And now for something completely different

[resonance_and_d]

So I've been working on this fic, with the premise that it was much more than 100 years between the time Aang was frozen and the time Katara and Sokka found him. So we have the same characters, and there's still bending, but the level of technology is at the level of present-day Earth.

And... I was doing it because I was procrastinating on my other stuff, but now it's 12000 words long and I think I'd better start posting it or I'll start losing momentum.

BUT: It is written in totally random snippets, which are not in chronological order. I'm talking 25 separate drabbles or oneshots so far. I don't think I want to post them together, but posting them all separately would result in massive spamming.

Thus... I am going to follow the format of some memes I've seen, and put the drabble-length snippets in the comments of this post. Then I'll make another post where I figure out what order everything should go in and archive it.

Confused? So am I. But I'm going to try it anyway.

Comments

Zuko gets his scar (1/2)

[resonance-and-d.livejournal.com]

They were behind the garage as usual, and Zuko was trying to put out fires. He was sure he could do it, but he couldn't quite figure out how. Every time he tried to snuff the candle flame out, he ended up making it brighter, which was no good at all. No matter how much energy he put into it, he couldn't manage it.

Azula was on guard duty, but she wasn't paying much attention. She was watching as Zuko tried to get this right. If he could put out fires- if he could teach Azula to put them out- they'd be a lot safer.

But trying was giving him a headache, so he decided to work on something else for a while. He thought he might be able to make a fireball out of nothing. So he tried that for a while, and then-

“It worked,” he said, letting out a little whoop of excitement. Azula turned to look at him, and her eyes narrowed. (He knew she was going to be better at this than he was by the end of the week, but at the moment he didn't care.)

And then he lost control.

The fire whipped out- not very strongly, but enough to catch on Azula's hair. She was so startled that she knocked over the bucket of water they'd brought out in case of accidents.

Azula's hair shouldn't have been all that hard to put out, but she was panicked, and Zuko had to remind her not to let her panic feed the fire-

And then, father came around the corner, to the smell of burning hair and the sight of Zuko frantically trying to put out Azula's hair by smothering the fire with his jacket.

Zuko didn't notice him there for a moment. But once Azula's hair was out, he looked up.

Father's face was twisted into a snarl.

“What are you doing?” Father said. His voice was ice-cold, and Zuko froze.

Zuko gets his scar (2/2)

[resonance-and-d.livejournal.com]

“I was-” And then he couldn't think of anything else to say.

In the cleared-out area where they practiced, there were half a dozen half-burned candles surrounded by drips of wax, as well as ashes and bits of burnt wood. They had been burning a lot of little things, these past few weeks. And while they'd been careful at first, lately they hadn't been wary enough to hide the evidence. And Ozai had taken in all of these things with one look, and drawn a conclusion.

“You've been burning things, and your sister is hurt.” Usually, when Ozai made a statement, he had already thought it through. He didn't state evidence. He just stated conclusions: “You're a failure”, or “I am proud.” But there was a puzzled look in his eyes now, one that Zuko had never seen before.

“It was an accident,” Zuko said.

The puzzled look was gone.

“The house- all of the houses- those were your work, too. Your mother insisted that there was no way you could have done it. She'd hidden the matches. But here I see that you've been setting more fires.”

“The house wasn't my fault,” Zuko said. But it was no use. His father wasn't listening to him.

“Your mother died in that fire. What's next? Do you want to kill your sister, too? I see you've made a start on that.”

Azula was turning from her father to her brother, as though she was unsure what to do.

“I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!” Zuko said, and as though to call him a liar, little curls of smoke came from his hands.

This did not pass unnoticed by his father, who pulled Azula behind him with a look of horror.

“I have to practice so I don't ever lose control of it,” Zuko tried to explain.

“Azula,” his father said, “go in the house.”

Azula hurried off, shooting Zuko a look that he couldn't decipher.

“I saw you make fire with your hands. And they say there are no more spirits in the world anymore.”

“I'm not a spirit.” And now Zuko was just confused.

“Then what are you? A demon? A monster?”

“I'm just me! Just Zuko! Dad-”

-and his father was advancing, and Zuko was more frightened than he had ever been before. Dad didn't lose his temper often, but when he did-

There were candles all around them, and as Zuko backed up he knocked one over. It skidded to the part of the ground they hadn't cleared, just a few feet away, and into a pile of leaves. They'd had a hot, dry summer, and the leaves caught fire quickly. Zuko's panic fed the flames further, and within seconds the blaze was huge.

“You took my wife from me. I won't let you take anything else of mine.”

And his father grabbed a half-burning stick from the edge of the blaze.

It was only a moment later that uncle Iroh turned the corner, followed by Azula. It wasn't soon enough to save Zuko's eye, but it was enough to save his life. And that was the last time Zuko ever saw his father again. From then on, he and Azula lived with Uncle Iroh, and Dad was somewhere else. Where, Zuko never figured out. Uncle would only say: far away.