#ray's friday ficlets have evolved into: a palooza submission!

[zhaozaipalooza]

Your Weekly Drabble! - Day 1 | Festival

The missing drabble for LuZhao mini-week where I brought to you Holi? — here it is! ✨

The court painter fiddled with the array of tools at his side - paled slightly, lips forming a curse - then quickly bit it down, stammering about getting a few supplies before he excused himself. Red curtains framing the prince’s portrait-to-be settled behind him.

Lu Ten sprang from his seat. He paced to drum out his annoyance through the silks lining the floor. When that didn’t work, he ducked out of the same opening. 

A massive, tiled chamber cleared of the average riches piled in a palace room, sunlight streaming from the corridor outside, gave him more breath than his lungs knew what to do with. When the day glowed, he couldn’t resist the same - not as a child, not as a princeling aware of his place in a turning world, fire in his heart and fingers. Dance with me, sing with me, run with me, said the sun… and Lu Ten followed.

The rays guided his eyes over ornate fixtures, twisting pillars and rosy walls, to a guard stationed beside the open door. His helmet was clutched in a free hand to keep it from slipping over his eyes. He caught Lu Ten smiling, and mustered a look of confidence. 

Peace that uncommonly smoothed Zhao’s face - in his presence, no one else’s - was knocked off when Lu Ten jabbed a fist into his side. “Yip!” His eyes bugged, rubbing at the sore spot.

“Loosen up! You’re only in charge of me and the, uh…” he cleared his throat, “snail sloth. And no thief is going to steal the wallpaper.”

“It’s only been half an hour.” He gripped the helmet. “Anything could happen. Do you know how much this sort of position pays? To serve inside palace walls? I’ll never go hungry again.” His lips turned firm. “I wouldn’t have managed to land it without your pull. I can’t go risking it now.”

Zhao grabbed in air when the headpiece slid neatly off his topknot. The prince tucked it in the crook of his arm. “You won’t go hungry again. Ever.” 

“I promise.” Their eyes met, something of more absence than they knew what to do with fleeing their lungs. 

Lu Ten blinked off the daze first, hauling him by the arm behind the curtains, where the painter had abandoned his things. He was first to press his lips to his and linger slowly, sweetly.

Zhao’s laughter was between a rumble and a sigh. “You thought you could get bored when I was right outside?”

“Pah... I have you around for more than that.” He strung a lock of Zhao’s hair around his knuckle, thumb skimming his cheek. Within an instant, Lu Ten tugged free, jumped onto the chair where he was meant to sit motionless for hours - looking so daring and heroic that it was comical. “We’re adventurers! The gods threw us together, watched us train together, conquer together. We’re meant to make history, not lounge around waiting for history to make out who we were from a painting.”

“Hm, now there’s a good point.” His disbelief mingled with awe in Lu Ten’s shadow - one he barely noticed. Zhao laughed more, the sound crinkling with a soft snort. How are you so full of life?

“We could cross the tundra, climb mountain ranges where airbender ruins still whisper to the living,” Lu Ten pantomimed an otherworldly sensation, with a swirling mock of airbending - Sozin’s descendants weren’t taught much in the way of regard. Neither was the nation; Zhao fought a grin. “Or! We could master our firebending under the greatest there ever were… the very first benders to learn from the dragons.”

“The Sun Warriors?” He leaned against the wall, hoping it wasn’t indecorous - some part of him would always feel like an ugly blot in the lap of luxury. Zhao’s memory tingled, “I read of them. Once. Sounded like a tall tale to me. If they existed, they’re far gone now.”

“I say they’re alive and well.” He hopped down. The legs of the chair jerked back. “Fire of every color thrives there. Blue, purple, green, all blazing hot. Colors that don’t have names! There’s a thousand stairs to reach the golden temple behind a sea of clouds, and once you-”

“Come on, green fire? Your head’s stuck in a sea of clouds. I say tundra.”

“Stuck in a- you hate snow!” The prince’s huff spoke easily for him after all the time they’d spent together: dream a little! He gave Zhao one of his father’s looks and went to the pigments sitting in neat boxes in a larger hinged case, and grumbled again. This one stood for that sore loser…

“He hasn’t even mixed the powders into paints. I can tell where he sourced some of them - the white is crushed seashells, it looks like. Fragile, tiny shells… Four hours is starting to look like ten.”

“Green fire, purple fire, ooh,” Zhao was teasing, “What’s next, each of them stand for a pillar of society? Yellow for contracts, green for tea, pink for… hm, intercourse? I think we should start with that one when we get th-”

A creative itch had sprouted a full-out snarkfest; the prince suddenly twisted, flinging a fistful of ground powder in his guard’s direction. Outside of these walls they were lieutenant and ensign, soldiers homeward-bound if luck was on their side.

“Or maybe it stands for paying a little more respect.” Lu Ten smirked, hands at his hips. “Not that you’ve ever followed that pillar of society.”

Zhao shielded his face too late, swiped off the glimmering traces. Face ajar and upturned at his nerve.

Here, they were a lot younger, and they were home. As young as they should be.

“So that’s how it is.”

One half-hour stretched out for twenty more minutes, the seconds passing like snow in a blizzard. Fun thinned time, after all, dragging the sun higher into the sky, melting down their reservations. “You want to learn from the Sun Warriors? Well, I’m twice the warrior you are, and Agni knows my family has the divine blessing of the sun - so why not learn a lesson or two?”

“You’re on.”

Lu Ten ripped each box loose and scattered them outside the curtains; clouds of mushed petals, the deep green of palm leaves, a reddish rust like clay shingles, and pale alabaster shells - all drifting in the air like trails of smoke. The prince was splattered, his friend powdered head to foot like a circus novelty, and their laughter shook the gleaming (once spotless) hall.

“Get back here, get back here- oh no you d- ack!” Fingers smudged like they’d been rooting in the royal kitchen and licking off cream, sleeves rolled and rumpled, armor stripped so their feet could race lightly back and forth on the slippery floor.

“I’m over here, old man!”

Endless, Zhao thought, let this moment be endless. Bare skin freckled in a dizzying prism of sight and scent; he’d thrown something of tartness, plunged through the aroma of flowers to streak Lu Ten’s beaming face. He ceded him the point, returned with a swipe of orange made from dried seeds, dusting the top of his head like a showy plume. He puffed out a pale wisp. Lu Ten folded, cradling his colorful, aching gut.

They ended sprawled wide, one on top of the other, undistinguished from anything. Littering the crook of his collar, neck, cheek, and ear with kisses, the one pinned muffling a fit with the back of his palm.

“Hey,” Zhao rolled aside, the both of them heaving, trained on the hazy light pooled in the ceiling. “Don’t fire that painter.”

“Huh?” Soaking in the quiet, Lu Ten glanced over.

“He’s new to this. Wracked with nerves. Who knows if he’s trying to make ends meet? Give him a chance.” Like you did me.

The prince thought it over. “Of course. Snap judgements are more my uncle’s thing.”

“Oh gods, does he scare me.” They spent the little breath they’d scraped together snickering.

The Firelord’s firstborn accompanied the worrisome painter to pay his son a visit… No sooner had they entered the corridor did the spray of lavender on a flowerpot clue the artist to go lightheaded.

Iroh hurried to promise his compensation, divined the prince’s likely attitude to having to wash off and remain statuesque until dinner, and decided the best course of action.

The painter was redirected to capture the fiasco in a sketch, nearly abstract: both boys with their arms looped over shoulders, a smile held in their eyes as long as their warmth was close. The young man tutted under his breath as he improvised, following the stains and speckles on Lu Ten and Zhao with a deft fingertip. In the final touches, he seemed to have enjoyed himself, too.

“You should join us for dinner.” It was sundown. The prince held the piece of parchment gingerly, softening whenever his eye crossed it again.

Adventurers.

His father had extended the gesture, son nodding along. “No, no, I couldn’t.” Zhao held up his palms, still tinged with a sea of floral and earthen smells. “The pay as a royal guard is plenty, even for a temporary station… I can look after the rest myself. I know how.”

“It would be bad manners for us to let a guest leave without experiencing the most of their stay.” The general’s eyes twinkled. “And here is the best of the best! Meals so fulfilling they leave room for fifth helpings.”

“You are more than a royal guard here.” A warm, heavy palm took Zhao’s shoulder. “As close as you are to my son, I think of you as my own.”

All he knew, even decades after the best meal of his life, was that things would have gone a lot differently if he had refused.

- - -

What a dark path, the one that lay down the other fork in the road. Thankfully, in this life, Zhao had not strayed.

The city was rife with celebration, lanterns dazzling the canals as their reflections bobbed in the water. Brilliant red, jade, and silvery powders made from starch and ground herbs coasted the night air. 

A young girl in braids scampered down the pavement - chin purpled, hair smattered with blues and greens - and leaped into Zhao’s arms. He spun on a heel with her momentum, hearing a shriek of delight before her fists anchored themselves in his front. 

“This is the best! I never want to sleep again. And Ma bought me these!” She placed a warm cake before his face, expectant, and he nibbled off one end. Sweet bean paste.

Her smile revealed the gap between her teeth; snuggling to his chest again, she sighed in content. “It’s so pretty… How come this wasn’t around when you were a kid?”

“Well,” Zhao rocked her gently, an unconscious swaying that soothed her since she could crawl. “It’s actually for someone very special. He was alive when I was young. I knew him. Firelord Iroh wants the world to know him, too.”

Her eyes lit up. “I read about him in school. I tell my friends, ‘My daddy knew a prince!’ and they ask so many questions.” Zhao laughed softly, and she asked, “What was he like? Really like?”

He thought it over. “… Like this. Just like this.” Like what? Lights and colors flickered over the darkness, an endless sun, a glow that rose and went on forever. 

“Wonderful.”