.
"Oh- I'm s-sorry..." He said quietly, clenching his fists to keep from shaking the earth.
Her fan snapped closed, and her expression was- It hurt in the best ways, the ways that made him proud to be Fire Nation, because her anger was frightening in its restraint. "It's done with. Firelord Zuko changed things."
Kouji nodded, unable to look away from the way her eyes burned.
She paused for a moment, closed her eyes, opened them again. Her body shifted, loosened, and the anger drained away from her until it was gone like it had never been. The fan fell into her lap. She smiled at him. "Have you attended any of the performances lately?"
He blinked at the sudden subject-change. "P-performances?"
"Theater. There's been several troupes coming through town. And-" She leaned closer, as if sharing a secret. "I've heard Flame's Edge will be playing in the capital soon. They were always Ozai's favored troupe."
Theater? He'd never really looked into the theater in the city. It existed. And they did plays. They did do plays, right? He glanced around the little garden, wondering if someone else might come along soon. "I -- uh --"
Her smile widened. "There's a performance of 'Love Amongst the Dragons' in three nights. I'm getting too old to attend performances with my Father, and none of the other ladies want to go see it."
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"Oh, I'd love to take you. It's no fun to go to these kinds of things alone."
He smiled, captivated by those bright grey eyes of hers. "I... That would be enjoyable, I think. To go with you, I mean."
That was quite possibly the stupidest thing he'd ever said in his life, slagslagslag!
"I'm glad." The woman practically beamed at him, her eyes shining.
"Wh-when would you like to go?"
"It doesn't start until an hour after sundown at the old theater in South District... When would the Firelord let you go?" She asked, and there wasn't a hint of innuendo in her voice.
He wondered if it was possible to fall in love in ten minutes of conversation. "...I think I'd need to a-ask him. But I think he would let me go by then."
"That's good." She picked up her fan again. "Have you been there before? We could meet there, if you have, or we could meet at one of the monuments and take a palanquin."
It occurred to him that he didn't have the slightest idea where the old theater in the South District was. He was a little fuzzy on where the South District was at all in the Capital. Besides south. "I... d-don't get out of the palace much."
She tapped her closed fan against her arm, expression thoughtful. "We could meet in the west courtyard around sunset? That should give us enough time to get there."
"That sounds fine." He smiled shyly and felt something in his chest flutter when she smiled back.
End
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*dipsmooches*
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