[AtLA] "Drawn to the Fire" (SN: Hotaru & Tatsuo History Fic)
Title: “Drawn to the Fire”
Author: Dark Jedi Princess (me!)
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender (“Spirit Night”)
Feedback: Is crack.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Violence
Characters: Hotaru, Tatsuo, Xiaotong, Xifeng, Hikaru, Amaterasu, Shoushan, and a few other random characters.
Pairings: None.
Summary: The history of Firebender siblings Hotaru and Tatsuo.
Disclaimer: AtLA belongs to Nickelodeon, Michael Dante Dimartino, and Brian Konietzko. I’m just taking the concept and playing around with it. Tatsuo belongs to martyfan, Xiatong belongs to piscesearth1985, and Shoushan belongs to damostaranth.
Author’s Note: History fic! :D Sorry Ael, Laura, Damos, I’m borrowing your characters and playing with them. Then again, I was technically doing that in the first place. Enjoy!
“Drawn to the Fire”
“Hotaru! HOTARU! Where the heck did you go?”
Hotaru giggled, dashing behind a bush as her brother Tatsuo came running around the corner. Tatsuo stopped, panting, his hands on his knees, and glanced around.
The two siblings were only nine and eleven, and like any young girl her age, Hotaru was hyper and uncontrollable. Tatsuo had been placed in charge of watching over her during their free time, when they weren’t training or at home with their parents.
“Hotaru, cut it out…” Tatsuo sighed. “Come on, we have to go to training…”
Hotaru poked her head out of the bush. “Aww.”
Tatsuo smiled at his little sister and held out his hand. “Come on.” Hotaru took his hand and began to follow him to their teacher’s house.
Quite abruptly, a large fireball soared through the air and struck the roof above them. Hotaru screamed, and Tatsuo hugged her to his chest.
“Shhh,” he cautioned. “Don’t move…”
The sky above them turned brilliant red as the rest of the village was struck by more fireballs, screams could be heard everywhere.
“We have to do something, Tatsuo!” Hotaru said.
Tatsuo nodded. “Let’s… let’s go find Sifu Longwei…” They navigated their way through the village, finally coming to their Firebending instructor’s home.
When they got their, Longwei was already dead, half of his face burned off. The fire had been too hot to have been caused by one of the infernos set around the village; a Firebender had to have killed him.
“Sifu!” Hotaru screamed, leaping forward. Tatsuo held her back.
“We have to get out of here.” He picked her up and carried her away to their home, only to find their own parents dead. Standing over them was a young woman with smoky grey eyes and sleek black hair tied up in a tight knot at the back of her head.
“You must be their kids,” she said, her voice low and sultry. “Pity I have to kill you.”
“Who are you?!” Tatsuo demanded, clutching Hotaru to his chest. He did not notice Hotaru reaching for one of the kitchen knives that had scattered over the ground.
“Well, since you’re about to die, I suppose I could tell you my name.” She never smiled. Not once. “It’s Xiaotong. Now…”
Hotaru leapt forward, brandishing the knife, and slashed Xiaotong down the left side of her face. Xiaotong screamed, clutching at the fresh wound.
“Get out!” Hotaru screamed, tears streaming down her face. “Get out, get out, GET OUT!”
“Hotaru!” Tatsuo shouted. “No!”
Xiaotong snarled. “I won’t forget this. I’ll come back and finish the job! I swear it to the Sun Goddess!”
She left. Hotaru dropped the knife, feeling numb all over. “They’re gone…” She whispered. “They’re… gone…”
Tatsuo hugged his sister as she began to cry.
* * *
The soldiers came later and extinguished the flames. Hotaru had stopped crying by then, but was clearly still upset.
When the soldiers discovered that the two siblings had an aunt and uncle in another village, they were sent there to live with them. Their aunt and uncle, Xifeng and Hikaru, were tough, but fair.
And so another three years passed, and Hotaru, on her twelfth birthday, ventured out again into the jungle surrounding her village. But this time, there was quite a different surprise waiting for her.
Near a small stream, Hotaru sat down against a tree, brushing aside one of the thin braids at her next. A small, high-pitched yowl caught her ears, and she spotted a tiny tiger huddled against a rock nearby. Its fur, all in shades of orange, red, and yellow, with white on the belly and black stripes all over, bristled in fear.
Hotaru felt a pang of sympathy for the lost tiger cub. She wished she had some meat to give it to convince it she wasn’t going to hurt it. As it was, she had gone into the jungle with only snacks and water, and the snacks consisted almost entirely of bread. Carefully, she stood up and edged towards the tiger cub, holding out her hand shakily. The cub snarled and nipped at her hand, but Hotaru didn’t waver. She took another step forward and let the cub sniff her hand apprehensively. After a few moments, the cub started licking it.
Hotaru grinned and cautiously started petting the cub. She reached into her bag and pulled out some of the bread she had brought along, figuring it was better than nothing. The cub snapped it up and then began licking her more profusely.
“You’re so cute!” Hotaru squealed, still grinning.
* * *
When Hotaru returned to her Aunt and Uncle’s house a few hours later, the tiger cub had gotten into her bag and finished off the rest of the bread, and was now trying to wrangle water out of her waterskin. Luckily, the cub, a female, apparently, wasn’t visible to anyone looking on, so Hotaru didn’t have to worry about people panicking when they saw her.
“I need to give you a name,” Hotaru told the cub, whose eyes slid up to Hotaru when she addressed her. “But I guess I should wait and see if Aunt Xifeng will let me keep you…”
She sat down on her bed and set down the bag, allowing the cub to gamble out of it and lie down on the mattress.
“Hotaru?” She heard Tatsuo’s voice say.
Hotaru’s eyes widened, but she didn’t have time to usher the cub back into the bag as Tatsuo slid open the door and entered the room.
“HOTARU! What are you doing with a tiger cub?!”
“I found her out in the jungle,” Hotaru explained.
“Her mother is going to be angry! You need to return her!” Tatsuo insisted.
“That’s just the thing, Tatsuo,” Hotaru said, sadly. “Her mother is dead. She led me back to her body. The rest of her litter is dead too. They were killed.”
Tatsuo’s face filled with sympathy. “I know you want to take care of her, Hotaru, but there’s no way Aunt and Uncle will let you keep her…”
“Oh, I’ll convince them,” Hotaru said, determinedly.
* * *
“Absolutely not.”
“But, Uncle Hikaru-”
“I said no, Hotaru. Tigers are dangerous animals. That cub could kill you when she grows up.”
“Tigers don’t do that! They’re loyal to their mothers!”
“You’re not her mother, though, are you?”
“Not her biological mother, no, but if I raise her… she likes me! She’ll think of me as her mother!”
“Then she could kill someone else.”
“She’ll be used to humans. You all will be like family to her. I’ll teach her not to attack unless someone threatens her.”
“And how do you plan on paying for her care? Tigers eat a lot of meat.”
“I’ll teach her to eat other foods too.”
Hikaru rubbed his head.
“She has nowhere else to go, Uncle,” Hotaru said, softly. “She’s an orphan. Her mother and littermates were killed, and the father was never in the picture to begin with.”
“…You sympathize with her,” Xifeng, Hotaru’s aunt, said. “Because your mother and father were killed.”
Hotaru nodded, her eyes tearing up.
“Let her keep the cub, Hikaru.”
“But-”
“I’ve read about tigers… if they grow up around humans, they aren’t vicious towards them at all. I think it’ll be fine.”
Hikaru relented. “Fine… but you’ll have to work for the meat the cub eats.”
“Like I said, I’ll teach her to eat other things as well,” Hotaru said, brightening instantly.
“What are you going to name her?” Xifeng asked her niece.
Hotaru stared at the cub’s fur, which rippled and changed different shades of orange and red under the dying sunlight. “I’ll name her for the Sun Goddess… Amaterasu,” she said, decisively.
Amaterasu nipped playfully at Hotaru’s ear. Hotaru giggled and cuddled her new pet.
* * *
Amaterasu grew quickly over the next year or so. By the time Hotaru was fourteen, the tiger was big enough to chase Tatsuo out of the room he and Hotaru used to share and take over his bed. Tatsuo didn’t seem to mind, however, as he was of the opinion that he and Hotaru were too old to still be sharing a room anyway. So he moved into his own room, while Amaterasu slept on his old bed. Amaterasu was also big enough to carry both Hotaru and her brother on her back, although Hotaru made a point of not doing this often, as she thought it exploitative.
Hotaru, meanwhile, had grown into a beautiful young woman by the time she was fifteen. At sixteen, she would officially become an adult. Days before her sixteenth birthday, Tatsuo went into town in search of an appropriate gift for his younger sister. When he had turned sixteen, she had given him a beautiful red tunic with a gold dragon pattern woven into it, and he wanted to get her something similar in return.
He found the perfect thing, bought it with the money had saved for the past year, and brought it home to his sister.
* * *
“Happy birthday, Hotaru!” Tatsuo said, slyly, sidling into Hotaru and Amaterasu’s room.
“My birthday’s not for two more days,” Hotaru replied, sitting up and arching an eyebrow.
“Still… early present. Wear it when we go out to dinner.” He presented the wrapped package to her.
Hotaru took in a deep breath and unwrapped the gift, revealing a long, red kimono with a very similar golden dragon weave to Tatsuo’s tunic worked into the fabric. It had two long slits in the sides, allowing for freedom of movement.
“Oh my, Tatsuo! It’s beautiful!” She leapt up and hugged her brother. Amaterasu slunk over to them and pawed at their legs, wanting in on the lovefest. Tatsuo grinned and ruffled the fur on Amaterasu’s large head. Hotaru squealed and dashed out of sight to get changed. When she emerged she was wearing the new kimono on top of her training clothes. Tatsuo smiled.
“You look beautiful, sis,” he said.
Hotaru only smiled.
* * *
Two nights later, when Hotaru, Tatsuo, and their aunt and uncle went out for dinner to celebrate Hotaru’s ascent into adulthood, a barfight broke out at the tavern they were dining at.
None of them were sure as to the cause of the brawl, but there had been an Earthbender there with long black hair, a beard, and brilliant green eyes. When one of the men who had started the fight threatened two little children, the Earthbender stood in front of the children and defended them until he managed to knock out the brawlers.
Hotaru, who had been taught by her Firebending teachers to always preempt an attack, was new to the concept of defensive maneuvers. She watched the fight with awe for several minutes before her uncle ushered her out of the tavern.
* * *
“I can’t take it!” Hotaru, now nineteen, screamed, clutching at her hair.
“What is it?” Tatsuo asked, looking up from a scroll of Firebending maneuvers he had been reading.
“They want me to train new Firebender recruits,” Hotaru said, miserably.
“That’s wonderful!” Tatsuo responded, happily.
“No it’s not! It’s like we’re planning another war, and if we are, I want no part in it! I’m tired of everything being so militaristic around here! I want it to stop!”
“Talk to the people in the capital about it then,” Tatsuo suggested.
“I already did,” Hotaru responded. “They laughed in my face. I can’t stand it here…”
“…That Earthbender in the tavern three years ago really had an influence on you, didn’t he?” Tatsuo asked, softly.
Hotaru nodded. “I’m going to go find him. I’m leaving the Fire Nation.”
“Hotaru-!”
To his dismay, she had already packed. She headed for the door, beckoning Amaterasu to follow her.
“Are you coming or not?” She demanded, turning to face Tatsuo.
Tatsuo sighed, ran into his room, and gathered all his belongings together in a pack, and followed Hotaru out the door of their Aunt and Uncle’s home.
End
Author: Dark Jedi Princess (me!)
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender (“Spirit Night”)
Feedback: Is crack.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Violence
Characters: Hotaru, Tatsuo, Xiaotong, Xifeng, Hikaru, Amaterasu, Shoushan, and a few other random characters.
Pairings: None.
Summary: The history of Firebender siblings Hotaru and Tatsuo.
Disclaimer: AtLA belongs to Nickelodeon, Michael Dante Dimartino, and Brian Konietzko. I’m just taking the concept and playing around with it. Tatsuo belongs to martyfan, Xiatong belongs to piscesearth1985, and Shoushan belongs to damostaranth.
Author’s Note: History fic! :D Sorry Ael, Laura, Damos, I’m borrowing your characters and playing with them. Then again, I was technically doing that in the first place. Enjoy!
“Drawn to the Fire”
“Hotaru! HOTARU! Where the heck did you go?”
Hotaru giggled, dashing behind a bush as her brother Tatsuo came running around the corner. Tatsuo stopped, panting, his hands on his knees, and glanced around.
The two siblings were only nine and eleven, and like any young girl her age, Hotaru was hyper and uncontrollable. Tatsuo had been placed in charge of watching over her during their free time, when they weren’t training or at home with their parents.
“Hotaru, cut it out…” Tatsuo sighed. “Come on, we have to go to training…”
Hotaru poked her head out of the bush. “Aww.”
Tatsuo smiled at his little sister and held out his hand. “Come on.” Hotaru took his hand and began to follow him to their teacher’s house.
Quite abruptly, a large fireball soared through the air and struck the roof above them. Hotaru screamed, and Tatsuo hugged her to his chest.
“Shhh,” he cautioned. “Don’t move…”
The sky above them turned brilliant red as the rest of the village was struck by more fireballs, screams could be heard everywhere.
“We have to do something, Tatsuo!” Hotaru said.
Tatsuo nodded. “Let’s… let’s go find Sifu Longwei…” They navigated their way through the village, finally coming to their Firebending instructor’s home.
When they got their, Longwei was already dead, half of his face burned off. The fire had been too hot to have been caused by one of the infernos set around the village; a Firebender had to have killed him.
“Sifu!” Hotaru screamed, leaping forward. Tatsuo held her back.
“We have to get out of here.” He picked her up and carried her away to their home, only to find their own parents dead. Standing over them was a young woman with smoky grey eyes and sleek black hair tied up in a tight knot at the back of her head.
“You must be their kids,” she said, her voice low and sultry. “Pity I have to kill you.”
“Who are you?!” Tatsuo demanded, clutching Hotaru to his chest. He did not notice Hotaru reaching for one of the kitchen knives that had scattered over the ground.
“Well, since you’re about to die, I suppose I could tell you my name.” She never smiled. Not once. “It’s Xiaotong. Now…”
Hotaru leapt forward, brandishing the knife, and slashed Xiaotong down the left side of her face. Xiaotong screamed, clutching at the fresh wound.
“Get out!” Hotaru screamed, tears streaming down her face. “Get out, get out, GET OUT!”
“Hotaru!” Tatsuo shouted. “No!”
Xiaotong snarled. “I won’t forget this. I’ll come back and finish the job! I swear it to the Sun Goddess!”
She left. Hotaru dropped the knife, feeling numb all over. “They’re gone…” She whispered. “They’re… gone…”
Tatsuo hugged his sister as she began to cry.
* * *
The soldiers came later and extinguished the flames. Hotaru had stopped crying by then, but was clearly still upset.
When the soldiers discovered that the two siblings had an aunt and uncle in another village, they were sent there to live with them. Their aunt and uncle, Xifeng and Hikaru, were tough, but fair.
And so another three years passed, and Hotaru, on her twelfth birthday, ventured out again into the jungle surrounding her village. But this time, there was quite a different surprise waiting for her.
Near a small stream, Hotaru sat down against a tree, brushing aside one of the thin braids at her next. A small, high-pitched yowl caught her ears, and she spotted a tiny tiger huddled against a rock nearby. Its fur, all in shades of orange, red, and yellow, with white on the belly and black stripes all over, bristled in fear.
Hotaru felt a pang of sympathy for the lost tiger cub. She wished she had some meat to give it to convince it she wasn’t going to hurt it. As it was, she had gone into the jungle with only snacks and water, and the snacks consisted almost entirely of bread. Carefully, she stood up and edged towards the tiger cub, holding out her hand shakily. The cub snarled and nipped at her hand, but Hotaru didn’t waver. She took another step forward and let the cub sniff her hand apprehensively. After a few moments, the cub started licking it.
Hotaru grinned and cautiously started petting the cub. She reached into her bag and pulled out some of the bread she had brought along, figuring it was better than nothing. The cub snapped it up and then began licking her more profusely.
“You’re so cute!” Hotaru squealed, still grinning.
* * *
When Hotaru returned to her Aunt and Uncle’s house a few hours later, the tiger cub had gotten into her bag and finished off the rest of the bread, and was now trying to wrangle water out of her waterskin. Luckily, the cub, a female, apparently, wasn’t visible to anyone looking on, so Hotaru didn’t have to worry about people panicking when they saw her.
“I need to give you a name,” Hotaru told the cub, whose eyes slid up to Hotaru when she addressed her. “But I guess I should wait and see if Aunt Xifeng will let me keep you…”
She sat down on her bed and set down the bag, allowing the cub to gamble out of it and lie down on the mattress.
“Hotaru?” She heard Tatsuo’s voice say.
Hotaru’s eyes widened, but she didn’t have time to usher the cub back into the bag as Tatsuo slid open the door and entered the room.
“HOTARU! What are you doing with a tiger cub?!”
“I found her out in the jungle,” Hotaru explained.
“Her mother is going to be angry! You need to return her!” Tatsuo insisted.
“That’s just the thing, Tatsuo,” Hotaru said, sadly. “Her mother is dead. She led me back to her body. The rest of her litter is dead too. They were killed.”
Tatsuo’s face filled with sympathy. “I know you want to take care of her, Hotaru, but there’s no way Aunt and Uncle will let you keep her…”
“Oh, I’ll convince them,” Hotaru said, determinedly.
* * *
“Absolutely not.”
“But, Uncle Hikaru-”
“I said no, Hotaru. Tigers are dangerous animals. That cub could kill you when she grows up.”
“Tigers don’t do that! They’re loyal to their mothers!”
“You’re not her mother, though, are you?”
“Not her biological mother, no, but if I raise her… she likes me! She’ll think of me as her mother!”
“Then she could kill someone else.”
“She’ll be used to humans. You all will be like family to her. I’ll teach her not to attack unless someone threatens her.”
“And how do you plan on paying for her care? Tigers eat a lot of meat.”
“I’ll teach her to eat other foods too.”
Hikaru rubbed his head.
“She has nowhere else to go, Uncle,” Hotaru said, softly. “She’s an orphan. Her mother and littermates were killed, and the father was never in the picture to begin with.”
“…You sympathize with her,” Xifeng, Hotaru’s aunt, said. “Because your mother and father were killed.”
Hotaru nodded, her eyes tearing up.
“Let her keep the cub, Hikaru.”
“But-”
“I’ve read about tigers… if they grow up around humans, they aren’t vicious towards them at all. I think it’ll be fine.”
Hikaru relented. “Fine… but you’ll have to work for the meat the cub eats.”
“Like I said, I’ll teach her to eat other things as well,” Hotaru said, brightening instantly.
“What are you going to name her?” Xifeng asked her niece.
Hotaru stared at the cub’s fur, which rippled and changed different shades of orange and red under the dying sunlight. “I’ll name her for the Sun Goddess… Amaterasu,” she said, decisively.
Amaterasu nipped playfully at Hotaru’s ear. Hotaru giggled and cuddled her new pet.
* * *
Amaterasu grew quickly over the next year or so. By the time Hotaru was fourteen, the tiger was big enough to chase Tatsuo out of the room he and Hotaru used to share and take over his bed. Tatsuo didn’t seem to mind, however, as he was of the opinion that he and Hotaru were too old to still be sharing a room anyway. So he moved into his own room, while Amaterasu slept on his old bed. Amaterasu was also big enough to carry both Hotaru and her brother on her back, although Hotaru made a point of not doing this often, as she thought it exploitative.
Hotaru, meanwhile, had grown into a beautiful young woman by the time she was fifteen. At sixteen, she would officially become an adult. Days before her sixteenth birthday, Tatsuo went into town in search of an appropriate gift for his younger sister. When he had turned sixteen, she had given him a beautiful red tunic with a gold dragon pattern woven into it, and he wanted to get her something similar in return.
He found the perfect thing, bought it with the money had saved for the past year, and brought it home to his sister.
* * *
“Happy birthday, Hotaru!” Tatsuo said, slyly, sidling into Hotaru and Amaterasu’s room.
“My birthday’s not for two more days,” Hotaru replied, sitting up and arching an eyebrow.
“Still… early present. Wear it when we go out to dinner.” He presented the wrapped package to her.
Hotaru took in a deep breath and unwrapped the gift, revealing a long, red kimono with a very similar golden dragon weave to Tatsuo’s tunic worked into the fabric. It had two long slits in the sides, allowing for freedom of movement.
“Oh my, Tatsuo! It’s beautiful!” She leapt up and hugged her brother. Amaterasu slunk over to them and pawed at their legs, wanting in on the lovefest. Tatsuo grinned and ruffled the fur on Amaterasu’s large head. Hotaru squealed and dashed out of sight to get changed. When she emerged she was wearing the new kimono on top of her training clothes. Tatsuo smiled.
“You look beautiful, sis,” he said.
Hotaru only smiled.
* * *
Two nights later, when Hotaru, Tatsuo, and their aunt and uncle went out for dinner to celebrate Hotaru’s ascent into adulthood, a barfight broke out at the tavern they were dining at.
None of them were sure as to the cause of the brawl, but there had been an Earthbender there with long black hair, a beard, and brilliant green eyes. When one of the men who had started the fight threatened two little children, the Earthbender stood in front of the children and defended them until he managed to knock out the brawlers.
Hotaru, who had been taught by her Firebending teachers to always preempt an attack, was new to the concept of defensive maneuvers. She watched the fight with awe for several minutes before her uncle ushered her out of the tavern.
* * *
“I can’t take it!” Hotaru, now nineteen, screamed, clutching at her hair.
“What is it?” Tatsuo asked, looking up from a scroll of Firebending maneuvers he had been reading.
“They want me to train new Firebender recruits,” Hotaru said, miserably.
“That’s wonderful!” Tatsuo responded, happily.
“No it’s not! It’s like we’re planning another war, and if we are, I want no part in it! I’m tired of everything being so militaristic around here! I want it to stop!”
“Talk to the people in the capital about it then,” Tatsuo suggested.
“I already did,” Hotaru responded. “They laughed in my face. I can’t stand it here…”
“…That Earthbender in the tavern three years ago really had an influence on you, didn’t he?” Tatsuo asked, softly.
Hotaru nodded. “I’m going to go find him. I’m leaving the Fire Nation.”
“Hotaru-!”
To his dismay, she had already packed. She headed for the door, beckoning Amaterasu to follow her.
“Are you coming or not?” She demanded, turning to face Tatsuo.
Tatsuo sighed, ran into his room, and gathered all his belongings together in a pack, and followed Hotaru out the door of their Aunt and Uncle’s home.
End