Ficlet: Marks
Oct. 8th, 2010 07:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terajkFrom a prompt for fic-promptly: "Zuko + Gaang: The moment he realised he actually liked these people."
Characters: Zuko, Aang, mini!Azula (kinda)
Rating: G/PG
Warnings: Reference to violence, genocide
The Avatar didn't seem so special, not like this.
Azula would've killed him, he knew--and he was an easy target, with his eyes closed and his tattoos glowing softly in the moonlight. But Father had said to capture the Avatar, and Zuko was not his sister, no matter how much he wished he were.
He was not as heavy as he'd expected. Perhaps he'd gotten stronger in his banishment, on the rough seas, without the amenities of the palace he'd never gotten used to anyway. Or perhaps the Air Nomads were a lighter people, with bones less dense so that their element could carry them. Not that there was a "them"--not anymore.
When the tutor had told them what had happened to the Air Nomads--what had been done to them, not just by his own people, but by his own family--his stomach yawned into a bottomless pit. While his four-year-old sister drew pictures of bald men on fire, he sketched empty temples in his head: temples where no one prayed, temples full of dead that no one could burn incense for. (Or...whatever it was Air Nomads did to honor them).
And he had wept.
And his father had known.
But a small part of him, even then, had been glad--no, relieved--that at least all the Air Nomads were gone. Because with all that loss, if one were left...
A small ache in his shoulder.
No. The Avatar was the hope of his people. No, of...of the world. Even without his people, he had friends--a family--who protected him from harm. Who would risk their lives to keep him safe. He was like his sister.
So why, when he saw the glowing tattoos out of the corner of his right eye, did he think of the mark over his other one?
Characters: Zuko, Aang, mini!Azula (kinda)
Rating: G/PG
Warnings: Reference to violence, genocide
The Avatar didn't seem so special, not like this.
Azula would've killed him, he knew--and he was an easy target, with his eyes closed and his tattoos glowing softly in the moonlight. But Father had said to capture the Avatar, and Zuko was not his sister, no matter how much he wished he were.
He was not as heavy as he'd expected. Perhaps he'd gotten stronger in his banishment, on the rough seas, without the amenities of the palace he'd never gotten used to anyway. Or perhaps the Air Nomads were a lighter people, with bones less dense so that their element could carry them. Not that there was a "them"--not anymore.
When the tutor had told them what had happened to the Air Nomads--what had been done to them, not just by his own people, but by his own family--his stomach yawned into a bottomless pit. While his four-year-old sister drew pictures of bald men on fire, he sketched empty temples in his head: temples where no one prayed, temples full of dead that no one could burn incense for. (Or...whatever it was Air Nomads did to honor them).
And he had wept.
And his father had known.
But a small part of him, even then, had been glad--no, relieved--that at least all the Air Nomads were gone. Because with all that loss, if one were left...
A small ache in his shoulder.
No. The Avatar was the hope of his people. No, of...of the world. Even without his people, he had friends--a family--who protected him from harm. Who would risk their lives to keep him safe. He was like his sister.
So why, when he saw the glowing tattoos out of the corner of his right eye, did he think of the mark over his other one?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-09 11:17 pm (UTC)Well, it's not as if I can talk! My version of Avatar is all overwrought royal melodrama and woe all the time!
And, hm, early fight-scene parallels between Zuko and Aang. Perhaps you're thinking of the third(?) episode where Zuko is Agni Kai-ing it out with Zhao while Aang is facing up to an empty air temple and Gyatso's body? That's certainly where I first started to feel less than exasperated with Zuko, if only because he was such a doofus thinking of excuses at to how his ship had got smushed. Little did I know he would turn out to be awesome and also hilarious!
And, ahahahaha, have you seen that sprawling thread where I invaded poor
And it hadn't really occurred to me that the knife-game was, beside being hilarious and also adorable (even when he play-fights with himself he loses! Oh Zuko), a very explicit honooooour moment. But, yes, very much a matter of imagining himself in the spotlight, even if only by dint of dying heroically, oh (again) Zuko.