fic: Solar Winds (10/?)
When it comes to sneaking away, Mercedes has always been his greatest obstacle. Finn sleeps like a log, and Artie sleeps in the freaking wilderness whenever he can help it. But Mercedes is different. Her senses are fine-tuned to detect sneaking-both towards and away from her.
“Where’re you going?”
Which is why that did not surprise Kurt in the slightest.
He turns around to face Mercedes, who looks a hot mess at this ridiculous hour of the morning, the sun having barely begun to stretch and rub the sleep out of its eyes.
“Just… heading out to get a little early-morning practice,” Kurt says.
Mercedes gives him her standard x-ray stare to see if he is lying. Which he actually isn’t, so there’s no reason for him to be nervous.
She can tell there’s something more to it, but it’s early, and she clearly wishes she was back in bed. Just as Kurt planned. Maybe his subtle machination skills aren’t too flabby after all. “Fine. Be careful. And find a good hiding spot.” With that, she shuffles back to her temporary bedroom to get some more shut-eye.
And Kurt saunters off to practice instantaneous arson.
~~~
“Rise and shine, sleeping uglies!”
The Halls of the Chi-Ryu Firebending Academy for Girls echo with the scornful voice of Sue Sylvester and her chosen flunkies. Gongs are banged, pots are clanged, decent quality swords are clashed and given over to inappropriate wear and tear all for the sake of making as much racket as possible. Nothing quite gets the heart pumping early in the morning like waking up to pants-wetting terror.
“Up and at ‘em, you lackadaisical pile of moist logs! I’ve met corpses less lazy. I expect every single one of you lined up and ready for drills in precisely 240 seconds and not one second more. MOVE!”
One by one, each door in the dormitories is kicked open, presenting the interior to Quinn and Sue’s other chosen Captains. To Quinn’s satisfaction, not a single girl on her hall is still asleep, which speaks volumes to the terror her Master has managed to instill in these girls. Each room’s interior is inspected-the girls are more than expected to have made their beds perfectly within seconds of divesting themselves from its comfort. When this requirement isn’t met…
“Marylou!” Quinn shouts. “Present yourself.”
The slightly owlish girl with short, black hair is out of the bathroom and in front of Quinn in the time it takes for her to blink. “Yes, Captain!”
“What,” she asks with more ice than any Firebender has a right to, “is this?” She points a perfectly manicured finger towards the bed, the sheets hastily thrown across the mattress in a shameful attempt to fool a less astute eye into thinking her bed was made.
Marylou gulps audibly. “…Captain Quinn, I’m so sorry, I’m not used to waking up like this yet and I just forgot, I swear, I-”
Quinn has heard enough. Adding a second finger to her already outstretched pointer, she gives a short thrust of her arm towards the bed, causing a spurt of bright orange flame to ignite the sheets. “Unacceptable,” Quinn says, as the panicked girl attempts to run over and beat the flames out with a towel. She succeeds only because Quinn is feeling merciful. “If you are not capable of taking care of your bed, you don’t deserve a bed. You will sleep on that,” she sneers, nodding to the smoking, ashen ruins of a mattress, “for the rest of your time here.” She turns away from the quivering girl, pausing for just a second at the doorway before turning and adding one more thing. “And I still expect it to be made every morning.”
The sound of the girl’s frightened gasping and eventual sobs are music to Quinn’s ears as she marches down the hallways, finishing her inspections. “Water is weak,” Sue always tells her. “Anything that gets it out of you makes you stronger.”
The more she makes them sweat and cry (and occasionally puke) the stronger they all become. And the Fire Nation will be in dire need of their strength in the days to come.
“The weak Fire Lord cannot carry this Nation any longer. Soon, he will be relieved of his burden, and it will fall on us. Be ready, because none of us will be stopping to pick up your mangled corpse if you are crushed under its weight.”
~~~
The first rays of sunlight that peek through the window into Blaine’s room don’t wake him. They don’t need to-he’s already up, sitting cross-legged on the floor and practicing his breathing. The warmth of the sun on his skin brings a small smile to his face, even as he tries to ignore it. The idea of meditation is, of course, to clear one’s mind utterly, eschewing any and all distractions and achieving total clarity: a state of no emotion, no thought, no distraction. The state of Zero Mind-achieving and being able to keep this state is supposedly the key to becoming a true Firebending master.
Too bad Blaine isn’t even close. Not today.
Every time he feels it all start to slip away, something slips in and grabs his attention. Something, or rather, someone. Even the simple thought of Kurt is stubborn and beautiful and impossible to ignore-the young Avatar flits through his thoughts like a mongoosnake, sliding in and out like Blaine’s mental landscape is a frozen lake for Kurt to skate across. And while normally, the inability to keep trespassers out of his headspace would be highly annoying to Blaine, Kurt isn’t an unwelcome intrusion. He leaves a little smirk in his wake every time he glides through.
“…oh, dear. That smile heralds nothing good. Blaine, I’m going to have to ask you to purge those thoughts and compose yourself immediately.”
Now, a sour-faced David stands cross-armed in the middle of the ice lake. Kurt slides to a halt and gives him a truly fearsome hands-on-hips bitchface, and Blaine nearly laughs at the mental image before Wes clears his throat and dispels it. “Sorry,” Blaine says. “I was just thinking about-”
“Purge!” David says. “Get those un-dapper thoughts out of your head.”
“The Fire Lord is going to be busy ironing out the logistics of the quarantine’s end for most of the day,” Wes helpfully explains. “He wants to know if you would prefer an early morning training session or if you would like the day off. And since any sensible person would take the second option, I think we all know what you are going to choose.”
Blaine puts on his most winning smile. “I’ll be ready to go in one minute.”
“You are inhuman.”
“I like Firebending. And I happen to be quite good.”
“All the more reason for you to take a personal day!” Wes insists, but David puts a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Now, Wes. What have I told you about trying to reason with crazy people? Just smile, and nod,” David says, and immediately takes his own advice. “We’ll be waiting!”
The Fire Prince follows through on his proclamation with spectacular aplomb, and appears at his door, dressed and ready for action in thirty-three seconds.
“Inhuman,” Wes repeats. “No one should have that much energy at this hour.”
“What can I say?” Blaine says, straightening his collar. “It’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life… and I’m feeling good.”
With that, Blaine struts down the hall to join his father in the training yard. He feels like he could airbend if he were any lighter, and he is completely unable to keep himself from the little spin he executes as he rounds the corner.
David goes slack-jawed. “Wes,” he says. “Did you just witness what I witnessed?”
Wes looks mortified. “I’m afraid so.”
“He… he just… pirouetted,” David spits the word like the discarded shell of an Ember Nut.
“This is so much worse than we could have imagined,” Wes says, turning to David with eyes swimming nausea.
David mirrors him, before turning to stare down the hall in the wake of the Prancing Prince.
“By Agni, he’s in love.”
~~~
Kurt Hummel is so ready for this.
Or, you know, that’s what he thought until he actually found a decent place to practice. A short walk through the woods brought him to the bottom of a sheer cliff, which gave him total concealment from at least one side. He isn’t too far off the road, but… well, if anyone sees him, as far as they are concerned, he is just another firebender.
“Okay,” Kurt says to whatever spirits may or may not be hanging around. “So… now what?”
He should probably warm up or something.
Yeah, that’s probably best.
Warm up. Firebending. HA.
“Alright… breathing. Breathing is a fabulous starting point.”
So Kurt starts breathing.
And… okay. He’s breathing. Air is flowing into, and subsequently out of his lungs. Inhale, exhale, he’s got this shit down. Except… well… he isn’t sure if he is doing it right. To be more precise, he isn’t even really sure how he’s supposed to tell if he’s doing it right. Isn’t this supposed to be calming? Because it definitely isn’t-it’s kind of stressing him out, actually.
Oh, fantastic. He’s only barely begun to breathe and already he’s approaching a frustration fueled freakout.
Whatever. He just needs to focus on something else. Like Blaine said… don’t try so hard.
Hey, now there’s a nice distracting line of thought. Blaine… if Blaine were here, he would be all over him. This. He would be all over this exercise, having Kurt strip (slowly?), carefully studying every inch of him with ravenous eyes, correcting any mistakes with strong, capable, confident fingers that know exactly where to go and what to do. Blaine’s hands on his bare chest, guiding him, holding him, feeling every movement as his breathes in, and out, in, and out, inhale, and exhale, inhale, and exhale, suck, and blow-
…
…what? What was he doing? He is supposed to be doing something. Was he breathing? He was pretty sure he was breathing. Why did he stop? He should probably start again. Breathing is important for… some reason. Yes, he’ll get right on that breathing thing.
As soon as he’s finished coughing.
~~~
“SILENCE,” Sue shouts into that strange metal cone that somehow makes her even louder. “CHI-RYUS, LINE UP.”
All the girls in the gym do as she says, falling into a perfectly straight line in alphabetical order based on their names. It makes it easier for Sue to tell who is missing at a glance, so that no latecomers can slip into formation unnoticed. Sure enough, she spots an open space near the far end of the line, and zeros in on it immediately. Absentees are always identified by an open space-newcomers learn quickly that closing the gap gets you punished just like the latecomer for daring to cover for someone else’s insubordination and disregard for procedure.
“You!” Sue barks at the poor girl to the right of the absentee, “Caterpillar brows! Where is Snaggletooth?”
‘Snaggletooth’ (actual name Emily, not that it matters) limps into the gym with an apology already spilling from her mouth. “Shifu Sylvester,” she pants. “I’m sorry, I fell and twisted my ankle on the way here-”
“UNACCEPTABLE,” Sue roars into the girl’s face, utilizing the metal cone for extra emphasis. “Do I, or do I not teach you to walk on your hands?”
“…y-you do, Shifu, I am-”
“And why do you think I do that?”
“I… I…”
“For exactly this situation!” Sue bellows. “If your ankles are too rickety and fragile to support your bulbous frame, you flip yourself over and walk on those meaty paws of yours, do you understand?”
“Yes, Shifu!” the girl says, trying (and failing) to hold back her tears.
“You will receive the standard punishment. Present yourself.”
“No, no, please…” Snaggletooth begs.
“Present yourself.”
With a slight wobble of her lip (pathetic), the girl stands at attention. Sue gives her a contemptuous sneer, raises her hand and flicks her wrist at the girl, resulting in a conical burst of fire which nearly causes Quinn to wince in sympathy. The flames engulf Emily’s head for a second before Sue flicks her wrist again, extinguishing them. When the fire has cleared, the girl’s skin is reddened (only very mildly burned), and worse-her hair and eyebrows are completely gone. She is as bald as a newborn skunkmole.
“Becky!” Sue shouts. “Fetch me some ashes.”
The small girl quickly scampers over to Sue, holding a bucket filled with fine, grey dust. Sue thrusts the bucket into Snaggletooth’s arms. “These represent your failure. Take them back to your room, spread them on your bed, and wallow in them for the rest of the day. And never come into my gym late again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Shifu,” the girl sniffles.
“Get out of my sight.”
Emily can’t escape fast enough. Quinn scoffs-not visibly, of course, but mentally. That girl will never be Captain material. Even when Quinn had her own hair burnt off, she faced her Shifu and did not flinch. Not a single tear came from her eyes, and her expression was as blank and featureless as unused canvas. Sue regarded her carefully in the aftermath, and that was the first time Quinn saw something other than disdain on her face.
She approved.
From that point on, she has been Lady Sylvester’s favorite. And not merely for her lack of emotion or killer good looks.
“Let that be an example for everyone; that is the face of failure. Quinn! Show them the face of success.”
But because she is damn good at what she does. The Captain moves in front of her line, a decent distance away. “CHI-RYUS,” she shouts. “FOLLOW MY LEAD. STANCES!” she says, crouching into a low stance. The girls follow suit. “READY?” she asks.
“READY!” they echo.
“BEGIN!”
~~~
The Royal Guards open the doors just in time for Blaine to sweep into the room with fantastic aplomb, straightening the lapels on his practice robes with a bright grin on his face and a skip in his step. The Fire Lord is taken aback.
“My word,” he says, covering his eyes. “Blaine, what’s gotten into you? You’re competing with the Sun as the brightest thing in the world this morning.”
The young Prince has a well-rehearsed shrug of nonchalance at the ready. “I’m just… happy,” he says.
“Oh?” the Fire Lord asks. “If this is happy, then what are you usually?”
Blaine raises his eyebrows in thought. “Maybe… satisfied?” he tries.
“I see,” is the response. “And what under heaven might have brought about this change?”
The Prince seems caught off guard only for a second. It’s more than long enough to make him wonder. “It’s a beautiful day. Why shouldn’t I be happy?”
“Well, I can think of a few suitably depressing matters, but far be it from me to rain on your bonfire,” Lord Anderson replies carefully, before adding… “So, clear skies and bright sunshine is all it takes to get you in such a mood? Perhaps I should gift you with even more responsibility. You could be Fire Lord of the Morning. All matters concerning the Nation before noon would fall to you, while I stayed cozy in bed for a few more hours. It would be a great boon for productivity for the both of us.”
Blaine chuckles, but it is a reluctant laugh, nervous, as though it reached the tip of his tongue before getting nervous and turning back, only to be pushed over the edge regardless. “Well, as long as you wouldn’t mind me waking you up to ask questions every five minutes…” His hands are clasped, and his fingers inch toward his sleeves before he stills them. A sure sign of nerves.
“Blaine,” Lord Anderson asks gently. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
He watches as his son takes a moment to close his eyes and breathe, in through the nose, and out through the mouth just like he was taught. “No,” Blaine says. The Fire Lord barely has a moment to register his disappointment before Blaine adds. “But… there is something I would like to show you.”
“Oh?” He says it carefully.
“Yes,” Blaine says, nodding more to himself than to his father. “Not now, obviously. We have our session, and you have a lot of work to do, but… soon.”
The boy has a point, so there is nothing to be done but accept it. “Very well,” Lord Anderson says agreeably, before moving the subject forward. “I assume that means Wesley and David have already informed you I will be spending most of the day with Admiral Keros, mapping the course for ending the quarantine. I’d apologize for having wakened you so early, but you don’t seem bothered.
“I was already awake, actually,” Blaine says, with a small smile. “Practicing my meditation.”
“Achieve enlightenment?” the Fire Lord asks.
“So close,” Blaine sighs. “Alas, a beetlefly chose that moment to try and fly up my nose. I’ll just have to try again tomorrow.”
“Curse those beetleflies,” the Fire Lord sighs. “I shall have to get you a net to keep them out. In the meantime, we’ll proceed with your lesson as planned. Ready?”
Blaine responds by adopting his stance.
“Good,” his Father smiles. “Let’s begin.”
~~~
Kurt doesn’t even know where to begin. He’s pretty sure he remembers the basic strike Blaine taught him, but just as before, all his efforts thusfar have produced little more than body odor and frustration.
He speaks in rhythm with his strkes. “I,” strike, “hate,” thrust, “this,” swipe, “element.”
The feeling he got before, like something sparked and ignited his internal timbers, is nowhere to be found. There is some warmth in his chest, but he’s pretty sure that’s only his mounting rage starting to get the best of him. His heartrate is steadily going up, his breathing is more or less shot to Hell at this point, but he absolutely refuses to give up. He did it before, he will do it again.
“I just want some fire,” he breathes, continuing to strike. “That’s all. Is that,” strike, “so much to ask?”
Punch.
“I just,”
Strike.
“Want,
Thrust.
“Some stupid,”
Punch.
“FIRE!”
FWOOOOOSH.
Well, his dad has always said that Kurt gets what he wants. Of course, he also used to tell him ‘be careful what you wish for.’ Both apply pretty well here.
His final strike produces a positively breathtaking blast of brilliant orange flame. Kurt is so taken aback that he gasps in shock, which is apparently precisely the wrong thing to do at that moment, because the flame suddenly increases its intensity twofold, blooming outward and forward from his palm until Kurt finally regains the presence of mind to stop the blast, flicking the remaining fire to the ground. On the one hand-bully for him, he made fire. On the other… he unexpectedly made quite a lot of it.
Perhaps too much.
“Oh, fishfuckers,” he curses. In front of him, several trees are burning quite brilliantly already, with the fire steadily spreading to the surrounding patch of forest. It’s been a solid two weeks since Kurt has seen any rain, so it’s only a matter of time before the blaze spreads to the rest of the forest. How have these people not burned down their entire country yet?
He needs to put this out. He needs water, but there’s none in the immediate area, the pitiful amount he keeps in his waterskin isn’t going to make a drop of difference in this bucket of clusterfuck, and the amount of moisture in the air is already rapidly decreasing thanks to the heat from the fire. It occurs to him that Firebenders probably have some means of extinguishing flames as well as igniting them, but fuck if Kurt has any idea what that involves. He has only one other option… Mercedes usually puts out their campfires by burying them.
“Dirt. I need dirt.”
It’s pretty much everywhere underneath his feet, but he needs a large amount and it needs to go on the fire, preferably from the top down.
The cliff!
Running up to the wall of rock, Kurt squares his stance, digs his toes into the ground, and slams his fist into the wall. A line of force travels upwards from his hand, carving up the cliff in a zigzag until it reaches the desired height, where it abruptly detonates and triggers a rather dusty avalanche. The force of the bending propels huge clumps of dirt and rock outwards, showering the fire in nice, non-combustible soil and stone.
Of course, by extension, this showers Kurt in the same, but it’s a small price to pay to prevent a full-blown forest fire.
Coughing from all the dirt and ash in the air, it takes a few seconds for the dust to clear enough for Kurt to survey the damage. Though there is a glowing ember or two still visible, the open flames were largely extinguished in the rockslide. Unfortunately, most of the trees in the immediate area were just as violently flattened. That will take a while to clean up.
Still, all-in-all, it could have gone worse. As it is, Kurt is basically whole, if profoundly filthy (again). All he has to do now is figure out how to wash the smell out of his clothes. Sod, pine, and smoke do not mix well, and to top it all off, Kurt is now catching a little whiff of burning…
…hair.
With the speed of a startled jackalope, Kurt dives to the ground, scoops up two handfuls of dirt and dumps them on his head. This will be an absolute nightmare to fix, and on top of it all, he’s just come to a stunning realization:
All of this could have been avoided if he had just pointed himself at the fucking rocks.
~~~
“AIM!” Quinn shouts.
The girls turn their aim to the stone wall on the opposite side of the gym, where a series of wooden training dummies pops out of the ground to greet them.
“FIREBALLS!” the blonde bombshell commands.
The line of Chi-Ryus release explosive bursts of flame in perfect unison with Quinn. The targets on the far edge of the gym are decimated, and thanks to the severely underpaid workers Lady Sylvester kidnapped and keeps in the basement, new dummies rise up to take their place almost immediately.
“STREAM!” she shouts.
Long bands of flame extend from the assembled girls’ hands and outstretched feet, setting the new dummies alight.
“SLICE!” she orders.
Again, in the exact pace Quinn is keeping, the Chi-Ryu warriors slice their fingers in vertical arcs, sending thin crescents of flame at the dummies, neatly slicing them down the middle.
“FORMATION HACHI!” she shouts.
With precision which can only be brought on by months of rehearsals, the girls gather into groups of four. Three gather around the center girl in a T formation, lifting her up and tossing her into the air, where she rains a punishing barrage of fireballs down on the wooden targets before landing gracefully.
“FORMATION KYU!” she commands.
This time, the girls form into two lines, one behind the other. The lines shift back and forth as the girls flip from side to side- the ones in the back shooting fireballs from their feet in the gaps between the girls in the front, who are shooting fireballs from their hands. The barrage is perfectly rhythmic and aimed to kill. The dummies don’t stand a chance.
“FORMATION JUICHI!” the Chi-Ryu Captain bellows.
The girls form lines of five, jumping into the air in perfectly timed split kicks, launching diagonal fireballs from each foot. This formation is always one of the hardest to aim, but this is Lady Sylvester’s Elite Squad. Not a dummy is left standing at the end.
“FORMATION NIJU!”
At this, the girls form diagonal lines at opposite ends of the gym. In seemingly erratic-but in fact perfectly calculated-pairs, they begin to flip and somersault across the floor, trading places with each other in each line and throwing arcing firebombs into the air with each flip. The targets are decimated. Finally, a single large, square target appears at the end of the gym.
“FINISH IT!” she commands.
The girls form a standing square of their own, forming extremely close lines behind one another. The front row sits, the next row kneels, the third row crouches, and the last row stands. With loud battlecries of “GO, FIGHT, IGNITE!” they launch perfectly formed bursts of flame at the target from various combinations of girls, resulting in giant, flaming letters and characters flying across the gym, smashing into the target and carving the name of the academy into the stone. The final burst comes from all of them, and shatters the target utterly in an amazing explosion.
The Lady takes a second to survey the damage. “Mediocre!” she shouts. “Hit the showers!”
Quinn allows herself a small smile. That’s as close to giving actual compliments as the Lady gets. Which can only mean that she finally thinks they are ready to carry out her master plan. The smile grows wider when Quinn realizes that she agrees with her teacher. Never has a force of Firebenders been so perfectly trained and utterly unified.
The flaming rubble in the gym is testament to that.
~~~
The target explodes from dead center, Blaine’s attack having impacted it perfectly. Only a small amount of burning debris litters floor of the stone-walled training room, which he extinguishes with a casual huff of air from his nose.
“Excellent,” the Fire Lord smiles. “I think you’ve got it.”
“Well, what can I say?” the Prince regards him with a casual air of ‘look at me, I’m amazing.’ “I’m a natural-born performer.”
Under normal circumstances, such a statement would call for a fond eye roll, but this particular morning, Blaine really does deserve to revel in a bit of smug self-satisfaction. He learned the maneuver after barely fifteen minutes of practice runs, pulling it off near-flawlessly. Still… there’s no need to let that slide by him completely. “Alright, performer. If you’re such a showman, I demand a show.”
Blaine’s eyebrows reach for the sky. “O…kay? What kind of show?”
The Fire Lord approaches his son with arms crossed. “Hmmmm… let me think of something good. Ah, I’ve got it! I want you to run through all of your katas…”
“Pffft, easy…” he grins.
“…blindfolded.”
“…oh.” And the grin drops like a drunken monkey trying to climb down from a tree (something he had the distinct pleasure of witnessing once; Councilor Ganterson is an odd fellow).
The Fire Lord hands him a strip of cloth, which Blaine accepts smoothly, tying it over his eyes with smooth, confident motions even as his face betrays his nerves. It’s this simple action that makes him confident that this is something Blaine can handle.
“Ummm… dad, are you sure…” the Prince says as his father gently guides him to the center of the room and points him towards the wall perpendicular to his intended viewpoint.
“Relax, my son,” he says easily. “Put your mind at ease, and let your limbs remember the dance on their own.”
“Okay.” Blaine takes a breath to calm himself as his father gets into position to watch. “Here goes…” he says, and he begins.
It’s practically poetic.
From the first moment, Blaine’s movements are sure and swift. Each kata links naturally and easily to the next-a swift strike, a flurry of punches, a sweeping kick, and onwards, the maneuvers growing more and more complicated as he continues. Blaine executes them easily, and the slow smile that blooms on his face as he realizes his success is the very dawn to a proud father. Flame comes from the boy in bursts, in orbs, in streams, in waves and arcs and even rings, burning stronger and surer as he continues. The pace increases of its own volition as Blaine continues to gain confidence, and soon he is onto the more complex maneuvers, launching pinwheels of flame which curve in mid-flight, creating and maintaining brilliant, fiery whips of pure combustive force which lash at unseen targets. By the time he enters into a series of leaping and flipping kicks, the room is already bathed in a gentle orange glow.
Which makes it that much easier to see when Blaine kicks, and suddenly-
Agni’s tits.
“Stop!” shouts the Fire Lord, realizing his mistake all too late as his outburst startles Blaine in mid-air, resulting in a rather painful-looking face fault on the floor.
“What?” Blaine says, sounding slightly panicked as he picks himself up and pulls off the blindfold. “What happened?”
You idiot! Lord Anderson chides himself for his stupidity. He’s probably just ruined the chances of reproducing very thing that so startled him-the exact thing he wanted to see again. There is always the chance, however… “Run through that last sequence again for me,” he says.
Blaine looks at him oddly, but does as he is asked. Unfortunately, this simply proves his theory correct-the moves happen slower, and the fire burns normally. Blaine is convinced he made a mistake.
“That’s enough,” the Fire Lord says.
“What did I do wrong?” Blaine asks, looking more than a little crestfallen. He curses himself for putting that miserable look on the face of his own boy, especially considering how bright and happy he was when they began.
“You did nothing wrong, Blaine,” the Fire Lord says. “Your performance was absolutely splendid, I just… I thought I saw something, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Blaine says, and the disappointment drains from his eyes. “So… I was really doing well?”
He places an arm around his boy, squeezing his shoulder as the two of them head towards the exit. “You were magnificent,” the Fire Lord says, meaning every word of it. And though he wishes he could tell him more, something makes him feel as though drawing attention to it might throw off the boy’s progress rather than help it along. For now, he’ll remain silent on the matter.
But just for now. There is only so much paternal pride a man can hold before he bursts into a steaming geyser of praise. As much as he knows it annoys the Councilors, (and as much as it annoys him when the Councilors do it) there is just something instinctually satisfying about bragging to others about the accomplishments of your children.
And if he saw what he thinks he saw… well, he can’t wait until the day he can attend one of Lady Keros’s agonizing socials and inform all present that he might well have raised a genuine Firebending prodigy…
~~~
Mercedes opens the door to find a filthy, muddy, panting, slightly singed and completely done Kurt Hummel standing on the other side. Clumps of dirt hang loosely in his hair (which is arranged in kind of a strange shape). Grass is stuck to his clothes and skin at various places, along with twigs, leaves, and a couple of small rocks.
“What the Hills happened to you?” she inquires.
Kurt turns a cutting glare on her. If you really could glare daggers at someone, she’d be pinned to the wall right about now. “I don’t,” he grunts, “want to talk about it.”
What Kurt wants, Kurt gets, generally speaking, and it looks like the poor guy could use a break. She steps aside to let him pass, deciding she’ll squeeze the story out of him later.
“Whoa!” Artie says from his (is that new?) wheelchair. “Damn, dude. Did you and my baby girl get into a fight over me? ‘Cause I’ve gotta tell you, that’s a losing battle, my man. She is the only one for me, though if I did swing that way, you would be the first-”
He doesn’t finish, as Kurt flips his chair over with one hand as he passes. He is in no mood.
His stomps up the steps are almost as noisy as Finn’s elephino feet. So of course, it only makes sense for him to run into the extra-long gorilla goat himself. “Whoa, dude,” he says, shocked, worried, and far too curious. “Did you sleep outside? I know Artie’s been trying to get you to try it, but I’ve gotta say, it’s not that great, ‘cause of… you know…” he gestures to Kurt, “all this. Plus there are bugs, and…”
Kurt doesn’t hear the rest of what he says, as he stomps into the washroom and slams the door, a surefire cue for Finn to abandon any attempts at conversing with him for at least a few more hours.
Once inside, he thanks the spirits for the Wang family opulence, as theirs is a house with running water and a damn fine bathtub. He soaks himself for hours, not even bothering to care when he starts to get all pruny. When he is done with that, he spends the rest of the day attempting to find a way to comb his hair to hide the tiny bald spot that serves as the day’s most egregious wound. It is yet more hours before he finally accepts that he is just going to have to comb over it as best he can and maybe hope that the Wangs have some semi-fashionable hats he can work into his outfit for tomorrow.
The sun is setting by the time he emerges from the washroom. He doesn’t even bother eating before flopping down on the bed. For a number of reasons, both good and bad, Kurt has never wanted a day to be over so badly in his life.
His eyes stare out the window into the orange horizon, the last sight he sees before he finally drifts off.
~~~
The sun is low on the horizon when he reaches the hilltop. Grinning to himself, the boy sets his bag on the ground and begins to unpack the contents. He can’t believe his good fortune-he’s a whole day ahead of schedule, which means he’ll have more than enough time to set up his telescope and all his instruments before the time comes to use them-a real rarity for him as of late.
Staring out at the sky over the Capital City, the young astronomer lets out a small sigh at how amazing the sunset looks. When the hazy orange finally fades into purples and pinks, he breaks his reverie and resumes the work of assembling his telescope, smiling all the while, practically giddy with anticipation.
It only took him three days to get here, and it was worth every minute. Tomorrow night is going to be one spectacular show…
-END OF DAY 3-
“Where’re you going?”
Which is why that did not surprise Kurt in the slightest.
He turns around to face Mercedes, who looks a hot mess at this ridiculous hour of the morning, the sun having barely begun to stretch and rub the sleep out of its eyes.
“Just… heading out to get a little early-morning practice,” Kurt says.
Mercedes gives him her standard x-ray stare to see if he is lying. Which he actually isn’t, so there’s no reason for him to be nervous.
She can tell there’s something more to it, but it’s early, and she clearly wishes she was back in bed. Just as Kurt planned. Maybe his subtle machination skills aren’t too flabby after all. “Fine. Be careful. And find a good hiding spot.” With that, she shuffles back to her temporary bedroom to get some more shut-eye.
And Kurt saunters off to practice instantaneous arson.
~~~
“Rise and shine, sleeping uglies!”
The Halls of the Chi-Ryu Firebending Academy for Girls echo with the scornful voice of Sue Sylvester and her chosen flunkies. Gongs are banged, pots are clanged, decent quality swords are clashed and given over to inappropriate wear and tear all for the sake of making as much racket as possible. Nothing quite gets the heart pumping early in the morning like waking up to pants-wetting terror.
“Up and at ‘em, you lackadaisical pile of moist logs! I’ve met corpses less lazy. I expect every single one of you lined up and ready for drills in precisely 240 seconds and not one second more. MOVE!”
One by one, each door in the dormitories is kicked open, presenting the interior to Quinn and Sue’s other chosen Captains. To Quinn’s satisfaction, not a single girl on her hall is still asleep, which speaks volumes to the terror her Master has managed to instill in these girls. Each room’s interior is inspected-the girls are more than expected to have made their beds perfectly within seconds of divesting themselves from its comfort. When this requirement isn’t met…
“Marylou!” Quinn shouts. “Present yourself.”
The slightly owlish girl with short, black hair is out of the bathroom and in front of Quinn in the time it takes for her to blink. “Yes, Captain!”
“What,” she asks with more ice than any Firebender has a right to, “is this?” She points a perfectly manicured finger towards the bed, the sheets hastily thrown across the mattress in a shameful attempt to fool a less astute eye into thinking her bed was made.
Marylou gulps audibly. “…Captain Quinn, I’m so sorry, I’m not used to waking up like this yet and I just forgot, I swear, I-”
Quinn has heard enough. Adding a second finger to her already outstretched pointer, she gives a short thrust of her arm towards the bed, causing a spurt of bright orange flame to ignite the sheets. “Unacceptable,” Quinn says, as the panicked girl attempts to run over and beat the flames out with a towel. She succeeds only because Quinn is feeling merciful. “If you are not capable of taking care of your bed, you don’t deserve a bed. You will sleep on that,” she sneers, nodding to the smoking, ashen ruins of a mattress, “for the rest of your time here.” She turns away from the quivering girl, pausing for just a second at the doorway before turning and adding one more thing. “And I still expect it to be made every morning.”
The sound of the girl’s frightened gasping and eventual sobs are music to Quinn’s ears as she marches down the hallways, finishing her inspections. “Water is weak,” Sue always tells her. “Anything that gets it out of you makes you stronger.”
The more she makes them sweat and cry (and occasionally puke) the stronger they all become. And the Fire Nation will be in dire need of their strength in the days to come.
“The weak Fire Lord cannot carry this Nation any longer. Soon, he will be relieved of his burden, and it will fall on us. Be ready, because none of us will be stopping to pick up your mangled corpse if you are crushed under its weight.”
~~~
The first rays of sunlight that peek through the window into Blaine’s room don’t wake him. They don’t need to-he’s already up, sitting cross-legged on the floor and practicing his breathing. The warmth of the sun on his skin brings a small smile to his face, even as he tries to ignore it. The idea of meditation is, of course, to clear one’s mind utterly, eschewing any and all distractions and achieving total clarity: a state of no emotion, no thought, no distraction. The state of Zero Mind-achieving and being able to keep this state is supposedly the key to becoming a true Firebending master.
Too bad Blaine isn’t even close. Not today.
Every time he feels it all start to slip away, something slips in and grabs his attention. Something, or rather, someone. Even the simple thought of Kurt is stubborn and beautiful and impossible to ignore-the young Avatar flits through his thoughts like a mongoosnake, sliding in and out like Blaine’s mental landscape is a frozen lake for Kurt to skate across. And while normally, the inability to keep trespassers out of his headspace would be highly annoying to Blaine, Kurt isn’t an unwelcome intrusion. He leaves a little smirk in his wake every time he glides through.
“…oh, dear. That smile heralds nothing good. Blaine, I’m going to have to ask you to purge those thoughts and compose yourself immediately.”
Now, a sour-faced David stands cross-armed in the middle of the ice lake. Kurt slides to a halt and gives him a truly fearsome hands-on-hips bitchface, and Blaine nearly laughs at the mental image before Wes clears his throat and dispels it. “Sorry,” Blaine says. “I was just thinking about-”
“Purge!” David says. “Get those un-dapper thoughts out of your head.”
“The Fire Lord is going to be busy ironing out the logistics of the quarantine’s end for most of the day,” Wes helpfully explains. “He wants to know if you would prefer an early morning training session or if you would like the day off. And since any sensible person would take the second option, I think we all know what you are going to choose.”
Blaine puts on his most winning smile. “I’ll be ready to go in one minute.”
“You are inhuman.”
“I like Firebending. And I happen to be quite good.”
“All the more reason for you to take a personal day!” Wes insists, but David puts a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Now, Wes. What have I told you about trying to reason with crazy people? Just smile, and nod,” David says, and immediately takes his own advice. “We’ll be waiting!”
The Fire Prince follows through on his proclamation with spectacular aplomb, and appears at his door, dressed and ready for action in thirty-three seconds.
“Inhuman,” Wes repeats. “No one should have that much energy at this hour.”
“What can I say?” Blaine says, straightening his collar. “It’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life… and I’m feeling good.”
With that, Blaine struts down the hall to join his father in the training yard. He feels like he could airbend if he were any lighter, and he is completely unable to keep himself from the little spin he executes as he rounds the corner.
David goes slack-jawed. “Wes,” he says. “Did you just witness what I witnessed?”
Wes looks mortified. “I’m afraid so.”
“He… he just… pirouetted,” David spits the word like the discarded shell of an Ember Nut.
“This is so much worse than we could have imagined,” Wes says, turning to David with eyes swimming nausea.
David mirrors him, before turning to stare down the hall in the wake of the Prancing Prince.
“By Agni, he’s in love.”
~~~
Kurt Hummel is so ready for this.
Or, you know, that’s what he thought until he actually found a decent place to practice. A short walk through the woods brought him to the bottom of a sheer cliff, which gave him total concealment from at least one side. He isn’t too far off the road, but… well, if anyone sees him, as far as they are concerned, he is just another firebender.
“Okay,” Kurt says to whatever spirits may or may not be hanging around. “So… now what?”
He should probably warm up or something.
Yeah, that’s probably best.
Warm up. Firebending. HA.
“Alright… breathing. Breathing is a fabulous starting point.”
So Kurt starts breathing.
And… okay. He’s breathing. Air is flowing into, and subsequently out of his lungs. Inhale, exhale, he’s got this shit down. Except… well… he isn’t sure if he is doing it right. To be more precise, he isn’t even really sure how he’s supposed to tell if he’s doing it right. Isn’t this supposed to be calming? Because it definitely isn’t-it’s kind of stressing him out, actually.
Oh, fantastic. He’s only barely begun to breathe and already he’s approaching a frustration fueled freakout.
Whatever. He just needs to focus on something else. Like Blaine said… don’t try so hard.
Hey, now there’s a nice distracting line of thought. Blaine… if Blaine were here, he would be all over him. This. He would be all over this exercise, having Kurt strip (slowly?), carefully studying every inch of him with ravenous eyes, correcting any mistakes with strong, capable, confident fingers that know exactly where to go and what to do. Blaine’s hands on his bare chest, guiding him, holding him, feeling every movement as his breathes in, and out, in, and out, inhale, and exhale, inhale, and exhale, suck, and blow-
…
…what? What was he doing? He is supposed to be doing something. Was he breathing? He was pretty sure he was breathing. Why did he stop? He should probably start again. Breathing is important for… some reason. Yes, he’ll get right on that breathing thing.
As soon as he’s finished coughing.
~~~
“SILENCE,” Sue shouts into that strange metal cone that somehow makes her even louder. “CHI-RYUS, LINE UP.”
All the girls in the gym do as she says, falling into a perfectly straight line in alphabetical order based on their names. It makes it easier for Sue to tell who is missing at a glance, so that no latecomers can slip into formation unnoticed. Sure enough, she spots an open space near the far end of the line, and zeros in on it immediately. Absentees are always identified by an open space-newcomers learn quickly that closing the gap gets you punished just like the latecomer for daring to cover for someone else’s insubordination and disregard for procedure.
“You!” Sue barks at the poor girl to the right of the absentee, “Caterpillar brows! Where is Snaggletooth?”
‘Snaggletooth’ (actual name Emily, not that it matters) limps into the gym with an apology already spilling from her mouth. “Shifu Sylvester,” she pants. “I’m sorry, I fell and twisted my ankle on the way here-”
“UNACCEPTABLE,” Sue roars into the girl’s face, utilizing the metal cone for extra emphasis. “Do I, or do I not teach you to walk on your hands?”
“…y-you do, Shifu, I am-”
“And why do you think I do that?”
“I… I…”
“For exactly this situation!” Sue bellows. “If your ankles are too rickety and fragile to support your bulbous frame, you flip yourself over and walk on those meaty paws of yours, do you understand?”
“Yes, Shifu!” the girl says, trying (and failing) to hold back her tears.
“You will receive the standard punishment. Present yourself.”
“No, no, please…” Snaggletooth begs.
“Present yourself.”
With a slight wobble of her lip (pathetic), the girl stands at attention. Sue gives her a contemptuous sneer, raises her hand and flicks her wrist at the girl, resulting in a conical burst of fire which nearly causes Quinn to wince in sympathy. The flames engulf Emily’s head for a second before Sue flicks her wrist again, extinguishing them. When the fire has cleared, the girl’s skin is reddened (only very mildly burned), and worse-her hair and eyebrows are completely gone. She is as bald as a newborn skunkmole.
“Becky!” Sue shouts. “Fetch me some ashes.”
The small girl quickly scampers over to Sue, holding a bucket filled with fine, grey dust. Sue thrusts the bucket into Snaggletooth’s arms. “These represent your failure. Take them back to your room, spread them on your bed, and wallow in them for the rest of the day. And never come into my gym late again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Shifu,” the girl sniffles.
“Get out of my sight.”
Emily can’t escape fast enough. Quinn scoffs-not visibly, of course, but mentally. That girl will never be Captain material. Even when Quinn had her own hair burnt off, she faced her Shifu and did not flinch. Not a single tear came from her eyes, and her expression was as blank and featureless as unused canvas. Sue regarded her carefully in the aftermath, and that was the first time Quinn saw something other than disdain on her face.
She approved.
From that point on, she has been Lady Sylvester’s favorite. And not merely for her lack of emotion or killer good looks.
“Let that be an example for everyone; that is the face of failure. Quinn! Show them the face of success.”
But because she is damn good at what she does. The Captain moves in front of her line, a decent distance away. “CHI-RYUS,” she shouts. “FOLLOW MY LEAD. STANCES!” she says, crouching into a low stance. The girls follow suit. “READY?” she asks.
“READY!” they echo.
“BEGIN!”
~~~
The Royal Guards open the doors just in time for Blaine to sweep into the room with fantastic aplomb, straightening the lapels on his practice robes with a bright grin on his face and a skip in his step. The Fire Lord is taken aback.
“My word,” he says, covering his eyes. “Blaine, what’s gotten into you? You’re competing with the Sun as the brightest thing in the world this morning.”
The young Prince has a well-rehearsed shrug of nonchalance at the ready. “I’m just… happy,” he says.
“Oh?” the Fire Lord asks. “If this is happy, then what are you usually?”
Blaine raises his eyebrows in thought. “Maybe… satisfied?” he tries.
“I see,” is the response. “And what under heaven might have brought about this change?”
The Prince seems caught off guard only for a second. It’s more than long enough to make him wonder. “It’s a beautiful day. Why shouldn’t I be happy?”
“Well, I can think of a few suitably depressing matters, but far be it from me to rain on your bonfire,” Lord Anderson replies carefully, before adding… “So, clear skies and bright sunshine is all it takes to get you in such a mood? Perhaps I should gift you with even more responsibility. You could be Fire Lord of the Morning. All matters concerning the Nation before noon would fall to you, while I stayed cozy in bed for a few more hours. It would be a great boon for productivity for the both of us.”
Blaine chuckles, but it is a reluctant laugh, nervous, as though it reached the tip of his tongue before getting nervous and turning back, only to be pushed over the edge regardless. “Well, as long as you wouldn’t mind me waking you up to ask questions every five minutes…” His hands are clasped, and his fingers inch toward his sleeves before he stills them. A sure sign of nerves.
“Blaine,” Lord Anderson asks gently. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
He watches as his son takes a moment to close his eyes and breathe, in through the nose, and out through the mouth just like he was taught. “No,” Blaine says. The Fire Lord barely has a moment to register his disappointment before Blaine adds. “But… there is something I would like to show you.”
“Oh?” He says it carefully.
“Yes,” Blaine says, nodding more to himself than to his father. “Not now, obviously. We have our session, and you have a lot of work to do, but… soon.”
The boy has a point, so there is nothing to be done but accept it. “Very well,” Lord Anderson says agreeably, before moving the subject forward. “I assume that means Wesley and David have already informed you I will be spending most of the day with Admiral Keros, mapping the course for ending the quarantine. I’d apologize for having wakened you so early, but you don’t seem bothered.
“I was already awake, actually,” Blaine says, with a small smile. “Practicing my meditation.”
“Achieve enlightenment?” the Fire Lord asks.
“So close,” Blaine sighs. “Alas, a beetlefly chose that moment to try and fly up my nose. I’ll just have to try again tomorrow.”
“Curse those beetleflies,” the Fire Lord sighs. “I shall have to get you a net to keep them out. In the meantime, we’ll proceed with your lesson as planned. Ready?”
Blaine responds by adopting his stance.
“Good,” his Father smiles. “Let’s begin.”
~~~
Kurt doesn’t even know where to begin. He’s pretty sure he remembers the basic strike Blaine taught him, but just as before, all his efforts thusfar have produced little more than body odor and frustration.
He speaks in rhythm with his strkes. “I,” strike, “hate,” thrust, “this,” swipe, “element.”
The feeling he got before, like something sparked and ignited his internal timbers, is nowhere to be found. There is some warmth in his chest, but he’s pretty sure that’s only his mounting rage starting to get the best of him. His heartrate is steadily going up, his breathing is more or less shot to Hell at this point, but he absolutely refuses to give up. He did it before, he will do it again.
“I just want some fire,” he breathes, continuing to strike. “That’s all. Is that,” strike, “so much to ask?”
Punch.
“I just,”
Strike.
“Want,
Thrust.
“Some stupid,”
Punch.
“FIRE!”
FWOOOOOSH.
Well, his dad has always said that Kurt gets what he wants. Of course, he also used to tell him ‘be careful what you wish for.’ Both apply pretty well here.
His final strike produces a positively breathtaking blast of brilliant orange flame. Kurt is so taken aback that he gasps in shock, which is apparently precisely the wrong thing to do at that moment, because the flame suddenly increases its intensity twofold, blooming outward and forward from his palm until Kurt finally regains the presence of mind to stop the blast, flicking the remaining fire to the ground. On the one hand-bully for him, he made fire. On the other… he unexpectedly made quite a lot of it.
Perhaps too much.
“Oh, fishfuckers,” he curses. In front of him, several trees are burning quite brilliantly already, with the fire steadily spreading to the surrounding patch of forest. It’s been a solid two weeks since Kurt has seen any rain, so it’s only a matter of time before the blaze spreads to the rest of the forest. How have these people not burned down their entire country yet?
He needs to put this out. He needs water, but there’s none in the immediate area, the pitiful amount he keeps in his waterskin isn’t going to make a drop of difference in this bucket of clusterfuck, and the amount of moisture in the air is already rapidly decreasing thanks to the heat from the fire. It occurs to him that Firebenders probably have some means of extinguishing flames as well as igniting them, but fuck if Kurt has any idea what that involves. He has only one other option… Mercedes usually puts out their campfires by burying them.
“Dirt. I need dirt.”
It’s pretty much everywhere underneath his feet, but he needs a large amount and it needs to go on the fire, preferably from the top down.
The cliff!
Running up to the wall of rock, Kurt squares his stance, digs his toes into the ground, and slams his fist into the wall. A line of force travels upwards from his hand, carving up the cliff in a zigzag until it reaches the desired height, where it abruptly detonates and triggers a rather dusty avalanche. The force of the bending propels huge clumps of dirt and rock outwards, showering the fire in nice, non-combustible soil and stone.
Of course, by extension, this showers Kurt in the same, but it’s a small price to pay to prevent a full-blown forest fire.
Coughing from all the dirt and ash in the air, it takes a few seconds for the dust to clear enough for Kurt to survey the damage. Though there is a glowing ember or two still visible, the open flames were largely extinguished in the rockslide. Unfortunately, most of the trees in the immediate area were just as violently flattened. That will take a while to clean up.
Still, all-in-all, it could have gone worse. As it is, Kurt is basically whole, if profoundly filthy (again). All he has to do now is figure out how to wash the smell out of his clothes. Sod, pine, and smoke do not mix well, and to top it all off, Kurt is now catching a little whiff of burning…
…hair.
With the speed of a startled jackalope, Kurt dives to the ground, scoops up two handfuls of dirt and dumps them on his head. This will be an absolute nightmare to fix, and on top of it all, he’s just come to a stunning realization:
All of this could have been avoided if he had just pointed himself at the fucking rocks.
~~~
“AIM!” Quinn shouts.
The girls turn their aim to the stone wall on the opposite side of the gym, where a series of wooden training dummies pops out of the ground to greet them.
“FIREBALLS!” the blonde bombshell commands.
The line of Chi-Ryus release explosive bursts of flame in perfect unison with Quinn. The targets on the far edge of the gym are decimated, and thanks to the severely underpaid workers Lady Sylvester kidnapped and keeps in the basement, new dummies rise up to take their place almost immediately.
“STREAM!” she shouts.
Long bands of flame extend from the assembled girls’ hands and outstretched feet, setting the new dummies alight.
“SLICE!” she orders.
Again, in the exact pace Quinn is keeping, the Chi-Ryu warriors slice their fingers in vertical arcs, sending thin crescents of flame at the dummies, neatly slicing them down the middle.
“FORMATION HACHI!” she shouts.
With precision which can only be brought on by months of rehearsals, the girls gather into groups of four. Three gather around the center girl in a T formation, lifting her up and tossing her into the air, where she rains a punishing barrage of fireballs down on the wooden targets before landing gracefully.
“FORMATION KYU!” she commands.
This time, the girls form into two lines, one behind the other. The lines shift back and forth as the girls flip from side to side- the ones in the back shooting fireballs from their feet in the gaps between the girls in the front, who are shooting fireballs from their hands. The barrage is perfectly rhythmic and aimed to kill. The dummies don’t stand a chance.
“FORMATION JUICHI!” the Chi-Ryu Captain bellows.
The girls form lines of five, jumping into the air in perfectly timed split kicks, launching diagonal fireballs from each foot. This formation is always one of the hardest to aim, but this is Lady Sylvester’s Elite Squad. Not a dummy is left standing at the end.
“FORMATION NIJU!”
At this, the girls form diagonal lines at opposite ends of the gym. In seemingly erratic-but in fact perfectly calculated-pairs, they begin to flip and somersault across the floor, trading places with each other in each line and throwing arcing firebombs into the air with each flip. The targets are decimated. Finally, a single large, square target appears at the end of the gym.
“FINISH IT!” she commands.
The girls form a standing square of their own, forming extremely close lines behind one another. The front row sits, the next row kneels, the third row crouches, and the last row stands. With loud battlecries of “GO, FIGHT, IGNITE!” they launch perfectly formed bursts of flame at the target from various combinations of girls, resulting in giant, flaming letters and characters flying across the gym, smashing into the target and carving the name of the academy into the stone. The final burst comes from all of them, and shatters the target utterly in an amazing explosion.
The Lady takes a second to survey the damage. “Mediocre!” she shouts. “Hit the showers!”
Quinn allows herself a small smile. That’s as close to giving actual compliments as the Lady gets. Which can only mean that she finally thinks they are ready to carry out her master plan. The smile grows wider when Quinn realizes that she agrees with her teacher. Never has a force of Firebenders been so perfectly trained and utterly unified.
The flaming rubble in the gym is testament to that.
~~~
The target explodes from dead center, Blaine’s attack having impacted it perfectly. Only a small amount of burning debris litters floor of the stone-walled training room, which he extinguishes with a casual huff of air from his nose.
“Excellent,” the Fire Lord smiles. “I think you’ve got it.”
“Well, what can I say?” the Prince regards him with a casual air of ‘look at me, I’m amazing.’ “I’m a natural-born performer.”
Under normal circumstances, such a statement would call for a fond eye roll, but this particular morning, Blaine really does deserve to revel in a bit of smug self-satisfaction. He learned the maneuver after barely fifteen minutes of practice runs, pulling it off near-flawlessly. Still… there’s no need to let that slide by him completely. “Alright, performer. If you’re such a showman, I demand a show.”
Blaine’s eyebrows reach for the sky. “O…kay? What kind of show?”
The Fire Lord approaches his son with arms crossed. “Hmmmm… let me think of something good. Ah, I’ve got it! I want you to run through all of your katas…”
“Pffft, easy…” he grins.
“…blindfolded.”
“…oh.” And the grin drops like a drunken monkey trying to climb down from a tree (something he had the distinct pleasure of witnessing once; Councilor Ganterson is an odd fellow).
The Fire Lord hands him a strip of cloth, which Blaine accepts smoothly, tying it over his eyes with smooth, confident motions even as his face betrays his nerves. It’s this simple action that makes him confident that this is something Blaine can handle.
“Ummm… dad, are you sure…” the Prince says as his father gently guides him to the center of the room and points him towards the wall perpendicular to his intended viewpoint.
“Relax, my son,” he says easily. “Put your mind at ease, and let your limbs remember the dance on their own.”
“Okay.” Blaine takes a breath to calm himself as his father gets into position to watch. “Here goes…” he says, and he begins.
It’s practically poetic.
From the first moment, Blaine’s movements are sure and swift. Each kata links naturally and easily to the next-a swift strike, a flurry of punches, a sweeping kick, and onwards, the maneuvers growing more and more complicated as he continues. Blaine executes them easily, and the slow smile that blooms on his face as he realizes his success is the very dawn to a proud father. Flame comes from the boy in bursts, in orbs, in streams, in waves and arcs and even rings, burning stronger and surer as he continues. The pace increases of its own volition as Blaine continues to gain confidence, and soon he is onto the more complex maneuvers, launching pinwheels of flame which curve in mid-flight, creating and maintaining brilliant, fiery whips of pure combustive force which lash at unseen targets. By the time he enters into a series of leaping and flipping kicks, the room is already bathed in a gentle orange glow.
Which makes it that much easier to see when Blaine kicks, and suddenly-
Agni’s tits.
“Stop!” shouts the Fire Lord, realizing his mistake all too late as his outburst startles Blaine in mid-air, resulting in a rather painful-looking face fault on the floor.
“What?” Blaine says, sounding slightly panicked as he picks himself up and pulls off the blindfold. “What happened?”
You idiot! Lord Anderson chides himself for his stupidity. He’s probably just ruined the chances of reproducing very thing that so startled him-the exact thing he wanted to see again. There is always the chance, however… “Run through that last sequence again for me,” he says.
Blaine looks at him oddly, but does as he is asked. Unfortunately, this simply proves his theory correct-the moves happen slower, and the fire burns normally. Blaine is convinced he made a mistake.
“That’s enough,” the Fire Lord says.
“What did I do wrong?” Blaine asks, looking more than a little crestfallen. He curses himself for putting that miserable look on the face of his own boy, especially considering how bright and happy he was when they began.
“You did nothing wrong, Blaine,” the Fire Lord says. “Your performance was absolutely splendid, I just… I thought I saw something, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Blaine says, and the disappointment drains from his eyes. “So… I was really doing well?”
He places an arm around his boy, squeezing his shoulder as the two of them head towards the exit. “You were magnificent,” the Fire Lord says, meaning every word of it. And though he wishes he could tell him more, something makes him feel as though drawing attention to it might throw off the boy’s progress rather than help it along. For now, he’ll remain silent on the matter.
But just for now. There is only so much paternal pride a man can hold before he bursts into a steaming geyser of praise. As much as he knows it annoys the Councilors, (and as much as it annoys him when the Councilors do it) there is just something instinctually satisfying about bragging to others about the accomplishments of your children.
And if he saw what he thinks he saw… well, he can’t wait until the day he can attend one of Lady Keros’s agonizing socials and inform all present that he might well have raised a genuine Firebending prodigy…
~~~
Mercedes opens the door to find a filthy, muddy, panting, slightly singed and completely done Kurt Hummel standing on the other side. Clumps of dirt hang loosely in his hair (which is arranged in kind of a strange shape). Grass is stuck to his clothes and skin at various places, along with twigs, leaves, and a couple of small rocks.
“What the Hills happened to you?” she inquires.
Kurt turns a cutting glare on her. If you really could glare daggers at someone, she’d be pinned to the wall right about now. “I don’t,” he grunts, “want to talk about it.”
What Kurt wants, Kurt gets, generally speaking, and it looks like the poor guy could use a break. She steps aside to let him pass, deciding she’ll squeeze the story out of him later.
“Whoa!” Artie says from his (is that new?) wheelchair. “Damn, dude. Did you and my baby girl get into a fight over me? ‘Cause I’ve gotta tell you, that’s a losing battle, my man. She is the only one for me, though if I did swing that way, you would be the first-”
He doesn’t finish, as Kurt flips his chair over with one hand as he passes. He is in no mood.
His stomps up the steps are almost as noisy as Finn’s elephino feet. So of course, it only makes sense for him to run into the extra-long gorilla goat himself. “Whoa, dude,” he says, shocked, worried, and far too curious. “Did you sleep outside? I know Artie’s been trying to get you to try it, but I’ve gotta say, it’s not that great, ‘cause of… you know…” he gestures to Kurt, “all this. Plus there are bugs, and…”
Kurt doesn’t hear the rest of what he says, as he stomps into the washroom and slams the door, a surefire cue for Finn to abandon any attempts at conversing with him for at least a few more hours.
Once inside, he thanks the spirits for the Wang family opulence, as theirs is a house with running water and a damn fine bathtub. He soaks himself for hours, not even bothering to care when he starts to get all pruny. When he is done with that, he spends the rest of the day attempting to find a way to comb his hair to hide the tiny bald spot that serves as the day’s most egregious wound. It is yet more hours before he finally accepts that he is just going to have to comb over it as best he can and maybe hope that the Wangs have some semi-fashionable hats he can work into his outfit for tomorrow.
The sun is setting by the time he emerges from the washroom. He doesn’t even bother eating before flopping down on the bed. For a number of reasons, both good and bad, Kurt has never wanted a day to be over so badly in his life.
His eyes stare out the window into the orange horizon, the last sight he sees before he finally drifts off.
~~~
The sun is low on the horizon when he reaches the hilltop. Grinning to himself, the boy sets his bag on the ground and begins to unpack the contents. He can’t believe his good fortune-he’s a whole day ahead of schedule, which means he’ll have more than enough time to set up his telescope and all his instruments before the time comes to use them-a real rarity for him as of late.
Staring out at the sky over the Capital City, the young astronomer lets out a small sigh at how amazing the sunset looks. When the hazy orange finally fades into purples and pinks, he breaks his reverie and resumes the work of assembling his telescope, smiling all the while, practically giddy with anticipation.
It only took him three days to get here, and it was worth every minute. Tomorrow night is going to be one spectacular show…
-END OF DAY 3-