[Fic] "Silent Screams" and/or "Turn to Stone" -- Avatar: TLA/Enchanted Forest Chronicles

[edenfalling]

This is a request!fic for silverblade219, who wanted a sequel to The Two Secretive Princesses, which is part of a novel-length Avatar: The Last Airbender/Enchanted Forest Chronicles fusion that I am still determinedly not writing

Comments

[askerian]

Oh TOPH. *massive love* X3333

[edenfalling]

You only hurt the ones you love...? *pets Toph and hastily introduces her to the Gaang*

Anyway, I have an urge to rewrite this so it is a tonal match with Enchanted Forest rather than Avatar -- bad stuff would still happen, but with much less death and trauma, and probably an incidental joke or two. *ponders*

[edenfalling]

Actually, I did write a slightly less dark version! Still pretty hard on Toph, but I think less traumatic overall.

[uminohikari]

D: D: D: D: D: D: D: D: x infinity

Oh, Toph :( That must be so frightening

[edenfalling]

It is, in fact, dark enough that I wrote a second version that is a better tonal fit with the Enchanted Forest Chronicles -- it's still not what I'd call lighthearted, but vastly fewer people die and there is a touch of humor to leaven the trauma.

[valles_uf]

And there's the same, 'erk, poor Azula, Toph has some friends moment with the local geology, too. Approved. ^_^

[edenfalling]

Yeah. Right now, Toph is mainly thinking about getting away, but later on, Azula and Ozai are going to be in trouble. And they are never going to catch her while she's playing rebel princess in Toure-on-Marsh before joining up with the rest of the Gaang. :-)

...

I have this novel about 90% plotted out (minus a few places where my outline has notes like "insert wacky hijinks here," "find something for Yue to do at this point," or "so how is Ozai's secret spell of doom supposed to work anway?"), which is way more detail than I usually have when I start writing. But I don't want to write this story! *headdesk*

[silverblade219]

EE, thank you for the sequels. I like both versions, though I admit that I didn't picked up on the fact that much less people were killed in that 2nd version right away for some reason. And poor Toph. I'm assuming this is when she goes to join the equivalent of the Earth Rumble, or does she meet the Gaang faster in this?

I also like how Mai is trying to protect Toph here, and how there seems to be a hint of Mai disagreeing with Azula's methods.

[edenfalling]

The lowered death toll is a subtle change -- basically, I took out Toph's mention of the scent of blood, changed the rooms from containing "nothing but stone and ashes" to "nothing but statues," removed "Azula had killed people" from Toph's litany of crimes, and changed "might burn her like all the other people in her castle" to "might burn her or take even this last escape away