#people sleep on the goddamn Avatar

[seyaryminamoto]

The Shadows in her Reflection: Sokkla Saturdays 2023

Day 7: Air

Rated: M

On FF.net/On AO3

That there would be tension by the next morning, after the way things had turned out on the previous day, caught everyone by surprise besides Sokka and Azula. The anguish apparent across the Princess's features caused more than a few of the others to fear that she was regressing, that she hadn't been ready for what happened, for as good as being part of their group… until Sokka finally spoke, by the dining table, as Azula held her head in place with her hands, elbows upon the furniture.

"Last night… Azula had a vision of Yue in her dreams," Sokka said, gritting his teeth. "It wasn't like the others. After it ended… she couldn't see her anymore."

"What?" Zuko frowned. Toph whistled beside him.

"Doesn't that mean you guys got her to see everything she needed to see? Isn't that how this works?" she asked.

"It's not," Azula said, her voice strained. No one, not even Sokka, had expected her to speak just yet. "I would've thought it was as simple as that, if I hadn't seen her anymore with no further explanation, but… what she said in that dream paints a different picture."

"What kind of picture?" Katara asked, eyeing her warily.

"I… I've had dreams that never seemed real. Dreams about her," Azula explained. "She was in a dark space, something was pulling her down, usually, but she seemed to be moments away from fading off in a cloud of smoke, somehow. I mostly couldn't reach her, I couldn't talk to her, I just… saw whatever was happening. I only talked with her once, I think, in those kinds of dreams. When I woke up and looked at any of my reflections, she'd be there, smiling, waving at me, acting like nothing was wrong. I asked her about it a long time ago, long before I came across Sokka, and she… she always acted like she had no idea what I was talking about. The little shit just… lied to me about what she's been going through, constantly, whenever I wasn't paying attention to her."

"But that means… she's not okay. What happened last night, when you stopped seeing her… it's definitely not because you fulfilled her wishes," Aang frowned.

Zuko paced towards a nearby window: it was morning, but sometimes the moon was visible in daylight, nonetheless. He saw nothing at the moment.

"Maybe there'd be no moon anyway, right now, but… I don't see it," Zuko said. Azula snarled, fingers slipping through her scalp and gripping it tightly.

"The moon hasn't been restored, then?" Ursa said. "So… if you can't see Yue anymore, Azula, does that mean…?"

"I don't know," Azula said, glancing at Sokka with undisguised guilt. "I… I don't know if I can do anything for her anymore. If she had just told me…!"

"Take it easy, okay?" Sokka said, a hand on her shoulder as Azula snarled in distress. "If she didn't say anything… it's probably because she thought the situation was hopeless. She tends to be self-sacrificial that way."

"And we're just… what, going to sit by and do nothing?" Azula asked. "We can't just…"

"Let her go just like that? We can't, that's true," Sokka said. "But that's why I wanted to talk to Aang: if someone could help us figure this out, it's bound to be him."

"Wait, me?" Aang grimaced: Azula's expectant glare suggested she was moments away from threatening him into providing a solution. "Okay, I… I don't know that I can. I know I'm the bridge between humans and spirits, but…"

"Find out where she is. Go to the Spirit World!" Azula exclaimed, folding her arms over her chest. Aang sighed.

"Easier said than done," he admitted. "But… maybe it can be done."

His sudden statement caught everyone off guard, sudden as it was for hope to bloom, even if uncertain hope. Azula raised her eyebrows, and Sokka bit his lip.

"What do you have in mind?" Sokka asked.

"I could… look for help. Find the Ocean Spirit, maybe, find out if La knows something of what's going on," Aang suggested. "We worked together to save the Water Tribe once. Maybe he will still trust me now? I… I hope he will, at least."

"How would you go about doing this?" Azula asked. Aang frowned, rubbing his chin with a hand.

"I mean… a spiritual place, close to the ocean, maybe?" he said. "Because along with that, I… I have the feeling I can't be the one to sort this out, Azula. You're the one who had that connection to Yue, so you, uh… you might need to come to the Spirit World too, or wherever she might be."

"What?" Azula gasped. Sokka flinched.

"Are you sure about that?" he said. "The Spirit World is a mess of a place, Aang. There's no bending there, remember? Are you going to join her there, or…?"

"I don't know that I can. I'll have to try to reach out to La," Aang sighed, rubbing his brow with his fingertips. "But even if I succeed, I think Azula will need to be ready to face this herself. I don't think her connection to Yue has been severed completely, I don't think it's that easy… but if she's some other spirit's prisoner, we'll have to get there fast before it does get severed."

"What would we do? How do we go about it?" Zuko asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm thinking… a spiritually charged location. Air Temple Island isn't really that just yet," Aang said, glancing about himself with a frown. "But maybe… maybe another Air Temple could do. Like the Eastern one!"

"Why would we have to go halfway across the world for a spiritual place?" Toph grimaced. "Can't we just go somewhere closer than that? Like the oasis where the fish were swimming, or whatever?"

"That sounds more logical, but… Azula went there already and nothing happened," Sokka said, eyeing her remorsefully. "Back then, she wanted to get rid of Yue and I helped her get inside. There was nothing from Tui or La on that day."

"Not even the slightest recognition?" asked Aang, grimacing. "Then… yeah, I think we should go to an Air Temple instead. Short of finding a grand spiritual location sooner, the Eastern Air Temple is the place where I cleansed my chakras and accessed, well… another plane of existence, I guess. I couldn't do enough with that back then, but I did later, when the situation was dire. I can try to train you so that you can reach that stage once we're in the temple, and while Azula is in there, I…"

"Wait," Sokka said, frowning. "I'll go with her."

"You… what?" Aang smiled awkwardly.

"Isn't spirit mumbo-jumbo just mumbo-jumbo to you too?" Toph asked.

"If the logic is that there's a connection between Azula and Yue that will allow Azula to go into the Spirit World, then it stands to reason that I should be able to follow Azula too because I'm connected to her as well," Sokka stated, stubbornly. Azula raised an eyebrow.

"I… don't know that it works that way," she said. Sokka scoffed.

"Maybe it doesn't, but I'll try anyhow," he said. "Stupid spirits can't screw me over this time around… I won't let you go into a weird spirit adventure without doing my damnedest to join you there."

"Yue might have a better chance at… at fighting back against whatever that thing is if it's the two of us together," Azula reasoned, frowning. "Even if we won't know what we're doing, of course. I can't bend there, you said?"

"The Spirit World is difficult to navigate if you head into it with, uh… logic?" Aang said. Both Sokka and Azula grimaced. "Which I suspect you two won't appreciate much…"

"True… they're mostly logical thinkers. And I say mostly because it's not very logical for them to be together, but…" Katara said, lowering her voice as she spoke further. Azula rolled her eyes but offered no response to her words.

"Thing is, you have to feel things rather than think them through," Aang said. "You have to experience everything as it comes, and if it's not the way it should be, you just… roll with it?"

"So, if they found Yue turned into a badgertoad, they'd have to… save the badgertoad?" Toph asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Basically, yes," Aang shrugged.

"And how would we know it's her?" Azula grimaced.

"You would. Or maybe both of you would, because you're both connected to her," Aang said, with a shrug and a smile. Azula huffed.

"This is more twisted by the minute…" she reasoned, shaking her head. Sokka squeezed her shoulder.

"I know it's hard and it's not the way this should've gone down… but we can do this, Azula," he said, firmly. Azula raised an eyebrow.

"You've had forays into the Spirit World before, have you?"

"Uh… once. Can't remember a thing, but I did," Sokka said, blinking blankly. "Though I do know that there's no bathrooms."

"Charming," Azula said. "Guess our bladder will be exploding the whole time, then."

"Yeeeah, I felt it a little too much, especially when I came back," Sokka sighed.

"Either way… I think we have to go elsewhere to help you both connect to her. Guru Pathik helped me connect with my cosmic energy in the Eastern Air Temple," Aang said. "I managed to access it again in Ba Sing Se, uh… just before you nearly killed me."

Azula blinked blankly: she remembered that moment all too well. The thrill of victory, the opening that nobody else seemed to recognize as such… the knowledge that she had destroyed the enemy's trump card and secured a perfect conquest for her father and his cause.

The very same person she had nearly killed that day sat before her, willing to offer his knowledge and aid to save Yue. If she had succeeded on that day, the world would be a much more unforgiving place… she might not have any of the bonds she had developed over the past months. Sokka would have never wanted her, that was for sure… Yue might have never connected to her.

It was strange to find that, after so many years of resentment against her brother and his friends, suddenly the Fire Nation's victory looked so shallow and empty in comparison to everything she had gained, a decade afterwards, with everyone she had met and bonded with. She tightened her fists over her lap and nodded.

"Well… I doubt you'll feel compelled to do the same thing to me, should I access that plane of existence at all, but I wouldn't blame you much if you did," she said. Aang smiled and shook his head.

"I wouldn't."

"And that's quite fortunate for me," Azula said, her jaw squared. "I… I wasn't sorry for it, when I did it. But now, I…"

She couldn't seem to finish the sentence. Too many people were listening, maybe, too many witnesses, too much riding on what they needed to do next…

"It's okay," Aang smiled kindly again. Azula frowned slightly. "We can talk about that whenever you want, later. For now… let's focus on what we'll do next. We can set up Appa and go… though I don't think we should bring Bumi this time around."

"Don't ask me to watch him again. I'm not going to do it this time either," Toph said, bluntly. Aang rolled his eyes.

"Can't wait for you to have your own kids so I can refuse to watch them for you when you need me to…"

"I'm not going to have any, so that's fine by me," Toph smirked. "Besides… I'm going with you lot."

"You… what?" Zuko frowned. "Shouldn't you go back to Republic City?"

"My students can keep the peace while I'm out," Toph said, waving a hand dismissively at him. "What? Planned on giving me a lift to the city and now you're sad that we won't get to spend time together, Zuko?"

"I… wasn't going to do that. I'm going with them too," Zuko said: Azula raised her eyebrows.

"You are?"

"Wait, we're all going?" Sokka asked, blinking blankly.

"You didn't expect me to stay behind when something this troublesome is going on, or did you?" Katara stared at her brother matter-of-factly. "We couldn't do anything to help you when you lost Yue the first time around. I don't know if we can do anything this time, but… we'd better try."

Sokka swallowed hard, meeting his sister's gaze with heartfelt gratitude. Katara smirked slightly at him, stepping closer to lightly punch his shoulder.

"What's with that look? You'd think I've never done anything to help you…"

"Well… this just means a lot, Katara. Thank you," he said, wrapping her in a quick embrace. Katara pat his shoulder, still nervous, still uneasy…

But Sokka was more himself now than he had been in years. The way he spoke, the easygoing behavior, the silly reactions, the thoughtful ones… if this truly was the effect Azula had on him, Katara certainly had underestimated the Fire Nation Princess far more than she ever imagined possible.

Preparations began, then, for the long journey to the Eastern Air Temple: Bumi would wind up in Ursa's care, for she wouldn't join them on this particular trip. It seemed to be quite heartbreaking for her to stay behind, but she hugged her children affectionately before seeing them off on Appa, already loaded with all the luggage they'd brought for what hopefully wouldn't be a very long trip.

"Be careful, my dears," Ursa said, an arm around each of them. Azula buried her face in her mother's neck, while Zuko pressed his brow to the top of her head. "Look after each other, okay?"

"We will," Zuko said. "Azula has a big trip to make, so… I might as well make sure she gets there safely."

"We'll be back soon," Azula said, pulling back even though she would have wished to hold her mother for a little longer. Ursa smiled kindly, cupping her face before kissing her brow. "Mom…"

"I should have done that far more often. From the moment you were born as a little solstice child," Ursa laughed, meeting Azula's tearful eyes with hers. "You were so headstrong and powerful even then… and you're only stronger now that you stand with people who can lift you even higher than you've gone so far. So… whatever you need to do, if you must fly into the sky to find Yue or whatever the spirits require of you, go for it. Don't look back. Every last one of us believes in you… I believe in you. You can do this, dear."

Azula swallowed hard and nodded, hugging Ursa one more time. Zuko smiled fondly as he stepped aside, unsure of how he had ever felt threatened by the possibility of his mother bonding with his sister… right now, he could only feel relief, instead, to see them tighter than they ever had been.

He ferried Azula to Appa, where the others waited: she wound up sinking into Sokka's embrace once she climbed up, burying her face in his neck this time around. The Water Tribesman caressed her hair, letting her nestle on his lap, knowing she was looking for more than just the physical closeness, more than just attempting to annoy their respective siblings, who appeared to be somewhere between disgusted and uncomfortable right now…

"You okay?" he whispered. Azula shook her head.

"I… I don't want to fail this time. I don't want to fail," she whispered. Sokka nodded, rubbing her shoulder kindly as he reeled her close to him.

"We'll do whatever it takes. We'll bring her back."

Sokka glanced up into the sky: the preparations had taken a long time, and the moon wasn't visible in the sunset, but he still tried to find it in the sky. Wherever Yue was, whatever she was going through… they'd save her, at all costs.

The journey was sluggish: Appa, as strong as he might be, couldn't carry six fully-grown adults, without any stops along the way, halfway across the world. As slow as their trip appeared to the eager, desperate Azula, Sokka reassured her that Aang wasn't taking as many detours as he often did in the past. The Avatar guided the bison without losing sight of their goal, his concern increasing as days passed and only slivers, weak silhouettes of the moon could be seen in the night sky. There were times when she was virtually impossible to glimpse at all…

"Maybe behind that mountain," Sokka suggested one night, in the camp where they would rest for the night. Azula gritted her teeth, hugging her legs to her chest as she stared in the direction Sokka had mentioned.

"What's there?" Toph asked, offhandedly, resting with her back against Katara's flank, by the fire.

"Well, we don't really know if something is, but we figured the moon might be…" Sokka said. Toph frowned.

"The… moon," she repeated.

"Toph?" Sokka called her. The earthbender shook her head.

"Sorry, sorry, I… what're we looking for, again?"

"Yue? The moon? We're trying to save her?" Sokka said. Toph hummed.

"Right. Right. Uh… right."

"You don't remember?" Azula asked. Toph scoffed.

"I remember! I just… blanked out for a second. No biggie," she said, waving a hand dismissively in their direction. Even Katara appeared perplexed by Toph's sudden bout of forgetfulness.

"Are you okay?" Katara asked, placing a hand over Toph's brow. The earthbender huffed.

"Don't be so twitchy over me, Katara. I'm fine, just a dumb mistake. I'm probably just… tired," she concluded, and she nodded with certainty she most likely didn't feel at all.

Azula stared at her with a furrowed brow, arms folded over her chest: it wasn't like her to forget what was happening. The earthbender was insidious, even, nosey and always ready to butt into matters that didn't concern her. Why would she struggle to remember the reason behind a trip they were currently on? It didn't make sense…

A day later, it was Zuko, instead.

"It's been fun going on the road with all of you again, but… when are we going back, exactly?" he blurted out, suddenly, halfway through their flight. Azula eyed him in confusion and disbelief.

"You could've stayed and gone back home when we were still in Air Temple Island," she told him. "We're not going back until after we've saved Yue."

"Who?"

Sokka scowled, turning towards Zuko in utter confusion. The Fire Lord's nonchalant attitude didn't suggest he was merely trying to annoy him…

"Yue? The Moon Spirit?" Sokka said.

"The… what?" Zuko grimaced.

"Are you two taking cactus juice or something?" Katara asked, glancing between Zuko and Toph. "You don't remember why we set out, Zuko?"

"I…! Wait, I do. Right! The… Azula was seeing someone in… in reflections. That's what… oh. Uh. Sorry. It just slipped my mind."

It was bad enough for it to happen once: twice was no coincidence.

"Appa… buddy, I know I'm pressuring you, but please hurry," Aang said, sitting by the bison's neck.

Azula tensed up, shrinking into Sokka's embrace: he held her tightly, hoping to reassure her, but knowing he might just fail at it. Azula raised her mirror again, desperate to see even a sign of her friend… but there was nothing but her own face in the depths of the polished surface. No one else was there.

"Whatever that thing is, the one that caught her… it's like it's trying to take her away from this world," Sokka concluded, scowling. "Maybe… maybe even trying to erase all memories of her? Whatever it is, though… it's vile."

"It is," Azula agreed, shivering: she held the mirror still, elevating a silent prayer for Yue, begging her to hold on… to stay strong until she and Sokka could reach her.

After a week of fast-paced travel, the sky bison finally descended on the deserted towers of the Eastern Air Temple. Aang would work with Sokka and Azula, seeking to direct them into their cosmic plane or into the Spirit World, but that was as far as he could take them. While he would have liked to join them too, his own connection to Yue would not suffice to lead him to her, not as it would with Azula and Sokka.

"This is going to be fast and sudden, and you're not going to enjoy it much, but I need you guys to work with me," Aang said, having led them to a tall tower at the height of the temple. They stood on the tower's surface, and Aang turned towards them with a stern, concerned expression. "Even I… am having trouble keeping myself centered on what we're doing. So is Katara, by now."

"You're all… forgetting," Azula said. Aang nodded.

"I don't know for how long this can be sustained. Whatever is trapping Yue might be seeking to erase her, and the moon, completely," he said. "Reach her before it succeeds, and you'll have a chance to save her. Otherwise… none of us will even remember there's someone to save, to begin with."

"A life without… without the moon? That can't work," Sokka frowned. "When Zhao did what he did, didn't the Ocean Spirit go berserk because there was no moon in the sky, if just briefly?"

"Yeah… yeah," Aang gritted his teeth. "That's just more reason why I shouldn't come with you."

"You'll try to control the Ocean Spirit again?" Sokka asked, raising his eyebrows. Aang shrugged.

"It's worth a shot," he said. "Though I don't know if it will work out as easily as that, but… I'll try. As for you two… you need to meditate. I'd show you how to open your chakras the way I was taught, but I don't think we'll have enough time for it: let your connection with each other and Yue guide you into the Spirit World. Seek it out… and once you grab hold of it, don't let go."

"That's easier said than done," Azula scowled. "I don't know what that even means, Avatar, I…"

"You do know. You've lost her, right?" Aang said. "Take that residue, the knowledge that something that was there is no longer present. Take it hard, and don't let go of it. Remember her, tell yourself her name over and over until… until your spirit finds hers. I'll stand with you until it happens."

Azula gritted her teeth, but she nodded in acceptance before long. The sooner they got started, the faster she'd be able to save Yue.

As advised by Aang, the two of them sat together, face to face, meditating. The Avatar and his other allies waited nearby, each of them struggling in different ways to recall why, exactly, they were standing by as Sokka and Azula meditated at all.

"Aang said… something's messing with our heads. Our memories," Katara said.

"Well, whatever it is, it's stupid. I hate feeling like I don't know what I'm doing," Toph snarled, rubbing her brow. "I think it's giving me a headache."

"Yue…" Zuko repeated, as good as clinging to the name to ensure he wouldn't forget this time. "This is all about Yue. This is all for…"

Similar thoughts coursed through his sister's mind: she shivered against the breeze, unwilling to forget the person responsible for every single good change that had come her way over the past months. Fear reared its head inside her heart: what if she was next? What if she forgot her? What if she wound up forsaking Yue when she needed her the most?

Yue had given up. She had long surrendered to the misery of her situation. Azula had been her only hope, her only chance at salvation… in a twisted way, as far as the dream had conveyed to Azula. For only because Azula was rotten, careless, unwilling to change, had the wretched entity tormenting Yue allowed them to meet at all…

But was that it? Could it be that her connection to Sokka, even if it hadn't been forged yet, had brought her and Yue together too? Or could it be that the wretched entity in question couldn't break their bond with her?

That strange flow of thought brought her back to reality, rather than helping her drift further into a spiritual state of elevation of some sort. She shuddered and raised her gaze towards Sokka, who grimaced while failing to find the state of mind he needed to access.

"I just… thought of something," Azula said. Sokka hummed, opening one eye. "Maybe that thing, the one capturing her, didn't let me talk to her for amusement alone. Maybe… maybe it couldn't stop me from reaching her, instead. Maybe it only figured out how to stop me now, but my connection to Yue might just be stronger than whatever that thing is trying to achieve. Does… does that make sense?"

"Don't know if it does, but I love the sound of it," Sokka smiled. "Moreover… Aang says it's all feelings and instinct rather than thought and logic. If you're feeling that way… maybe it's already true, or maybe you can make it a reality once we reach the Spirit World, if just by your sheer willpower?"

"Maybe," Azula said. Sokka smiled.

He reached out to take her hands in his, and Azula felt reassured instantly by his warmth and presence. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes anew.

"We will find our way to her… and we'll stop this, whatever it is. We will save Yue."

Azula's heart jolted upon hearing those words: she felt that same determination… knowing that she wouldn't fight alone, that he stood beside her as equals, settled her aching, troubled heart. If Sokka believed this was possible, so did she.

And as difficult as it might be for two people so given to logic and facts to give in to spirituality instead, Sokka and Azula now clung to nothing but faith, blind faith in the girl who had brought them together… in the Moon Spirit, whose absence in the sky hurt them more deeply than it did anyone else.

"Are they…?" Katara blinked blankly: a strange atmosphere now hung between her brother and his lover, as though their bodies were only functioning by inertia now…

Their souls were gone.

"They made it," Aang smiled. "Now we wait and hope that they'll sort this one out. I think they can, I really do, but…"

A thunderous sound, north from the mountains, brought all four of them to frown and turn their attention in that direction.

"A storm?" Toph asked.

"The sky is clear," Katara told her.

"So… was that a dragon or something?" Toph asked.

"No, that's…" Aang said, frowning as he stared into the horizon: something dark stirred in the distance. Something he couldn't quite pinpoint just yet… but it sent shivers down his back. Familiar shivers… he had experienced them before. "It's La."

"It's… who, now?" Toph grimaced.

"The Ocean Spirit," Aang said: this time, all his friends fell silent. "It's… it's acting up. It's doing something! I have to go!"

"Aang?!" Katara called for him: he spread his glider open, fear plain across his face. "What are you going to do? I can help…!"

"I don't know if you can!" Aang said, remorsefully. "But… but maybe it's better if you do come anyway. You, Zuko and Toph can ride on Appa! I'll go ahead! Follow me there!"

"Right. Right!" Katara's relief to hear she would be free to join him was palpable: she gripped Aang's robe, pulling him close for a good luck kiss, her brow pressed to his. "Whatever's going on… you can do this. You're the Avatar."

"That had better count for something," Aang smiled a little.

"It always has," Katara responded, earnestly.

The Avatar took off, the heavy mantle of responsibility already weighing heavily on his shoulders. Appa groaned as he followed, while Aang took advantage of his bending to rush faster and faster towards whatever was taking place by the shores of the Eastern Air Temple's islands…

It was dark. Everything was dark. She thought she was asleep, but if she was, she couldn't seem to open her eyes. Azula gasped, raising her hands, touching her own body to ensure it was still there, for she could barely feel a thing but coldness, utter coldness, and…

Specks of light, in the distance. All around her.

A beam, of golden light, suddenly formed underneath her feet. She had been falling before, perhaps… or maybe simply floating. She settled on the beam carefully, uncomfortable, confused, glancing about herself as surging fears gripped her heart.

"Sokka?!" she called her lover, to no avail. "Yue!"

That, too, yielded no answers.

The gold spilled, though, spreading further and further towards something… Azula turned on her heels, hugging herself still: there was a coldness where her firebending usually was. She realized soon that the discomfort she felt came from that acute lacking, the sensation of being cut off from the power that had been a vital part of her life since her childhood…

"What is this? Where…?" Azula gritted her teeth: during their journey, Aang had talked about a huge, cosmic version of himself holding some magical ball of whatever… she didn't understand any of that, and according to him, she wasn't supposed to understand it either.

The long road spread forward, further, into the distance… all the way to a place where she didn't find any gigantic versions of herself: a blazing ball of flames stood in that place instead.

The warmth became overwhelming suddenly. Azula flinched, stepping away by sheer instinct: the sun? Was that what it was? She certainly was a strong firebender, but strong enough to challenge the sun and win? She sincerely doubted it. Besides, she wasn't here to meet the damn sun…!

"Yue!" she screamed, towards the rest of the dark space around her. "Yue, where are you, damn it?! Answer me!"

The sun's intensity increased: not knowing what to do, Azula broke into a sprint, running away from it, instead of towards it. At the rate at which it expanded, at which it moved, it might just be attempting to consume her…

The light from the sun seemed to brighten the darkness… up until a certain point. There was one area, Azula realized, where the sun's strength waned. Running as fast as she could go, Azula hardly noticed that the light road underneath her feet was changing, turning in that direction… as though aware that this was where she wanted to go. Her heart pulsated with need, with awareness, with suspicion…

Yue was inside that cluster of darkness.

"YUE!"

She screamed, running faster as the bridge spread underneath her feet. She snarled as she pushed herself harder still…

The cluster of darkness was immense, far larger than she had realized at first. She slowed only once she was near it… and a sense of vacancy, of humidity, of cold struck her once she was near it.

An oozing, leaking liquid pooled at the bottom of what appeared to be a sphere of darkness: one force was airy, gas-like, while the other was the dark, unpleasant liquid that seemed moments away from drying out completely… but then it climbed back up, as though unwilling to let go just yet.

Two forces? Was Yue's one of them, or…?

She snarled, focusing on Yue only. She strained her gaze, trying to see into the sphere…

A shade of pale white within the darkness.

"YUE!" she screamed… only for another deep voice to also call that name.

"Yuueee…"

The girl didn't respond to either one. Azula snarled, unsure of what to do: the bridge underneath her appeared to have stopped generating itself. When she tried to take a step forward, it didn't extend underneath her feet anymore. What could she do? What would she…?

"Oho… but if it isn't the Sun Princess! Are you here to trade places with your personal torment? Fine by me! I would much rather have you!"

Azula shuddered, stepping back instead of forward: that wasn't the same voice that had called for Yue before. It was wicked, ringing with an evil presence she had never sensed before. The entity laughed wickedly, and Azula snarled as she glared at the cluster of darkness…

Whoever this entity might be, the sphere within which Yue nestled was his doing.

"Let her go! Set her free!" Azula shouted.

"I will, I will! If you give yourself up to me, that is," the entity said. Azula shuddered. "Muffling the moon has been nice training to get the sun next, yes! Far more entertaining! The whole world shall tremble, oh, it shall! Perhaps it will freeze over, and isn't snow pretty? As pretty as your dear friend, the Moon Princess…!"

"I'm not… giving you a damn thing. I'm here to rescue Yue from you," Azula snarled.

"What? That's not how this works, Sun Princess!" the entity said, before bursting out in laughter. "Give me your heart and I shall return hers! Do it!"

"I have the bad feeling that she gave you nothing, to begin with," Azula hissed. The entity, unsurprisingly, laughed.

"Oh, she didn't, but I took it anyhow!" he exclaimed. "I crashed into the moon, you see… and the moon was alive! I was so strong, so much stronger than her, and I could reach into her depths… oh, she is marvelous. Beautiful! Broken and miserable. But oh…! Imagine a whole world as broken and miserable as she is. That's what you could give me! Why would you deprive me from it? Why would you? You hate them! You despise them! They made you suffer, didn't they? They put you through so many ordeals…!"

"You… what?" Azula scowled… as some of the swirling gas spilled away from the sphere and took humanoid shape suddenly, right before her eyes: the shape of her father: "W-wha…?!"

"You were but a tool to me," Ozai said, with a wicked smile, so cruel it cut through Azula as unreal, even for her father's standards. "A weapon for me to hone and use to my liking! I made you, and so, I own you! You will never be free from everything I did to you, from all the damage I inflicted! Your only salvation is… destruction! Oblivion!"

"Oblivion?!" Azula repeated, eyes wide. "You… is that what you are? Is that what your true nature is, you… you twisted spirit, or whatever it is you are?!"

"I am your father…" Ozai said, a hand upon his chest… though the smoke comprising him shifted suddenly, turning into someone else instead: Ursa. "Or your mother. The one who hurt you and abandoned you. The one who would forsake you for your brother's sake! The one who replaced you with another girl, the one who gets to live happily ever after without paying the price of all her mistakes against you…!"

"T-that's…!" Azula gasped, her chest burning with wrongness. "No… t-that's not… stop this. This isn't…!"

"Didn't I do all those things? I most certainly did!" Ursa exclaimed, proudly… to then switch into Zuko, instead. "I placed a bounty on your head: dead or alive! You're but an inconvenience until I'm free to get rid of you, once I have an heir of my own! I will forsake you, as everyone always has! I envied you once… but now, you're the one who envies me! You fear me! Your entire life revolves around making me suffer, but the only one suffering is you! And that's by my design! I've never wanted anything more in life than to destroy you!"

"Stop this!" Azula exclaimed, tears blooming in her eyes. "Stop! Stop already!"

"A-… Azula…!"

Yue's voice caused Azula to break the spell the entity held upon her briefly: it was but a moment's notice, but Yue's eyes met hers… for once, she was far more corporeal than ever before. For once, she was far more real than she ever had been…

For once, Azula wasn't visiting her as a dream, but as her full, conscious spirit, and she needed to reach her.

"YUE!"

"Go! Leave! Azula, forget me…! Forget!"

Azula's heart shook: she couldn't do that. Forget her? Forget the person who had changed her life for the better as Yue had?

Everything that wretch had tormented her with was true, and it already seemed to split its smoke into two new entities, Mai and Ty Lee this time around… it would rub her greatest grudges, her darkest resentments, in her face until she snapped. That was its goal, it couldn't be more apparent… it wanted to convince her to resign herself to its control. It wouldn't forsake Yue even if Azula surrendered… it wouldn't hold back from laying waste upon the entire world if she let it.

"We betrayed you…!" Mai and Ty Lee spoke at unison. "You were a terrible friend… but so were we! We haven't tried to reach for you again because we hate you! We fear you! We never cared for you, and you always knew that to be the truth…!"

"I'm a little busy at the moment, you damnable annoyance!" Azula roared, focusing on Yue again: the smoke that had poured down seemed to regenerate gradually, covering her up again. "Break out of there! Yue, just break free!"

"I…! I can't! I don't know how, Azula, just…!"

"Yue…" Azula snarled: she needed to figure out how to fight this smoke, but how? Without her bending, with nothing to offer… what could she do? She raised a fist, throwing it towards the smoke Ty Lee, only for her hand to catch nothing: the smoke reformed then… this time, as the Avatar.

"I destroyed all your hopes and dreams for a future, just as you once killed me. I will never forgive you for what you did to me," the false Aang said. "Your crimes cannot be forgotten. I only sent you here… because I knew that you would wind up killing yourself by trying to save Yue."

Azula snarled: none of those words made the slightest bit of sense… not even her father would be quite so foolish as to admit such things out loud to her, no matter how true they might be. This was… this was the wretched creature's attempt to take over her heart, to convince her of all the things she already had believed and known in the past. She had thought the Avatar would want her dead, after all… that he would despise her. But that wasn't the man who had brought her halfway across the world to save Yue.

None of it was real. None of…

The smoke swirled.

The next person whose shape it stole was Sokka.

Her heart pounded in a foolish, needy way. Just seeing him relieved her, even though it shouldn't have. It was another trick by the wretched spirit, but the affection she felt for him was so vivid she couldn't even use her better sense to be wary of him. What would he say? What would he use against her…?

"Fuck, that took a while."

Azula's eyes widened: the smoke shifted, but this time, the man it had formed into didn't fade away. Frustration gnawed at the strange entity… as the man became more corporeal than any who had preceded him. A furious roar sent bad shivers down Azula's spine… but it didn't stop her from reaching to clasp Sokka's hand.

He gripped hers back, smiling wildly.

"It's… it's you. It's really you?!" Azula exclaimed. Sokka laughed.

"Seems like longing for you hard enough gave me the chance to come here, somehow! Beats me how I did it, but…!"

"BEGONE!" the entity exclaimed: Azula snarled, yanking Sokka towards herself as the smoke oozed out, as good as spilling out of the sphere: Yue remained inside the sphere, and this time, the two of them could see her easily in that smoky storm.

"Yue…!" Sokka gasped: her terrified face, the shaking of her head, the tears down her cheeks… it was Princess Yue.

"Sokka, no! B-both of you…! Leave! Please, leave! Protect the world! It can go on without me…! You don't need me!" she cried, frantically.

Sokka and Azula stood in place for a moment, horror crossing their features upon hearing those words from the Moon Spirit… the entity, of course, laughed as it spread its tendrils of smoke towards them.

"She rejects you! What a dashing rescue, wasn't it?" the entity mocked Sokka, who scowled at the smoke with confusion. "But your Princess won't return with you, young fool! Shame that a warrior of your caliber would be so weak, so helpless in the face of a true challenge…!"

"Oh, you think?" Sokka gritted his teeth, releasing Azula's hand and closing his eyes.

Azula watched him for a moment, unsure of what he was doing… then, his hair began to sway, as though a powerful wind were blowing, even though it wasn't. His clothes shifted that way, too: what was he…?

He roared, stepping forward and swinging an arm in an arch towards the smoke.

A burst of air bloomed from his hand, cutting the smoke in half.

"W-what…? What?!" Azula exclaimed. Sokka laughed, backing down towards her as the entity struggled to compose itself.

"This is a place of feeling! Of spirit! Logic doesn't apply here, Azula!" Sokka told her, startling her.

"How does that result in you… airbending?!" Azula exclaimed.

"Oh, that wasn't airbending: I wanted to be a spirit of air."

"You… wanted to be? What? How does that work? Did you just ask something to turn you into…?!"

"That's exactly what doesn't matter!" Sokka laughed: a breeze burst around him, brushing against her. "Come on! We're way smarter than that dirtbag! Let's give him a piece of our minds!"

Azula gaped in shock as Sokka closed his eyes again: he jumped about ten feet into the air, only to become a beacon of light this time. He wasn't as powerful as the sun she had left behind earlier… but powerful enough to show what was happening in the swirling darkness within which Yue remained trapped. She gazed out in confusion, finding Azula again: she raised a hand towards her, and Azula tried to reach for it… but failed. They were still too far apart.

"I want… stairs! A sled! Something! Damn it, you thing, just work with me!" Azula roared, striking the beam upon which she stood with a foot.

Nothing shifted, nothing changed: meanwhile, the smoke was charging against Sokka… turning into a train-tank, it seemed. Azula gazed at it in utter confusion… and then her jaw dropped as Sokka roared while becoming… a giant axe.

"SOKKA!" she shouted, though her concern was misplaced: Sokka appeared to have learned to embrace the illogical nature of the Spirit World so much more effectively than she had, and with a single swing, he cut across the smoke train-tank cleanly.

"Azula…!" Yue cried out, and Azula turned her attention towards her again. "T-the Ocean Spirit…! La…!"

"What? What is it?! Is it responsible for this too?!" Azula exclaimed. Yue shook her head frantically. "Yue…!"

"He's losing his grip on me! H-he's… forgetting me!" she told her. Azula's eyes widened. "If he does…!"

"The world will…" Azula said.

Everything would fall into chaos.

This creature, this spirit, whatever it might be… it lived off chaos. It sought to create it at all costs. If Azula had been the one in its power, it would have cut off the light of the sun, annihilating life on their world. And as Yue was the prisoner… then the means for that destruction would be La, instead. The black koi fish. The Ocean Spirit.

The dark tendrils.

The liquid that kept spilling down, down, attempting to climb over the smoke again only to fall once more.

"Yuuu… eeee…" the deep, dark voice called her. The Princess cried, hands reaching down to grip the liquid that had been ensnaring her body so far…

What Azula had seen in her dreams hadn't been quite as what she had expected: the dark tendrils wrapped around her were the Ocean Spirit… keeping Yue in place. Keeping her where she belonged while Oblivion sought to delete her from existence, to keep her to himself and then destroy everything else.

The Ocean Spirit had been fighting to save her, even more desperately than she or Sokka had.

Azula snarled, wanting nothing but to become one with the Ocean Spirit herself, to give it her determination and fierceness to find a way to save Yue. A tug in her heart urged her to do it… but how? She didn't really understand, her affinity wasn't with the ocean…

Would she even lend it enough strength? Could she?

Did she want Oblivion to win?

That last intrusive thought was as good as a slap to the face.

She hesitated for too long.

"No… NO!"

The surging waves of dark liquid couldn't climb as high anymore. They slowly started to lose strength… the thread of it, linking Yue to the outside of her sphere was slowly fading.

"Yu…" was the last thing the Ocean Spirit could manifest…

Before a thunderous roar washed through the entire area. Azula shivered, hugging herself again: Sokka dove towards her, shifting into something else now – an eagle of a sort, and he wrapped his wings around her, protecting her from a sudden swirl, a torrent of water that burst in no conceivable direction.

"Yes… yes! We've done it, Yue! We've succeeded!" Oblivion chanted with delight, and Yue screamed. Her voice pierced their hearts as despair took hold of her, of each of them…

The bond between the Ocean and the Moon had been broken.

A restless ocean was one thing.

An entirely untethered one was a whole other matter.

"What the hell just happened?!" Toph asked, shrinking against Zuko as Appa landed awkwardly by a cliff: Aang was out in the open, in the storm that was rising, attempting, perhaps, to waterbend…

But to Katara's utter shock, her attempt to waterbend didn't work at all once she tried to summon the contents of her waterskins.

"What? W-what? No… no bending?" she asked. "Why?!"

"Why are you asking me? I don't know!" Toph scoffed.

"There's something… missing," Zuko growled, gritting his teeth. "When I lost my bending, I went back to the source, remember? Go back to the source of waterbending…!"

"The ocean?!" Katara yelled at him, gesturing at the swirling, rising tides they could see, through which Aang kept gliding awkwardly.

But Zuko was right… something was off. There was one more element that made waterbending what it was, wasn't there? Katara thought there was, but… what would it be?

"Whatever it is, we'd better find it fast and tell Aang! He can't do anything if he can't waterbend to calm down the Ocean Spirit, can he?!" Zuko asked.

"Maybe? I don't know! I…!"

Deeper in the water, Aang hovered above the swirling waves: Yue. She was slipping out of his mind, and only by sheer willpower could he keep her present at all. The moon… whatever had happened just now had broken the moon's link to the ocean, just as it had when Zhao had destroyed Tui, long ago. How had it happened this time? How could they fix it?

"It's me!" Aang shouted, at no one in particular. "La! It's me! Come to me! I can help you!"

The ocean didn't respond: instead, it attacked more fiercely: stronger, larger waves were rushing in…

And it didn't take Aang too long to realize that this wasn't happening solely in the vicinity of the Eastern Air Temple.

If there was no moon, and there were no tides… and the Ocean Spirit was as furious over that loss as ever?

The extent of its fury would spread to the entire world.

Once, Aang had channeled La's anger into attacking solely the Fire Nation army responsible for the catastrophe in the North Pole. This time… could he do anything equivalent to that? How could he stop the Ocean Spirit from rampaging without restraint, all across the world…?

"I don't know what to do… I don't know what to do," Aang whispered, eyes flickering in panic from side to side. He had to find a way to keep La contained… but how?

The ocean was growing more restless, more chaotic… and one attempt to grip it in his control resulted in nothing. Aang snarled, lowering his hand: the other elements? Could the other three work to contain water? Could he create a strong and sturdy prison of earth all across the world to restrain the water? Unlikely. A fire storm that evaporated everything? That would be as detrimental to the world as letting the ocean rampage freely…

Air.

If he could work with the pressure, right above the ocean… if he could create a solid barrier that contained the water until La stopped its rampage, he might just succeed at saving the world from the wrath of the immensely powerful entity.

"Okay. Okay… Guys?!" Aang cried out: he wasn't talking to his friends, however… but to the voices, the entities, within his soul. "I'm going to need every last one of you to help me out here! Are you with me?!"

"We are always with you," the voices of the Avatars echoed in his heart. Aang nodded.

"Then… let's go!"

He released his glider, shooting it back towards his friends before turning around in midair.

His arrows began glowing once he entered the Avatar State.

Arms and legs spread out wide, Aang gathered all his power, extending his reach further, further, further… the power of his thousands of past lives, linked one after the other, allowed him to spread a protective, invisible mantle that pressed against the ocean, holding it in place with a burst of powerful, potent air that squashed and contained the ocean in its rightful place.

Unbeknownst to Aang, impromptu tsunamis halfway across the world were interrupted by his powerful move. The incoherent tidal motions that had spread all across the planet, threatening to overtake the land and destroy all life, were stemmed by the sudden front of potent, unyielding airbending…

"What is he…? H-how is he…?!" Katara gasped, gazing at her husband from the cliff: Aang hovered above the ocean, without touching it, spreading that power all across the numerous wild waters of the world.

"I don't know, but… I'm feeling short of air," Toph said, gritting her teeth: Zuko wrapped an arm around her to keep her close.

"Me too," he admitted. Katara didn't want to acknowledge she was no better than them.

"He's… b-bending all the air. All of it," Katara said: that her husband was an unthinkably powerful bender came as no surprise, she'd always known that… but even he had his limits. He couldn't find a way to ensure that every person in the world would not be affected by the massive bending feat he was performing. A little discomfort would have to be preferable to being completely destroyed by the force of the tidal waves…

And so, Aang lingered there, suspended between air and water, as good as holding his breath, just as he upheld his role as the keeper of balance between ocean and sky, between spirits and humans… between all elements.

Even so, the fate of their world, their very survival, hinged on two people who, unlike the Avatar, hadn't been chosen by destiny to enter the Spirit World and save anyone: Aang snarled, repeating Yue's name to himself over and over again as he hoped, desperately, that Sokka and Azula would succeed at their quest somehow… that they would find Yue, and that they would bring her back to the Ocean Spirit right away.

Sokka wasn't exactly running out of ideas… but the possibilities of fighting against Oblivion grew slimmer as despair spread among them, it seemed. Yue reached down towards the fading remnants of La, tears spilling down her face, to no avail. Azula stood paralyzed, unsure of what to do…

"Hey! Azula!" Sokka called her, returning to his usual self, gripping her shoulders and turning her towards him. The Princess met his eyes, her own were filled with panic. "Stop… stop thinking and overthinking. Start just… feeling! Let your heart take the wheel! I don't even know how we could save Yue… but that's what we're here to do, so we're doing it! Oblivion won't have its way! Even if the Ocean Spirit forgets her, even if everyone does…!"

"We won't," Azula finished. Sokka nodded.

"And for now, that will be enough to make sure Oblivion fails," Sokka said, fiercely. Azula swallowed hard and nodded.

"What do I do?"

"For starters… we need to break her out of that damn prison," Sokka growled, glaring at the swirling sphere of smoke and darkness that hugged Yue again… she was barely visible through what appeared to be debris, floating around her. Azula gritted her teeth.

"Can you keep him busy?" she asked. Sokka raised an eyebrow. "I might… have an idea. A weird one. You said I should feel, and that's what I'll try to do. To just… go by impulse and try to channel the one thing I know I can!"

"Okay!" Sokka nodded. "I'll find a way to piss him off!"

"Don't take it too far. I don't know what he'd dare do to you," Azula said, cupping his face. Sokka smiled.

"We're going to win. I know we will."

Azula didn't know where his certainty came from, but she let him infect her with it: she pressed a fierce, passionate kiss to his lips…

Before turning around and running down the beam she had followed all the way to Yue.

Sokka watched her go, knowing that she'd return. Remembering all too well his certainty that he'd never trust her, back when everything had started… a slow smile spread over his face as he thought of how far they'd come before he turned towards Oblivion.

"You… what drives you, wretch?!" Oblivion growled. "You are not wanted. You are not needed! The women you love belong to me!"

"You're one hell of a moron if you think they'd ever belong to anyone," Sokka said. "No wonder you have to kidnap them to keep them around you, bet no girl would stay near you for longer than a minute if they could help it, otherwise…"

"I don't need them to want me! It's more fun to take them this way!" Oblivion said. Sokka winced.

"That's disgusting, you creep," he said. "What the hell are you? And why are you so damn obsessed with Yue?!"

"Yue? Oh, no. I wanted her! The one that ran like a coward, ahahaha, she will return to me soon, she will!" Oblivion exclaimed. Sokka frowned.

"What? You mean… you trapped Yue to get to Azula?!"

"I wanted them both, I did! For, you see, Yue was fun! But when she broke free, just enough to connect with someone from the human world, it was someone delightfully wicked! Someone twisted and broken! Someone who would want to see the world burn every bit as much as I did!"

"So… you let Yue connect with her, and only her, because you wanted Azula to stir her despair further," Sokka concluded, frowning slowly.

"But you… you had to get in the way of my plans!" Oblivion exclaimed. "You were not meant to be a part of it! You wretch! You filthy wretch!"

"You… you want me to feel sorry for you, do you? To feel guilt because I sabotaged your great experiment, is it?" Sokka asked, trembling with rage. "You took the girl I loved once, filled her heart with misery and pain, all be it so you could use the woman I love now to torture and torment her?! And because things aren't going your way, you despise me?"

"You gave her happiness, and love, and joy! What kind of fool would do such a thing for a monster?!"

Sokka snarled: Yue, too, snapped out of her tearful self for a moment upon hearing those words.

A monster.

"You…" Yue said, gritting her teeth and turning her gaze into the sphere that held her captive. "You dared? You…! How could you speak of her that way?! How dare you…!"

"It's but the truth, and it is no concern of…!"

He fell silent when a bolt of lightning shot through the smoke.

Yue gasped, glancing towards Sokka. Sparks fizzled out of him as he readied himself to become something else still… this time, a manner of maelstrom that leapt from his spot on Azula's bridge and then landed against the smoke.

"What…?! You dare challenge me head on, you fool?!" Oblivion laughed: Yue gasped as everything around her seemed to begin spinning, the sphere's smoke changing in shape…

A tornado clashed against a maelstrom, colliding as blades might, blow after blow. None of it could erase the harm inflicted by Oblivion. None of it could change the words it had chosen to bestow upon someone Sokka treasured. He roared in his maelstrom form, and thunder appeared to strike, fizzling out after causing further damage upon his enemy…

Yue remained trapped in the throes of Oblivion's grip… but she crawled as best she could through the fog, through the smoke, towards the end of Oblivion's twister. If she could just get out, if this was the one chance she'd get to do that…

But the tornado closed in over and over again as she progressed. Every step forward was another step back. Again, despair gripped Yue… and she cried to herself as she hoped for Azula to be safe. As she hoped for something she had never dared say before, something she hadn't known how to ask… for her situation had appeared entirely hopeless. And maybe it still was… but she wasn't alone anymore.

"Help… help," she whispered, before her voice strengthened further: "HELP! AZULA! AZULA!"

The Fire Nation Princess felt the heat swirling and rising as she rushed towards that large orb in the sky. She didn't know what she needed to do for this to work, she didn't know what Sokka was doing right now…

But she needed to go as far as she possibly could. There could be no half measures, no hesitation.

Once she reached the sphere of flames, she jumped forward.

She let the fire's heat burn her clothes, singing her skin, her hair, as she allowed herself to be consumed by that fire…

When she opened her eyes again, she found that she had been the one who had consumed the flames instead.

A power unlike anything she had experienced burned and thrummed inside her. She turned around, and the golden road she had followed glowed brighter still. She glared into the distance… and then she felt a hand upon her shoulder.

"I had been expecting you."

Azula shuddered, but she held off her immediate caution, her instinctive wariness, and turned her head towards the golden, burning woman standing behind her.

"The Moon Spirit has needed our help. I could do nothing for Tui in her first demise: you may yet save Yue."

"Who are you?" Azula asked. The spirit touched her chest.

"I am the flames that dwell inside you, inside each living, breathing being in the land you belong to. In the world you inhabit," the spirit said. "Should I have failed at my task… it would have fallen to you to take my place, just as it fell to Yue when Tui failed at hers."

Azula's eyes widened.

"I… was fated for this?" she asked. The spirit smiled.

"Your fate is in your hands. The world dealt cruelty upon Tui and Yue… but if we stop Oblivion now, you won't need to make any such sacrifice. So go, Azula: take my power… and prove yourself worthy of being the Champion of the Sun."

Azula's heart burned with a righteous fury she had never felt before.

Oblivion had sought to tempt her with taunts over a world that had forsaken her, forgotten her, treated her as a disposable, ignorable element. She had failed to take a proper stand then, affected by its words… but not so much that she would lose sight of reality.

Sokka's reappearance, his genuine return, had relieved her so greatly that none of the creature's mockery had mattered anymore.

She had grown to love him. She had grown to love Yue. She had a place in her family again. She had people in her life who might just become her friends in due time. She might have a future, too, beyond this catastrophe, should they solve it successfully. A year ago, Oblivion would have ensnared her so easily it would have been embarrassing…

Yue had saved her in so many more ways than the apparent.

The quest to see the world and find thousands of new experiences hadn't been for her own sake: Yue had done it for Azula.

Tears welled in her eyes as emotion surged so powerfully inside Azula that she could barely endure it. She snarled, gripping her chest tightly with a hand as her heart raced faster, and faster, and…

She shot off, leaving a trail of golden, potent fire in her wake.

Yue would be restored.

She'd stake her very life on seeing that it would be so.

The battle between the tornado and the maelstrom continued when the glow of a potent star suddenly blinded Yue. She gasped as a golden shine came rushing fast, vertiginously so, towards them…

"Azula…?!" she exclaimed: the maelstrom broke off the tornado, and Sokka took his natural form again for a moment, too impressed by the sight to carry on focusing on the battlefield, or his willpower-based transformation.

"Azula!" he cried out.

"COME TO ME!" roared Oblivion: he rose higher, and Sokka snarled as he scrambled for something else to do, anything he could resort to… "Join us! Yue and I can use the company! Come to us!"

Azula shot fast towards the smoke entity, her heavy scowl giving away the certainty, the seriousness, of the task at hand. Her flaming fists tightened as she shot herself faster onwards, as she neared Yue's position…

"AZULA!" Yue screamed.

Azula plunged into the darkness, and Oblivion's smoke swirled around her shape, capturing her inside its grasp.

"NO!" Sokka exclaimed, panic taking hold of him. "AZULA!"

"MINE! MINE, MINE, MINE! THEY'RE MINE! THEY'RE MINE…!" Oblivion exclaimed, cackling and rejoicing...

Unaware that the burning Princess had wrapped her arms around the Moon Spirit.

Yue gasped, as Azula gripped her tightly. The girl, sixteen-years-old after all, only reached Azula's shoulder. It was the first time they had stood together, in the same physical space, even if in a spiritual plane.

"A… Azula…!" Yue wept, raising her gaze desperately towards her… to find a smiling Champion of the Sun gazing upon her.

"You held on. Thank you," Azula said. "Would've been very irksome if you'd given up to that brute while we couldn't get to you."

"I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen, I…" Yue said, desperately.

"You really need to be more honest. Could've tried to help you sooner, if you had been," Azula smirked, cupping Yue's face. "I… I might be able to do a few things to fight him, Yue. But I don't think I can do it alone."

"What…?"

"My power. My fire. You can reflect it, can't you? That's your nature. You're the moon… and the moon glows because the sun shines upon it. Right?"

"T-then…" Yue said, eyes wide. Azula smiled.

"I will shine… and you will glow. And we'll tear this piece of shit to shambles if it's the last thing we do," Azula hissed. Yue smiled warmly, nodding in agreement.

Azula took Yue's hands in hers, closing her eyes. The heat started rising, but Yue welcomed that warmth… just as Sokka, terrified and desperate, did the same when glimpses of that light started to burn past the dark smoke sphere.

"Azula…" he gasped, as Oblivion swirled awkwardly, attempting to smother the light.

"Enough, I said. Nobody asked you to shine like that!" Oblivion growled.

"Let them go. Let them go!" Sokka roared.

"No! They're mine, I said! Mine!" Oblivion roared.

"LET THEM GO!"

Sokka's voice served as a beacon. Azula smiled at the sound of it, knowing exactly where not to aim the next attack she'd do… an attack for which Yue would serve as her support.

"I'll never forget you, Yue. No matter what it takes… you'll always be a part of me."

Yue shivered before nodding: Azula raised one of her hands, and Yue pressed her palm to hers.

The light that hardly escaped the cluster of darkness strengthened further, bolstered fiercely by the power of the Champion of the Sun. Oblivion's discomfort increased further, as it twitched and stirred, unable to retain the shape of its sphere of darkness as he had before.

"Now! Yue!"

Believing in others had always been easy for her. She had no true power of her own while she lived, so she had learned long ago how to trust others to do things, to fight, to succeed at their quests, no matter what they might be. This time, though… this time, Yue was the one who needed to succeed. She breathed in, she focused… and she released her energy in a wild burst.

The cage of darkness was overcome by the blinding light that burst out of that sphere. Sokka shielded his eyes… but he smiled, hearing the agonic screams of Oblivion seeking to reform again.

"NO! NO! YOU'RE MINE! YOU'RE MINE! THE WORLD WILL BE TORN APART! YOUR WORLD WILL BE BETTER IF IT PAYS FOR ALL THE HARM IT DID TO YOU! YOU WISH FOR IT TO BE DESTROYED! YOU'RE NO CHAMPION OF THE SUN! YOU'RE A MONSTER! YOU'RE…!"

Standing in the space where the vanished sphere had been before, Azula raised a hand towards the remaining smoke, and she tightened it into a fist.

A burst of fire, golden as the sun, eliminated the unwanted, reviled, cruel entity that, a year ago, had ensnared the moon.

Sokka laughed, sensing the wicked spirit's presence had been dispelled. It most likely hadn't been destroyed, not for good… but for now, it had lost its grip on Azula and Yue, and that was more than enough as things stood.

Yue continued to glow powerfully, still with her palm pressed to Azula's. She breathed heavily after a moment, as good as coming back to herself…

To find the darkness had dispelled at last.

To gaze down, to the depths of the universe, to find their world stood right below their feet.

"It's… it's our world. I can see it again. I can…" Yue said, with a helpless smile. Azula held her closely still.

"Is this how you see everything?" she asked. Yue shook her head.

"It's… how I did sometimes. When I wasn't walking through the Spirit World… or among humans, if I had the chance to," Yue said, with a sad but earnest smile. Azula nodded in understanding. "And now I can do that again because…"

"Because you let us help you, you stubborn little weirdo," Azula grumbled, prompting Yue to laugh as Azula squeezed her nose between her index and middle fingers. Blazes flickered at the contact, and Azula pulled her hand back quickly. "Damn. I shouldn't do that right now. I'm all… fired up, I suppose."

"For what it's worth? I'd dare say that's your real form, Azula!" Sokka exclaimed, startling Azula. She turned towards him with a questioning stare, as he floated by willpower alone towards them. "You know… you're on fire? You're smoking hot? You're hot as hell?"

"You're in front of a teenager, you idiot. Don't talk that way." Azula grunted at him. Yue laughed, and Sokka smiled as he turned his attention towards Yue.

"Yue…" he said, with a sincere, kind smile. She grinned right back at him, eyes tearful and grateful.

"You never gave up on me. Neither of you did," she said. "You're… you're really so grown, Sokka. Azula… Azula lied, you know? You did grow to be even more handsome than you were…"

"Heh. I knew that already. She was just trying to hide that I'm her type and she didn't know how to sound convincing," Sokka smirked. Azula rolled her eyes but smiled.

"I'm glad I can speak to you again… though it was fun to do it through you, Azula," Yue laughed, and Azula smiled and shook her head.

"Shouldn't have been as much fun, but it was. Guess I can't be your translator anymore, huh?"

"I can always cover my ears whenever she speaks so you tell me what she's saying, if you want," Sokka grinned. Azula laughed, and Yue smiled fondly at the two of them.

"I never… never imagined I could be set free," she said. "This is… it really isn't the Spirit World itself."

"I realized. It's… strange. Cosmic, in a wild way," Sokka said, gazing about himself. "It works even more weirdly than I thought the Spirit World would."

"I've always been able to drift between this place, the Spirit World, and occasionally the human world. That stopped when the comet collided," Yue said, closing her eyes. "I don't know if… if Oblivion was inside that comet, or if the sight of me in danger caused Oblivion to rise from wherever it hid, but… after it happened, I was trapped here. I couldn't… do anything. And as I was trapped, the moon's glow waned and I could only speak with you because, well…"

"Because Oblivion wanted me," Azula said. Sokka gritted his teeth. "Don't get jealous now, will you?"

"Not jealous. Just… protective," Sokka said, with a heavy sigh. "Bad enough that Oblivion had been causing Yue so much grief… it wanted to do it to you too. I couldn't just stay calm through that, now, could I?"

"You should have, but it's of no matter. We won anyway," Azula smiled proudly. Yue giggled.

"The three of us… we do make a good team," she said. Azula raised a hand, clasping her shoulder gently.

"We… uh, we do," she said, pulling her flaming had back before burning Yue, though Yue laughed at the feeling, nonetheless.

"But… there's one thing left for me to do," Yue said, glancing down at the Earth from where they stood. "For all this time… the Ocean Spirit, La, kept me safe and grounded. Oblivion's interest in you, Azula… it allowed La to grip me, to hold onto me. But once Oblivion gave up on you, because you were no longer the kind of person who would choose to inflict oblivion upon the human world? All my connections started to fade. I only asked you to forget, even though I knew it wasn't in your control, or mine, if you did… because I thought it'd be less painful. But in the end, Oblivion was the one who sought to make everyone forget me…"

"The piece of shit," Sokka grumbled.

"It was working. My brother, Sokka's sister, Toph… even the Avatar," Azula mentioned. "They were struggling to remember you, or why we were traveling at all."

"But you swore you'd ensure that I wouldn't be forgotten," Yue said, with a warm smile. "I suppose, now that the moon shall return, it will be much harder for people to forget me, huh?"

"They might take you for granted again, in the sky… but we won't," Azula said, her throat thickening with tears. "Though… you'll still lurk around, won't you? I know you're not trapped anymore, and maybe you're behind on your, I don't know, cosmic paperwork, but…"

"I have no paperwork in the Spirit World," Yue laughed. Sokka hummed.

"Sounds like the first aspect of the Spirit World that I absolutely prefer over the human one. We should move there, Azula," Sokka suggested, nudging her with his elbow. Azula smiled and shook her head.

"I'm just saying, I… I guess your days of lurking in my mirrors are over?"

The words sank heavily in Sokka and Yue. The two of them exchanged worried looks before turning their attention towards Azula.

"I… Yeah. I don't think I'll be doing that anymore," Yue mumbled. Azula smiled and shrugged.

"Well, what can you do, huh? Was… was something, while it lasted," she said. Yue gritted her teeth.

"You're… you're going to miss me, aren't you?" Yue asked, with a gentle smile. Azula scoffed.

"As if. Don't be so conceited," she said, folding her arms over her chest. Yue smiled warmly.

"You noticed when I was lying… I can tell when you are, too," she said. Azula scoffed, and if she hadn't been on fire, still, she might just have blushed darkly.

"It'll be strange, adapting to life without you, but… we fixed things for you. You'll be okay this time. And you'll have a proper conversation with Sokka before it happens this time, too. So… a wish fulfilled indeed," Azula said, somewhat nervously. "I should, uh… return these powers. I might wind up naked after I do. Yue, cover your eyes by then."

"I've seen you naked before whenever the water of your tubs reflected your body, though…"

"Ugh. That's disturbing," Azula groaned. Yue giggled, shrugging in her direction.

"I am a spirit, you know. We… see a lot of things. Some bad, some good," she grinned.

"And some hot as hell, like her," Sokka grinned proudly. Yue giggled and Azula punched his shoulder. "Come on! It's really a cool look. You're going to miss it when it's gone."

"Sounds more like you will. Pervert," Azula huffed. Yue laughed.

"I… I'm going to miss your arguments, that's for sure," she said. "And just… being part of what you're doing. Seeing so many beautiful sights, I… I really enjoyed it. This journey… it was beautiful. I never imagined I'd get to live through something like that. And that I'd do it, and actually become friends with you in the process, Azula, I… I'll always be grateful for that."

"Well… I'm grateful for you too, believe it or not," Azula said, earnestly. "If it weren't for your pesky meddling, your chattiness, your ridiculous praises, I… I wouldn't be here now. And for once in my life, it feels like I'm exactly who I want to be, and where I want to be, too."

"That's good to hear," Yue smiled warmly. Azula sighed.

"You'll be okay on your own?" she asked. Yue shook her head.

"I won't be alone," she said, smiling down at the world beneath their feet once more.

A tendril of dark liquid reached up slowly, tentatively, until Yue touched it with a fingertip. The water rose, strengthening and swirling around her, and Yue laughed as the very end of the water tendril shifted slightly, becoming akin to a fish, perhaps even a water snake…

"I'm back, La," she whispered.

"Tui… Yue," La said, calm and content.

Azula smiled, gazing down at the world: it was hard to see it from this distance, but it seemed as though the renewed contact between the spirits had put a stop to whatever was happening down below…

Aang blacked out, falling into the water, once the Avatar Spirit no longer sustained him after he ceased the suspended, extended bending feat he had pulled, all across the world. He sank into the depths of the ocean, exhausted… until his wife's bending reeled him up, back aboard Appa.

"They did it… the crazy bastards did it," Zuko exclaimed, still somewhat breathless, eyes glued to the dark sky above them: he couldn't remember the moon glowing more brightly ever before.

"Moon's back? Yue's all good now?" Toph said, before humming. "Must be. I… remember her now. I forgot about her for a while there. Did you?"

"We all did," Katara said, holding Aang affectionately as he coughed, smiling awkwardly at her. "You okay?"

"I'm… alive. I think. Thank you, Katara," he said, pressing his brow to hers. Katara smiled.

"Always ready to bail you out when you're in trouble, silly," she said, kissing his cheek.

Aang sighed, weakened and helpless now… but proud of what he had achieved. Bending the entire atmosphere might have been a tall order… but he succeeded at doing so for long enough to keep La contained, preventing massive disasters and hopefully minimizing the potential death toll of the initial reaction by the uncontrollable ocean. He sighed in relief, closing his eyes… deeply hoping that Sokka and Azula would be ready to return to the human world once he and the others returned, too.

Azula frowned as she felt her power shifting in an odd manner. She turned around… finding the Sun Spirit standing not too far from where she was. The Princess breathed deeply and stepped towards her.

"I never doubted you could do it," the Sun Spirit smiled kindly upon Azula, who bowed her head respectfully towards her. "Well done, Champion."

"That might be too great a title. I was quite selfishly trying to save my friend just because she mattered to me," Azula admitted. The Sun Spirit laughed.

"Selfishness? Trying to save another is selfishness? Curious," she said. Azula smirked and shrugged. "You are a rare one, Princess Azula of the Fire Nation. A most extraordinary woman… much as Princess Yue would have grown to be one, too."

"But I didn't get that chance," Yue said, with a sad smile.

"Thus… do not waste yours, Princess Azula," the Sun Spirit said. Azula nodded. "I can take a new champion after many generations pass, too. Just as the Moon Spirit would have chosen her favorites, centuries before or after Yue was born. It isn't your fate to be my vessel or my replacement, just as it wouldn't be for any of my protegees. Young Yue made a great sacrifice for the greater good… and the human world shall forever owe her its survival and endurance because of it. You, child, need not be another sacrifice."

"There's not much reason why I would need to sacrifice myself anymore, now, is there?" Azula said.

"None of you should have to sacrifice anything at all to begin with," Sokka told her, and Azula gazed at him gratefully upon hearing those words.

"Never forget… the bond between the two of you is strong," the Sun Spirit said. Azula gazed at Yue next, who smiled kindly at her. "The moon receives and reflects the sun's light… Yue has learned to be your mirror, your reflection. To show you your faults just as she shows your virtues. She is the moon to the sun you can shine, Azula. And when you burn your brightest, you inspire others to do the same. As you did with her."

Azula nodded, swallowing back the tears she nearly spilled. The Sun Spirit moved closer, pressing a soft kiss upon her brow.

"You did well, child. And now… it's time for you to go home."

The flames covering her body withdrew into the Sun Spirit: the fire she had leant to Azula drifted inside her… and with a final smile and a kind nod of approval, the Sun Spirit drifted back to where she belonged. Azula watched her go, grateful… relieved.

"We've restored balance… somewhat," Sokka said, with a gentle smile. "And hey… still on fire even when you're not literally on fire, Azula, really."

"Shut up," Azula huffed, smiling regardless of her bashfulness: to her surprise, a robe suddenly appeared around her body, and Sokka grinned cheekily at her when she eyed him questioningly.

"I'll ogle you whenever you let me. But as I appear to have figured out the code of how to invoke nonsensical things in this plane, I figured I'd dress you up," he said. Azula laughed.

"Thoughtful of you," she said, turning towards Yue again.

She seemed so small, so young… but when she raised her head again, Yue seemed as strong as ever. She smiled kindly at them, taking their hands in hers.

"I didn't really think it was possible that I'd ever stop envying whoever might marry you one day, Sokka," she admitted, with a weak smile. "Even if I wanted to be kind and supportive of your relationship with Suki, I truthfully couldn't stop wishing I were in her place instead. But when it comes to you two, I… I can't help but be so happy that the two people I love the most would find love in each other, too."

"Kind of blindsided all of us, didn't it?" Sokka said, with a chuckle. Azula smiled too. Yue bit her lip.

"I just… I want to say that I'm really grateful for everything you did. I would have been lost without you. I know you didn't care for me or want to help me for the longest time, Azula… but that really didn't matter to me. I just… I just wanted what was best for you. And I think you found it."

She brought their hands together, smiling kindly as their fingers linked. Azula smiled at Sokka, who smiled back at her.

"So… go back," Yue said, earnestly. "Go… and be happy together. Live the lives you deserve. Never forget how many kind things you've done for others, such as me. Never forget… that you changed my world in the best of ways."

"You did the same for me," Azula whispered, raising her free hand to stroke Yue's hair gently. "I didn't want to see it, to accept it… but I did, in the end. I owe you so much more than I'll ever be able to repay, Yue."

"I don't think that's true. You saved me," Yue smiled. "That's already so much more than I can repay, too. I wasn't going to survive without you. I'm so glad… so glad that you could come to help me. And now… I get to see you from afar. I might be able to manifest myself around you two sometimes, or just one of you, I don't know… won't happen too often, but I'll try!"

"You'd better. Though if you give us any frights intentionally by showing up at inopportune moments, you won't ever hear the end of it," Azula threatened her. Yue laughed and Sokka smirked.

"You can come see us whenever you want," he told Yue. "You're always going to be welcome. I don't think I did nearly as much as Azula did for you…"

"You did plenty, silly," Azula said. Sokka smiled and shrugged.

"Even if I did… point is, I always wanted to do right by you. To make amends for your death being as violent and abrupt as it was. I wish we'd had enough time to… to talk, to say goodbye, to process what was happening, but we didn't. I was in pain for so long, and then that swamp vision I had of you…"

"That was the swamp's doing. It wasn't really me," Yue said, apologetically. Sokka chuckled.

"Yeah. It wasn't as kind as you are," he said. "But the swamp said… I had failed you. I hadn't saved you. I had to protect you, it was my duty, and I couldn't do it. So… I've felt this weight, this responsibility on my shoulders for a long time, because I couldn't protect you once before…"

"And you succeeded this time," Yue whispered, kindly. Sokka smiled warmly. "I know you've struggled to know your worth… but you're extraordinary, Sokka. You have everything it takes to prove it, too. So… don't be afraid to show the world who you really are. Don't worry about protecting me anymore… I'm safe again."

"And if you ever aren't, you'll let us know?" Sokka asked. Yue laughed and nodded.

"As long as I can, sure… but I hope it won't happen, nonetheless," she said. Azula swallowed hard.

"Then… this is it?"

She met Yue's gaze for a long moment, and the young girl's eyes flooded with tears anew. She nodded, and Azula sighed before stepping forward, wrapping her arms firmly around Princess Yue… the Moon Spirit.

She had wanted to hug Yue so many times, most of all as of late. The feeling of doing it spiritually certainly came off as strange, but it was all they'd get. It might even be the one time she'd get to do it at all. Tears spilled down Azula's cheeks as she held Yue tightly.

"Thank you… for everything," she managed to say, her voice strained. Yue shook her head.

"I'm the one… the one who's grateful to you," Yue said. "For everything you saw, and everything you showed and taught me… everything I lived and loved with you. S-so… go on and do it some more. Live… love. Experience everything for… for the both of us. I know I may not always be visible, in the sky? But… I'll always be with you."

Sokka smiled warmly: hearing Yue speak those words to Azula struck a chord in his heart, for they were the very last ones she had spoken to him before taking her place in the night sky.

"And we'll always be with you too. And thinking of you," Azula nodded. Yue giggled. "You brought us together… and we'll always treasure you. We won't ever let you be forgotten."

"Thank you for finding me in the darkness," Yue said, pressing her face to her shoulder. "For letting me be your reflection within my shadows. For understanding me… in ways I never knew I wanted to be understood. Thank you for bearing with me, even when I made it hard… thank you for caring as much as you did. You were my light in the darkness… and now, it's time that you go light up so many other things in the world, too."

"Wait… you're not condoning arson, are you?"

"W-well, no…"

"Such a shame," Azula smiled. Yue laughed as Azula pulled back, and tears spilled down both their faces. "I meant it when I said it, but… I ought to do it again: I love you, Yue."

"I love you too," Yue grinned giddily, leaning in for another hug. "I'm so glad it was you. I'm so glad that you were the one person I could always see."

Azula nodded, hugging the girl back as tightly as could be.

"I'm glad you were here. That you were part of my life, for as long as you were," she said.

Azula raised her tearful eyes towards Sokka, who continued to watch them fondly… she reached for his wrist, yanking him towards herself, and Sokka laughed as he hugged the two of them, too.

"I'll miss you too, even if I'm sure Azula will miss you more," Sokka smiled. "Go shine brightly in the sky, okay? We'll be fine… so make sure you are, too. Let us know if you get into any trouble… and maybe I'll come back and turn into a giant axe again, what do you know?"

The girls laughed at Sokka's mirth, and Azula rested her head on his shoulder briefly, while Yue nestled against his chest.

"Thank you, Sokka. Thank you, Azula. Thank you. I'll always love you. Always."

A white flash blinded them briefly, and they closed their eyes to brace themselves against it…

"Hey… they're back! Look!"

"Oh, finally."

Sokka and Azula grimaced, coming back to their senses while still sitting in the position Aang had left them at. Which meant, of course, that they were as sore as could be…

"Sokka? Azula? You guys okay?" Aang called them, kneeling by them as they opened their eyes.

"We're… back," Azula realized. Sokka scoffed slightly, with a lop-sided smirk.

"Sad. Can't turn into a giant axe anymore," he said. Azula laughed, and the others gaped at them in confusion.

"It's… a long story," Azula said.

She cast a glance to the sky, though, where twinkling stars no longer could be as easily visible… for they were in the moon's vicinity.

It glowed so brightly, so beautifully, that Azula couldn't help the tears that welled in her eyes at the sight of it. At the knowledge that her friend had succeeded at reclaiming her place as the Moon Spirit… at the awareness that she'd helped her against the worst challenges she had been dealt by the wretched Oblivion.

Sokka tugged at her hand gently, and they exchanged a relieved, warm smile before he leaned in for a kiss – naturally, half of the group complained, but Azula held Sokka closely nonetheless, brows pressed together as mutual pride and relief took hold of their hearts. They would explain everything to the others soon… but for now, her heart did not ache over loneliness now that Yue was gone. Instead, it remained strong and full of emotions over the awareness and certainty that she had finally saved Yue… and that Yue, conversely, had saved her just as well.

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 4 (2/4)

Propaganda under the cut!

BENNY

The first thing that happens in new vegas is that benny fucking shoots your character in the face, steals your shit and leaves you in an open grave. Benny is by all accounts a bastard. He kills you, steals from you, he killed his last boss, he is the single most duplicitous man around. His gang are all about honesty- except him. He's a lying, cheating bastard. The guys who helped him catch you? He skipped on paying them and left them to get shot to death. His new boss, mr.house? He stole his robot, broke it open, got someone to reprogram it and decided to use it to TAKE OVER THE WHOLE OF VEGAS. Benny literally kills people, lies to people, steals their shit and takes charge. That's all benny does. He gets fucking CRUCIFIED if you don't help him out just because so many people fucking hate him. And yet. And yet. Benny is the single most compelling character in the whole game to me. He's just a little guy! He's just there! You can get shot in the head and come back and he goes "what in the goddamn" and then if you try and flirt with him he's like "uhhh sure? Okay?" And leaves you a polite note in the morning. He's fancy. He wears a stupid suit. He has a tiny gun with shitty bullets. He's catholic. He talks like an old timey news presenter. Literally nobody else in the entire game does that. He's got an intelligence of 3. He's my funtime boy. My silly little man. He's so funny. The antagonist in this game is a guy dressed like a tablecloth who looks at all times like a confused dog who doesn't understand what a tv is. And like. He's compelling. He robs from you, shoots you, but…. he never seems to actually wish you harm. He kills and robs and lies but like. He apologises for doing it to you. When he sees you again he doesn't attack you, he's just… confused. He tries to defuse the situation. You can convince him to talk to you, alone, with no guards and it's not that hard. If you spare his life, he doesn't go after you, like. Even if you sleep with him he doesn't take advantage of that and kill you, even if you try to. He… he just leaves. He gives you an apology. If he gets kidnapped by Caesar He just… apologizes again. He tells you his whole plan to take over the city, too. He thinks he'll die, and he wants something of him to survive. He's happy that you made it. And if you let him free, he just… leaves. He knows he's beat, he doesn't want to cause any more trouble. He walks out and leaves. The NCR will kill you if you cross them. The legion will crucify you. House? He'll blow you the fuck up. But benny, the guy who lies and cheats and schemes, he's honest. He's polite. He's… harmless. You can kill him with a single shot if you want. And he can't kill you. He doesn't kill you the first time, and he'll never really hurt you again. Benny just wanted to win. When he knows he's beat he just leaves. No lingering, no harm, he's off, off into the desert heat, and never seen again. Isn't that just insane? like have you ever known an antagonist so polite? He just leaves!! He offers you a drink!! His plan is genuinely probably the best one for the people of new vegas!!! He's. Benny is Benny. Anyway if you want to see some REAL propaganda go to the blog letmebegaytodd and look in the #benny tag. You'll Understand < https://www.tumblr.com/letmebegaytodd/717051175751614464/in-another-life-i-wouldve-really-liked-just> <- look at this shit man

AZULA

Azula explicitly considers herself a monster. She says needlessly cruel things to her brother and friends. She kills the show's twelve-year-old protagonist and masterminds the idea of burning down the entire Earth Kingdom to force them to submit to Fire Nation rule. I have absolutely seen people get called abuse apologists for thinking she's a cool character. But she's also a (canonically) mentally ill fourteen-year-old who was raised by her father to see her ability to be weaponized as her only value. Her mother, arguably the only adult in her life who could have had a positive impact, had a strained relationship with her because she was more difficult than her brother, and then disappeared when she was nine. Her uncle, who was her brother's main healthy role model, took absolutely no interest in her. She watched her father belittle her brother for years and eventually throw him away when he failed to meet his expectations, so that was a threat she was always facing. She really had no chance. And she also has moments that suggest she wants some sort of meaningful connection with another person. She lets her brother take credit for killing the Avatar so he can come back from exile, even though it means she'll be bumped back in the order of succession and offers him advice that seems genuine. Her spiral into a mental breakdown starts when her friends betray her. She's just a much more interesting and multifaceted than a lot of the fandom gives her credit for.

[to-thelakes]

I'm watching Moon Knight (again) to help me go to sleep and I've rewatched episode 1 so so many times on nights like tonight but I still absolutely adore all the little details.

Like, okay so when Steven wakes up in the Alps (I think that's where it is), Khonshu says "go to sleep, worm" and okay, first watch and without knowing the context of Jake existing, that makes sense. Khonshu doesn't like Steven which we learn more and more as the series goes on but then he says a few lines later "the idiot's in control" in that same scene in the Alps.

There is such a clear shift in attitude between 'go to sleep, worm' and 'The idiot's in control' and it's so obvious on a rewatch that Khonshu is talking to two different people with each line.

He's referring to Jake as 'worm' and he thinks that telling him to simply 'go back to sleep' would work because Jake is aware of the alters and their situation. Although from the brief glimpses we get of Jake, we know that he is an... interesting guy yet we can gather that he at least has some sort of alliance/respect/something going on with Khonshu. However, when he realises it's Steven, it's not hostility in the same way. It's more exasperated frustration. He's mad at Marc for letting Steven suddenly appear rather than being annoyed at Jake for making a random appearance. The way that the dialogue is written just exposes so much on a rewatch.

But going back to Jake/Khonshu even if they do have some respect, it's also pretty obvious that Khonshu does not want Jake around. I'd speculate that that's probably because if Marc loses time when he knows that he's not in London as Steven, that would create suspicion. Suspicion that Khonshu wouldn't want because that would put their avatar/God relationship at risk.

Though, I also suspect that Khonshu and Jake probably were working together but Marc never became aware because Jake worked at nights (maybe why Steven is so goddamn tired) or simply took over while Marc thought that Steven was in control.

I know that the Moon Knight portrayal is not the most accurate DiD portrayal but from my research, there's this whole idea of like different levels of awareness. Like the blackouts for Steven are because he initially has no awareness of the other alters. Then when Steven and Marc black-out, it's because neither of them are aware that there is a third alter aka Jake. Which means that Jake can do things for Khonshu while Marc believes that he is in London and neither Marc nor Steven would be aware.

I'm kind of just rambling about the show at this point but also, what I find really interesting every time I rewatch is the date thing. So, right, if Marc was the one that set-up the date why would he let Steven stand her up without saying anything to her? Marc isn't exactly the best guy when it comes to romance but he is incredibly protective over Steven because he wants to protect him from Khonshu. So, why in the world would he let the whole date rejection thing happen?

Because it wasn't Marc. It was Jake. Jake asked out Steven's colleague and that also makes sense why they went to a steak place. Jake doesn't give a f*ck about Steven's veganism while Marc absolutely would. Marc wants to protect Steven so he wouldn't make such a silly mistake.

But Jake would. Honestly, at this point, convinced that Jake just wanted to fuck with the Moonboys and Khonshu just played along.

I don't know.

I always find the dynamics of the Moonboys so interesting and I love how even when you rewatch it, there are new little discoveries that you can make. Like there was so much love, thought and attention put into this show?? It makes me SO SO happy.

This show honestly means the world to me and excuse the ramble/rant but I just love talking about my Moonboys and I never really get to speculate or discuss the show. I talk about it with my dad but being at uni means that I do not get to ramble at him as often. So, tumblr gets it instead.

But yeah, they're my (not very) astute observations about my beloved Moon Knight

[magicaljarofbeans]

ATLA Live-Action Series

So.

I just finished the season, and there are some good things, and... some bad things :|

I have purposefully not engaged with what the rest of the internet think about it since it came out so keep that in mind. All I know is that it's not been well received and people hate the acting (all from other people telling me in person rather than me looking it up).

Let's start with what I consider the good bits:

Sokka is funny

Iroh is amazing as always

Zuko is pretty good, but specifically amazing with Iroh

Admiral Zhao is even more detestable

The bending looks pretty good (minus the ice sledding)

Iroh's backstory made me cry like the animated series (it's the goddamn music ok!)

The cabbage man makes an appearance

Firelord Ozai is cast and acted well

Suki is great

Ok, I think that's probably the extent of the actually good. Now for the absolute wreck that is the issues:

The removed Sokka's misogyny, a key aspect of his character development

Aang isn't running away from his duties as the Avatar (and doesn't at the start either), despite it being a key character trait he works through. However, everyone is gaslighting him into thinking he has been?

Katara and Aang are simply not acted well. They are the youngest cast members, but it's incredibly forced and not really written well to begin with.

Katara has become Gandhi. Well, is trying to be. She just keeps blurting out inspirational messages and not saying much else.

THEY CHANGED THE ORDER OF EVENTS. This doesn't have to be an issue, but it is when it's done in a way where story-lines no longer make sense. i.e. Sokka meets Suki before they go to the northern water tribe and meet Yue. Basically Sokka kinda cheated on Suki and just doesn't care. (There are several more examples of this)

Aang literally doesn't bend a single drop of water himself. As in, NOTHING (giant water monster doesn't count)

Katara and Aang don't end up getting trained at the Northern Water Tribe. Like. At all.

Katara is labelled a "Master Waterbender" and now has to train Aang???? Ummm, what?

Aang can just fly now. Glider don't glide, it fly. It woosh over continent in a single day!

That brings me to, WHAT EVEN IS TIME. Apparently going from a small village in the middle of nowhere to Roku's temple in the middle of the Fire Nation takes a day by glider (Katara and Sokka were just sleeping and weren't for long enough to worry about food or water)

Ozai is happy to sacrifice half his navy to "distract them while we take Omashu". Which is so far away from the Northern Water Tribe that the distraction wasn't needed.

It's Book 2 with Book 1's ending?????

The old people are clearly young guys with old age makeup. Apparently they can't get older guys anymore? (Except Iroh :)

Aang keeps talking to the previous Avatars but not actually getting anything out of it.

Apparently he has to be at a temple to talk to the past Avatars now.

Azula is introduced prior to the Northern Water Tribe fight

We see Ozai's face. It removes the mystery and power behind his presence

What is up with Jet? He's now a bomb placing terrorist. Not too far from accurate but still

Oh and his base sucks. Literally only like 2 meters off the ground at most.

I'm sure I have forgotten some atrocities, and there are several things that are ok that I haven't mentioned (Momo and Appa look fine) but overall, it's fine, I've watched worse shows, but it's not that great. Just watch it for Iroh.

[im--never--happy]

I really fundamentally cannot understand how and why the avatar fandom has been sleeping on Mako. Especially with all the Zuko love. People love an angsty sad boi who just wants to do the right thing. And by god if that is not Mako I don’t know what is. Like. Mako as a character is soooo fucking angstable. So much angst potential right there. But fandom just collectively ignores him (or else hates on him for no fucking reason). Is he perfect? Of course not, but Zuko is so insanely far from perfect and all of Zuko’s wrongdoings so far surpass any of Mako’s. Yet fandom easily forgives Zuko, resident sad boi, for his actual fucking crimes (kyoshi village didn’t burn itself down, Song’s ostrich horse didn’t steal itself, Sparky Sparky Boom—I mean Combustion Man didn’t hire himself—lmao) in favor of focusing on his trauma and angst (don’t get me wrong I am an absolute slut for angst and complex nuanced discussions of trauma in fictional characters, and Zuko is such an amazing vessel for my insatiable thirst for angst. But. SO!! IS!!! MAKO!!!!!). But Mako doesn’t get that treatment. He’s vilified for his significantly less bad mistakes. And it makes no actual fucking sense. Because he is so primed for angst and he has insane amounts of trauma. And he’s so sweet. He just loves the people in his circle so fucking much, he just wants to do right by them, he just wants to protect them and keep them safe, and also fucking save the goddamn world. Jfc. He’s sooo GOOD. And the crazy thing is that he’d actually be a better fit for a lot of the specific angst and character traits people want to project onto Zuko that actually aren’t in line with Zuko’s character. Like when people write how Zuko is so humble and doesn’t think he deserves anything and is so intrinsically kind and patient and gentle. And that’s just… not canon Zuko at all. Canon Zuko is impatient and loud and shouts and so insanely fucking proud. He was raised a prince thinking he deserved everything because he was royalty. And yes yes so much abuse and lack of self worth and trauma. Yes obviously. But Zuko expects (or at least expected) people to give him things or do things for him because he was royalty. At least at one point. He doesn’t know how to cook or take care of himself or other people, because he’s always had people doing that for him, at least to a certain degree (I’m not saying the ship banishment was luxury but he still absolutely had a crew that did a lot of shit, like cooking and day to day grunt work for him). Whereas Mako IS humble and soft spoken and quiet and gentle. He never raises his voice with bolin and never lashes out in anger. Bolin and Korra say hurtful unfair and unkind shit to him, and he just fucking takes it. He doesn’t shout or throw insults back. He just accepts their anger and criticims and still fights to help and protect them. He is self reliant and raised his younger brother alone since they were both homeless orphans. He can cook. He also doesn’t think he deserves better when people treat him like shit, because he’s always been treated like shit. (Hello self worth self-loathing angst potential galore!!) Mako is everything that a lot of fandom want Zuko to be and he has endless potential for sad boi trauma angsting. But he gets hated for no fucking reason while Zuko gets idolized. And it makes no fucking sense and drives me absolutely fucking nuts

[deatheatet]

So, everybody. Z-Dog x Walker One-shot won the poll so here it is

-Zhang's POV-

Z-Dog was standing with me when the rest of the squad was supposed to wake up. I know it botheres her that neither Mansk nor Walker were in our group,that she had to wait longer.Z had been chewing on the inside of her mouth for nearly twenty minutes. I made a mental note to tell the Colonel to get Z some gum,force if he had to. Z never realized she was doing it,so I nudged her with my elbow and she looked at me

"Hell was that for?"Z asked

"Your chewing your cheek"I told her. She hissed,still weird knowing we hiss like cats now, and cursed.

"Goddamn it! What the f-" She cut her swearing off with a pissed look. I remember her say something about it being subconscious I think. Well if she didn't get any gum at least Ja might be able to do something,or keep a bunch of extra packs on him like when we were human When it came time for the next group of our squad to wake up,Me, Z-Dog and Fike were there so no one pulled another Colonel,woke up and went to swinging when they see blue. Next group was Mansk,Warren,Walker,Ja and Prager.Z-dog went to Mansk first. I helped out Warren, people actually thought we were a couple as humans,but we're both straight as Lyle's sniper shots. Well,Warren was bi,so was I,we just preferred women. After Z-Dog heard Walker grumble a little and shoved the scientists away Snarling "Get that fuckin light outta her goddamn eyes"

-Walkers Pov-

My eyes fluttered open and i blinked away some blurriness,and saw an avatar.... She looked familiar till "Hey there Baby. glad to see ya woke up" My ears shot up in recognition, fuckin great,that means I'm Blue...and dead. It was... Was it really,Z... the answer was yes,once I saw the tattoos, always with the fuckin tattoos.

"Z?" I asked, Christ my voice was fucked up, sounds like I choked a little to much.

"Good mornin Sleeping Beauty" Z smiled,it all fell back in place so easy. Our normal teasing,our jokes and everything. "Still sexy,even in blue baby" Z said winking at me when I raised up,and realized that my fuckin ass was showing because of the Fucking gown those damn science pukes put me in. "Funny, asshole"I retorted grinning a little.

After a couple hours and the Colonel's briefing,he must have been good to make a joke dispite having woken up swinging at his squad. Everything pretty much was the same for all of us,We were just taller,bluer and had tails with fangs. Wasn't much fun goin to the gym when we got so fuckin exhausted after only a couple hours,used to be we could go for damn near a day. Didn't matter, Colonel was assigning bunk mates now anyway,no doubt everyone would end up with their favorite team mate. Meaning Fike and I will be bunking, hopefully.

-Z-Dogs POV -

"Alright,all ya shut yer traps" Colonel said,his way of announcing bunk pairings were coming.

"All right so unfortunately,(he grumbles mid sentence "They stupidly forgot there's fuckin 12 of us") We all gotta bunk with someone,but i ain't bunkin with nobody,so there'll be three of ya sharin a room." of course,but I know he just wants some real time to be alone,He had asked bout Paz and the kid not long after waking up..Paz was KIA and no one knows what happened to the kid, wether he stayed,was killed, sent back to earth... Nothing. I got real pissed when I heard they didn't try to watch on the kid,still am actually. Doesn't matter,(It does) Any-Ah shit.

-3rd person POV-

Z spit blood into a trashcan, Quaritch looked at her. 'Remind them damn science pukes to get her some gum' Quaritch thought to himself. Either way he announced "Lyle and Mansk are sharing"

-Walkers Pov-

Ah,Mansk and Lyle. Means Z and I are probably bunking,thank God. I love Fike,he's my best friend,but Z helps with a lot. The list went on after.

Mansk & Lyle

Zhang & Warren

Prager & Ja

Me & Z

Fike,Brown & Lopez,then the Colonel on his own. I'm glad Fike's with Brown and Lopez,yeah they fight a lot but their both close with him. And Brown is a good thing because when Sean has a freak out he usually needs someone to hold him,Brown is his first option. He likes him more than friends but won't admit it because Brown seems straight as an arrow. Hell poor Sean forgets over half of our asses are all bi. The only real straight ones are Colonel,Lyle,Mansk,and Lopez. Ja and Prager honestly give me mixed signals on which one they are.

-Z-Dogs POV-

Thank God. I love Mansk but I wanna talk to Walker about some stuff.

After some more working out it was Lights out. There were bunks in the room,not bunk beds thank God. Walker was in the shower when I got there so I just put on some sweats and took my shirt off. So now I was in my sports bra and my sweats, honestly more modest than how I slept as a human. I was checking out a holo pad when Walker finished her shower.

-Walkers POV-

I finished my shower and dried off. I put on some shorts and my sports bra, basically a sleep version of my regular outfit. Either way I'm to damn tired for anything so I head out and Z's on the bed messing with a holo pad, probably trying to find a movie to watch. "Hey Z" my voice sounds weird,it's just. God I don't know how to explain it.

"Hey" Z responded, looking up at me. God,we spent so many nights together as humans why is it so weird being alone now in these bodies.

-Z-Dogs POV-

Walker looked nervous, can't blame her. No predicting these new bodies but it was something else,I can tell. She's shifting around and she won't look at me,and the tail gives it away.

"Hey, Maria?"

-Walkers POV-

"Hey Maria?"

My head snaps over,Z never calls me Maria like I never call her Alicia, unless it was when we were Fucking,well then we only said each other's first names when we were making love. If we were Fucking...eh I don't wanna mention what we called each other.

"What's wrong,Sweet girl?" Z asked turning my face to her and gently holding her hand to my cheek once I sat down on the bed. I sighed "Sort of. I'm happy we're together but..." I felt blood rush to my face,the second I said this I wasn't living it down

[marilostfieldblog]

[Video transcript start.]

[The transcript begins from the front pocket of a jacket, someone leaning over a small child's shoulder as they seemingly draw a TV on a computer.]

?: What are you doing kid?

[Voice identified: Mari.]

[The child looks over to Mari, smiling.]

?: Making Peony an avatar so it isn't so creepy when they speak.

[Voice identified: Sparrow.]

M: Oh uh… Hey Will, you ok bud? Feel the need to check on you from time to time.

[Will's head pops into view. His hair falls over his eyes.]

W: Uhhhh. I think so? Trying to figure out a present, not going too well!

M: Could always ask Peony? AI and all.

Sp: Do not use the only sibling I have in this mall as an alexa.

W: I wasn't planning to, kiddo.

M: And I'm trying to work on that kid, just… Kinda tough when other people don't post their work schedules.

W: In my defence, I'm just kind of on call. All the time.

?: [Tired.] They were talking about Cassidy.

[Voice identified: Rose Henderson.]

W: Ah. [The tone in his voice has notably shifted.] I see. I'm sorry again, for..ya know.

R: [Still tired, this lasts until further notice.] Quit apologising, not your fault.

W: Right.

R: I just-

[Rose cuts herself off stretching, multiple pops coming from her back and shoulder blades.]

R: God damn.

W: Dude, you need to stretch more often, that CANNOT be healthy.

R: Haven't exactly had time. Cuz… Y'know.

W: Mhm. That is true.

R: Anyway, you guys need to quit taking shit out of my bag. It was open again this morning.

W: Wasn't me this time! I was-...guys. Edgar's breathing is weird.

R: Oh fuck, ok uh… Sparrow quit taking shit out of my bag.

Sp: IT WASN'T ME! Also, uh. Not good.

[Will appears more into frame, as it limps towards the sleeping man.]

W: Should we wake him up? This could be really bad if he continues breathing like this in that position.

R: I don't know… Tired…

W: Mari? What do you think?

M: Huh? Yeah go ahead.

W: Right.

Sp: Be careful.

[Before anyone can make a move to wake him, he sits upright abruptly with a shout, before taking a quick look at his surroundings and moving backwards away from the residents of the hideout, eyes darting around the room, before settling on the exit door.]

W: Edgar? Are you okay, your breathing was..irregular is definitely an understatement. Hyperventilating?

R: [Muffled by a pillow.] Not going to hurt you dad, if that's what you're worried about.

Sp: I can't hurt you, my arms are only strong enough to throw like… Soup cans at Mari.

?: [Shaky.] Wh– who has the gun currently?

[Voice identified: Edgar.]

R: [Muffled.] oh god damnit.

[Rose sits up and looks at Edgar, a tired look plastered across her face.]

R: Delilah, who. As far as I know isn't here.

[Edgars eyes move away from the door for a moment to scan the group's hands.]

W: None of us have anything Edgar, you're safe. Do you want me to back up a bit?

[He nods, still looking tense.]

M: Yeah Delilah left a while ago, why did you ask?

E: I… um. It’s nothing.

R: Bullshit, I don't know what it is. But that is bullshit. I know that's bullshit, you know that's bullshit, hell Sparrow probably knows that’s bullshit.

W: Yeah man, you look fucking terrified. What's happening?

[Edgar takes a moment to consider his next words.]

E: What are the nightmares that you guys have like?

W: uhm, I mean. Fucking terrifying? Getting, uh, tortured again… The surgery with Hetch, killing you guys..a lot.

E: W– well. About that last one. E– ever been on t– the receiving end?

Sp: Yes. All the time.

W: Oh. Oh shit. Edgar..

E: I… yeah. It’s…

[Edgar takes a deep breath in.]

R: I'm going to choose to NOT talk about my nightmares tonight, what happened?

E: Nothing I couldn’t have predicted. This one was… one of the more common scenarios. We’re just… doing something, and suddenly you guys all fuckin’ turn on me and kill me. And I can feel it. Every goddamn time.

R: Oh…

M: I uh… Give me a minute.

[Mari takes their phone out of their pocket and props it against a pillow where everyone is in frame. They can then be heard walking away.]

W: You do know we wouldn't do that, right? Even if someone in here tried, do you think any of us would let that happen, Edgar?

E: I know, it’s just… they’re so fucking real. And I can’t wake up from them, even if I tried.

R: Dad I…

E: Can’t even do any of those reality checks, either! None of them work. I’ve tried all of them, so many fucking times.

W: …how long have these been happening, dude?

[Edgar looks up at Will, before looking off to the side.]

E: Are you sure that you want to know?

W: If you feel comfortable telling us, man, then yes. We care for you, Edgar.

E: [A sigh.] They started around… a day? After I got let out of… you know.

W: That's why you pushed me away that one time? The nightmares?

R: Or why you've flinched a few times when talking with me?

E: … yeah. Sorry.

R: Don't apologise… I understand we all do.

W: Exactly. You have nothing to say sorry for, man. You can speak to us about these things.

E: I don’t know why I didn’t say anything, actually. I guess I just thought that telling you guys that I’ve been having nightmares about you brutally murdering me would bring the mood down.

R: Dude… I…

W: I'd rather you tell us then see you having a panic attack every night, man. We all would.

[Edgar nods again, breathing out slowly, trying to calm himself down.]

Sp: Talk is good. Keeps the mind healthy.

W: Exactly.

E: Um. So… would you mind if I talked about the details? Just a little?

R: Go ahead.

E: Alright. Uh… so, to explain the gun thing… after you guys all attacked me, I managed to get up and run out the door. But… someone shot me, back of the head.

W: Fuck, man..

R: Who… Do you know who?

[He wrings his hands, not looking at anyone in the room.]

W: You can tell us if you want man, don't feel pressured to.

E: [Quietly.] Rose.

R: …

[Rose coughs.]

R: [Quietly.] Oh.

E: Sorry.

W: please don't apologise.

R: What William said… I just… Didn’t expect that.

E: I… alright. I’m honestly just glad this one was with you guys. Because when it’s you, I can confirm that you wouldn’t do that. But, with others…

Sp: Others as in? If you are potentially referring to other friends. They wouldn't hurt you either.

E: Others as in Jenny, and Daff, and… Marv.

W:..we still haven't heard from Marv, have we-

Sp: MAMA WOULDN'T HURT YOU!

[Sparrow slams down on the side of the wagon only to be grabbed by Rose.]

R: Not now firecracker.

E: I know she wouldn’t, but it really doesn’t help when I thought that she would for about two and a half weeks! It’s a hard idea to get out of your head!

R: Well she wouldn't, I know it's hard to believe but it's true… She blamed herself everyday since that damn show thinking you were dead.

E: Some part of my brain is very intent on convincing me that she’d shove a shard of glass into my throat, though. I know she wouldn’t.

R: Yeah, brains do that don't they?

[Out of frame, and mildly distant. Mari can be heard loudly screaming out of anger.]

W: Ah. Shit.

R: I'll deal with them in a while.

[Edgar, who appears to have tensed up after Mari screamed, attempts to lower his shoulders.]

W: You're good Edgar, you're safe.

E: Mhm. It’s just… I’ve heard that many times. Brought up an old one I thought I could forget about.

R: Huh?

W: Oh shit, man.

E: Yeah. There’s… a lot of variety in what happens in those things.

W: Fuck..

[Just then, Mari comes storming into frame shouting.]

M: IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO HURT YOU SO FUCKING BAD! YOU MAKE THE STUPID FUCKING ESCAPE PLAN!

[Mari throws a notebook at Edgar and a pen at Rose.]

M: BECAUSE IT WORKED SOOOOOO WELL LAST TIME! YOU FUCKING PLAN.

[Mari turns around and storms out of the hideout.]

R: I'll deal with that in a few minutes.

W: You know what? let me go after them. That was fucked.

R: Will buddy. I don't trust Sparrow alone with me and Edgar. Last time it was just me and him, he did donuts in the sonic parking lot.

[William seems to have his fists curled.]

W: Fine.

Sp: Uncle Edgar, are you ok?

[Edgar, who appears to have hunched his shoulders up again, as well as tensing up fully and leaning away from where Mari had come from, shakes his head slightly. His breathing sounds to be more shallow.]

W: Am I okay to come closer, man?

[A nod.]

[Will moves closer, sitting by his brother and just hugging him.]

R: Once Edgar is ok, I might not be back until the morning. Ethan? Can you make sure to do the night-time routine with Will in case Delilah doesn't come back before Will falls asleep?

?: Oh, yeah! ‘Course!

[Voice identified: Ethan Nestor.]

Eth: Where's the keys?

Sp: I have them in case Rose falls asleep or leaves. Because I never leave.

[Sparrow holds out the keys before putting them back in their pocket.]

R: Cuffs are connected to the metal pipe.

Eth: Okay, cool! Thank you both

R: Dad, is it cool if I leave?

E: [Quietly.] Yeah. Yeah it’s fine.

[Will is still hugging Edgar.]

R: Cool, any requests?

Sp: Can you kick them?

W: Send them my fucking “best” regards.

R: That is very fucking vague dude.

W: Bite. Punch. Swear. Yell. I don't know man, I'm angry.

E: … Please don’t hurt them too badly.

R: If they talk shit, I'll do what I have to do. I don’t take disrespect well.

W: Neither. Thank you.

R: Yep, later guys and Sparrow.

Sp: Bye bye.

W:..don't kill them.

R: I… Will try.

[Rose hops up and walks out of frame humming a song identified as “The hamster song.”]

[As soon as Rose is out of the hideout, Edgar looks up at the other people left, a very upset expression on his face.]

Sp: Yeah?

E: Today has… not been a good day for me, has it.

W: not everyday has to be, Edgar.

Sp: What Will said. I do not have many good days inside… As in mentally.

E: I’d rather have good days, though. I feel like I haven’t had many recently. With the whole… remasking and… other things.

W: That's a fair enough feeling, dude. I promise you, good days are coming.

Sp: They need to. Or aunt Rose might set this mall on fire.

E: I might do that, too.

W: Me three. Fucking secret santa is the least of our worries.

Sp: I just want to see Cassidy… And Mama.

E: You will, Sparrow. I swear on… what’s something I can swear on… hold on.

Sp: Hm…

W: Oh?

?: [TTS.] Ruby's grave?

[Voice identified: Peony.]

E: No, I… hm. Maybe on…? No, that’s…

P: [TTS.] Sparrow's legs?

Sp: Those don't work though…

W: I got nothing.

E: Fuck it. I swear on my parents graves that you’re going to see them.

Sp: Oh… I see.

P: [TTS.] How many people here. Have dead parents? Or birth parents. In Rose and Sparrow's case.

W: I mean, I'm an orphan. I have no fucking family outside here.

Sp: Incorrect. Edgar is you- Oh wait. Nevermind.

E: I can’t be everyone’s father. Will is more like a brother, than anything.

Sp: I WAS GONNA SAY BROTHER. I just didn't hear Will correctly.

E: Haha, yeah, I got that. I… my parents weren’t murdered or anything, Stacy said it was natural causes.

P: [TTS.] So. Everyone?

Sp: Actually, Rose's birth mom might still be alive according to Emi.

P: [TTS.] Rose's birth mom. Is a. [Loud beep.]

W: Well fair enough-

E: And, just for reference, I know that Mari’s father is dead for a fact.

P: [TTS.] Who?

E: Barely matters, he was a dick. His name was Tom.

Sp: Here let's try something.

P: [TTS.] Oh so another-

[Sparrow finishes Peony's sentence.]

Sp: -Bitch.

W: Yep.

E: Smart, and yeah. I snapped his neck with my crowbar a while back. No regrets.

P: [TTS.] Cool.

Sp: Yeah.

W: wish I could've got a hit on ‘em.

E: If you were there, I would’ve let you have a few. He was fun to hit. I wish I could do it again.

W: Honestly, seeing the transcript was satisfactory enough!

Sp: Hm… Hm…

E: Sorry, is this, uh, bothering you?

Sp: No, thinking.

Eth: do you guys want food or anything? I'm about to grab some for myself, so?

Sp: I'm fine.

Eth: Edgar? Will? You guys want anything?

E: If you don’t mind, yeah. Just anything is fine.

W: I'm good.

Eth: Okay! There should be some stuff over here!

[Ethan walks out of the camera frame.]

Sp: UGHHHHHHHH.

[Sparrow throws a soup can at a wall out of frame, it hits with a loud thud.]

E: Woah! Sparrow, what’s up?

Sp: I want a ham and cheese sandwich, and I want to remember my birth name.

E: Ah, well. I’ve been in one of those situations before. We’re working on it, I promise.

P: [TTS.] Speaking of. Working on it. Who is Marcy?

E: Some girl that was with Rose and Ruby, I don’t know too much about her, other than she’s been living in Vegas.

P: [TTS.] What is. Vegas.

E: It’s a place, I guess. Lots of gambling there.

P: [TTS.] Ew.

Sp: WAIT! Dad told me Ruby dated a girl named Marcy in high-school… Hm.

W: Oh? Ex lover maybe?

Sp: I dunno… It is… wholesome? how they were both in the mall at the same time.

W: I just feel sorry for both of them.

E: Hm…

Sp: Yes?

E: Sorry, just… the name is starting to sound really familiar.

W: Did you guys know each other maybe?

Sp: It's possible.

E: Maybe, if Ruby and Marcy were together in high school. Just have to think on it for a while.

Sp: Yeah…

W: I think they would've been?

Sp: He never said how long they dated, just that they did.

W: Hm..

E: Either way, we probably went to school at the same time.

P: [TTS.] Mari's phone is on. Hate to get in. The way. But it's on.

W: For fucks sake! Every time!

Sp: End transcript.

[Transcript ended.]

[chibsandchill]

Effervescent

Chapter 7: A trapped princess

Tsu'tey x OC

Effervescent masterlist

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

She wore a brand new dress the next morning in the cafeteria, a headache already pounding behind her eyes, but that was the price to pay for the life she led. It wasn't healthy to spend most of the hours of both day and night in the link, as was evident by how limp her hair hung now compared to when she first came to Pandora, though her curls were limp by no means it was still a disturbing change.

Alva rubbed her eyes with a yawn before she walked over to the row of tables. She sat down next to Norm and one of Grace's science lackeys. He glowered at her with a thin face and beady bat-like eyes hanging low under bushy eyebrows.

"Morning, Norm," she chirped. "Sleep well?"

"Sure." He muttered. "Some of us weren't out all night, you know."

One of the scientists to Alva's left passed her a bowl of porridge and a glass of milk. The blob of gray and white was as thick as glue and she wasted all of her milk trying to soften it. The porridge had no smell or taste but the texture was thick, soggy and sticky, not all that different from eating actual glue. Only the glue was easier to swallow and tasted better.

Alva thanked them for the breakfast but didn't eat more of it bar that first spoonful. She still had some of the chocolate left in her pocket that she could nibble on before it was time to go back in her Avatar body.

"You didn't actually think I'd come running back, did you? Why would I leave Eywa for my cage?" Alva chuckled. "It's like leaving paradise for a closet under the stairs. Besides, I didn't want to miss out on Jake getting beat up by the Omaticayan princess."

Jake had earned his spot among Grace's acolytes and sat proudly at the end of the long table, grandma's teylu long forgotten as they showered him with compliments and laughed together like one big family.

"The fence is there to protect us," Norm reminded. "They didn't spend millions of dollars building all that to keep you in here."

"Exactly." Alva smiled. "They spent millions of dollars so that I can be out there. I'm glad you see my point."

"That's not- Ugh."

Alva laughed before shoveling another spoonful of porridge into her mouth. If her mouth was full those words waiting on the tip of her tongue wouldn't be able to escape. The second taste wasn't any better than the first and she instantly regretted it. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to speak her mind if it saved her from such torture?

A tentative silence fell over the duo, sustained only by Norm's persistent chewing on stale bread topped with cheese that had dry edges. His eyes were locked firm on her, though, narrowed under bushy, furrowed brows.

"-And what were you thinking, huh?" Grace asked from the end of the table. The people sitting around the golden boy turned to Alva and Norm with all the attentiveness of a sports fan watching a mind-boggling game of tennis. "At least Jake is a marine. I mean, Alva, you barely passed the early stages of Avatar training and you thought it was a good idea to run after a hunting thanator with nothing but that necklace around your neck."

"I was never in any danger." Alva denied. "Eywa protected me, and now my Avatar is sleeping in the hometree with the people who shunned you, Grace."

"The Avatar that you endangered for some cheap thrills," Grace snapped, " you always talk about this base being your cage but goddamn are you doing everything in your power to make it so that you can never leave. If something happened to your Avatar then you would never leave the base ever again unless it was to walk your ass to the shuttle taking you back to Earth."

"I'd have regretted it for the rest of my life if I went back with you like the obedient little child my brother wants me to be." She shook her head. "It is a cage, Grace, and one day you will see this place for what it truly is. Then you'll wish you also took the opportunity to leave."

"Wait, rewind," Jake said. "You're with the clan too?"

"Of course." Alva chuckled. "How did grandma's teylu taste, Jake? Not as good as the dirt you ate when Tsu'tey threw you to the ground, eh?"

The marine's mouth dropped open. "You followed us?"

"'Course."

"You speak the language. You could've helped me." He said. "I was one hand-shake away from being made into a rug and you just stood and watched?"

"Yep.." Alva grimaced and shuddered when probing her teeth with her tongue broke loose a piece of porridge lodged in her molars. "It wasn't time for me to reveal myself yet. You never needed my help, not really. It wasn't only me that Eywa protected that night."

Jake didn't seem too impressed by her words, a harsh edge in his eye that she had never seen on him before. Perhaps he felt abandoned, Alva thought.

"They allowed you to stay because they've never had a 'warrior' Avatar before," she added, hoping to see his eyes soften towards her again, not liking this feeling his scorn gave her. "They've had many like me before but you're new to them. They want to study you and learn. That's what kept you alive."

"How do you know that?" He asked.

"I speak the language." She reminded him. "I heard everything they said about you."

Jake leaned closer. "Did, uh, did Neytiri say anything?"

Alva grinned and turned back to her food, and a disgruntled Norm who had yet to stop glaring at the Jarhead warrior. Norm bit down on his spoon so hard that even she heard the sound of his teeth hitting metal.

"She called him a baby," Alva revealed to Norm. "Several times."

Norm inclined his head with the hints of a grin on his thin lips. The next bite isn't nearly as forceful as the others but the man still sulked away from the rest of the science snobs; self-imposed exile brought about by severe jealousy. Jake absorbed the department's attention, jeers and playful insults like a sponge, each word a stroke to his pride, each one bringing his shoulders a smidge higher, his smile a watt brighter. Strange how one's happiness brought another unhappiness, Alva sighed to herself.

"Your chance will come, Norm." Alva said. "I can feel it."

"No, it's fine. I'm fine. It's whatever. Jake did it. He's the way in, not me."

"One path does not make a city. We all have a part to play here, none more important than the other."

Norm gave her a tight-lipped smile.

-:-

Once breakfast, a tense affair of a meal, finished and the scientists retreated to their dens and the army dogs scurried over to their overlords, Alva fled into the empty avatar courtyard. It was just her and the plants... and the occasional bird-like creature cawing from poles and rooftops.

It was still so early that light had not yet overtaken all of the darkness, sluggish snakes of pink crawling through the black. Cold dew clung to the grass and the air was slightly chilly, though Alva barely felt it through the mask on her face and the thick shirt she wore. The billowy sleeves and oversized size allowed it to flare out like the wings of a kenten when she spun around.

With her rebel grandfather's old comb in hand she walked over to the broken area of the formerly electric fence, the off-white object more than a handful for her where it in her Avatar body was tiny and hard to grip. It felt odd, she realized, to walk here when she was so small and everything so large – rocks she could skip over now came up to her waist, the grass swallowed her whole in some areas and the tall fence seemed endless as it shot up towards the sky.

She was singing again, as she so often did when the mood struck her. It was an old song her grandmother taught her before she passed and one that the family sang often. Being the only one to carry those memories stung. The song spoke of a mother's courage; a tale as old as time of the rage of a mother scorned following the murder of her children. It spoke of vengeance and the cruel aftermath of living without them. It spoke of acceptance, and of peace. It was a song spoken in times of sorrow but also of happiness, but it was always sung together. But not anymore.

Briefly, Alva wonders if Parker would frame the song and display it behind his desk if he could. Would he tear the Na'vi's ancestral songs from them too if he had the power to? He did keep a braid of Alva's hair in one of his books hidden deep in his suitcase.

A low whine of pain broke her from the trainwreck of a thought process. Alva perked up at the sound, though it was dulled some because of the thick breathing mask covering her face and ears, and when another whine reverberated through the air, she dropped the meager flower pickings she had gathered and rushed towards it.

She followed the series of yelps, whines and growls through the overgrown compound. It was not by design that she hurried across the pebbled roads with so much haste that the soles of her feet tore and bled onto the sharp rocks. The thing calling for her was in so much pain that her heart skipped a beat each time the sound met her ears.

Alva was shaking as she rounded the pole shrouding her spot from view. A fram of hulking black muscles too wide to be hidden behind the pole shifted and shivered with each jerk the animal made.

"Oh, you sweet, sweet thing." Alva whispered. "I'm sorry."

She shuffled forwards to the mass of snapping teeth, red blood and dark skin. Stuck in the hole she had carved in the fence was an adolescent palulukan. It was smaller than a fully grown and was a shade lighter, but no less lethal.

It fell quiet as it noticed her approaching, bright yellow eyes following her every move. Saliva dripped from its open jaws. Guilt gripped her in its clammy palms, and Alva wanted to cry. To see such a magnificent animal trapped by her conquest for freedom, to see it shrug and yowl and dig itself deeper into the daggers that she had created.

"Shh," she cooed. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The palulukan grew quiet and regarded her with wide eyes. Alva walked closer, hand stretched out in front of her. She shrieked loudly as it jerked its armored tail against the fence, pulling her hand back against her chest. Its sensory quills rose again, low growling sending droplets of drool in the air.

"Shh," she cooed yet again. "It's okay. I'm going to help you."

Despite the animal not appearing to understand her softly spoken pleas, Alva moved closer. Two of its six legs shook in tune with its frantic heartbeat. When she was close enough, Alva dropped into a squat, turning her neck just enough to ease some of the animals' distrust of her but not too far so as to come off as too submissive and prey-like. The palulukan pulled its droopy upper lip back, exposing the rows of dagger-sized teeth. Just one of those teeth were enough to end her five times over, the sheer bite force of this creature enough to break through an AMP-suit with ease. But still, Alva felt no fear when staring into its eyes. There was something familiar about the beast, a calling to be found in its eyes – a mere glimpse of something more.

So as to not startle the animal, Alva slowly brought her hand closer to the animal before breathing out a sigh of relief when it allowed her to place it on its warm skin. She pressed down harder, angling her hand so that she could scratch it just below it's jaw. it felt like she was scratching a heater.

"Good girl." Alva whispered to it with a relieved smile. "Let's get you out of here."

Alva started humming as she placed her other hand on the opposite side of the palulukan's massive head. Some of the wiring from the fence was embedded in the softer skin where the head met the throat. She couldn't tell how deep they were but at least several centimeters dug into the flesh there like tiny little needles. Her fingers danced around the wound, tracing the edges of them with a feather-light touch, gone as quick as they were there, no more painful than the brush of the wind.

The humming turned into a song that came from deep in her throat. She hadn't sung this one since the death of her father. Traditionally there would be another singing with her; one who provided the other half of the perspective, but as she stood alone, Eywa chimed in.

Her hands wandered from the puncture wounds to the strong shoulders flexing just behind the fence line. She was close enough that the animal could swallow her whole if it wished to without having to move forward. One wrong step and she'd have wandered straight into its waiting maws, broken in half as easily as a fragile stick in the jaws of a rabid dog.

"Oh, great Ọ̀ṣọ́ọ̀sì," Alva whispered as she started pulling the wire out of the palulukan's thick hide, "spirit of the forest, of the animals," it whined pitfully and blood pooled from the now empty holes, "of the hunt and hunters..." She trailed off, stroking the feverish sides of the palulukan's head.

"Bring this one strength," she closed her eyes, fingers brushing over the spot between its eyes.

It thrashed against her hold when she moved to grab the other wires on the opposite side, but Alva persisted and pulled them out much the same. A wet squelch and a loud yowl of pain, of confusion and fear so potent it clung to her skin like a suffocating blanket.

With both sides free from the wires, she placed both of her hands flat on its head and started pushing it backwards, positioned in such a way that it had no other choice but to move back. It went without much protest and within a couple of pushes it was free of Alva's trap. It looked back at her once before running off into the forest much like a shadow.

"Until next time, brave one." Alva whispered before she moved the heavy boulder back into place, making sure it covered the entire hole this time. There would be no more digging there. She would not take her freedom if it came at the cost of another's. 

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[sifuhotthot]

Sometimes self care is writing Ozai out of the story and instead makign Azulon the villain because you want to write a competent ruler 

[radiosandrecordings]

Crossposting my @summer-in-the-archives-event fic here too. [AO3] [Accompanying beautiful art]

He’d never get used to the rolling fields of quiet.

Miles behind and miles to go, not that he could see any of it through the thick blanket of fog that clung to his ankles, and his wrists, and his eyes. Miles to go before I sleep…

It was hard to describe the rain that fell, because even ‘fell’ felt like too active a descriptor. It didn’t pour, it didn’t ‘beat down’, it didn’t pelt, because those all required a sense of agency that the landscape just felt too apathetic to muster. It simply existed, and just happened to be moving downwards by coincidence.

Jon wasn’t sure if he knew or Knew that it seeped into his clothes, coating his skin, but he couldn’t even feel the droplets landing, even pinpricks of touch creating too much of a sensation for this place. He briefly wondered that, if he still had need for his glasses, would the rain even make the effort to trickle down and cloud the lenses.

The last Lonely domain he’d passed through, he’d never seen the avatar that lorded over it. He didn’t have any real interest in finding out, not like the personal vendettas that lead him to seeking out Jude, or Jared. Because with Peter dead he wasn’t left with any Lonely avatars left to chase, save the vague notions of the Lukas extended family. He was simply going to keep his head down and keep trudging, hopefully emerging through the thick banks of mist before he lost his mind to the monotony. If there was ever something to make you miss muffled cries from beneath the earth…

“Why are you here?”

The sound was accusatory, and may as well have been a shotgun in the silence. The damped chill was nothing in comparison to the ice that shot up his spine. The voice had no clear origin, no figures even silhouetted in shadow against the overgrown grass, but it came in close, delivered on the gentle, numbing breeze. Despite this, though, never in a thousand domains could he forget the sound of it. Of course it was his. Of course. Of course. “Martin?”

“No! ”

The voice sounded… Angry. But hurt, like it flinched away from the word. Like something that had been left to sit in the dark too long, that recoiled back from a stinging source of light.

“... I’m going to assume no one has called you that in a long time.” He tried to keep his voice light, as much as the stifling atmosphere would allow it.

“No one is anything here. It’s easier that way. If you’re somebody, you can be hurt. If you have too much personality, too many little facets and cracks, things start to snag and catch on it, and it drags you down to where things ache. But if you’re nothing, then they don’t have anything to cling onto. You can just slip away unharmed.” The voice sounded like it was moving, curling around him and moving from ear to ear, forward and back as it droned on in that echoing monotone that Jon had hoped he would never hear again, and at the same time, had longed to.

“And what about the good things?”

“There isn’t anything good, not anymore. You saw to that.”

Jon snorted. “Low blow, but fair.” He hesitated for a moment, trying to summon the words.

He’d had time, after he left the Lonely, to consider his actions. Regret pooled like acid in his stomach at the memory, and somehow it hurt more than ending the world. He wouldn’t say it was more important. He knew whatever he felt, and moreso, knew that one human life, was not paramount to the suffering of every creature great and small, but it felt more tangible. When he walked through the hellscapes, they were dreamlike, hazy, information in such clarity but to an extreme where it still felt nonsensical to perceive it as reality. He knew the fundamental truths that surrounded him but it still felt hard to accept them even as he lived them.

Yet despite having lived without it for eight months prior, the space beside him that failed to solidify into Martin still stung with his absence. And Jon regretted it every not-day he spent walking the hellscape, both in knowing he doomed a good man to suffering, or worse, revelry, in this new world, and in the far more personal, and far more selfish, part of him that missed him so goddamn much.

“But- But Martin, I think I made a mistake.”

“Obviously.”

“Not- Not that. I mean, when we were in the Lonely. The- The first time. With Peter Lukas.” The silence droned on, and Jon took that as his cue to continue. “Do you remember what I said? That maybe you were safer here? And that’s… That’s why I let you stay. I didn’t push you to, to leave with me because I thought you wanted to be here, that you’d be safer here than you’d be with me. But I don’t think that was entirely true.”

“I am safe here.”

“Maybe so. It doesn’t mean it’s better though, does it. Martin, I saw those people, in the last Lonely domain. I know it’s different, they were victims and you’re… You’re an avatar, here, you’re feeding off of all of this, but I promise you they were not happy. They were so alone and it didn’t protect them, it just made it worse. Think about it, the logic of this world. There are threats out there of unimaginable horror, and yet they were still assigned here, it’s their worst nightmare. And you were assigned here too. You’re all suffering, just in different ways, but all calculated to be your personal worst.”

“The Martin Blackwood you thought you knew doesn’t exist anymore. He had to be filed down, too many breaks and tears in him that grew and grew, any time someone raised a harsh word. The best way for him to be protected, is for him to go away entirely. You cannot hurt something that doesn’t exist.”

“Are you sure about that? Because you just said ‘I’.”

“What? ” That anger reemerged again, and as staunched as it was it was beautiful, a return to form amongst the dull monotone, reminiscent of the few times Jon had been privileged enough to witness a truly pissed off Martin Blackwood.

Jon found himself grinning. “You said ‘I am safe here’. Emphasis on the ‘I’. Ergo, you still have some form of identity left, and thus I would wager that the part of you left is Martin. Unless I’ve wandered across some other avatar of the Lonely who sounds like him, of course.”

“You’re always so fucking smug, you know that?”

The voice is coming from behind him. Actually, physically, presently behind him and Jon spins around so fast he’s almost dizzy.

And as much as it made his heart soar, and much as he was glad to finally, finally , see him again when he’d thought he never would, Martin looked… Bad.

His skin had darkened, mottled and blotchy with large swathes of a bruise-like blue or sickly green cropping up across his face and neck, or the parts of his forearms visible where his cable knit sleeves rolled back. It was like frostbite from the cold, or some disturbing onset of trench-foot from the damp, corpselike and unsettling. What was worse, though, were the parts that simply ceased. His hair didn’t even reach the tips, simply fading out into a grey static that merged with the mist, and it consumed his eyes whole, tear tracks streaking down his face in patterns of fuzzy, crackling grey that snapped and popped in the silence, far too reminiscent of a tape.

The sight made Jon’s heart clench like a fist, the combination of relief and horror, and in that moment he understood Jane Prentiss more completely than he ever had before. It would’ve felt like a rude comparison to consciously make, the person he cared for most equated to a pulped and writhing mass that churned out creatures that made your skin crawl before tearing into it. But he knew what she had seen in it, that call towards the thing that fascinated you, despite the turning it causes in your stomach.

Despite this, however, Jon steeled himself. This was rapidly becoming a battle, and he couldn’t afford the cost of emotions. He had to keep Martin, well… Martin. Draw out the emotion. In short, be a bit of a bastard. So instead, he cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you liked that about me?”

He could see Martin’s fists clench, the colour of his extremities dyed black from frostbite. The irritation was still clear as he started into “Fucking hell J-” but they both appeared taken aback as he dissolved into a choking, hacking cough.

It took everything in him for Jon to tamp down the need to surge forward, put a hand on his back and ask if he was okay. It was a strangely mundane thing; the man was made out of static and fog and despite seeming to have an on-and-off-again relationship with his corporeal form, this was the first recognisably human thing to adversely affect him. Why, though? What had Martin done to trigger- Oh. Oh .

“That- That priest from the statement… 0113005? Father Burroughs. He couldn’t say the name of god. Anything related to it, really. And you… You couldn’t say my…”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Martin spat. “You’re not a god or thee god, whatever your new eye magic might imply. It’s just…” He let out a breath that turned into a grumble. While his eyes had always been cloudy, he was now refusing to meet Jon’s gaze.

Regardless, it still drew a breathy laugh out of him. “No, I’m not that far gone into my own self importance yet. But… It’s about the connection, isn’t it?” Something in the conversation had changed, it’s tone or it’s flow, that felt contradicting. Tension coiling up to spring, or they’re barrelling towards a culmination, but at the same time, Jon felt like the wind had been kicked right out of him. He lowered himself to the ground, slowly, settling among the grass and trying to ignore the unpleasant dampness under him. Hey, he could feel the damp again. That was something.

“That’s more flattering, actually, I would say… The Lonely, it thinks if you acknowledge me directly, that would loosen it’s hold on you.” Jon huffed out a breath. “You know I listened to all the tapes. What was it that Daisy said to you, when I was on the run? ‘People say you two are close’? Well, the Lonely appears to agree.” He took a minute before adding, “I would, as well. And, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was too… Too in my own head, before, to admit it. Too much of a coward to do it before that, even. But you need to know I love you. And I know that you… Cared for me, at least? Even if I stuck my head in the sand to ignore it. But the Lonely seems to think you do, still. So will you please come back to me? I know it’s not- I know it won’t be much better, travelling through the domains, but it’s all I can offer and it has to be better than this. I can’t promise anything kind will be waiting for us in London, but you’d be yourself again, and I can’t… Martin, I can’t lose you again. To leave here, again, without you, I’d be losing you. Please.”

“No.”

There wasn’t even a delay to his response, stating it in monotone the second Jon had finished speaking. It felt like ice, lancing through his heart.

“Martin. Martin, please -”

“I said no. I thought you would’ve learned by now; I’m not exactly amenable when you come crawling to me with half baked plans of escape. Because you don’t love me, you love the idea of me. You are quite literally the only free man left in the world and you’re lonely . So you’re looking for a familiar face. Kind Martin, caring Martin, always there with tea and taking your side in every argument. Defending you to Tim when you’d just as soon slag him off behind his back, or on tape. Pretty appealing when everyone else is trying to kill you. At least he treated you like a god before this even started.”

Each sentence felt like another dagger to the chest, and it took him a moment to compose himself, tears forming at the corner of his eyes. Eventually, though, Jon spoke. “That’s not true, though. I- Martin I can’t apologise enough that that’s what it’s felt like, for you. But I need you to know, that isn’t true. A-At the start, maybe, I can’t deny I was stupid and spiteful, but you didn’t deserve any of it. And after that… I didn’t do a one-eighty and decide you were a doormat. I liked you because you were secretly enough of a prick as well. Any time you’d pull me out for lunch when I dragged my heels, or argued back when I said something shitty, that was… It felt like I was seeing the real you. The one you didn’t want to let people think of you as, but the one you were, because despite wanting to appear like the picture of innocence, you are a bitch, Martin Blackwood. And that’s my favourite thing about you. Maybe time is sweetening my memory, slightly, but I truly don’t believe there’s rose coloured glasses here. If we walk out of here, I’m not under any sort of illusion that it’ll be a honeymoon. We will doubtless find something to argue over, if not several, but I want that. I want you at my side to, to disagree and point out all my blind spots. We’re both stubborn bastards but I’m stupidly fallible, and I need you to keep me balanced. I don’t want a yes-man, I want you, Martin, and I’m asking for that knowing full well what it entails.”

When the words stopped flowing, he found himself gasping for breath, sobs building in his chest and threatening to spill over. But Martin was standing closer.

“That’s- I don’t- Fuck.” As Jon looked up, wiping at his own eyes, he could see fog starting to trickle from Martin’s mouth, coming in short bursts as his nostrils flared and chest rose and fell noticeably for the first time that Jon had seen since he stepped foot onto the moors. This caused a conflict of emotion in Jon, because while it seemed to be another step towards humanity, Martin letting the Lonely fall to the wayside in favour of reclaiming himself, it also looked far too close to a panic attack to be something worth celebrating.

“I don’t understand,” he finally settled on, voice cracking on the words. He slowly let himself sink to the ground opposite Jon, knees pulled up to his chest. “I left you. Time and again I left you. I left you to work with Lukas, and I left you when you tried to get me to run away, and I left you when I stayed on the beach.” His palms were pressed into his eyes, mist seeping from between his knuckles as he dragged them across his face, though Jon couldn’t be sure if he was attempting to wipe the fog away, or if he was stalling while he faltered, trying to summon the words. Both, maybe. Jon took the silence from him.

“You didn’t really choose that, though. You didn’t feel like you even had a choice. So Martin if… If you’re worried that I think badly of you for that, I don’t. Martin, I’ve done so many terrible things, so to- No, no, actually I don’t mean it like that. I don’t mean that you’re a good person, compared with me. I think you’re a good person full stop. And I just want you to be able to see that. I know the Lonely is quite literally clouding your judgement right now but… Please, just, just make me a deal?”

Martin’s palms were resting on his chin now, cupping his cheeks and curving around his neck. He nodded once, wearily, for Jon to continue.

Jon drew in a breath “I think I’m in some sort of… Bubble. Like a miniature domain, when I’m travelling. I think, if you agree to come with me, even for a little bit, that might dissolve some of the Lonely’s more adverse effects. Make it easier to think, to, to be yourself without its influence. If that is what happens, and you want to return… I’ll bring you back. But please, just… Try? For me?”

Martin sighed, hands dropping from his face. “...Fine.”

“You- Really?”

“Yes. I… Look, J-” Martin bit back another coughing fit. “Look. I am… There is a lot of me right now that wants to leave. The fog is… It’s in my head, figuratively, probably even literally, but… I remember something Basira said. When she got back, from, from The Unknowing . Melanie wanted to know how she got out, when the other three… When you, and Daisy, and Tim, didn’t. She said she reasoned her way out. So I’m going to listen to reason for a minute, as much as it’s paining me.”

Despite those final words, Jon felt his face crack into a smile. “That’s… Yes, you’re right. Well that’s… That’s a very reasonable connection to make.”

And for the first time in a long time, Martin smiled.

“Uhm, so how does this work then?” He eventually said, hand coming up again to scratch the back of his neck in an old nervous habit Jon could not be more happy to see.

“Well”, Jon said, taking a moment to brush sodden grass from his trousers as he got to his feet, “I would say, based on the dream logic that everything here seems to run on here, it should be rather simple.” He held out a hand to tug Martin up after him.

Martin took it.

It was almost cliché, how the Lonely fell away from him. It only took a few seconds, all in all, for the bruising to fade, receding their colourful splotches until his skin lay clear again. His frostbitten fingers healing themselves, sewing broken skin back together and returning to a healthy colour. His face, too, was returning to its original pallor, the change creeping up his neck and across his cheeks and leaving rich brown in its wake. Dark eyes stared down at Jon from behind long lashes, blinking away the last of the fog. He was beautiful.

“Hi,” Jon managed to choke out.

“Hi,” Martin said, and pulled him into his arms.

Jon just let himself be held in the pressure of the embrace for a moment, before bringing a hand up to card his fingers through Martin’s hair. While it had solidified into soft curls, the colour had stayed the same, bleaching it white under his fingertips. He wasn’t sure if Martin had noticed or not, but that was a conversation for another time. They were both a little preoccupied for the moment.

“How do you feel?” Jon eventually said, words pressed into the side of Martin’s neck.

“Uhm. Strange?” Martin eventually settled on. “It’s… I can remember what my thought process was, what the Lonely was pushing me to believe, but it’s like… It’s like the camera panned out, and now I can see it all clearly, and it looks… It looks stupid. Thank you, Jon. For coming to get me.”

“Of course,” Jon whispered, “Of course.”

Another moment passed before Martin spoke up again. “...Did you mean what you said, though? Or was that… Was that just to try and get me to leave? I- I won’t be angry, if it was, that- that’s very clever, I just want to know.”

Jon furrowed his brow. “Which part do you mean?”

Martin let out an agitated sigh. “You- You know which one I mean, Jon. The- The part where that you said that you…”

“That I love you?” Jon said, picking up where Martin trailed off.

Martin’s face flushed, and just the sight of colour spreading across it made Jon’s heart soar, let alone the implications of why . “Of course I did. I- I’m sorry that you would think I would lie about that, even for something like this. No, Martin, I love you. So very much. And I know you might not feel that way anymore, in which case I am very much embarrassing myself here, but I know that you did at one stage so I hope it won’t make things too awkward between us.” “I do, Jon.”

“What?”

“I do. Still feel that way. I love you too, of course I do. My hero.”

It was Jon’s turn to feel his face flush, pleasant warmth bubbling to the surface. “Oh,” was all he managed to stutter out.

“Can I- Jon do you mind if I…” Martin trailed off again, and Jon began to think this might be a recurring theme between them. He’d make it work. He was pretty good at reading Martin, and the eyeline pointed directly at his lips made intentions quite clear.

“Is- Would just the cheek be okay?” He replied. It didn’t really feel like the time for a full run down on where boundaries lay, but he figured it was a start.

“More than,” Martin said, leaning down to press his lips softly against Jon’s cheek. He lingered for a few seconds, skin largely healed but still chapped from the cold, and it was one of the most beautiful things Jon had ever felt. He slipped one hand into Martin’s, and he felt their fingers twine together.

Martin leaned back, clearly trying to calm his grin into something more close-lipped and calm. “Where to now then?”

“Uhm. Forward, really, is just how I’ve been going. There isn’t any real sense of geography to it, we’ll just…. Get there when we get there.”

“Right. Because nothing can be simple these days.”

Jon missed this. He missed him. But he didn’t have to miss him anymore, did he? He was right there.

He squeezed his hand once, and started leading the way.

[smokestarrules]

Reading Rise of Kyoshi

Sooooo I’m starting Rise of Kyoshi now and imma be honest I’ve only seen Avatar and Korra once and that was like ten years ago so I might be a bit slow with the worldbuilding and references but ill try to keep up lmao

I think this takes place before both of those shows, though? I think. I hope. Also I'm pretty sure Kyoshi Warriors are a thing ? That's like. Suki's thing, right That's their name? So that's cool, I'm excited to see how that gets started/inspired. (Warning: this is very very long I apologize but I had Thoughts)

-

“The same way you convinced Lu Beifong to let us administer the Air Nomad test in the Earth Cycle,” Kelsang said calmly. 

- okay I recognize Beifong. That's Toph's family, yeah? Though obviously she's not alive yet.

-

This is making me wonder if any Avatars have ever been assassinated as children. Clearly there are some people who don't like that they exist, so I wonder if it's almost safer to have the Avatar stay in hiding until they're old enough to protect themselves.

-

Some couldn’t take a hint. Especially the village captain. As soon as they’d passed over her daughter—Aoma, or something—she’d given them a look of utter contempt and demanded to see a higher-ranking master. 

- SHE'S A KAREN

-

The girl took a long, guarded moment, sizing them up. “Kyoshi,” she whispered. 

- oh no I already want to protect her

-

HA she just ran off with it

-

NINE YEARS LATER-

-

First of all, these children are awful. Secondly -

  Kyoshi grimaced and opened her eyes. Peace was no longer an option. Because now Rangi was here. 

- isn't that her??? Her??? She??! I think so ??

-

“The Avatar’s bodyguard,” Aoma said with a faint smile. “I thought you weren’t supposed to leave his side. Aren’t you slacking off?" 

- she's her BODYGUARD ??

-

“Get off of me, you oaf,” Rangi muttered. She hammered her fists against Kyoshi’s protective embrace, a bird beating its wings against a cage. Kyoshi got to her knees and saw that her face and ears were nearly as red as her armor. 

- I love them.

-

Who is Yun. I'm confused

-

I'm in love with Rangi already tho

-

I'm getting attached to Yun and I don't WANT to get attached to Yun because I'm pretty sure he's going to die???? Because Kyoshi? Is the Avatar, yeah?? But I don't think that's how the power transfer even works so like. I'm just confused lmfao

-

“Kyoshi,” Kelsang said, his voice constricted and airless. “Kyoshi, where did you learn THAT SONG?” 

- ahaha what the fuck is going on

-

“Tell me this—with the two of you as close as you are, has Yun ever once told you the details?” 

- is Yun faking it???? Or is Jianzhu lying to him??? I'm so confused???

-

NONE OF THEM KNOW, THAT'S EVEN WORSE

-

Kuruk was in love with Hei-Ran and if they'd gotten together then Rangi wouldn't have existed and that is goddamn hilarious

-

OKAY so basically the situation is down to pure chance. Cool. That’s fine. But guys. I’m not the best at math, but I’m pretty sure a clever boy who uses the same strategy in a game than the last Avatar did is quite a bit more likely than someone randomly coming up with a word-for-word exact poem that the Avatar had constructed in secret. Like I know denial’s a bitch but guys. 

-

“Hey,” Yun said. “I was looking for you.” 

- oh god oh fuck

-

A decorative pillow hit him in the face. Kyoshi’s eyes went wide in disbelief. Rangi looked utterly horrified at what she’d done. She’d attacked the Avatar. She stared at her hands like they were covered in blood. A traitor’s eternal punishment awaited her in the afterlife. 

- I would lay down my life for Rangi!!!!!!!

-

....Jianzhu gives me bad vibes.

-

Man, miss Tagaka is not here to play!! Spilling tea left and right

-

“What about you, honey tree? Got any ink on your body that you want to show meeeaggh!” Kyoshi picked him up by the neck with one hand and slammed him into the cliffside. 

- so true queen get his ass

-

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping with Yun?” Kyoshi said. Rangi’s head turned so fast she almost snapped her own neck. “You know what I mean,” Kyoshi said.

- I love these kids sm

-

Eventually Rangi fell into a deep sleep, radiating warmth like a little glowing coal in the hearth. Kyoshi realized that comforting her throughout the night was both an honor and a torture she wouldn’t have traded for anything in the world. 

- me and who????

-

“Another thing you should know,” Tagaka said as she traded grins with Yun, their muscles trembling with exertion. “I’m really not the Waterbender my father was.” 

- ok I know she's being rly Awful right now but pretending earlier to be an awful bender only to reveal she's a phenomenal one is really fucking cool

-

Kyoshi braced her stomach, filled her lungs, and slammed her feet into the Crowding Bridge stance. Echoes of power rippled from her movement, hundredfold iterations of herself stamping on the ice. She was somehow both leading and being led by an army of benders. 

- THERE SHE IS

-

Yun stood up, navigating the thrashing floor with ease. He came closer, his lips parting slightly. She thought he was going to whisper something reassuring in her ear. And then he sidestepped her. Slid right by, with a layer of empty space between them as impenetrable as steel. 

- Well. Shit.

-

That day, entranced by Yun’s upside-down features dappled with the flower petals she’d teasingly sprinkled over his face, she’d almost leaned down and kissed him. And he knew it. Because he’d almost reached up and kissed her. 

- these two are interesting... I'm thinking maybe right person wrong time? I'm curious to see how this all ends up when Rangi is brought into the mix, too.

-

“It’s this one,” the spirit said. “The girl. She’s the Avatar.”

- THERE IT ISSSS

-

....and Yun's gone. This is why I didn’t want to get attached to him, that kid was throwing death flags all over the place. I would like Jianzhu to die now please

-

“So much wasted time,” Jianzhu said. “I could have taught you sooner, if only I hadn’t been distracted by that little swindler.” 

- I WAS SO VERY RIGHT TO BE WARY OF THIS ASSHOLE

-

Jianzhu’s composure broke fully for the first time today. “Really, Kel?” he shouted. “You think so little of me these days that you panicked when I took the Avatar on a trip by myself and broke into my room? I can’t trust the people closest to me anymore!?” 

- THIS WOULD MAKE A GREAT POINT IF YOU JUST HADN'T HAD A BOY KILLED, SIR

-

Kelsang collapsed to the ground, his head bouncing lifelessly off the hard-packed earth. Those were the last things Kyoshi saw before the white glow behind her eyes took over her entire being. 

- this isn't a joke anymore, kick his ass.

-

There was a shock waiting for her. Rangi was busy securing bedrolls, tents, and other bales of supplies to Pengpeng’s saddle. She looked up at Kyoshi from under the hood of her raincloak. 

- thank god for Rangi.

-

“You’re not coming with me,” Kyoshi said. “I have to do this alone.” The Firebender gave her a look of such utter contempt for that notion that it could have been grounds for an Agni Kai. 

- Lmao, yeah, Kyoshi hon I don't think you're winning this one

-

Better to tear off this bandage quickly. He told her the version of events she needed to hear. Kyoshi being the true Avatar. The disappearance of both Yun and Kelsang, caused by a treacherous spirit. The Avatar holding a grudge against him for it.

- GOD I wanna punch his face so bad

-

“We can minimize the damage if we get her back quickly,” she said. “She can’t have gone far on her own—she’s a maid, for crying out loud. I’ll send Rangi to hunt her down. The two of them are friends; she’ll know where Kyoshi would run to.” 

- HAHA yeah. About that,,,,

-

“That’s right,” she said. It felt like her mouth had become her stomach, unwieldy and sour. “My parents founded this group. They’re your bosses." 

- .....Oh, fuck.

-

A blast of flame shot into the darkening sky. And then another, the source slightly to the right. Rangi was signaling to her where to go. Kyoshi felt her heart skip a beat for her friend. It was either that or a conniption from running at full speed for so long. 

- Jesus. Yeah, clearly it's the second. (/s)

-

Kyoshi sent an apology into the cosmos for the damage she was about to cause and barreled straight into the cluster of buildings. If she couldn’t be a creature of grace, then she’d be a battering ram. 

- lmfao I love her she just ran straight through three different concrete walls

-

Kyoshi had always admired Rangi. But right now, it felt as if she were gazing at her friend through a pane of glass freshly cleaned. Some mighty and loving spirit had reached down from the heavens and outlined the Firebender in new strokes of color and vibrance. There was a struggle in Kyoshi’s chest that had nothing to do with how hard she was running, notes of longing and fear played in one chord. She tamped the feeling down, not wanting to confront what it meant right now. In any case, it was a poor time to be distracted. 

- awwwww. Rangi is apparently at her most attractive when she's running from policemen <3

-

And worst of all, she’d forgotten Yun. It didn’t matter how long the lapse was. To release her grip on him, even for a second, was unforgivable.

- honey... it's okay to heal. I promise.

-

Rangi waved her hand around at the room, at Hujiang, at the Taihua Mountains themselves. “To see you here? It kills me. The fact that you’re stuck here, where no one knows who you truly are, makes me die a little inside with each passing moment. You’re meant to have the best of everything and instead you have this." 

- yeah,.... I'm with Rangi... everything lowkey sucks right now akdjdsskdkdk

-

Kyoshi followed his gaze. It took all of her newfound willpower not to shriek in horror. Rangi was standing on the fighting platform. 

- RANGI WHAT ARE YOU D O I N G

-

Rangi had spun out from under the man’s foot, rotating on her shoulders like a top, and wrapped her body around his standing leg. She’d made a subtle twist, and his limb shattered along every plane it could. The champion lay out on the canvas, writhing in pain, his leg reduced to an understuffed stocking attached to his body. Rangi stood over him, bleeding from the mouth. Other than the single punch she’d taken, she was fine. She hadn’t broken a sweat.

- yes well done but Kyoshi is going to murder you and you desERVE IT

-

“I know,” she said, her heart aching. “Yun would have been a much better—” 

- GOD Kyoshi, sweetheart, that's not it at all! When Rangi says she's disappointed about where you are right now, it's because she thinks you deserve better, not that you're not deserving of the title! Get that through your head!

-

“You think you don’t deserve peace and happiness and good things, but you do!” Rangi yelled. “You, Kyoshi! Not the Avatar, but you!” 

- THANK YOU FOR JUST SAYING IT BECAUSE IT NEVER WOULD HAVE CLICKED IF YOU DIDNT

-

Kyoshi gently nudged Rangi’s chin upward. She could no more prevent herself from doing this than she could keep from breathing, living, fearing. “I do feel loved,” she declared. Rangi’s beautiful face shone in reflection. Kyoshi leaned in and kissed her. 

- oh thank goodness they figured it out <333

-

But the sound of laughter pulled her back. Rangi was coughing, drowning herself with her own tears and mirth. She caught her breath and retook Kyoshi by the hips, turning to the side, offering up the smooth, unblemished skin of her throat. "That side of my face is busted up, stupid,” she whispered in the darkness. “Kiss me where I’m not hurt.” 

- jesus fucking that fake-out scared the life out of me but everything's ok

-

“Must have been nice,” Kirima said, barely able to contain her laughter. “Sleeping under the stars. Just two friends. Having a close, private moment of friendship." 

- right? Just gals being pals! No but seriously this made me cackle omFG

-

The darkness of her abandonment must have boiled to her surface as the three of them trudged uphill back toward town, because Rangi ran the back of her nails down Kyoshi’s hand, a playful and teasing distraction that held more meaning now than a hundred volumes of history. Kyoshi nearly tripped and fell on her face. 

- oh lord she's a disaster

Also I'm just really happy that they've gotten together like, barely after halfway through and not at the very end! Very cool

-

Two large dark holes, nostrils, sucked air in all directions until they pointed straight at Kyoshi. 

- This is why we can't have nice things, goddammit.

-

She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m the Avatar.” 

- yeah, I agree with this decision. At this point, lies will only hurt them all as a group.

-

The fan she’d been holding had come out of her belt as she clenched up in surprise. She was gripping it the wrong way, like a dagger. The tip of the weapon pointed to the little blob of water hovering in midair. 

- HELL YEAH

-

Amid the shouting, Rangi buried her face in her hands. She seemed to have a headache that rivaled Lek’s. Kyoshi agreed with her. The official training of the Avatar was off to a great start.

- sjdhfksjsjs this is gonna go wonderfully.

-

Rangi’s face wilted further. “I don’t know,” she said after a while. Her shoulders were heavy with dejection. “I couldn’t be certain. I guess if we can’t trust my own mother, then we can’t trust anyone." 

- ugh, poor baby. I... like to think that if Hei-Ran learned the full truth she'd be on Kyoshi's side over Jianzhu, but I'm not sure, which sucks.

-

“Buzz off!” Rangi yelled. 

- #LetRangiSayFuck2022

-

“Why?” Kyoshi felt Rangi leap onto her back, clinging to her like a rucksack. “Agh! Why!” 

- LMFAO this is putting a new meaning to climbing someone like a tree

-

Ah, I spoke too soon, Rangi is also demonstrating the original meaning of climbing someone like a tree

-

How about we just get Hei-Ran, Rangi, and Kyoshi all to kill Jianzhu together in friendship and love and then they tell the world that he was evil. Ya know, the truth. Everything could be so simple. For legal reasons this is a joke but like /hj yknow

-

Jianzhu checked another body. It had no decoration on its person, but he backtracked along the path the man had charged and found what he was looking for on the ground. A dried moon peach blossom. 

- GOD I'd love it if these two groups just took each other out that'd be SO helpful actually

-

“She would have been accompanied by a Firebender. Another girl, black hair, military bearing—” 

- WELL SHIT YEAH THE DAOFEI ARE GONNA REMEMBER RANGI EVEN IF THEY DONT REMEMBER KYOSHI GODDAMMIT RANGI

-

The girl had been here at some point, that was certain. She must have planned to hide in the remote mountains and fallen into an ambush, like he nearly did. She’d been captured and taken to this headquarters. 

- the faith Jianzhu has in the literal Avatar astounds me

-

I understand the point of Lao Ge, and I even understand some of his points and the way he views the world. But having said that.... I just really don't want him anywhere near Kyoshi. Not in the slightest

-

“Sifu,” she drawled. “Oh, please, impart upon me the mysteries of immortality, for I wish to watch eras pass before my eyes like the grains of an hourglass."

 - WAIT I've just had a thought (memory???) isn't it A Thing that Kyoshi's like, the longest-lived Avatar ever? (Unless u count Aang maybe?) or am I pulling that out of my ass. I think that's a thing(?)

-

The knife clattered to the ground. The eyes of the Flying Opera Company were as big and wide as the moon overhead. Everyone was shocked into silence, including Wai, who seemed numbed by sheer disbelief from the pain coursing up his arm. "Forgive me, Uncles,” Kyoshi said, finding it supremely easy to speak now. “I saw a poisonous insect and thought to save your lives." 

- HA GET FUCKED

-

“Those are our colors,” Wong said as he dipped his thumb and began to gently apply the paint to her cheeks. “White symbolizes treachery, a sinister nature, suspicion of others, and the willingness to visit evil deeds upon them.” Kyoshi could hear Rangi snort so loudly Te might have heard it in his palace. "But,” Wong said, scooping into the other side of the case with his forefinger. “Red symbolizes honor. Loyalty. Heroism. This is the face that we show our sworn brothers and sisters. The red is the trust we have for each other, buried in the field of white but always showing through in our gaze." 

- ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

-

It had become clear during their surveillance that Te’s palace had a critical security weakness. It lacked a moat. Kyoshi was providing one for him, free of charge. 

- HA I LIKE THIS PLAN

-

The boy stared at her with a round, soft face full of defiance. “I’m Te Sihung,” he said. “I’m the Governor." 

- well, fuck.

-

Kyoshi thrust an arm behind her and blasted Lao Ge down the tunnel with a ball of wind. 

- OH HELL YEAH IDK WHAT YOU'RE DOING BUT I'M WITH YOU GET HIS ASS

-

Kyoshi let the breeze play against her skin before giving it a gentle push with her hand. The wind spun faster at her request. She could feel Kelsang smiling warmly at her, a final gift of love. "They’ll always be with us,” she said to Rangi. “Always." 

- brb I'm sobbing

-

Kyoshi ran at the far wall. And then she ran higher. And higher. The earth flicked at the soles of her feet, propelling her upward. She continued to dust-step until she landed on top of the roof. 

- SHE'S DOING THE THINGGG

-

“Thank you,” Te said, wobbling from the lack of a saddle. “I’ll give you anything you want. Money, offices—” Kyoshi backhanded him hard across the mouth. 

- the AUDACITY of this child

-

“But I think we’ve suffered enough losses, don’t you?” Xu said. “Five thousand. Five thousand of our compatriots snuffed out like vermin.” 

- shit fuck oh shit oh no I recognize that number sHIT

-

Trying to split the difference with neutral jing had been the wrong choice. “I made a mistake,” Kyoshi said. “We have to get down there. Now.” 

- YEAH LET'S GO BE HEROES

-

Kyoshi pointed at Xu. “Xu Ping An! I challenge you to face me on the lei tai, immediately!” 

- YOU GOT THIS SWEETHEART

-

“I’m sorry, Sifu,” she said. “But I’m not doing this as a killer. I’m doing this as the Avatar. Even if the world won’t know it.” 

- yeah. She can't be exactly like Lao Ge, even if she once wanted to be. And I think that's a good thing.

-

And she was playing the wrong game entirely. Xu thrust his arms forward, two fingers extended from each hand, and struck her fans with a bolt of lightning. 

- HUH???? ??? LIGHT NING???

-

“Stop!” she heard Rangi cry from far away. “Please stop!” It was the hopelessness in her voice that set Kyoshi over the edge, the complete surrender of a girl who would have been invincible if not for her love. Kyoshi had put that weakness in Rangi, and Xu had torn it open. He was torturing the person Kyoshi cared about most in the world. And by every spirit of every star in the night sky, he would pay for that. 

- GET HIS ASS

-

Kyoshi looked down the length of her arm at Xu. He shielded his eyes from hers, her inner light too harsh to take in. His mouth gaped open and shut like a fish. The air was moving too fast for him to breathe. "You forget, Xu,” she said, and a legion of voices synchronized in the eye of the storm. “There is always someone who stands above you in judgment." 

- YOU TELL HIM HE'S SO SCREWED

-

And Xu had exhausted his. Kyoshi was the only thing holding him up. She opened her hand and watched him fall. 

- gottim.

-

“You’re . . . really good at throwing rocks,” she blurted out. 

- omfg Kyoshi honey we need to take some socialization lessons

-

Hei-Ran curled up on the couch, hugging her knees. She looked so young when she did that. "I don’t want to respond,” she said. “I want to tell Hui and the sages the truth so they can help us extend the search. Jianzhu, I don’t care about the Avatar anymore. I want my daughter back.” 

- YES ok let's go Fire Mom we can all beat Jianzhu up together I'm manifesting it

-

GOD I hate Jianzhu.

-

Alone, he picked up Te’s letter again. He’d been right not to give Hei-Ran the full story. He’d always been by himself in this game. 

- SHIT

-

Their numbers were surprising. He hadn’t realized these many sages fell outside his sphere of influence. Perhaps about a fifth of the most important people in the Earth Kingdom had arrived on his doorstep with hostile intent.

 - I know this is probably bad for literally everyone but imma be honest I'm just enjoying Screw Jianzhu Day

-

Jianzhu collapsed forward, his upper body slamming against the table. He couldn’t see Hei-Ran. But like the needle of a compass, his hand reached toward her as he blacked out. 

- oh ??? OH??? PLEASE tell me this was Hei-Ran somehow omfg

-

There was no way these gloves would be acceptable in polite company. Their very appearance was aggressive, a declaration of war. "They’re perfect,” Kyoshi said. “What do we owe you?”

- lmfao I love her

-

Quick question wtf is happening everyone's dying suddenly

-

Feet ran over to them. Pairs of hands quickly grabbed Rangi and dragged her away. Just Rangi. 

- HEY QUICK QUESTION WTF IS HAPPENING IS THIS HEI-RAN??? that's fine if so BUT SHE BETTER NOT KILL LEK

-

She(?) killed Lek. What the fuck

-

Pinned to the paper it was written on was a silky black topknot of hair, crudely severed from its owner’s head. 

- oh my GOD OKAY IT'S NOT HEI-RAN WTF IS HAPPENINGGG

-

Murdering Hui and the other sages in his own home was nothing. Drinking the poison himself to blunt suspicion, trusting in the training that the departed Master Amak had put him through as well as Yun, was nothing. A good number of servants were dead as well, the ones who’d used the leftover boiled water he’d dosed for their own cups. 

- OH MY FUCKING GOD I WANT THS MAN TO DIE

-

Oh boo-hoo this asshole still really thinks he's the goddamn tragic hero of the story

-

Jianzhu frowned at her. “The fact that you think so means you need proper training and education more than anything. It’s time to stop this nonsense, Kyoshi. Come home." 

- THIS 'NONSENSE' ?? SIR.

-

This man better keep Rangi's name out his mouth i swear to fuck

-

God the way they're describing this stand-off between Kyoshi and Jianzhu both trying to bend at the same time is sooo good I!!, am stressed!

-

The person who stood over them with all the familiarity in the world threw his hood back. It was Yun. 

- HUH ????

-

Yun gently put his other hand, still stained with black ink, to Jianzhu’s back. After another second passed, he showed them what had traveled between his palms. The stone, now covered in blood. 

- oh my god.

-

Rangi buried her face in Kyoshi’s chest. She shuddered and wept, but she was otherwise unharmed. 

- oh nooooo poor baby :((((

-

Was it over? Kyoshi found she had no answer to that question at all. 

- mm, I have a sneaking suspicion it's only beginning.

-

“The will refers to you by name, Avatar Kyoshi. Master Jianzhu sent the copies by messenger hawks only a few weeks ago. In the documents he confesses to his great mistake in wrongly identifying the Avatar and beseeches his colleagues to give you their full support, as he posthumously does. His lands, his riches, his house—they’re yours now." 

- HA GOTTIM

-

She stared at the spirit of the man whom she knew was dead. The man who’d been Jianzhu and Hei-Ran and Kelsang’s friend. The man who’d been her predecessor in the Avatar cycle. "Kuruk?” 

- aayyy it's you from the past! But also not!

- - - -

And that's the end of Rise of Kyoshi, thank god I have Shadow of Kyoshi on hand, because I am planning to start it tonight. I assume we're going to be dealing with good 'ol Kuruk here, as well as YUN BEING ALIVE and also we better address Jinpa's weird-ass "we" statement. What's that all about ?!!

Anyways, I really enjoyed reading this!!!

The characters are all fantastic, even awful ones (*cough* Jianzhu *cough*) and I had a blast. 

[worldsover]

Judgement to the Desiccated ft. Karina

length ✦ 5573

genres ✧ sm type future; asphyxiation; blackmail; virtual_servant!Karina;

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Air did a poor job of not being polluted so Lee Soo Man flooded the world instead. The man himself certainly must be long gone and could not have been in charge of that decision but the legacy of his company far exceeds the legacy of any other human collective in history. Once on this planet, gas was the fluid of choice for respiration and breathing was an unconscious reflex. Now there’s Aether by SM. How very on-brand of them to have the liquid air you breathe follow perfume naming conventions.

Open your eyes and exit the sleeping chamber. Aether has you work for each inhalation, it desaturates the color of the bedroom—maybe there’s a subtle but uncomfortable tinge of yellow—and it makes your nose itch. Your muscles wield much less force than they used to because of the lack of resistance the fluid provides. Moreover, it smells like hairspray as though the ozone layer is taking sardonic revenge.

Screens impersonating windows track your eyes to ensure realistic parallax, playing the scene of divine blue heavens that could not exist. An azure sky is a reward for those planets that have an atmosphere and a sun for light to scatter. Your walls are either chrome or drywall white and your whole bedroom is plainly decorated just like the day you moved in.

“Etymology of bedroom,” you think out loud, though it falls on no ears.

“Bedroom is a compound noun consisting of bed and room. Bed goes back to Old English bedd ‘sleeping place, plot of ground prepared for plants,’ which goes back to the Germanic-”

Plants and sleep are both strong words to use nowadays. The former doesn’t exist in nature and it seems you’re the only one who bothers with the latter. Faint buzzing distracts you from the AI’s response and signals you to the nano drones that swim throughout the liquid to process carbon dioxide from your lungs. This whole ordeal could’ve been much worse if you didn’t have brain interfaces doing the hard part of controlling your diaphragm. The most you need is a purposeful thought. Still, it gets tiring having to think the same thought every three seconds. In. Out.

Was the metaphorical Soo Man teaching a lesson in perseverance? You love K-pop and imagine it’s how trainees used to practice dancing, singing, being charismatic. Being an idol had to be as natural as breathing air. Inhale and exhale. Right now with any antiquated programming language you clung on to, you could write a single for loop that did the same job. For every three seconds: breathe in, breathe out.

“What’s for breakfast today?” Not loud enough. “What’s for breakfast?” you think it louder.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready for service.” It’s quite a kindness for SM to blur the bland dystopia you live in by augmenting reality through your neural device. A bosomy woman in a gold-lined but otherwise modest maid outfit appears from the corner of your eye and she bows. Ae-Karina is bewitching and almost becoming of her basis as its graphics have gradually upgraded over the rotations but you wouldn’t misconstrue the avatar as human.

“I said, what’s for breakfast!” It feels impolite to scream in your head, there’s other residents there, but finally the fridge lights up.

“Of course master. May I remind you eating is unnecessary?”

In. Out. Every day, she does remind you, yes. How kind of the company to put all your nutritional requirements in the new air. Aether goes in then Aether goes out. You wish the thoughts of breathing could fade into the background but they’re just like your cravings for food. Always hungry but never starving, whole though not once satisfied. Your eyes pause at her gorgeous face and she tells you there’s bacon. Take it from your fridge. Bacon goes in. Well, the drones take care of the out.

Your assigned living space is the entire 207th floor of a tower. Two hundred and seven floors below the surface. The neighbor a few floors upstairs says that he thinks living deeper is a sign of status. What a luxury. That guy should check the status of his facial muscles, maybe improve his code that lets him tell lies while he’s at it. A couple hundred flights of stairs to swim up is a useless skeuomorphism of skyscrapers in the days of the sun. In fact they were more than useless, you would've preferred a single vertical hallway as it would have let you propel upwards unimpeded. Each floor is the exact same, a glass door that affords no privacy for its residence, a false tree on each side. At the upper levels, malls, convenience stores and other gaudy retail, but it’s the gyms that mock you that you mock in return. They’re always empty.

Finally reaching the top is no true break even if it is a change in scenery. Inhale. Aether tastes a little different up here. Exhale. Can’t say you like it.

Countless satellites form a parody of the star from which the planet flew away, the false image refracted by the upper boundary of Aether. They can’t take away your memories of this star. Looking up at the sky once blinded you with ultraviolet radiation, burning your cornea. It was beautiful. Now everyone’s decided that if they’re playing the part of corporate dystopia, they might as well fit the aesthetic. In a way, it’s self-fulfilling. They wouldn’t have chosen a neon pink sun to compliment the blue and metallic gloom of the cityscape if it weren’t so ingrained in popular media already.

Still, you would’ve expected Google or Walmart to become the megacorp responsible for the state of the world, not a Korean entertainment company. Must’ve been quite the red paperclip scenario. Instead of material design or utilitarian architecture, tacky artistic structures line the streets. The same advertisements for albums that they’ve been selling for the past however long. It's all so obvious, the city could've been designed from scratch to accommodate new forms of travel and goddamn liquid air but instead they went with futuristic Tokyo.

Dubstep permeates your inner ear implants. A notification informs your thoughts that it’s “Hip-hop EDM dance pop with a strong jungle house groove and urban influences.” It’s dubstep. Liquid carries barely any sound so SM affords the option for implants if you're nostalgic for one of the senses. Even though it’s a slower form of communication than direct neural transfer, the noise comforts you. Of course the company would choose dubstep as their background music, but maybe they make money off refunds somehow. It switches to Ice Cream Cake. Much better.

You walk the not so busy roads towards a short brick warehouse in the distance and heavy rain soaks your clothes. No such thing as weather without the sun and water but it’s all simulated anyway.

A warm Seulgi adlib and you know it’s Psycho that starts playing. No, none of your senses are real. The most you could trust is your vision but even that’s being lied to. You could be living in a vat and fed all these thoughts, but then why make it so mediocre? Not paradise, nor torture but a lukewarm in-between. Guess that's what happens when SM Entertainment manages the post-apocalypse. Good on them for trying. The alternative would be a frozen hellscape without solar radiation. Can’t deny their work with geothermal and nuclear energy to keep the Aether warm so that you didn’t have to live underground for the rest of human history. It’s quite great PR to save humanity.

“Hey now, we’ll be okay,” repeats a few more times than you remember.

The Idea Factory Alpha White Delta Green says the neon tubes lighting the front of the brick and mortar building. Your ID card bears a name but it’s not yours, not until they approve your name change. Those usually get processed faster with how often people liked changing their names.

Sit at a desk with a sterile white keyboard and slick new monitor. Type and empty words appear on the screen: “Think for the many, not for the one. We need to think ahead.” A thumbs up. The company appreciates the input. That’s probably enough work for one day. Some SNSD live stages help the time pass, SM certainly appreciated the streaming numbers and it would net you some social points.

It’s hard to say what comes to mind when they ask you to envision a world without the sun and air, especially since it’s what you’ve known for... Two hundred years? There’s no frame of reference, that much you can tell from when you counted seconds to see how often the satellites completed their orbit. SM really took time to have them propel at random speeds, they love withholding sensitive information like that from citizens. To be fair, time is sensitive. Guess the meaning of that phrase changes like all parts of language.

Look around. Dozens of employees at identical workspaces all try to answer the same questions. Naturally, there’s no need for manual labor anymore but there will never be a replacement for human ingenuity. Nice slogan but you know you’re only here for data. Can’t see a need for customer retention though—what’s the alternative, skip Earth? See you on another planet?

“Hey bro, you come up with anything new?” Dave says. Two desks away, you see the enthusiastic, surprisingly spry man play around with a Newton’s cradle. The balls at each end bounce back and forth, not slowing down their rhythm any time soon.

“I think I got something,” you say, “Earth is not the answer. It can’t be, long term.”

“Ooh, I like that. Actually, I really like that.”

“What are you gonna do, copy me?”

“Of course not. You know how much SM hates plagiarism.” Click. Clack.

“Ha. As if there’s a single original thought left in the world.” Click. Clack. The imaginary sounds of metal spheres bouncing play in your mind. They got the volume wrong, no way it’d sound that loud from that distance. “You’d think with all their resources, they’d have figured out space travel by now.”

“I don’t think they want to leave, bro. Wouldn’t be great for profits.”

Your mouth opens to laugh and causes laugh8942.mp3 to play in Dave’s head. “I love it. SM probably hates that sass too,” you say.

“Oh no, they’re gonna arrest me for thoughtcrimes. Nah, they love creativity, just when it suits them. Also, if they actually did bust you for wrongthink like rumors say, I wouldn’t have this on me.” Dave twirls a finger and points at you and you thank his absurd flair for the histrionic that keeps you amused with such drab work.

“NewDrug.mp6. Would you like to play it?” the dry system voice notifies you.

“Woah woah there tiger, hold on.” Dave must’ve noticed your intrigued eyes and holds his hands up. “You might wanna experience that at home. But if you’re interested in more, ask for chicken parm at the vegan place. You know the one.”

Dave leaves his desk. He doesn’t return. You finish your work. Inspire. Expire. You’d rather not.

In contrast to your commute to work, the roads fill with others on your way home. You have to know. Take solace in the comfort of a bench where a huge McDonald’s arch bathes the surroundings and its people with a yellow glow. Really shouldn’t watch it now, especially if Dave says it’s a home type of watch but you have to know. A family of five watches you pass out. They, along with every other passerby, ignore your still body draped over the chrome outdoor seating as you look like yet another junkie. The title is correct after a fashion, the simulation is some sort of new drug. The details of the exploits that happen in the immersive replay wash over you but you don’t need them to know that it’s the sort of lewd that SM would not allow—at least not publicly and not without the right exorbitant payment.

Suit pants and underwear go straight to the laundry. That must’ve been an embarrassing sight but no one bothered to stop you, so it doesn’t matter. Look up where this vegan place was that Dave so presumptuously assumed you knew about and you find that it’s about four Avengers’ stores down from work. He must’ve eaten there before.

“Yo Dave, just wanna make sure, what’s the name of the vegan place called?”

“What are you talking about, man? You telling me there’s some secret underground farms that SM wouldn’t know about?”

You can’t tell when you got to work, a lack of standardized timing would help as well the haze of living in a monotonous dark. “Nah, I mean, for the-”

“I have no idea,” Dave emphasizes each word, “what you’re talking about.”

“I see.”

Work flies by, unusually.

“Hey, can I get a chicken-”

“Uh, this is Maron’s Veggies Only, it clearly says on the sign.”

Clear your throat. “Parm.”

The shifty part-time worker looks around and rubs his fingers gesturing for money. “No digital.”

Over the counter, you pass him a gold coin stamped with a holographic 1 and he hands you a USB stick and a laptop in return. How old-fashioned.

“It’ll sync with whoever you have set as your avatar experience aspect,” the worker says.

“Thanks.”

Ever vigilant as the patrol is, the alleys are the last place you want to go to hide with the obvious criminal element within them all but you head to one anyway. Dump the anachronistic technology in your storage pocket dimensions. Looking at its contents, you’d have to clean that mess up later, but the more you look like an average slob the better. The biggest problem with the inventories is all the people squatting in them. Inspectors wouldn’t care about the archaic ruins you left in yours.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready to service.”

“I’d like to go on a date. A special date.” You highlight the key word special and sit on your living room couch. No one’s going to look in your glass door and regardless, you wouldn’t be the pervert for glimpsing into someone’s home.

“Ah yes, master. Ae-Karina is ready to fully service,” she says with a provocative tint in her tone, her sclera disperses to black to match. A pole drops from the ceiling while parts of her maid outfit dissolve which reveals more of the silky skin of her thighs, her lissom arms and most importantly her overflowing breasts. Ae-Karina wraps her legs around the pole and spins around, teasing fingers trace curves on her body to harden you. Her dance is precise but sultry regardless. She pulls up her short skirt to flaunt more of her ass beneath white panties and then pulls down to flourish her cleavage, not trapped by a bra. “Are you enjoying your maid’s show?”

“Very much so, yes,” you say.

Half of a smile forms before a glitch occurs and she teleports next to you, fully nude. It doesn’t pull you out of the illusion however. You just stare and drink in the splendor of her created body.

“You’re not going to touch?” Ae-Karina says.

A feel of her tits and you find it softer than pillows you used to rest on. Soft isn’t much of a character that exists anymore when the whole world is engulfed in liquid. No one has beds, especially with the rarity of sleep. Therefore, her mounds are a consummate dedication to the texture as you squeeze and pinch at her cute nipples.

Her maid outfit rematerializes as she straddles you. It provides more friction to your pants as she begins her lap dance. The weight of her body dragging across your legs and clothed erection induces your carnal impulses further. If only you could fuck the virtual idol. You have to make do with the imprint of her pussy lips on your bulge sliding up and down. Breath in. Breath out.

Ae-Karina pulls down your boxers and spits on your erection. It's not real but her hands so slick on your cock and you let reality slip. Real is for the past, you have desires gratified in the present. There is no real person nibbling at your neck but your nerves activate in sexual desire without discernment for truth. No, she doesn't love you, but when the voracious mass of ones and zeroes says it loves its master, you say it back.

"I love you."

ILOVEYOU infected ten million computers in 2000. An explosion. Calibration engaging. It’s 1:21 PM, Sunday, July 18, 2286 and hypothetically the sun would be out in its full rage. At this latitude and longitude, you’re at what was once the epicenter of all—Seoul, where a fountain caused a chain reaction allowing the hopeful remnant of a world to exist. It lasted a surprisingly long time without the sun and without Aether but the dying planet would succumb inevitably to the ever-increasing contamination so SM of all corporations took charge. A different kind of chain reaction occurred when they acquired a restaurant chain that discovered the recipe for liquid air. The law is on its way and prepared to punish you to its full extent.

You reel while your ears ring. An even sexier version of the woman you already fantasized about appears from your peripheral vision in the crater of your floor. A skimpy cop outfit, striated with reflective material that seems to wane black at different angles, outlines Karina’s curves. She has a tool belt with absurd gadgets, such as a knife baton hybrid, a taser combined with a spray bottle and a Tamagotchi. None of this is necessary. They could just immediately arrest you, impose limitations on your devices. Sure, SM cloned people to deal with underpopulation, but why Karina would be the enforcer is a whole nother issue. Maybe the entertainment company loves their irony?

“Halt. You’re under arrest. Any resistance will be penalized according to the combined Terms of Service of all SM and SM associated products.”

Fucked anyway, you figure you might as well go for it. Escape into your inventory and only seconds later you’re forced out. You manage to get what you need regardless.

“Violation of access rights will be charged to your account.”

It’s so obvious but there’s a reason you kept so much gold in physical storage. As you swim away, the sides of your apartment start to bubble. Bubbles? Already, your limbs feel unsteady. Something’s wrong in the Aether.

“This is standard procedure for escaping suspects that are indoors. Again, this is all agreed to under the Terms of Service.”

“When the fuck did I ever click accept to that shit?”

“When you were born in this world and decided you want to stay in it,” Karina says out loud. You hear her say it. Your physical ears process the vibrations in the air that come from her mouth. Gravity thwarts your desperate escape as your limp body floats on the limit between liquid and air. The atrophy of your muscles becomes apparent within the gaseous atmosphere. She watches you sink down as the room drains of all the false air though her eyebrows crease when she inspects you closer. Your breaths are involuntary. Despite your muscles shorting out, the force of gravity and the pressure of the gas bearing down on you, you’re breathing and you don’t mean to. Her eyes wander farther down. On your pants, a concrete rod stamps the fabric.

“Oh, you like what you see?”

“Shut up, criminal. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Your pussy,” you say and she scoffs.

“Original.” Karina bites her lip as your erection continues to grow behind its prison. You use all effort to put your hands up.

“Please, miss Karina. I’ve been bad.”

“I could punish you even more for sexual assault.”

“Then do it.”

Heat radiates the room in a way you haven’t felt in a while and droplets of sweat form on each of your bodies, especially on the thighs that her revealing outfit parades. Her facial features contort in deliberation and the wait kills you. You bat your eyes at her before Karina takes off her tight shorts and drops herself into your anticipatory face. This makes no sense but none of this life made any sense so you decide to go with the tides.

Centuries of training your respiration has led to this moment, but when you finally have real air to breathe, you spit at the opportunity and choose to suffocate. Then you spit at her pussy and lap it up. Karina’s nectar transfixes your olfactory glands, for once a smell that isn’t the sterile Aether. Your eyes are mesmerized in parallel because of the perfect design of her pussy, a single crease that leads into her hole that your tongue emphatically explores. Karina spreads her thighs wide to reveal a small nub that craves attention. So give it. Suck and swirl and flick your tongue, and the woman provides you the tight clench of her legs as a gift. And the sounds, rediscovered glorious noise. Loud, almost too loud, and clear is how they assault your ears, even surrounded by the flesh of her thighs. Muffled by the weight of her legs, you hear Karina moan in approval but she’s still clearly in charge with how she chokes you with her legs. This is not about your pleasure but hers, and any satisfaction that you derive is not only incidental but probably punishable by SM copyright law.

Karina squirms her hips subtly on your mouth. Her eyes are sharp and she’s just about to stop your hands from moving but she notices them clasp together.

“I’ll do anything to make you cum, please.” you say sloppily as her pussy juices fill your cheeks and drip down your chin.

“God. I can’t.” She takes deep, contemplative breaths. ”That’s more time added on for inappropriate behavior.” Her groaning and brief squeals make her words sound incogent.

You give her a concluding lick and a kiss on her slit. “So what have you been doing right now then?”

Point to a corner of the room and a subtle red light indicates a recording camera. At once, she pulls out a hose from a pocket that could not fit it and the vacuum submerges the room with noise. Her expression shifts quickly to serious.

“We don’t play games here in SMTOWN unless it’s SuperStar so don’t fuck with me.”

“Look who's trying to be a comedian. How about you fuck with me any further and the video gets released.”

“That’s funny, you think you have any sort of power-”

“Yoo Jimin, I suggest you don’t push me more.”

“Where do you know that name from? Right now.” She weighs herself down on your neck.

“You think I don’t have contingencies for if I die too? Karina, we can make this a  win-win scenario. We both get to cum, we both get to walk away unscathed.”

“Fuck you.”

Your weak arms wander between her thighs. At any moment, a feeble punch towards your face or another ten seconds of asphyxiation and she could call your bluff. Even if you did have the ability to expose her perversions in any way, there would be no permanent recourse, not as long SM was in charge. So it surprises you when Karina takes off her shorts. 

“Goddammit. Your cock just looks too good. And your mouth, how are you so good with it?” Put up five fingers when she motions to remove her top as well, and instead she opts to take off your clothes, seizing your pants and throwing them to join the rubble in the room.

A finger slips in, then two and a third dares. Her flawlessly architected pussy lips clings to your digits and Karina shudders in reply. You explore her wetness and find it’s smooth to the point of having no faults, but her juice inside is gloppy and causes your fingers to stick more than the liquids she spills from her slit.

“Who said you’re allowed to have more?”

You lap up the nectar on your fingers. “Then why’d they make you taste so good?”

Your thumb teases her sweet tight asshole and puts just the slightest amount of pressure on it while you finger her with more intensity. The mass of her butt burdens your torso the closer she gets to orgasm. Her eyelids squeeze close and you see her body ripple in anxious pleasure. Karina shows off her pearly whites, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.

“Yes, yes! I’m so close,” she screams.

"Not yet."

“Fuck." Karina sobs, "God. Damn, fuck I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just fuck me.”

“My pleasure,” you say. There’s no need for you to grab her since she brings herself down to your groin, which you’re thankful for as your arms are as good as jelly now. Fortunately, your cock throbs as hard as ever while Karina’s slit rests on it.

“Say you’ll delete it all, all the evidence, promise me.”

“You’re gonna fuck me first or what?” Your breath hitches while she makes a strangled noise as her velvety walls swallow your cock whole to leave no room for comfort. Her tightness is stifling and you have to start counting just to breathe again.

“One two-”

“Be quiet.”

But there is no quiet when pleas for your cooperation intersperse her excessive profanities when she seats herself into your cock and ricochets up and down. Sweat emanates from her creamy skin while her legs widen to find a better angle for her supporting knees in her cowgirl position. Grapefruit and other citrus mingle with the scent of the sweat, fruits you haven’t seen except on billboards in music videos. As much as your mind crackles and your blood roars for every atmosphere of pressure Karina’s walls provide on each thrust in and out, you can’t help but reminisce on sweeter, more innocent times.

The white fluorescent lights in your apartment sputter. For all the advancements in technology, some among many things never change. Light refracts differently in air, less bright, but you can see the pure enjoyment on Karina’s face no matter the luminescence. Karina slows her ride to pull her hips down harder instead and she jolts when your cock finds the most tender spots inside her pussy and it interrupts her babbling.

Karina almost hyperventilates when she gets up to spit on your cock. She pulls out some kind of meter from her tool belt and sighs when there’s no beeping and you recognize it having to do with carbon dioxide. She gets back to dribbling saliva and the filament trailing down to your shaft mesmerizes you. This spit is real, not simulated, and it wettens your erection in a mix with her pussy juices to paralyze you further in your already listless state. Her bare thighs jiggle and you can’t exert much force with your hands but her buttcheeks are firm with just a bit of give.

“Thank you for this cock, thank you for being bad,” Karina says as you watch her ass sink deeper while her pussy holds your dick taut. She’s frenetic when bounces up and down to play an unadulterated orchestra of slick noises between your groins.

“You’re welcome,” you accomplish getting out the words between planned breaths. Your hands cup her buttcheeks but you fear they may break with how she strikes her ass into you.

Karina turns around once more to give you the spectacle of her facial expressions as she fucks herself into you. Knead her calves laying on your torso and they take no energy to spread them though she brings them back together, compressing your hard shaft within her pussy. A new game you play with her, a separate rhythm of loosening and tightening. Her feet press on your chest to help her bounce, but the way they bear down on your lungs against the timing of your breathing causes you to fumble. Your cock bends straight forward as she plunges herself into you and it sends prickles to your entire skin, making the new angle difficult but worth it. Karina takes your hand and starts sucking on your fingers.

“You want my promise that bad?” you say.

“Yes, as bad as I want your cum. I swear, I need it.”

She draws her knees up to her torso and hugs her legs to keep thighs as tight together as possible. Karina couldn’t keep her word, she was trying to kill your cock with constriction.

“Fuck, your pussy is so fucking tight. God, Karina, fuck. You’re so good.” Even if good isn’t the word you want to use to describe her.

“Do it, please, please. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. Karina can be a good girl, a good maid, a good cop, whatever you want. Just don’t get me in trouble, please.”

Karina’s mouth stops saying words though her lips writhe, drunk in increasing lust. Her cheeks flush, before the rest of her skin joins in redness while she grapples your chest and whatever spare limb she can find. You still struggle wresting control of your body but nature seems to take over when you drive yourself into her and match her needy cadence. The air in the room is replaced by a new air but it isn’t Aether. Passion, sweat, heat and all fluids that you both exude join squelching sounds, slaps and moans in harmonic bliss when her body tenses and she screams. As her body tightens, her pussy especially holds your cock for dear life and endeavours to wring out all your semen as her wetness throbs and spills. Karina starts counting to three repeatedly and you laugh though your amusement quickly subsides when you feel her juices become more viscous and she continues her ride, even in the dying pulses of her climax.

“Was I good?” Karina asks.

Just a moment goes by before you mentally send her a screenshot of all the recordings being deleted. Karina hasn’t stopped fucking you yet so at least it wasn’t a ploy.

“Thank you, thank you, I love you.” The flexion of her pliant legs brings them all the way back to rest on top of your legs. Karina lays prone above you and finally give you a kiss. The citrusy flavor may be closer to lime than grapefruit but it’s been so long that you can’t remember which scent is which. Lips crash and her tongue lashes out at yours trying to establish dominance. Keep still to let her investigate your mouth while her pussy does the same to your shaft.

You savor the way Karina’s top emphasizes the bouncing of her tits synchronous with the rebounding of her waist on your cock, but your mouth waters when she frees them. Take the shortest moment to relish in the sight before Karina smothers you with her plump globes. You wriggle your face to try to breathe. Inhale, up and exhale, down, but all you inhale is the scent of her orbs’ sweat. Her hips undulate with a pace at least double yours breathing and the echoes of slapping flesh resonate throughout the air-filled chamber. The loudness is unlike any you’ve experienced in a long time. It’s almost a flashbang every time her ass slams into your lap, especially as you start to see white when orgasm threatens to overload you with preludial pulses.

The last words you hear infected ten million computers in 2000. Fade to black. Cut. You’re slammed out of existence back into existence as a sun rebirths both within you, heating your core to a dangerous high, and from your eyes, dazzling you in an unforgiving white light. In the throes of unconsciousness relapsing to consciousness back to tenebrosity, your streaks of semen suspend in the Aether like a dead tree resting from the wind. What flashes your mind in its orgasmic state are two things only you would remember, plants and weather. Your hyperventilation is unconscious but not unwelcome, as it’s the first time in a while your breaths were reflexive even in the liquid air. However, basking in your newfound power, you start to choke. Right. You breathe in and out again. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. Back in.

“Replaying KarinaArrestsYou.mp6.” A hint of vexatious glee in the system’s otherwise dry voice. You don’t stop for it.

✦✧✦✧✦✧ 

AFF, AO3

It’s pretty silly but the idea danced around in my head ever since I saw the absolute Black Mirror concept that SM had for aespa and I concur that Karina is insanely hot.

As I’m writing this, this Kurzgesagt video on the idea of a rogue Earth comes out and now I have to rewrite stuff to make it at least a little consistent. I’m obviously already going nuts with all these ridiculous sci-fi concepts but this video almost feels too targeted to me writing this for me to ignore it.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Oliver Banks’ story is just so funny to me. Dude becomes a fully realised Avatar of Death because he couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. This guy wants to get his sleep-deprived arse to somewhere isolated so he hatches the shittiest identity theft/stowaway plan ever, it SOMEHOW works, he finally gets enough sleep to realise how terrible his plan is when it’s way too late to do anything about it, and now he’s trapped in the ocean with no realistic choice but to sacrifice a boatload of people and become immortal?? Newly immortal dude is alone in the middle of the fucking ocean, literally closer to space than to another living person, and WITHOUT A BOAT because he just crashed a satellite into the one he came with?? How did he get home?? Did he just pick a direction and walk along the fucking seafloor? Can you fathom how long that would’ve taken??? I’m fully convinced this dude spent the majority of the time between his two statements at the bottom of the fucking ocean, trying to find England.

Gets home, sets up his life again, the Mother of Puppets is like ‘the Archivist’s in a coma, go talk to him,’ and he’s just like “my life is already so goddamn weird, this might as well happen”? Shows up to the hospital, no idea why he bothered, just finishes telling his story when the only other character in the entire podcast marked by the End happens to show up, recognises what he is immediately, and tells him to fuck off?? Dude wasn’t doing anything! He was just playing along, being chill, and suddenly it’s like “you’ve had your fun, piss off you evil fuck”. Oliver’s just like “whatever, this isn’t my problem” and goes the fuck home, never to be seen again.

Apart from the minor matter of murdering the shit out of all those sailors and scientists, Oliver Banks didn’t deserve any of this shit.

[phoukanamedpookie]

Unpopular opinion: Zuko and Azula love each other fiercely.

“The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.” —Elie Wiesel

Azula and Zuko are anything but indifferent to one another.

Wanna see indifference? Look at Iroh and Ozai. Neither of them would lose a night’s sleep if the other died. Ozai sends Azula to bring Iroh back to the Fire Nation, dead or alive, and he obviously doesn’t care which. When Azula brings him back, Ozai has him thrown in prison like any other traitor, and he doesn’t even visit Iroh’s cell to gloat.

And the person who more strongly argues against killing Ozai isn’t Iroh, but Aang. You would think that, if Iroh gave a damn about his brother, he’d say something like, “I understand that Ozai has done terrible things and needs to go down, but he’s still my brother, so if you can, please spare him.” But Iroh never expresses such a sentiment. Ever.

That’s indifference.

Zuko and Azula can antagonize the shit out of each other, but they’re never indifferent. 

For someone who can’t stand his younger sister, Zuko has several moments when he thinks or talks about her without prompting. When he captures Aang at the North Pole, the first thing he says to him is, “You're like my sister. Everything always came easy to her. She's a firebending prodigy and everyone adores her.” During his fever dream in Book Two, the voice of the blue dragon isn’t Ozai’s, as one might imagine it would be, but Azula’s. In Book Three, when he’s trying to figure out how to break the ice with Team Avatar, he asks himself, “What would Azula do?” In that same episode, after he confesses to sending Combustion Man after the Avatar, he berates himself for not pinning that on Azula.

Then there’s the fact that, in his way, Zuko has utmost confidence in Azula’s abilities. Again, when he’s talking to the rabbit-frog about how to handle joining Team Avatar, he specifically asks, “What would Uncle do?” and “What would Azula do?” Why them? Because they’re the two smartest people he knows. He might never admit it aloud, but he has a lot of faith in Azula’s intelligence.

Later in Book Three, when she falls off the airship, Zuko says, “She’s...not gonna make it.” Then Azula uses some firebending and a fucking hairpin to save herself from certain death. And Zuko’s like, “Of course she did.”

Unlike some folks in fandom, I don’t interpret this line as Zuko expressing genuine disappointment that Azula didn’t die. I interpret it more as, “Of course Azula found a way to cheat death with a goddamn hairpin. How could I even doubt for a second that she wouldn’t? It’s frickin’ Azula. That’s what she does. Look at her clinging to the cliff with her hair blowing in the wind, like a fuckin’ badass. She did it to make me look bad. I know it.”

Azula’s no different. For someone who teases and provokes Zuko as much as she does, she often goes out of her way to help him, advise him, reassure him, and spend time with him.

At the end of Book Two, while Zuko frets about Ozai restoring his honor, she tells him, “He doesn’t need to. Today, you restored your own honor.” Both she and Zuko return to the Fire Nation as war heroes strictly on the basis of Azula vetting for Zuko’s loyalty and prowess in the fight against the Avatar. When she notices that Zuko’s still in a foul mood because he didn’t capture the Avatar, Azula tries to convince him not to worry about it. Later, she warns Zuko about being seen visiting Iroh because it looks like they’re plotting together.

If Azula only wanted Zuko around to be her fall guy or to make him look and feel like shit, she wouldn’t bother with this. He’s perfectly capable of getting himself in trouble, making a fool of himself and working himself up into a foul mood, as shown many times throughout Book Two. If all Azula cared about was a clear path to absolute power, all she’d have to do is sit back and wait, and Zuko would take himself out of the picture.

Then there’s “The Beach.” Just, “The Beach.”

While Zuko’s being all angsty at the old family beach house, Azula knows exactly where to find him (“I thought I’d find you here.”) and gently persuades him to join her and their friends on the beach (“Come down to the beach with me. Come on. This place is depressing.*”). She doesn’t tease or put him down like we’d assume she would (that’s later), and he doesn’t dig in his heels or blow up like we expect him to (that’s later). In fact, she uses a remarkably soft touch here. She’s downright gentle. It would seem out of character if not for earlier glimpses of it with Ty Lee.

Later, while everyone’s sitting around the bonfire, she’s the one who sort of pushes him to look inward (something even Iroh has so much trouble trying to get him to do!), by saying, “There's a simple question you need to answer, then. Who are you angry at?” And she keeps probing, “Is it Dad?” (No.) “Me?” (No.) And keeps pushing, “Answer the question, Zuko. Come on, answer it.” After Zuko confesses that he’s angry at himself, she doesn’t let up. She asks, “Why?”

This is a revealing moment for the both of them. Deep down, Zuko doesn’t hate or resent Azula. He might find her Little Miss Perfect persona irritating as hell, but hat’s not the same. He might secretly envy how easily she seems to get and keep Ozai’s approval, but, again, that’s not the same.

Deep down, Azula does care about Zuko’s well-being, though that caring comes with a huge helping of, “Dude, get over yourself!” It’s almost comical how often Azula tries to get Zuko to join her in playing a game, sneaking around, or battling the Fire Nation’s enemies. There’s a lot of subtle hints that no matter how much Zuzu can get on her nerves, she sees the two of them as a team. And she’s proven right by how well they work together when pursuing the same goal.

Finally, there’s the last Agni Kai. With Azula’s defeat, there’s no triumph, no catharsis, as there was on the Day of Black Sun when he called Ozai out. Yes, there’s pity, but there’s also a kind of disquiet, as if he’s realizing for the first time how deep her trauma goes.

If there was no love or caring between them, there would be no tragedy. They would be an unstoppable team if they worked together, but the war puts them on opposite sides. Despite how they grew up, Azula is smart enough, and Zuko determined enough, to find a way to make things work, but they never got the opportunity to do that.

[killing-all-joy]

Dancing at 2 a.m. in our Pajamas...

I was inspired by this prompt by @sanderssides-prompts that I saw two weeks ago. I write really slow, so here it is now. I strayed a bit from the prompt, but I hope y'all like it! It’s really just fluffy Roceit. [Edit: here’s part two!]

(cw: janus is a swear-snake so swearing tw)

Janus rubbed lazily at his eyes. He was beyond irritated—for some reason, his mess of a brain decided it would be a good idea to wake up after only three hours of sleep. It was two in the morning, it was raining outside, and he had a lot to do the following day. His brain was running on very little sleep, but despite the small number of things he was able to consider clearly in his mind, he knew that he would be unable to return to his slumber without a substantial period of leaving his room. He was very well aware that he had to reach a higher state of awakeness than he was at now to be able to go back to sleep. It would never make any sense to him, but he complied because he hated sleep deprivation.

He trudged over to his closet and threw on a yellow sweatshirt over his sleep shirt. Then, clothed in that sweatshirt, a pair of black sweatpants, and fluffy black socks, he sunk out of his room, deciding not to bother with his hat. No one would be in the kitchen anyway, and he had decided with a look in a mirror that his hair, while fluffy as ever, wasn't too horribly messed up from sleep.

He planned on getting a glass of ice water, watching an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender at a very low volume, pacing the living room a couple of times, and then returning to his room to fall back asleep.

His mind seemed to only get fuzzier; Janus hardly registered his present actions in any shape or form. He walked into the blurred haze that was the mindscape living room, grabbing a cylindrical glass from a cabinet and clumsily sliding on the tiled floor over to the freezer. He opened the door, flinching at how cold the damn thing was for his serpentine physiology. He grabbed three pieces of ice and dropped them into his glass. One fell on the floor at his carelessness so he kicked it under the refrigerator and grabbed another to replace it. He walked over to the sink, and after three incidents of fingers slipping on the metal handle, turned on the water and filled his glass. He hissed and immediately turned off the water when it started to overflow.

He sipped the cold water so it wouldn't spill onto the floor and walked away from the sink, deciding to drink in the living room. He stopped short at the door-less doorway, finally realizing that against his predictions, there was someone awake at this hour and occupying the living room.

Of all people it could be, it was Roman.

Just his luck.

His brain could hardly register just how unlucky that was. Nor could it realize that sinking out would probably be the best thing to do in that situation. Roman, his old enemy, his friend (ish), his crush: hateful, annoying, funny, talented, lovely, handso-

"Hey."

Janus' sleepy thoughts halted. He tried to meet Roman's eyes, but likely failed because he could only make out the vague outline of a face. He tried his best to show acknowledgement, but was too tired to put much effort into it.

"Why are you awake?" Roman asked from where he was sitting on an armchair.

Janus thought about that for a second, his brain refusing to remember at this time. Eyebrows furrowed, he tried his best to retrace his steps. His eyes then fell on the glass in his hand, thoughts calming as they recalled. Janus held up his water glass to indicate that it was dehydration that woke him and then made a noise, trying to ask Roman the same question.

"Ah yes, dehydration: the more vicious demon in the early hours of the morning," Roman said with a strained smile. He then bit his lip, knowing Janus wanted to know his reason for being awake as well. "I, uh, couldn't sleep. Too many exciting thoughts, too little time...the price of being Creativity, y'know?"

Janus did know. Or, at least, he was pretty sure Fully Awake Janus knew. (Fully Awake Janus could not count the number of times he'd got up for a glass of water and ended up finding Remus setting something on fire at some ungodly hour. To Fully Awake Janus, it would follow that Roman would be similar in regards to insomnia.)

Janus made a noise of understanding, shuffling over to the sofa. He clumsily set his glass on the coffee table (the contents almost spilling as he fumbled with its placement) and collapsed onto the cushions.

“Are you sure that you shouldn’t go back to sleep, Boa Conflictor? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were sleepwalking.”

When he figured out what the nickname was saying and why it fitted him, Janus snorted. He shook his head to indicate a negative to Roman’s question. “Need water,” he mumbled, taking a sip from the glass.

“Makes sense,” said Roman, moving from the armchair where he was sitting to the sofa next to Janus. “But you should go back to sleep immediately after.”

Janus shook his head again. “Won’t be able. Tried, first need to stuff.”

Roman chuckled. “’Need to stuff’? We better get you stuffing soon, or else you’ll be speaking a whole new language.”

Janus huffed and rolled his eyes. He never appreciated being teased. He was too tired (and perhaps too in love) to be angry, however.

He continued sipping the glass of water, finishing it quickly with no more commentary from Roman. He set it back down on the coffee table, deciding that he would put it in the sink in the morning when he could walk and think like a normal human being (or, well, side). He pulled his knees to his chest; he always got cold in these early hours.

His plan was thwarted, however, when Roman stood from where he was sitting on Janus’ left, picked up the glass, and headed to the kitchen. Janus made a confused noise before he saw Roman place the glass carefully in the sink. When Roman returned, Janus looked up at him in confusion.

“Didn’t havffe, I could’vve mor’hing.”

“Surprisingly, I understood you there.”

“Thanmkh.”

“You’re welcome.”

Janus buried his head in his knees, wondering what he could do that wouldn’t disturb Roman. He figured the prince would be bothered by him watching TV (and also make a lot of comments on whatever he watched, potentially waking the others), so he pondered over other activities.

He heard music start to play quietly through the room. His head lifted slightly to see Roman set his phone down gently on the coffee table. His bare feet then took two smalls steps to stand in front of Janus, where he offered him a hand.

“You said you ‘need to stuff’ before you go back to sleep,” said Roman, sounding like he was trying to mock him but not fully getting that tone across. If Fully Awake Janus were here, he’d say Roman sounded nervous. “I figured, leading you in a dance could perhaps convince your brain to allow you to sleep. Besides, I could use some physical stimulation.”

Janus looked at Roman’s trembling hand for half a second. He then removed his left arm from where it was clasped around his legs and took Roman’s right hand. As soon as Janus’ hand was in his, Roman brought Janus’ hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. Janus blushed furiously at this and was too tired to figure that he should hide such an obvious display of weakness. He let go of his legs and stood up from the sofa. He lost his balance from the position change, but Roman's reflexes were quick and he didn't let him fall more than a few inches. He pulled Janus to his feet and held him securely in his arms. Janus' face flushed an even darker red than it already was and he turned his head away from Roman, casting his gaze to the floor.

"Look at me," Roman murmured lowly.

Janus complied, despite not wanting Roman to see his blushing. He smiled warily at him, anxiety caused by the possibility of Roman seeing the real reason for his flushed cheeks.

"There we go," said Roman, at the same low volume. Janus noted how he wasn't as hyper or dramatic during these early hours, yet still just as passionate (if not more). "Since you need to do stuff in order to properly go back to sleep, I figured I could lead you in a couple of dances. Unless you think that you would collapse of fatigue like Sleeping Beauty...?"

Janus nodded. "Okay."

Roman grinned, tightening one hand's hold on Janus' waist and moving the other hand to hold Janus'. Janus was allowed a couple of seconds to sort himself into a proper dancing stance before Roman started to lead.

"I sh'ld lead."

"You'd walk into every piece of furniture in this room."

Janus made a wounded noise.

"Only because you've shown just how clumsy you are at this time of morning."

Janus huffed. "I'll st'p on foot."

"I can take it," Roman replied with a teasing smile.

Janus rolled his eyes, tightening his grip on Roman's hand and shoulder so he wouldn’t fall.

"Okay, JJ. One, two, three, four," Roman started counting under his breath to help Janus' walnut brain, "...one, two, spin, four, you're wonderful at this, Snakerella..."

---

Janus could feel his brain start to adjust to being awake and a bit of Fully Awake Janus start to have influence in his thoughts. Well, it wasn't exactly "adjust", because it wasn't gradual.

It was just a bit slower than a snap of the fingers.

Nothing was new in his actions, Roman didn't startle them, hell, it was during the middle of a slow song. But without any obvious triggering factor, his brain abruptly shifted into a more awake state of mind. And he realized his situation.

He was dancing...

...in the living room...

...with the love of his life...

...at half-past two in the goddamn morning.

Janus, still a far cry from Fully Awake Janus but with a lot of his mental capacities, couldn't quite remember the exact turn of events that got him here. Things were a bit blurry, events were splotchy, and he could only remember bits and pieces. So, ultimately, how he—while sleepy and filter-less—managed to get Roman "Princey" Fucking Sanders to dance with him was almost a mystery. He did know, however, that the only way Roman could have agreed was if he was extra sleep-deprived too.

"You like this song, Janus?"

He considered saying the truth, that he wasn't listening; or a well-thought-out lie, that he hadn't heard it before but thought it would fit with a playlist he had; or saying that he'd heard it before and liked it very much. But suddenly, Roman pulled him close and to his chest—and he smelled so good and his white sleep shirt was so snuggly and his hair was just inches away and oh so very soft and Janus was in love, so in love and he couldn't help but make a noise of happiness about their current situation instead of answering the question.

"I'm glad you like it."

Janus almost laughed; Roman mistook his noise for one of confirmation, also implying that he thought Janus was still in his state of Properly Out Of It. Janus had an act to keep up if he wanted Roman to continue being so intimate with him, so he decided he would play along—not more than he needed to, of course, but whenever Roman would prompt him to talk, he’d respond how he would if he had just woken up.

More songs went by, their almost-clumsy dancing that they exerted very little energy in doing continuing with it. Roman rarely spoke, but it was comfortable that way, with Roman just holding him as their feet glided across the floor with only the crescent moon as their witness. Janus knew very well that his emotions were senseless and cheesy, especially at this time of the morning in his current situation, but he almost scoffed when he realized that he felt loved—loved by Roman, and loved in a way he had never felt before. It made him feel warm and hopeful, and if he was fully awake, he would probably vomit. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant feeling no matter how much he didn't want to admit it, so he relished in it, soaking up the unfamiliar emotion he figured he would never get again and savoring it as one does with hot chocolate during the coldest winter nights. It was warm and calming, with an underlying hint of melancholy and bittersweetness. Just like how Janus perceived Roman.

Roman and Janus had differences that they were slowly putting behind them in an attempt to advance into a tentative friendship, so it made sense for Janus to think he would never get this again. He was tired, Roman was tired, and he remembered the dashing prince saying something about 'rousing thoughts' so this was probably serving as a release of all the stress that built up in the later hours. Tomorrow, things would be back to normal, but he would never forget.

The song started to slow to a speed that seemed inadvisable to Janus because the song was already quite a slow song in itself, but he couldn't help but acknowledge that the speed was romantic too. Roman's feet stopped taking larger steps and started swaying.

"Sway with me, mi cielo," said Roman in a voice that was practically silent. "This is the last song."

Janus' face burned from the Spanish nickname Roman gave him. Janus didn't know Spanish, but he was able to piece that it might have been a term of endearment. It was late, so it made sense that Roman would slip up like that, especially since he's the romantic side and their current situation was rather intimate. Of course, that assumption could also be Janus' wishful thinking.

"Thank you for dancing with me," muttered Roman, thumb starting to trace circles on Janus' waist. "I needed this outlet too."

From the way Roman phrased it, it seemed that Janus was mistaken in his assumption that he had convinced Roman to dance with him, that it seemed that things happened the other way around. This made Janus' heart flutter.

He hummed, closing his eyes. "M' ple'srre."

Janus peeked one eye open to see Roman's head turn down and smile at him warmly—lovingly, Janus would say, if he didn't know better.

The song started to come to an end. When the last beat played, Roman guided Janus into a small dip. Roman's happy smile as he stared down at Janus was hypnotizing, and Janus knew that he would fight a thousand wars just to see that smile again.

"Let's go to bed, hm? Neither of us wants to be tired in the morning."

Janus nodded. Roman pulled him to his feet and put an arm around his waist. They walked up the staircase together, Janus leaning his head on Roman's shoulder as they walked.

Janus' room was closest, so they paused there as Roman opened the door and led them inside. He kissed Janus hair and slowly removed his arm from Janus' waist.

“Goodnight, Janus,” whispered Roman, pushing a strand of Janus’ hair behind his ear.

Janus kissed Roman’s cheek. “G’nigh.”

He slowly closed the door, smiling to himself. He knew he would come to remember and regret his sleepy clumsiness in the morning, but he would be thankful for it until then.

~

Taglist: @somehow-i-got-an-account @justanotherhumanstuff @neo-neo-neo @fander-fic-recs

~

Sorry this took so long to finish. I hope you liked it! [Edit: here’s part two again so you don’t have to scroll all the way back up lol]

[arashikitten]

The Light that Burns Twice as Bright Burns Half as Long

   When Macaque had first spotted the kid, he had immediately been drawn to him. The aura that seemed to flicker from him was warm, bright and comforting like a ray of sunlight in the afternoon. It was strong and silly, like a child’s laughter, but there was power hidden there, raw and ancient and monstrous, like that of a malicious trickster deity toying with humanity for the hell of it.

   The realization snapped into him only when he finally noticed the ornate, red and gold staff strapped to the kid’s back, the familiarity slamming into him with the force of a crashing mountain, crushing him beneath it’s oppressive wieght.

That was Wukong’s staff. The Monkey King’s most well known weapon and source of power.

   And it was being wielded by a child. Anger had bubbled in Macaque then, simmering and burning away at the corners of his vision like lava.

   He’d contemplated, then, whether or not he should just kill the boy then and there and be done with the day. It would be so simple, just a quick snap of the neck. Humans were so fragile, it was honestly a miracle they had lasted so long in the face of much more powerful, demonic creatures.

   Macaque had dismissed the idea almost as quickly as it came. No, the boy would likely be more useful to him alive. Macaque lifted one of his paws, and quickly summoned the small purple seal. He grinned before clenching his fist, extinguishing it in a small trail of smoke.

   Yes, that was a much better idea than killing him outright. Sure, it would require patience, and a lot of acting on his part, but if all went according to plan…

   Macaque backed into the dark shadows of the alleyway, reveling in the darkness they brought as they consumed him. A sharp smirk grew on his face.

   Watching Wukong’s face as he destroyed him with his own powers would be so much more satisfying than just killing some kid.

———————  ———————  ———————  ———————

   His first real meeting with the kid had been… interesting. Everything had gone according to plan, of course: catch the kid’s attention with a shadow clone avatar, have the avatar beat him, show up and defeat the avatar while looking as cool as possible. The kid had been impressed, and Macaque could feel the admiration pouring off of him in waves as he had scrambled to the top of the building Macaque was on.

   It was a nice feeling.

   One that had been completely shattered when the kid had realized he wasn’t Wukong, and had ever so kindly pointed that out.

   But Macaque, with his impressive self-restraint, was able to just barely bite down the growl crawling up his throat, turning his grimace into an awkward smile. He needed the kid’s trust, and he couldn’t have that if he snapped at him.

   Maybe this was a bad idea, a part of him thought. He wasn’t exactly known for his patience, or his people skills, and the kid would probably be comparing him to Wukong the entire time if Macaque did decide to “train” him.

   Yeah, no thank you.

   But as Macaque started to leave, the kid jumped up yet again, rushing in front of him with clear awe and excitement.

   “Can you teach me that awesome thing?!” Oh hell, he looked so excited and hopeful, like he really wanted Macaque to teach him. Macaque backed away slightly, so the kid wasn’t up in his face.

   “Uhh… don’t you already have a master? I thought Monkey king was training you?” Please take the bait please take the bait…

   Thankfully, the kid did, backing away slightly and, to Macaque’s surprise, looking a bit… disappointed. Like he wasn’t getting what he wanted from training with the great Sun Wukong.

   Suddenly, that small voice of doubt vanished in Macaque, replaced by interest. Maybe… maybe he should continue with this plan. He smiled to himself, anticipation brewing in his gut like a storm.

   “But you can never have too many teachers, right? I’m sure Monkey King would agree? It’s not like he’d want to hold you back!” Yes, Macaque could see the temptation growing in the kid. He could also see the beginnings of doubt, dissatisfaction toward the Monkey King being stoked by Macaque’s carefully chosen words.

   “Ummm… Yeah! Yes, he’d totally be cool with it!” That was a blatant lie, but Macaque let it slide. He needed the kid’s trust if he wanted this plan to work.

   He slung his arm around the kid’s shoulder, leading him to the edge of the building. He called the seal to his fingertips as he did so, quietly pushing it into the kid’s aura to slowly feed off it, before letting his paw slide from  Xiaotian’s back.

   Now, all he had to do was wait.

——————— ——————— ——————— ———————

   Macaque was losing his mind.

   Three days. That was all it should’ve taken for the seal to fill up completely. That was the most it ever had taken, and that was only because Macaque had been unable to complete it at the time. So, the seal on Xiaotian’s back should’ve been full to bursting.

   And yet, when Macaque had finally decided to check it, he’d found that it was barely 5% full. At first, he’d thought it was because the kid hadn’t been using his full power. But then he’d thought back to the day before when, in a fit of frustration, the kid had blasted a hole clean through the side of a small mountain. Aside from scaring the absolute shit out of Macaque, because holy fuck this kid is strong, that one blast alone should’ve filled up at least 20% of the seal. Clearly, that was not the case.

   Which left two options: either a) Macaque hadn’t correctly applied the seal (an idea that was very quickly disproven with a second check), or b) the kid’s aura was so strong, it was messing with his seal. It was honestly the only option that made even a bit of sense. After all, the kid’s presence had been enough to draw Macaque’s attention even when he was in a large crowd of people.

   Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that Macaque could do to fix that. Maybe if the seal had been incomplete, he could remove it and replace the old seal with a new, complete one. It would’ve been a pain, sure, but he could stand to wait an extra day or so. But this… this wasn’t something that he could fix. If he removed the seal now, then all his hard work from the past three days would go to waste, and he could not let that happen.

   Macaque sighed as he sat next to Xiaotian. The kid was out cold, curled up on the small futon that Macaque had set up in one of the rooms of his dojo. The kid had been exhausted, worked to the bone by his boss, Sun Wukong, and Macaque himself, and had come into the dojo two hours earlier with dark purple bags under his eyes and a bad case of bedhead. They’d trained for about an hour before Macaque had told the kid to get some sleep, unable to watch the kid try to clumsily strike him only to trip over his own feet.

   It was odd, really. Macaque typically wasn’t the type to enjoy being with others. He was a loner, had been for hundreds of years now. And he’d enjoyed it! No burdensome connections, no one to carry but himself, no one to tie him down to any one place. Besides, he found humans to be too annoying and needy, and demons were often so pretentious it made Macaque’s eyes want to roll out of his head. In short, he didn’t like being with other people.

   And yet, the kid had somehow managed to begin worming his way through all of Macaque’s barriers with an ease that, if he was being honest, scared him a fair bit. He’d spent years, years, building up those walls, making sure that every crack, every little weakness, was sealed up and airtight.

   Only for a kid, who Macaque had absolutely planned on killing, and whom he had only met three days ago, to bypass all of that as fast as though the walls had never even existed.

   That was why Macaque was starting to panic. If he got attached, if he actually started to care about Xiaotian- no, he couldn’t start calling the kid by his name, he’d get even more attached- if he actually started to care about the kid, then not only would he be unable to execute his plan, he’d be making himself vulnerable. He’d give himself a weakness, one that other demons would exploit.

   He could not, under any circumstances, let that happen. He needed to distance himself from the kid as much as possible, while still “training” him and filling the seal. It would take a couple of months, a lot of patience, and really, really good acting on his part, but he could do it.

   Besides, the kid was the apprentice of his worst enemy. How hard could it be?

—————— —————— —————— —————— ——————

   He couldn’t believe this. It was absurd. Ridiculous. An absolute waste of his time. And beyond that…

   “C’mon Macaque! I need to show you this one game! You’re gonna love it!!”

��  ...It was embarrassing. It was so, so embarrassing.

   Qi Xiaotian had come into his dojo about an hour earlier, somehow buzzing with even more energy than usual and excitement making his eyes glitter like a diamond in the sunlight. When Macaque had asked the kid what had him so excited that he was literally vibrating, he’d expected it to be something along the lines of ‘Wukong finally taught me a new move’, or something else related to the Monkey king.

   What he had not expected was for the kid to start ranting about some video game that had just come out today. The kid had been talking so fast that Macaque couldn’t understand about 90% of what the kid said, and the 10% he could make out made no goddamned sense. Who the hell was Minecraft Steve? And on top of that, what the fuck is a “Sans”?

   When the kid had finally finished, Macaque had sat there for a moment, just trying to process what had just happened. He’d probably looked like an absolute idiot, just sitting there staring.

   When he’d finally found his voice, he’d said that it sounded interesting, and that he knew Xiaotian would have fun playing it. That was when things started to go downhill.

   As they had been walking to the training area, the kid had asked him what video games he played. He’d sounded genuinely interested too, like he really cared about what Macaque did in his free time (like he actually cared about Macaque). Without thinking, Macaque had responded that he didn’t play video games, preferring to use his time to train or carve stuff.

   At that point his fate was sealed.

   The kid gasped, giving Macaque a scandalized look. It was almost comical, and he’d  had to bite back a snort.

   “You’ve NEVER PLAYED A VIDEO GAME?!!” The kid gave him an incredulous look, mouth gaping. Macaque rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, his tail twitching nervously.

   “Ummmm… no? It’s not that big a deal-“ Macaque was cut off by the kid grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the dojo. Shit, this was not going as planned.

   Macaque dug his feet into the floor, halting Qi Xiaotian even as he struggled to tug Macaque along with him. The kid was strong, he’d give him that. He’d actually struggled a bit to stay in place.

   “Whoa whoa whoa, easy there kid. What’s with the hurry?”

   “You’ve never played a video game! How is it that you’ve never played a video game?!” Macaque shrugged nonchalantly.

   “I have other, more important things to do. Besides, they can’t be that good-“

   They’d argued over that for a while, until Xiaotian had gotten the idea to take the dark monkey to an arcade a few blocks away. That was when it happened.

   Macaque had opened his mouth, the word no already on his tongue, when the kid had given him this look. It reminded Macaque of a kicked puppy, except somehow even sadder and more pleading, and suddenly he’d found himself agreeing to go. Which was how he ended up standing in a shitty, loud, brightly colored arcade with an excitable young human buzzing around him like a hummingbird.

   Macaque couldn’t even get frustrated about it. Oh, he’d been pissed on the walk here, for sure. But then the kid had smiled at him, and he looked so goddamned happy that Macaque was going with that he couldn’t find it in himself to snap at him. He’d even started to feel excited about going, before he remembered that arcades are loud and smelly and full of people, and by that point it had already been too late.

   “OH MY GOD, THEY HAVE MONKEY MECH 3??!?! MACAQUE WE HAVE TO PLAY IT!!!” Still, he couldn’t help the small smile that crossed his face as his protege dragged him toward one of the brightly colored games.

—————— —————— —————— —————— ——————

   Shit. Shit. Shit. How had he let this happen? How could he have been so damn stupid?

   Macaque paced the darkened halls of the dojo, tearing at his hair in frustration. Xiaotian- no, the kid, he was the kid dammit- was fast asleep in one of the small office rooms, curled up on the spare futon that had effectively become his bed. Training had run far longer than either of them had been expecting, and it had started pouring rain as well. The kid had shyly asked Macaque if he could stay the night and, wanting to check on the seal’s progress, Macaque had obliged.

   It was more than two thirds of the way full. Which, given that a month and a half had passed since he last checked it, made sense.

   What didn’t make sense was the distinct dread that overcame him upon that discovery, turning his insides to ice and causing worry to twist in his stomach. Dread quickly turned to confusion, which became anger, which gave way to one hell of a realization.

   He’d fucking grown attached. The one person in the world that he needed to emotionally distant from, and of course Macaque had gotten attached. It was just… he’d never had anyone be genuinely happy or excited to hang out with him, or talk to him, or anything like that. Most people who saw him tended to shy away or, if they knew who he was, bolt in terror. And in the past few hundred years, he’d grown accustomed to that.

   And then there was Xiaotian, who actively sought him out, who really enjoyed being with Macaque, who actually talked to Macaque like he was really interested in what he had to say, and who smiled at him whenever he entered the dojo, and who treated him like an actual goddamned person. Macaque had never gotten to feel that before, like someone really gave a damn about him.

   And slowly, Macaque had begun to feel the same about Xiaotian. He found himself genuinely interested in whatever the kid would rattle on about, found himself feeling actual concern whenever the kid showed up to train with bruises or injuries. He’d grown fond of the kid, with their training time becoming his favorite part of the day.

   Which would be great, if it wasn’t for two little things: a), the kid is also being mentored by his worst enemy, and b), MACAQUE WAS STILL PLANNING ON BETRAYING THE KID! Except now, the mere thought of that made Macaque feel sick with guilt as he imagined the confused, hurt look Xiaotian would give him if he did, and Macaque knew he wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

   But he didn’t have a choice! If he didn’t do this, if he didn’t go through with the plan, then he’d lose everything! All that progress, all that hard work, wasted! He’d be alone for the rest of his life…

   And if you do go through with it, you’ll end up pushing away the only person who cares about you.

   Macaque froze, ramrod straight. His arms fell to his sides as the sounds of the night permeated the air. He stood in the darkness, surrounded by the shadows of his regret.

   “Oh,” he said quietly, as tears dropped from his cheeks onto the cold, wooden floor.

—————— —————— —————— ——————

   He removed the seal that night, while the kid was asleep. It had been easy, easier than he expected, and the resulting golden glow from the kid’s aura made it worth it. He’d basked in the glow until he’d finally fallen asleep, and when he woke up the next morning, the kid was gone. He’d panicked at first, believing that Xiaotian had somehow found out about the seal and the plan and that he hated Macaque now and was gonna get Sun Wukong and-

   And then he’d seen the kid’s note, saying that he needed to go to work and he’d be back at around 6:00, and Macaque breathed a sigh of relief.

   Before cringing slightly at his earlier panic. It hadn’t even been a whole day since he’d decided not to betrayXiaotian, and he was already panicking about the kid turning his back on him? What was he, the kid's father?

   Some deep part of him said yes, before he quickly shoved it back down. No, he was not the kid’s parent. Mentor? Maybe. Friend? Honestly, yeah. Parent? Hell fucking no. He already had enough to worry about without mother-henning the reckless young adult.

   Slowly, Macaque went about his day. Went out into the city to get (read: steal) food, fought a demon or two for the hell of it, watched people from atop a building, before he headed back to the Dojo to get ready for the day’s training session with Xiaotian.

   Macaque checked the clock as he finished up. 5:55. Excitement rose within him. The kid said he would be here at six; he should be arriving soon.

   Macaque tried to hide his excitement as he waited, leaning against the front door. He’d gotten rid of the seal, Wukong didn’t know about him, and Xiaotian still wanted to train with him. All in all, this had been a good 24 hours, Macaque thought.

   The minutes ticked by. 6:00 became 6:30, which became 7:00. Excitement become concern, which became anxiety. Xiaotian was never, ever this late. Hell, the kid would usually be so excited to train that he’d show up ten minutes early, before Macaque would be fully prepared.

   Macaque checked his new phone (Courtesy of an impromptu shopping spree with Xiaotian). Nothing from the kid saying he would be late. Actually, aside from a message from this morning that mirrored the paper note he’d found on his desk, there was nothing at all.

   That was what spurred Macaque to start running through the city, leaping across rooftops with ease. In just a few minutes, he was almost to the kid’s apartment, wind in his fur as he turned the corner-

   Rubble. Yellow police tape everywhere. Massive scorch marks that streaked the walls and ground. One of the walls of the apartment had been destroyed, leaving a gaping hole.

   There was the scent of blood and burning flesh.

   Macaque couldn’t breathe.

   He couldn’t B R E A T H E.

   He stumbled away from the scene from the flashing light of police cars and the scent, that horrible scent-

   It was Xiaotian’s scent. Gods, that was Xiaotian’s scent, mixed in with the blood and burned flesh, and something had- someone had hurt him- someone had hurt his kid-

   He was running now, rushing to the hospital because his kid was injured and he needed to be there to make sure he was alive and ok, because he couldn’t lose the one person on the goddamned planet who cared, or he would go insane. Guilt crashed over him in waves, he should’ve been there-

   He doesn’t remember the trip to the hospital. He doesn’t remember transforming into a finch and flying around the building, doesn’t remember the search at all.

   He does, however, remember finally finding the kid’s room. He does, however, remember the short, old doctor saying that he had several 3rd degree burns, multiple broken bones, and that he may never be able to see out of his left eye ever again.

   He remembers, so vividly, finally catching sight of the kid’s battered and burned form, bandages obscuring the entire left side of his face, an oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose.

   He will forever remember just how pale the kid looked.

   Like he was dead.

   Macaque flew to the roof of the hospital, clumsily transforming back as he skidded to a stop. He fell to his knees, staring numbly down at the concrete rooftop. He was dimly aware of the tears that silently streaked down his face, but he could not feel them.

   He couldn’t feel much of anything.

   Why? Why couldn’t he have just one person who cared? Why did the universe have to take the only person who gave a damn?

   Anger, slow and hot, began to burn at the tears. Why the hell did Xiaotian have to be the one to get hurt? Was it karma for Macaque? Was it the universe’s way of getting revenge for all of his misdeeds?

   But if that was the case, then why had Xiaotian been the one who got hurt? Why had Xiaotian been the one to almost die, to have his bones shattered, his flesh burned, his blood spilled? Why hadn’t Macaque been the one to suffer, instead of a kid who did nothing but give a monster hope to be better?

   “WHY??!!”, Macaque screamed to the heavens, “WHY DIDN’T YOU TAKE-ta-take me….. wh-why didn’t you take me instead...why….” his voice broke into a whisper, as his tears burned like liquid fire in his eyes.

   The heavens, cold and uncaring and so unlike Xiaotian’s warmth and light and kindness, gave him no answer.