askerian: Serious Karkat in a red long-sleeved shirt (Avatar_ZukoKatara)
askerian ([personal profile] askerian) wrote2006-03-19 10:59 am
Entry tags:

(Avatar) in-progress fic-thinger?

so. i'm weak.

Also. Zuko.



The shack was in a deplorable state, and cramped. His uncle's bulk really didn't help with that. If Zuko had had any choice, he would have been anywhere but there, in that tiny, wobbly hut that masqueraded as an actual house, amongst three generations of a family that didn't seem to hold washing in high regard.

He didn't have a choice.

The Earth Kingdom city was crawling with Fire Nation soldiers. Escaping wasn't an option at the moment. The only place where no one would report them on sight was the slums. The math was easy to do; it didn't mean that Zuko was all that happy about sleeping on a packed earth floor, along with three of the family's brats, kicked out of their bed by his uncle Iroh.

Uncle Iroh really, really should have lost some weight in the last two years; they ran all the time, fought for their lives more often than not, and food didn't really fall from the sky. Somehow, he still barely fit on the bed which normally housed three kids ranging from toddler to preteen.

Zuko stared at the ceiling through the darkness, trying, in vain, to ignore the snoring of the matriarch of the family, the sleepy mumbles of the eight-year-old girl who had curled up on the floor at his side, the distinctive odor of cabbage, sweat and smoke, and the tiny, tiny rock just under the small of his back that he couldn't seem to find with his hand, but that his ass found just fine.

The family was composed of a forty-something hard-working couple -- who almost never looked up for fear of letting people notice their Air-Nomad-hazel eyes -- their twenty-year old daughter and her vulgar thief of a husband, their thirteen-year-old absolute brat of a son, another nine-year-old daughter who was currently butting her head into his side -- she hadn't left his side one second since the instant he had walked inside the shack -- and the eldest daughter's two-year-old baby boy.

If Zuko's calculations were exact, he had been born a month at the most after the day Zuko had seen that ray of light in the sky. A month after the return of the Avatar into the world.

When Zuko had lit the stove with a puff of fire, the smoke had swirled away from the child like a pack of tiny dust devils.

Zuko wondered how many of the scattered Air Nomads still knew how to read the signs of a Bending ability in a toddler; how many were going to be betrayed by their own children. In the Fire Nation, it was "common knowledge" that the Air Nomads had been annihilated; but it wasn't such a big surprise that there had been survivors. They were called nomads for a reason; they had been all over the place, hard to pin down. For a few years after the destruction of their temples, they had been hunted down, even after all the Airbenders amongst them were dead and buried; and then it had been noticed that the only Bending children born of Air ancestry were those few who were bastards of another Element -- and they never expressed Air.

As if, when the Avatar had been frozen, he had frozen his entire birth element along with his body.

But now the cycle had started again.

Zuko vaguely wondered what the next Avatar would be like; if he was even born already.

[identity profile] muffytaj.livejournal.com 2006-03-19 12:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Heee, great beginning! And it is obvious the nine year old has a crush on Zuko (could you blame her?). I like all the little details and look forward to seeing where you take this fic (omg threesomeyeshothotyes... I need a threesome icon)

Does the Avatar appear in the water next, or the earth? I can't remember...

[identity profile] muffytaj.livejournal.com 2006-03-20 04:52 am (UTC)(link)
Oh man, if he is being born into the next tribe then she might think she has a shot at meeting him... but who would she try getting pregnant with? She's rather romantic and expects guys to make the moves (SOKKA SOKKA SOKKA) so it wouldn't really be (SOKKA SOKKA SOKKA) anyone she wasn't familiar/comfortable/slightly in love with. (SOKKA!) Maybe Haru? I wonder what an earthbender/waterbender child would be like...

Or she might just go to the poles and go stare at babies, hoping to see a flash of Aang... awwww. So sad ;.; *shoos away the angst* The next Avatar could be a girl though, which would be adorable. Ikkle girls destroying worlds is always a winner.

[identity profile] purple-alicorn.livejournal.com 2006-03-19 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Ummm - liked the fic - but probably would have got it more if I had some idea of what the fandom was... Where can I get information cause it sounds cool. :>
ext_2686: (love the susuwatari)

[identity profile] stripedpetunia.livejournal.com 2006-03-19 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I refuse to read this until I'm caught up. :3

Excuse me while I go troll the internets for downloads of episode 5.
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[identity profile] stripedpetunia.livejournal.com 2006-03-20 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
Okay, I'm not caught up, but you know that anyway so whatevah.

I AM INTRIGUED. GET A PLOT QUICK. (O.O)

But but but

[identity profile] nemi-chan.livejournal.com 2006-03-19 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
We love your weakness if it makes more fics like these!

Zuzu love!

I rather like the idea of the avatar being part and creating the cycle, esp with the season start. If the Avatar cycle ends then would the birth of benders, too?

Oh and...well more Zuko love, I can't stop loving him.

And Iroh love. He's keeping food or a bender battery under his cloathing I bet. Or maybe even a surplus of cool, because he's that cool he can't hold it all. I'm being weird and silly but my brain is mush

[identity profile] wyvkate.livejournal.com 2006-03-20 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
Awesome aweeeeeeeesome!! The more Avatar fandom out there the bettah - so glad that you're dabbling in it!!

[identity profile] acechan.livejournal.com 2006-03-20 01:38 am (UTC)(link)
Looks interesting so far, or even as just a brief study on its own (hmm, can't really call it a character study if it's more about the setting, can you...).

One thing, though:

Zuko vaguely wondered what the next Avatar would be like; if he was even born already.

I'm pretty sure that the whole chain-of-reincarnations thing means that the next Avatar can't be born until Ang dies. Unless you're either assuming Zuko doesn't know about that, or setting this rather a bit ahead of where the show is right now... *grin*

[identity profile] questofdreams.livejournal.com 2006-03-22 12:34 am (UTC)(link)
wait...;__; aang's dead? that's depressing...lol

But Zuko totally up for it, haha. This is lovely so far. You can't imagine how excited I am that you're finally writing fanfiction for this fandom ^__^ I hope you continue this and it doesn't end up gathering dust at the back of your head with that nejisasunaru one!!!! >< hahaha...
ext_97868: (Default)

[identity profile] aoyagi-rikka.livejournal.com 2006-03-22 06:37 am (UTC)(link)
*scweeeee*
I had abandoned the Avatar fandom in despair, seeing it populated with mostly 12-year-olds. So please, please write this and put at least one decent fic out for us old folk.
Question:
- You say dark-fic, with Aang dead. Did he die a success, or a failure? ie, is the war still on?