and i’ll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) chapter 10
“You came looking for me,” Sokka says. Zuko’s already soft eyes melt further.
“Of course I came looking for you,” he says. Like it’s obvious. Like it doesn’t knock the earth off its axis.
For a second, Sokka forgets about the pain, past and present. All he feels is a treacherous bubble of hope – inside his chest, under his skin, stuck in his throat.
Damali Khepri is a sophomore student in Scarabia, she's twisted from the golden scarab beetle from Aladdin.
Damali's family is tasked with taking care of the Asim's treasure, and because a good part of their treasure was sent with Kalim to NRC, Damali was ordered by her parents and the Asims themselves to study there and to protect Kalim's fortune. Just like Jamil, Damali wishes for freedom to do what she wants and not just be a servant and protector to the Asim's treasures, but she's rather neutral at her job, not caring much about the Asim's themselves and just being nice for the sake of being nice.
Damali is calm, often being able to have a cool mind in dire situations, she's cunning and smart and often able to come up with solutions for difficult problems. She's also seen as a treasure herself, given how famous her own family is and how people see her as a key to getting to Kalim's fortune; people have tried to manipulate her too many times, she is able to identify when people are playing with her really easily... That and she also is very conscious of how people interact with her, she basically has trust issues.
She's canonically beautiful, having a lot of people fawning over her and wanting a bit of attention from her. She has an eccentric personality because of her interest in poisons and in insects, specifically the scarab beetles. She believes people won't like her for who she is — that being something her parents always told her, that she must be perfect and look perfect at all times for the Asim's reputation — so she often keeps this eccentric side of her to herself, in order for people to believe she's the wonderful, beautiful and collected Damali.
Fun facts: Damali is blind, not being able to see almost anything; she's known Jamil and Kalim for years, but they weren't as close until they got to NRC because her family's job (and by extension hers) doesn't require her to be near Kalim at all times; Damali often asks to taste test Kalim's food instead of Jamil, initially being simply because she wanted to taste the possibility of poison, but later because of she deeply cared for Jamil.
Basic info:
Age: 17
Height: 176cm
Nicknames: mademoiselle Scarabée (meaning beetle - by Rook), water beetle (by Floyd) and jasmine (flower meaning prosperity - by Perse)
Birthday: January 29th
Grade: sophomore (2nd grade)
Favorite food: grapes, chamomile tea
Best subject: potionology/poison making
Club: science club
Hobbies: studying and tasting different types of poisons/collecting insects
Homeland: Scalding Sands
Unique Magic: Diamond in the Rough - grants her the ability of determining and pointing out something that someone wishes the most at a certain moment (ex.: if she were to use this on, let's say, Jamil, she would figure out that what he wants the most is to be free to do what he wants and to be appreciated by his talents.); normally uses it when suspecting someone's going after the Asim's treasure; can only be used once per person.
Relationship dynamics:
Jamil Viper: Jamil and Damali have an interesting relationship. Damali sees Jamil as someone fun to play with, as different from most people he never fawns over her nor does he seem to care about her appearance. She's taken a habit of flirting with Jamil and teasing him frequently to see how he reacts (usually he makes a groaning noise and flinch in disgust, which makes her laugh); he's yet to get truly flustered by her advances and she made it her life mission to get to that point, but not because she loves him!! Or at least that's what she tells herself. Damali quickly understood that Jamil was manipulating Kalim, but since it didn't involve anything surrounding Kalim's fortune she stayed just observing the situation until an opening would come, so at first she just went along with it, pretending she didn't know that Jamil was doing something, but with Daisy (my Yuu) and the octatrio's arrival she quickly switched sides.
Kalim Al-Asim: despite being neutral about her job and not caring about what would happen to Kalim before the arrival of Daisy/the octatrio, seeing Kalim break down made her feel a lot of sympathy towards the boy, and seeing him cry woke her up to just how screwed up Jamil's plan affected Kalim. She grew fond of him after the events of book 4 and even more interested in Jamil as well.
Jeanne Hook: she hated Jeanne. Jeanne was going against Damali's job, and she did everything in her power to keep Jeanne away from Kalim's treasury and to ruin their date plans together with Jamil. Still, after realizing Jeanne's change of heart regarding her feelings for Kalim, she quickly calmed down, realizing the girl would not have the courage to steal from Kalim any longer — she also may or may not have used her UM on Jeanne and found out what she truly wanted was to be accepted for who she was, not treasure.
Jade Leech: Damali finds Jade's obsession with mushrooms and plant life delightful, and he often helps her figuring out stuff to experiment with more poisonous plants and fungi; they're both chaotic and weird together, but she tries to keep her act together because she knows Jade can and will use the information of her interest in poison to blackmail her.
Divus Crewel: her favorite teacher, he lets her play around with potions all the time but always when she's being supervised, he sees her as a mouthful because of her dangerous interests, but he's happy someone is so interested in his class.
Rook Hunt: little 👏🏻freaks.👏🏻 I am so certain Rook gave Damali a few flirting tactics to try and get Jamil flustered, and I am so certain that she had to stand there and go like "buddy I love you but I am not going to stalk him just to find out everything about him that's illegal". They are a menace in the science club, Trey is so concerned everytime they're together.
Trey Clover: Damali is always trying to push Trey over the edge and get him to participate in her and Rook's weird scientific experiments, he is almost always the voice of reason, making both Damali and Rook bummed out.
I've recieved my order from @arinavah like 15 mins ago I've been losing my mind since then. The artstyle is making me want to eat my phone and the quality of both the zine and the enamel pin is so so so good.
I've been looking forward to these and they did not disappoint me! 🥺❤️