AtLA fic: Stress-Induced Spirit Insanity
Yeah, I'm sick and I kind of just . . . started typing. And then stuff happened.
Title: Stress-induced Spirit Insanity
Author: SCWLC
Rating: T, I suppose. It's not X-rated, but there's much discussion of things.
Disclaimer: I sometimes wonder why we bother, since we all know that the people who own things wouldn't be posting fanfic, and even if they were, they'd probably lie about it.
Summary: Sometimes, when you anger the Spirits, they do really weird things just to make stuff get back on track.
Notes: This is crack randomness. I swear I have no idea what I was thinking. Just . . . go with it. This has not even been spell-checked, by the by.
They were probably the most stubborn pair of souls ever to appear on the Wheel of Reincarnation. Seriously, the gods and powers that ran the universe had created them to be the other's perfect match. Perfect opposites with a perfect understanding of how they fit together.
Their first lifetime, they both met after they'd both made commitments to other people and were both so honourable that even though neither had become actually betrothed, they still were utterly faithful. That kind of honour was charming, so when they managed to do that ten lifetimes in a row, the spirits were merely amused. The next dozen they never actually met. This was met with some aggravation, mainly because that steadfast determination to do the right thing meant that neither would play hooky during important events, no matter what obstacles were thrown in their way by the spirits to make them run into each other.
With other projects, the spirits let them go for another several lifetimes, hoping that maybe, without any direct intervention they'd find each other. No such luck. Then the spirits made sure to bring them both together, with no interfering lovers or duty to get in the way. Somehow, they both managed to convince each other to marry other people for reasons advantageous to themselves and others, rather than for love. It was enough to give a higher power a headache.
Seriously. Oma and Shu were on opposite sides of a war and they still managed to find each other. These two? Make them best friends and next door neighbours and have everyone and his cousin tell them they're meant for each other and they'd choose someone else just to spite everyone.
This time he'd been reborn as the Prince of Fire, she was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. The spirits waited for the two to recognise each other, as they always did eventually. It happened when the boy was taunting the girl with her necklace. The flash of recognition came, and then . . . nothing. Both were too invested in their sides in the conflict.
Enough was enough.
Some rapid poking at the pirates' thoughts and the prince was forced to untie the girl, putting on a bluff for the sailors in order to convince them he was raping the girl. A few nudges later and the pair was indulging in a couple hundred lifetimes' worth of repressed . . . affection.
It backfired, as the spirits soon discovered, by making both intensely uncomfortable with each other, not to mention confused why they'd done that. The fact that the spirits had barely had to do anything to make it happen just went to show they really were the soulmates they'd been created to be.
Not much later, they arranged for her to fall off the bison and get caught, taken captive on his ship. Again they nudged, and again the pair indulged in their millennia-repressed desires. The prince was too honourable, however. And instead of keeping her captive to tempt in the Avatar, he let her go as recompense for besmirching her honour a second time.
He'd snuck off to see if he could catch up to the Avatar after all, hoping that the boy would still be around after his escape of the fortress where Zhao held him. Instead, he found the girl, they were both nudged again, and the boy left having caught a nasty case of the flu from the whole incident.
So it went. Every time they were anywhere near each other, the spirits would lead them by the nose and prod them into do that oldest of dances between man and woman.
Not that it helped in the slightest. Both of them were so stubborn, they both stubbornly put it down to something they ate.
Given the unfortunate need to scrounge for food in unfamiliar places and his uncle's obsession with tea, that actually wasn't all that illogical a conclusion.
After the debacle at the Northern Tribe, they were joined by Yue. She, being new to the whole thing, found it funny, the wench.
Again and again the pair came together and firmly wrenched themselves away. When the prince joined the Avatar's little band, hopes were raised. When they firmly refused to do anything with each other, another inordinate bunch of nudging happened. They continued to admit nothing, and the spirits found their only consolation lay in watching Sokka foam at the mouth over it all.
What cracked them and made them break the rules of noninterference came when the couple had been nudged into their most enthusiastic, loving, acrobatic and affectionate performance yet, following the defeat of the prince's sister.
Surely they would admit it now, allowing the spirits to move on to other things.
That was when his ex-girlfriend popped out of the woodwork. Three minutes into the newly crowned Fire Lord's speech, an enormous storm rolled up out of nowhere, and the spirits expressed their displeasure by dropping a hurricane on top of the Fire Nation's capital city.
The last straw was in Ba Sing Se. He was with his girlfriend and she'd crept off to kiss the Avatar.
There was a crack, and suddenly the room was packed with the strange and wondrous forms of the spirits that made the world run with their machinations. "No! That is enough!" shouted Agni. "You are going to stop this right now and do what you're supposed to!"
Tui, the ocean spirit nodded emphatically, adding, "I've spent a good millennium working on this and you two are going to stop thwarting us at every turn!"
The mortals' jaws were on the floor, and the Avatar asked hesitantly, "Who's going to do what?"
The various powerful beings gathered there sputtered. Except Yue, who said, "Katara, Zuko, haven't you both wondered why you both have been . . . intimate so often?"
"Uncle's tea," mumbled the firebender.
"Sokka's mushrooms," muttered the waterbender.
Yue shook her head. "Actually, no." Then she told them why.
"But what about-" began Zuko.
"No!" howled the spirit of the Swamp tree. "You're getting it together, even if I have to tie you together and tattoo it on your forehead!"
"I promised Mai-"
"Aang is a powerful bender-"
Neither got to finish a sentence. Mai looked at the irate spirits and said, "Zuko, I love you, but not enough to get into a headbutting contest with the god of fire about it. Go with Katara. Seriously."
"I kind of should accept the will of the spirits, don't you think?" Aang said, looking thoroughly cowed by it all.
Zuko and Katara looked around, but this sort of negated any sense of duty. A moment later, without any sort of nudging, they had raced off to someplace private to 'discuss matters'. The spirits vanished, leaving a very upset tea shop, a frothing-at-the-mouth older brother, a few very taken-aback friends and a smirking uncle.
From upstairs came the sound of rhythmic thudding, the loudly gasped question, "Marry me?"
The response? "Yes, yes, yes, yes! Yes! YES!"
The spirits settled back into their regularly scheduled lives of subtle meddling, relieved that they could finally move on to other things.
Fin.
No, I don't know.
To Companion Piece Spirit Induced Insanity
Return to AtLA archive